The Big Event

Adhisthana, August 2025

I was called upon to volunteer at the retreat centre for the best part of a month in order to support their biggest event of the year, when they are due to host around 350 retreatants. Last year there were fewer than 10 volunteers (and about 320 retreatants), but this year there were due to be about 20 volunteers supporting the resident team, and I'd been encouraged to bring my tent to ease pressure on the indoor accommodation. I asked if I could have a 'home room' as well, just so I could plug in my toothbrush and use my laptop and charge my phone.

I arrived on the first hot day of a hot week, put up the tent, and was allocated a hot room sharing with another volunteer who had been here for a while. The window blind had broken and fallen off, but she had rigged up a semi-opaque substitute until it was fixed. Jumping ahead to that first night, there was snoring inside the room and also coming through the wall from next door - I had earplugs so not too much of a problem - but it was still hot, and not very dark. After that I slept in the tent, where it was quiet, dark and cool.

Given my history of regular volunteering and particularly my experience of cooking for people with restricted diets, this year I accepted the sole responsibility for the special diets kitchen during the busiest period of about 10 days. This event is so big that the special diets can't be accommodated alongside the regular cooking, especially with the risk of cross-contamination for the people with proper allergies (the principal one being coeliac disease), so preparing the restricted diet food gets a kitchen all to itself, and I would be in charge of it, with the support of the kitchen manager.

So on my first working day I found that I'd be working with her on the admin for the rest of the week. "Surely we don't need a whole week of admin," I thought. But we did. She'd already come up with the menu for the six meals she was going to cook in the main kitchen, and then identified all the people who wouldn't be able to eat them, and started listing where each of those people should go for each meal. I finished compiling the list and created a matrix so we could see how many non-standard meals were needed each day.

It would be impossible to create one meal that would meet all the different dietary requirements, so the idea was to produce a buffet with each item clearly labelled so people could pick out what would suit them. The whole site would be 100% gluten- and wheat-free, and in my kitchen the main intolerances would be excluded - no beans, alliums or chilli. The main kitchen would be soya-free, so we could offer tofu as well as nuts and seeds for protein. Unfortunately, someone indicated that they couldn't eat salt, and along with intolerances to so many flavourings and spices this food was going to be very bland. I planned to rely on herbs, and also encourage people who could tolerate it to add spice and seasoning.

I spent a long, long time coming up with suggestions, and the kitchen manager very sweetly tempered my ambition with realism until we'd reached something that was going to work. It would be the same menu for every meal except for different choices of roast vegetables and steamed vegetables, different carbohydrates and different tofu flavourings (one being utterly plain). Then I carried out a check on all the food supplies in the various store cupboards and pantries to make sure we hadn't run short of anything without noticing, which also gave me the confidence to locate everything I'd need. I started checking out the kitchen I'd be using, and listing all the equipment I'd need. We talked about practical matters: who would do the washing up, how would we make sure utensils were returned to where they were needed, did we have enough large pots, could we get a second shelf for the oven?

Meanwhile, all the other volunteers were cleaning the place up - weeding, dusting, polishing, cleaning stained mugs, cleaning windows, getting the barn ready for mass catering, deep cleaning the main kitchen, and more. The resident team were collating all the bookings, counting how many extra bedframes, mattresses, pillows, pillow cases, sheets duvets and duvet covers would be needed, working out where people would sleep. The contractors who were going to put up the marquee arrived at the crack of dawn (7.30am) and started driving in the large pegs with some sort of mechanical hammer and had to be asked to stop until the morning meditation had finished at 8.30am.

All the volunteers and the resident Operations team were meeting daily after morning tea break to check that everything was on track. The kitchen manager kindly bought snacks not usually available at the retreat centre - biscuits, nuts, crisps - and I stepped in and chopped up carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes so I wouldn't feel too left out.

It was noted that last year nothing was organised for volunteers in the evenings, so there was a program of events, including a film night, talks, ritual, a tour of the library, attending the local group, and a communal fire. I was either too tired to attend, or had something else to do. One evening I had to go back home to lead my local group because everyone else was even further away than I was; another evening I actually went to play badminton at a local club (which I'm planning to do again).

In the last few days of lead-up to the event there was a massive chopping exercise to get vegetables prepared for six meals for more than 300 people. The carrots alone weighed more than I do. Then I gathered two reliable people and we started setting up the Restricted Diet kitchen in earnest. We calculated portion sizes and with limited storage we worked out some priorities, then they started chopping and I foraged for all the equipment we needed - serving dishes, oven trays, blue plasters, tongs, a colander, plates and cutlery, serving spoons. And then I collected my friend T from the station, because she was coming to work with me for nearly a week, and it was Thursday evening, and time to get started on the first meal!

What I've been reading

The Wire
by Rafael Alvarez

"Over the five seasons of this critically acclaimed drama series, a rich and layered portrait of Baltimore was created: its hardened police force, its corner boys, its dock workers and its politicians. This book brings the reader inside this world."

I have all five seasons of this show on DVD, and started re-watching them a while ago. I saw this book on a remaindered shelf and thought it would be an interesting accompaniment to the series, but I reached about three episodes into season 2 and discovered that my tolerance for violent drama is way down compared with what it must have been when I first watched this. It's still a very fine piece of screenwriting, but I can't watch it. I did continue to read the book and was reminded of some of the key moments, and I'm thinking of trying to sell the DVDs and the book together.

