Volunteering and a weekend off

August 2023

I haven't written anything for ages, but I've got some unattractive tasks ahead of me so I thought I'd cushion the experience with some leisure writing first, even though it turns out there's not much to say.

After a lovely weekend with friends in Nottingham I drove on to Adhisthana, the retreat centre near Ledbury where I volunteer. This time I haven't been put in the kitchen or the office, but am helping in advance of their biggest event of the year, where all rooms are filled and the field is open for camping too. There are so many guests that a marquee is erected as a shrine room and the barn is used for meals. The barn accumulates junk through the year, so one job has been to clear it out and set it up ready for food service. Stocks of food are ordered, paper plates and cups have arrived, and there's all the usual cleaning to be done.

Surprisingly, the job I most enjoyed involved refilling all the cleaning product bottles and distributing them round the site - hand wash, surface cleaning spray, toilet cleaner and washing up liquid. But most of the time I was cleaning areas that already looked pretty clean to me, which I take to be a good reason why I have strongly resisted being put in charge of any cleaning operation. Given the numbers who are coming, if it were down to me I'd just wait to clean up afterwards - they're going to make it so much more dirty than it is now. Anyway, the housekeeper was very complimentary about how tidy the cleaning product refilling station was after I'd finished.

I've been given the weekend off and a half day next week, so came home to find UJ had already gone for a weekend away. I had a proper day off on Saturday, and finished watching the huge three-part series about the Beatles recording their penultimate album and performing on the roof of the Apple building in London in 1969, which I was vaguely aware of but didn't know any of the details. I found it hugely moving and have been affected by it for days now.

When I went out on Saturday Leamington was teeming with people. The bowling greens are hosting their annual national competition, then the Pump Room gardens were full of the Warwickshire Pride festival, with stalls offering everything in rainbow colours and a sound stage and a funfair. Moving on towards Jephson Gardens there was a wedding reception happening, and also a chap with a funny-looking horn was playing it through the railings into the Jephson memorial building to make the sound resonate more. I do love Leamington when it's busy.