The Bull from the Sea
by Mary Renault

"Having freed the city of Athens from the onerous tribute demanded by the ruler of Knossos – the sacrifice of noble youths and maidens to the appetite of the Labyrinth’s monster – Theseus has returned home to find his father dead and himself the new king."

I have little knowledge of essential Athenian history, but this story of Theseus's rule of Atticus (Athens?) is very readable indeed. I've read so many books recently that seem to use language to obscure the plot, and it's refreshing just to have the story told, one step after another, no time shifts or long-winded philosophising. He fought a bull! made friends with a pirate! loved an Amazon woman and they had a son! married a Cretan woman and they had another son! other things happened! and then he died.

Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver

narrated by Charlie Thurston

"Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival."

A long, long book to listen to but really good, based very loosely on David Copperfield but set very much in the present era. Some parts of it were so difficult to listen to (e.g. when all the money he had earned and saved was stolen from him) that I found it almost physically painful, and there were many graphic deaths described, but there was always humanity very close by to reassure me again.

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
by Julian Barnes

"Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, and by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission."

I suppose the Ark was a weak thread holding this book together, but it really wasn't much more than a collection of short stories that ultimately I didn't find very interesting.

Not Appy

Warwickshire, May 2025

Nothing of note to report, which is how it should be. Having said that, of course I haven't been sitting around doing nothing. 

• Exercise: Muscles the Personal Trainer is working me very hard, badminton as always, lovely walk with a friend and his dog, and another lovely walk with the U3A group.
• Nameless Man came to fix my garden gate and recommended a play being performed in a local wood which I attended. It was about codebreaking at Bletchley Park and included musical numbers. The company is based on a narrowboat and they seem to choose unusual venues - there will be another performance in Leamington, this time at the allotments.
• Visit to mum including installing netting below the greengage tree to catch the falling fruit and tweaking her new installation of Windows 11 to make it more like it was before the upgrade.
• Catching up on episodes of Taskmaster together with UJ, films (Love Lies Bleeding, Don't Look Back), and series (finished Years and Years and started Call My Agent).
• Registration for the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme. The app they really, really want me to use is not compatible with my phone, so despite letting them know that I can't use the app but have been using the website I received several messages to the effect that unless I log in my participation will be discontinued. 
• A phone message then gave me a phone number to call where there are seven options to choose from, of which the first two options that I tried told me to use the website or app and then cut me off. 
• I found a combination of options that put me in a queue to speak to a human, and after a very long wait I finally got through to a woman who sounded like she had been partying all night and then had a raging argument with someone just before answering my call. But anyway, she noted that I couldn't use the app and made an appointment for me to start the programme in September via telephone calls
• I received two emails inviting me to do two separate long questionnaires about my eating and exercise habits then more messages telling me all about the benefits of the app, and finally confirmation of the telephone appointment we'd just made. 
• I have continued to receive daily emails pointing out that I haven't logged into the app, and here are the things that I could be doing with it. Painful.
• I went to supper with local friends who have a 10 year-old son. I was obliged to play games - he has a small air hockey table so that was first, then I'd brought a game that involved goats climbing mountains, and then we played a snap-style game during which everyone became overstimulated and we all had to have a bit of a break. Very different vibe from the elderly U3A board games crowd, and good fun, mostly.
• Now I've started a period of nearly four weeks volunteering at the retreat centre during its busiest time, which is over the Bank Holiday weekend. Updates will undoubtedly be forthcoming.

Partying and Promming

The Royal Albert Hall, August 2025

A while ago I wrote about replacing a bent wheel on my car - fun times. Well, just to complete that particular anecdote and give credit where it's due, I managed to drop the car off for an hour during the Folk Festival so they could change the wheel and swap over the tyre, and when I went to pick it up they wouldn't take any payment. They will have my loyal custom for the rest of my life (at least until I no longer have a car).

I've been having quite a varied time since the festival. I had a birthday party! This hasn't happened for at least 30 years, so quite a significant step in my journey towards self-worth. I found a local vegan café that I hadn't been aware of before (but will definitely re-visit) who prepared some buffet food, and I created a playlist of party music that Muscles my Personal Trainer described as 'hard not to dance to' but in the event it could not be heard over the chat. There were 16 local guests who seemed to be very comfortable with one another, and it was a lovely occasion. I'm not sure I can be bothered to do it again, but then again having done it once it might be easier next time, and maybe I'd hold it at a weekend and invite people from further afield.

Next day I went down to visit mum and took her to an appointment with the nurse at her GP's surgery, where she knows everyone and they all know her. She is doing her own form of GRUHI, and managed to interest one of the GPs in dad's old-fashioned mercury sphygmomanometer and five boxes of his old medical textbooks, some dating back to the 1950s, which we took to the surgery. So that's another shelf of books dealt with.

From there I went on to Lola II and Mr M's house - they are on a mammoth tour of north Japan in a camper van that they have named Alan*. They aren't coming back for another couple of weeks and so my job was to make sure the house is still standing and water the plants while having a weekend in That London. I feel very pleased with myself that although I filled two days of the three I was visiting, I kept one whole day free of commitments, which has allowed me leisure to write this blog post among other things. But I did go into town on the other two days and visited the Bank of England Museum, went to the Proms with a friend from school, and visited the North London Buddhist Centre for meditation and a couple of talks.

The Proms was interesting - my friend is a London resident who has played the clarinet since school (that's how we became friends) and is part of all sorts of musical activities, some of which date back to those schooldays. [I found it amusing that some of our contemporaries are still singing in what was the Youth Choir, now named 'Youth Choir Veterans'.] Anyway, she invited me to the Prom which started with a piece I'd never heard but very much enjoyed ('Chairman's Dance' from the opera 'Nixon in China'), and then a piece that I'd never heard but was OK (Rachmaninov's 4th Piano Concerto). His 2nd was such a banger that it was never going to top that. After the interval was something that I'd describe as frankly awful (Berio's Sinfonia), which included voices (wailing and speaking as well as singing), and not much that was tuneful. A lot of fans made it clear that they were there for the pianist and then left in the interval - they probably got the best deal.

* Alan Touring (geddit?)

Folk Festival volunteering

The Comms Room, Warwick Folk Festival, July 2025

I was at the Warwick Folk Festival for a week, volunteering in the Radio Room again as Joint Deputy Venue Manager of Comms. It was time for the previous Manager to step down, and two of us were asked to take his place. Neither of us wanted the job, but we agreed that if someone else were to take on the Manager role, we would share the Deputy spot. I have to admit that it was a mistake on my part, and I should have stuck to my guns and said no - it took up a lot of time, I didn't get to see much of the actual music, and I didn't find it as much fun as when I was an ordinary worker. 

The other JDVM and I have different outlooks on many things, which in itself is not a bad thing. He agreed to not spray the place with ant killer - there wasn't actually a problem with ants, so this was no hardship for him in the end. He was deeply uncomfortable that we didn't have printed forms to write on, but accepted hand-ruled tables in notebooks for recording outgoing and incoming radio handsets and noting important communications. His attitude to timekeeping was not quite the same as mine - this caused me some annoyance in the first couple of days but really wasn't a problem after that.

As I reported in the last post, there wasn't much to do during the setting-up period. During the festival there were brief hectic periods within shifts that were mostly undisturbed, and we have a good set of volunteers who are cheerful, enthusiastic and mostly more skilled in radio work than I am. 

The only critical issue that Comms is responsible for during the festival is the procedure for dealing with lost and found children (and vulnerable adults). This is to prevent the worst case scenario (deliberate abduction) while trying to reunite the parties without unnecessarily inconveniencing festival goers. My JDVM and I, together with the Health and Safety Manager and the head of the security firm hired for the event, spent an inordinate amount of time over the weekend trying to re-write this procedure to make it workable and effective, to the extent that on Friday I didn't actually attend any of the music sessions at all. The task extended over much of Saturday and Sunday too, and there were also meetings that I felt I had to attend even though I really didn't want to. All this has meant that instead of being an event I looked forward to attending each day, it felt as though I was having to get up early and go to bed late to carry out a job I didn't really want to do. 

One thing improved the experience, though - Sister D, who last year went to a Techno Dance festival in Belgium (yes really) decided to come to Warwick for a day. After all, she'd enjoyed the Belgian festival despite having no expectations that she would, and folk music should be so much more accessible, right? Together we either watched or took part in shanty singing, morris dancing, a ceilidh, children's entertainment, fantastic drumming in Warwick, and we also saw two of the acts on the main stage. Sister D also threw a stuffed rat through a hole at the top of a post, was inspired by a lecture about the Alexander Technique and by Leon Lewis (a vegetarian food vendor), and went to church where one of the folk groups performed. She spent a long time listening to me talk about food and shared some very helpful thoughts as well. 

Despite the mostly unsatisfactory nature of the event, I managed to secure a win for the GRUHI project by gifting my unicycle to the children's circus skills people, who were very appreciative. And I told the various members of the team and the management that I'd be very happy to volunteer in the Comms room again next year, but not as a manager.

What I've been reading

How Does It Feel? A Life of Musical Misadventures
by Mark Kermode

"In 1975, armed with a homemade electric guitar and very little talent, Mark Kermode embarked on an alternative career - a chaotic journey which would take him from the halls and youth clubs of North London to the stages of Glastonbury, the London Palladium and The Royal Albert Hall."

To enjoy this book you really have to like the author, who is one of the film critics I rely on for recommendations. I knew that he was in a skiffle band, but hadn't appreciated that he was one of those people who was always in a band of one sort or another from the time he could sing or hold an instrument. It was an easy book to read and just the right choice from the library.

The Fraud
by Zadie Smith

"Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter."

This is billed as a historical novel, and lent to me by a friend who enjoyed it. I didn't find it all that interesting; it's the second of her books that I've read and I didn't think the first one lived up to the hype either, although I think I liked it more than this one. There might well be some deeper message comparing the issues in the Tichborne Trial with those of the other featured characters, but I can't be bothered to spend any more time thinking about it.

The Scar
by China Miéville

narrated by Damian Lynch

"Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travellers, each with a reason for fleeing the city."

This really wasn't my cup of tea despite some interesting ideas. The story wasn't quite good enough, and I didn't care about the characters, not the main protagonist nor even the one who tragically died towards the end. And, unusually, the narration was pretty poor and included words that weren't actually pronounced correctly. Only a few times, but enough.

The Boy Who Wasn't Short
by Edwin Kirk

"Human stories from the revolution in genetic medicine - a geneticist tells the stories of men, women, and children whose genes have shaped their lives in unexpected ways."

I picked this up in the library - they don't stock many science books at all and don't even have a section for science. I think this was hidden in Biology. It's pretty good, worth a read.

On the home front

Harcourt Arboretum, March 2025

I was out in the garden hacking down the jungle as usual when I heard voices from over the wall where the wisteria grows. There were a couple of gardeners, hired by the neighbour, and I asked them if they could possibly deal with the huge amount of wisteria that was coming at me over the wall - I've got enough on my plate dealing with my own wisteria going over the wall in the other direction. So maybe that will be sorted before next year, if I'm lucky.

My car needed an MOT and service recently. I've been going to the same garage in Leamington for more than 20 years, and they've always gone out of their way to be helpful. Simple things like listing what's still OK at the moment but might need dealing with soon (like low tyre tread), along with doing small jobs if I just turn up at any time they're open - checking tyre pressure, topping up oil, replacing a bulb - and they never charge me for these little jobs.

They highlighted that one of my wheels is a bit out of shape. It's not an MOT fail, just something that I might like to deal with. But I'm not going to deal with anything on my own, given that I don't even check my own tyre pressures any more and couldn't tell you where the dipstick is, let alone where to stick it for dipping. Saying this, I can still change a wheel for the spare if I have a flat tyre, and I really ought to get one of those magic jump start devices, size of a video cassette with two leads, chargeable by USB, which is an astonishingly useful invention.

So, the out of shape wheel. One of the garage guys told me about a business that exists just for sourcing spare parts around the country. So I fired up their website, put in the registration number of my car, asked for an offside front wheel, uploaded a picture and sat back to wait. Two quotes came in - one for £300 (of which £50 was delivery) and the other was £180 (delivery just £10). So I followed up the second quote with another picture just to be on the safe side, and they replied with three pictures just to make sure it was the right part, and my garage said I could put them down for the delivery address, and it arrived within two days and it will be fitted this week.

Other stuff - I went to a 60th birthday garden party at the weekend, with somewhat variable weather but lots of very old friends. Well, 60-year-old friends anyway. Some success with GRUHI too - I got rid of a bookcase and even made a small amount of money by selling DVDs. It's going to take a very long time to empty the house if I continue at this rate.

And now I'm at the Warwick Folk Festival during the set-up period, back in the Comms room surrounded by radios ready and waiting to be issued, at the request of Radio Man who said that Tuesday was really busy and he found it difficult to manage tracking the radios as well as all the other things he needed to do. So far I have issued only three radios, and one of them was to him. I have done a bit of setting up and tidying and organising, and hopefully my Joint Deputy Venue Manager (Comms) will turn up soon and we'll talk about shifts and cover and then I will go home.

Self-restraint

What my wisteria doesn't look like, Warwickshire, May 2025

This new way of life, filled with denial masquerading as 'doing the right thing', is difficult. Not that I expected anything else; eating less has always been difficult for me. When I've talked to people who naturally stop eating when they are full at a meal, I find they simply don't comprehend why anyone would overeat. Jokes about having a different stomach for pudding are seen as just that - jokes, rather than representing the actuality of wanting to eat something that tastes good, just because it tastes good, and more always being better than less.

Shops in town are full of delightful treats. My friend had a garden party that included wonderful cakes. The weekly board games group and my regular local Buddhist group both have a tea break that includes biscuits. I ended my Tuesday volunteering at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre by making a lemon tart for the workers there. Visiting Lola II and Mr M, I happened to arrive on the night of Lola II's termly concert, after which there was a party, and then her craft group next day happened to be holding a celebratory lunch. Visiting Adhisthana for my kula meeting - someone brought snacks. When volunteering there, I have little control over meal content or the portion on my plate. A festival day at the Birmingham centre included a bring-and-share lunch. It's everywhere, almost every day.

This is no surprise. As a qualified Dietitian I am well aware of the place of food within every society, and its role as anything but simple nutrition. Food as evidence of love, of celebration, of consolation, of generosity, eaten for comfort, eaten to make someone else feel better, mindlessly eaten with anticipation, then disappointment, then regret. The 12-step program around food addiction runs in exactly the same format as that of alcohol. 

Then there's the negative impact of food choices on family and friends, of refusal to accept well-meant food offerings. Of being thought of as 'difficult', or 'fussy', or being told 'you ARE good', or people apologising for eating something in front of you that you're not having, or trying to accommodate you but getting it wrong. The discipline to do what is best in the moment, but often to reflect on what went wrong this time and resolve to do better when it happens again. As it will.

So everywhere I go I am practising mindfulness. This means remaining aware of habits that have been thoroughly embedded over 60 years, and trying to catch every thought and hold it rather than act it out. I remain determined but I feel weak. It's easiest to operate at home, where I can arrange distractions, and do my best to stay out of the kitchen. I didn't go to the party after Lola II's concert, I kept my back to the food at the craft lunch, and I brought my own lunch to the bring-and-share event and stayed out of the room with all the food laid out. I'm telling everyone about my predicament in the hope that they will remember and support me.

Last time I lost weight was during the pandemic, when we weren't allowed out and I only had at home what I bought during my weekly shop. The time before that was when I was on a dietetic placement, living in a rented room and being kept very busy and fairly miserable. Those were very different circumstances. I have also used a calorie counting app in the past; this time I am focussing on reducing carbs and portion sizes, but the calorie counting may have to come into play if this doesn't work on its own. Two weeks in, so far so good, and I'm trying not to think about whether my life will need to stay this way forever.

Trying to be idle

Worcestershire, March 2025

I am consciously trying to fit less into my days, but it isn't easy. I've just spent a happy hour browsing the different live venues in my area for films, shows, theatre and live music, and booked two events, one for later this month and the other in October. On the other hand, on Thursday evening I am considering neither going to badminton nor supporting our introductory course to meditation and Buddhism. But I have agreed to lead the Buddhist group on Tuesday, because nobody else is available, so how could I refuse? (Update - the person who was supposed to send out the email about the Tuesday evening meeting failed to do so, so only three people came and one of them was an hour late. So I'm saving my idea for next time I'm asked to lead.)

I am no nearer to solving this puzzle of how to spend my time. Everything is flexible given that I don't have a paid job, but there is quite a bit that needs to get done - things like insurance renewal, house maintenance, keeping the garden in check - so I find it difficult to be at home doing nothing. For a while I tried to abandon the lists that keep track of the jobs that are waiting, because I thought it might make it easier to do nothing, but instead I was always on edge worrying that I would miss a commitment or a deadline. There is a good deal of satisfaction in crossing jobs off the list, but the list never gets any shorter. I don't know what the answer is.

One of the jobs on the list relates to my progress towards ordination. I'm meeting three good friends who have agreed to support me in this, and to get the most out of the meeting it's been suggested that I write a kind of report. There's a framework for this in eight sections, but I'm finding it extremely tedious - in fact, I'm writing this as a distraction before going back to carry on with section five. It will be easier next time.

Given that I am determinedly trying to do less, there's not much more to say here. I've been to see mum and we had a lovely trip to Lidl, I've been working in the garden, watching some tennis, some films and reading, board games, badminton and volunteering. It's interesting that this is what I've been up to when I'm trying not to do too much.

What I've been reading

We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin

narrated by Toby Jones

"In the totalitarian society of the OneState of the great Benefactor, in a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, is a world where people are numbers, there are no individuals, only numbers. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall."

A precursor to Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is a Russian author imagining a future in a rational world where Freedom and Happiness are considered to be mutually incompatible, and happiness is produced by the removal of freedom. It's another Classic that has a literary style, so quite a bit of political discourse at the cost of plot, so I can't say that I enjoyed it.

Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown

narrated by Anna Paquin

"Beautiful, funny and bright, Molly figures out at a young age that she will have to be tough to stay true to herself in 1950s America. In her dealings with boyfriends and girlfriends, in the rocky relationship with her mother and in her determination to pursue her career, she will fight for her right to happiness."

I think it makes a great difference with audiobooks whether I listen to them in just a few sittings or over a longer period. I'm sure that I enjoyed this one more because I didn't leave great gaps between listens. It was a fairly ordinary story about a woman growing up as a lesbian in the American South and then later in New York, and nothing wrong with it at all. Unusually, the narration wasn't as good as usual because there was almost no difference in the voices of different characters.

Piranesi
by Susanna Clarke

"Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls."

I'm not sure what to say about this - it starts in a magical realist way, narrated with a very particular, naïve voice, and then it starts to become interwoven with a modern voice, and it all comes together at the end except that the mystery is never explicitly solved. What exactly happened remains mysterious, but slightly less mysterious by the end. I think I liked it. It was certainly much more fun to read than The Satanic Verses.

The Blue Flower
by Penelope Fitzgerald

narrated by Thomas Judd

"Set in Germany at the very end of the eighteenth century, the passionate and idealistic Fritz needs his father’s permission to announce his engagement to his ‘heart’s heart’, his ‘true Philosophy’, twelve-year-old Sophie von Kühn. It is a betrothal which amuses, astounds and disturbs his family and friends."

Another literary 'Classic' book which failed to provide any interest or engagement, despite being based on the early life of a German poet and philosopher. Perhaps if I were interested in German poetry or philosophy...? Despite this I'm finding it very enjoyable to be able to borrow audio books freely from the library, even though the range is a little limited and four out of five books I'm interested in are out on loan. I'm going to start experimenting with the 'Reserve book' option next.

The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie

"Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jumbo jet blows apart high above the English Channel. Through the debris of limbs, drinks trolleys, memories, blankets, and oxygen masks, two figures fall towards the sea: Gibreel Faishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices."

I get the feeling that I would have got more out of this book if I knew more about Islam and the Koran and the Prophet Mahound, but given that I don't know a great deal, I didn't get much enjoyment in the reading. In fact, I'd describe it as quite a slog.

The Group
by Mary McCarthy

"Eight Vassar graduates meet a week after graduation to watch one of The Group get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives - traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City."

Another from the Classics list, and this time it was rather interesting. Written in 1963 about a group of women graduates in 1933, it sheds light on that era without being overtly political. I found it enthralling.

The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data
by David Spiegelhalter

"Drawing on real world problems to introduce conceptual issues, we are shown how statistics can help us determine the luckiest passenger on the Titanic, whether serial killer Harold Shipman could have been caught earlier, and if screening for ovarian cancer is beneficial."

I can't deny that although the book is interesting, it was also very hard going, and I skimmed quite a lot of the explanations and equations. At one point he writes something like "people often say that probability is a difficult and unintuitive idea... after forty years of researching and teaching in this area, I have finally concluded that it is because probability really is a difficult and unintuitive idea." Which pretty much sums up the book.

Oh, the irony

Bear and ragged staff, Lord Leycester Hospital, March 2025

I've been away on retreat for a week, a different sort of retreat that involved classical musicians. It was quite hard work, because aside from the scheduled times that we met and talked there were other times when we played to each other or practised, alone or in groups. There were eight of us, although one person had managed to sign up and join the retreat despite not being a musician at all. This started off as a bit of an issue, but she served as our audience for much of the time. The instruments included two violins, classical guitar, flute, clarinet, a singer, and two pianists, one of whom is a real live composer and performer, so that was quite exciting.

There was another large group of people at the retreat centre at the same time and we staged a performance for them, which added to the amount of stress and work involved. There was audience involvement in the form of singing rounds, and I accompanied a singer by playing a violin part on the clarinet for a strange setting of a folk song by Holst, which had bars of various lengths between 3 and 8 beats, very much at random as far as I could tell. And, somehow (and I'm still baffled as to how I let this happen) I ended up transposing my part even though the singer could easily have sung a tone lower. 

I also featured in a quartet playing three Handel trios that were written for recorders but we played on two violins, flute and clarinet. This was the highlight of the evening for me, because while we began each piece together, very soon everything started to fall apart and as the person with the most experience of this type of ensemble playing I had to try and work out how to get us to end together. It still makes me smile when I think about it. The audience, needless to say, were very supportive.

So that was the retreat. In other news, UJ is back from a stint in Kyiv, I'm still avoiding all news media, the car passed its MOT, I'm still volunteering on Tuesdays at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, and I took a car load of garden waste and GRUHI boxes to the tip and to the recycling centres. But I suppose I'm avoiding the most significant event, which arose from a visit to my GP. Having reached an age with a zero at the end, I thought it would be a good idea to have a general check-up. She measured my blood pressure, which was good and low, and sent me off for routine blood tests.

I phoned up for the results because they didn't appear on the NHS app or my GP's online platform, and the receptionist was happy to send them through. I was expecting bad news on the cholesterol front, but while not perfect that was fine. What I wasn't expecting was a blood sugar result that put me in the pre-diabetic zone. Ironic, no? So I must finally take seriously the fact (which I have probably known for some months) that despite my badminton and Muscles the Personal Trainer the chocolate, Wotsits and cake have taken their toll. Now to attempt to follow the advice I would have given to my patients...

Downs and ups and downs

Lord Leycester Hospital, Warwick, March 2025

At mum's house she has discovered that water is leaking under the kitchen floor. We've noticed for some time that the paint on one of the walls kept mysteriously bubbling, and various other leaks have come about and been addressed over the years. This may be a new leak or a continuation of a previous one, but now we have started the process of investigation. It is proceeding much more slowly than is ideal, but there's a lot of waiting for people to respond.

My concert went off with the impossible saxophone part and the clarinet solo going as well as can be hoped for. It's been a while since I've needed to try particularly hard on the clarinet, and it really reminded me of the joy of making it sound as good as possible. I have added another item to one of my lists - I'd like to raise my game and play music at a higher standard than I can in the current group. This cannot happen until I give up something else, and given everything that's going on this may be some way off...

...because I'm still doing too much, and this week it caught up with me and started to actually make me feel unwell, to the extent that I took a Covid test just in case. It was negative, but that just confirmed that this situation isn't arising from external factors but from my own choices. I talked this over with two different groups of close friends, and thankfully one of these discussions allowed me to give away one of my commitments: someone else volunteered to support our introductory course on Meditation and Buddhism in my place. The following morning my head felt fresher and my aches and pains had disappeared. Perhaps I have learned my lesson. Until the next time.

My recovery in mood was short-lived because the people who rent us the hall for our group notified us that not only had we managed to leave the back door wide open, but also the key was now missing. At the time of writing it has not yet been found.

June under way

Stoke-on-Trent, October 2024

I'm still in this period of over-commitment, which is likely to last until the end of June. My week's retreat in July has been cancelled because of low bookings, the retirement of our cook (who collapsed and has received a replacement heart valve), and the retreat centre team needing a break. This is a great shame because it's a retreat that I love, but will give me back some much needed free time in July.

The week of volunteering at the end of May went very well. There were two new volunteers, one of whom reminded me a little of myself at the start of my volunteering career, in that I have now become much more self-aware and, I think, more patient. It's only taken five decades for me to fully take on board that sometimes other people know better than I do.

From there I went to York to stay with a friend for the weekend, where among other treats we ate a wonderful Thai lunch and walked quite a lot. There's very little parking available near my friend's flat, so I booked a parking spot which advertised itself as being 11 minutes away. What I didn't notice was that it was 11 minutes away by car, so about 40 minutes walking, which was through a nature reserve on a beautiful evening so I didn't mind. Except that the owner of the parking spot phoned at about 11.30pm to say that I'd parked in the wrong place, so I had to move the car next morning. I'm definitely going by train next time.

At the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, where I'm volunteering on Tuesdays, my efforts to rationalise storage has been much appreciated. I've cleared out the fridge, two food storage cupboards, a cupboard that was completely overrun with plastic tubs without matching lids, and most recently, the freezer, where there were a couple of drawers containing nothing but old bread. Looking at 'Use by' and 'Best before' dates I've encouraged the team to use up items that are past their dates but probably still OK, like unopened jars of pickled beetroot, a whole bag of porridge oats, and a half-finished bag of dried apricots. In the freezer there are four large tubs of unlabelled leftovers, which (unless someone else wants them) I will take home to play Lucky Dip Dinner.

There's been more action on the periodontal surgery, which is uncomfortable and horrible at the time but remarkably pain-free afterwards, needing paracetamol for only 24 hours. Review at three months will give an idea about prognosis, but as this review will be done by the periodontal surgeon I doubt that he will consider it unsuccessful.

Lola II and I attended mum's cousin's wife's funeral at the Crematorium and the service was really good - the tributes paid by the celebrant, widower and friend were wonderful. I was glad to have Lola II with me otherwise I'd have had to talk to a lot more people I didn't know. I was asked to take some photographs, and now I'd better sort them out and send them over.

What I've been reading

Everything is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer

narrated by Scott Shina and Jeff Woodman

"A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and a dog named Sammy Davis, Jr, Jr."

There was a slight hitch in the reading of this book, because the audiobook service offered by the library was being upgraded and led to the app shutting down while I was actually listening to the book while driving. Much frustration ensued until I could stop and follow various links and I discovered what was going on, and then had to wait until I could get to the library to sort it out. But despite this difficulty it was a fascinating book, although harrowing at times. I think I untangled the different stories and time periods, and very much enjoyed the mangling of the English language by the Ukrainian 'translator'.

Hard Times
by Charles Dickens

narrated by Bertie Carvel

"Father to Tom and Louisa, Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy, utilitarian school board superintendent, shapes the minds of all the young children, including his own, with the exception of only one: the circus-born Sissy Jupe."

Mildly interesting facts: this is Dickens' only book that doesn't include any scenes set in London, and is Jeremy Paxman's favourite book by Charles Dickens. What can I say - it's Dickens, he writes rather well, it entertained me during several long car journeys and the narration was excellent.

Mistress of the Art of Death
by Ariana Franklin

"In Cambridge a child has been murdered, others are disappearing, and King Henry has called upon a renowned Italian investigator to find the killer - fast. What the king gets is Adelia, his very own Mistress of the Art of Death."

A book off my shelves for a change, and it's a really good murder mystery set in the 10th century. Now I have to decide: is it good enough to go back on the shelf of books to keep?

Passing
by Nella Larsen

narrated by Tessa Thompson

"Clare - light-skinned, beautiful, and charming - tells Irene how, after her father's death, she left behind the black neighbourhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband."

Quite a short book, this occupied just a couple of car journeys and was very good in that situation. Though I can't claim to know much about black people passing for white in racist America of the 1920's, it was clearly a big deal with all sorts of social consequences, so informing as well as entertaining.

Noughts and Crosses
by Malorie Blackman

narrated by Paul Chequer and Syan Blake

"Sephy is a Cross – a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought – a ‘colourless’ member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum."

This is a book for young adults, and narrated by voices that sound appropriate to that age. The content is pretty strong, particularly the ending. I certainly found it compelling but I'm not entirely sure that I liked it - the narrative voices put me off a little but I don't think that was the only reason. And I'm definitely not the target audience.

Lolly Willowes
by Sylvia Townsend Warner

narrated by Olivia Darnley

"Lolly Willowes, so gentle and accommodating, has depths no one suspects. When she suddenly announces that she is leaving London and moving, alone, to the depths of the countryside, her overbearing relatives are horrified. She rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favour of freedom and the most unexpected of alliances."

This is another from the Classics list, and was frankly disappointing. Two thirds of it was bland and the final third just nonsensical, consisting of the lead character's interactions with Satan. The author is named as a 'leading feminist writer', but I wouldn't say she is a good feminist writer, at least based on this work.

Up to date

May 2025

I'm about three weeks behind with blogging, but this week I'm volunteering at the usual retreat centre, leaving my regular weekly commitments behind. So, a bit more time in hand. 

Back at the beginning of May, mum, Sister D, Lola II and I headed off to the woodland cemetery where dad is buried. The idea was to plant some flowers on the grave and to think about what wording we'd like on the stone, but we discovered that the grave had already been planted - when and by whom is still a mystery. We added some daffodil bulbs and scattered some poppy seeds, and planted the primulas we'd brought on a neighbouring grave. Maybe that's how dad's grave acquired his plants? Anyway, it was a surprisingly jolly outing with plenty of black humour.

After a weekend in Nottingham the next item of note was the first of two periodontal surgeries to try and improve the chronic problem of my gum disease. As before, it was unpleasant and uncomfortable, but with little pain either during or after the procedure. I'm not convinced that the infection will not return, and perhaps it already has, due to the difficulty of keeping the site free of food debris. 

Then there was an online retreat over a weekend, when three of us took ourselves off to a luxurious house not very far away to do the retreat together. I rigged up the TV with a webcam and hooked it up to my laptop so we could sit together for the general sessions and we split up into separate rooms for the parts where we were in different groups. We cooked and ate meals together, had some deep conversations and generally looked at life in a different way for a weekend. We all agree that it's a fine way to do this type of retreat - I don't sign up to do the online ones at home because I'd be too distracted with all the things needing my attention in my own house.

The next event was a trip to London where I met up with Lola II and Mr M for a Nepali lunch and a walk around in Woolwich, followed by a film in a cinema which has a membership scheme a bit like a London club. Next day Lola II and I went into town for brunch, she went on to one of her volunteering shifts and I met an old school friend before going on to visit mum. Then came the trip to Manchester that I wrote about last time, and a busy week leading up to this stint of volunteering. I've mostly been in the kitchen, which is the work I particularly enjoy, often in charge of the meals for those with allergies and intolerances.

There's plenty more that I'm looking forward to in the coming weeks so I don't expect I'll be able to keep on top of blogging, but that's life and I'm making the most of it.

Pointing

April 2025

Glf is a very good bloke as well as a bricklayer and did a wonderful job on my wall on the pub side, nearly four years ago now. So when I needed the chimneys pointing, he should have been my first port of call instead of the cowboys who persuaded me that they could do it without scaffolding.

The job involved a lot of coordination between the Glf and the company with the scaffolding, which led to a few weeks' delay.  They all turned up first thing on Friday to case the joint, plans were made and the scaffolding started to go up for the first chimney, which took all day. It was decided that a separate scaffold tower was needed for the other chimney, so that was erected the following Thursday. 

I actually climbed up to the top to have a look, and sat for a while just experiencing the discomfort of fear. I couldn't manage to take any pictures that time, but I overcame the fear and went up again a few days later and did take some of my own pictures - the weather was beautiful and I had a lovely view of my neighbours' gardens.

Glf appears to have done a similarly good job on the chimneys, and even came to my rescue and fixed things when the scaffold people broke my key safe. He wasn't able to help with a leak that is discolouring the ceiling right next to the front door, but has given me some contact details for roofers who may be able to help.

I haven't yet contacted the roofers because, in time-honoured fashion, I have taken on too much and have passed peak efficiency into a state of frazzled panic in case I forget anything important. I was looking forward to a clear weekend when I hoped to catch up, but sadly a family member died and I was called away. Lola II came with me and made the weekend much better (for both visitors and for host, I think) and we were even able to be useful by helping to look at possible venues for the food and drink after the cremation. 

With a stint of volunteering to come, I am trying to do just one thing at a time. When I remember to calm my mind, everything is fine.

Cooking

March 2025

I'm going through a particularly busy period at the moment, again (when will I ever learn?) One of the things I've been doing is a whole lot of cooking for people - there have been many recent cooking events, two of which included someone whose dietary requirements are the most restrictive I've had to deal with. 

The first meal was at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, where I'm going to be volunteering on Tuesdays when I'm not doing something previously arranged (like volunteering elsewhere, staying with friends, and retreats). This is to cover for someone who's gone off to be ordained, so it's going to continue until mid July. The people who work there (including the one with the severely restricted diet) have a team lunch (which I will attend) followed by a team meeting (which I won't) and they take turns to cook. I'm only doing the cooking on alternate occasions that I'm there, along with jobs like testing the fire alarm, a bit of cleaning, and replacing consumables like toilet rolls, washing up liquid and hand soap. Having done a quick stock take, next time I'm there I'm going to go through the store cupboard to release some of the older jars back into the wild.

At the end of the day of that meal, for our regular weekly Buddhist meeting I'd offered supper to our visiting speaker who was coming from Milton Keynes. He got caught up in the terrible traffic mess nearby that has been caused by a large bridge installation for HS2, so it took him twice as long as it should. As well as inviting the team, I also invited someone who hasn't been to Lola Towers before, and he got completely lost, gave up, went to our meeting venue and missed supper altogether. He was leading the meeting the following week, so I gave him another chance.

The third cooking event was as a result of a fundraising auction, which I don't seem to have mentioned before. The Birmingham Buddhist Centre is in dire need of renovation, and one of the fundraising ideas was an auction of activities - things that people like to do that others could pay for. There were offers of lessons in paddleboarding, sourdough cooking, poetry, swimming, snooker, and crochet; there were guided walks in and around Birmingham; there were home-made items including clothing, jewellery, art and toys; there were press night tickets at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre; there were meals at a local cafe. I won a guided walk around Worcester, and I offered a three-course vegetarian or vegan meal for six, which went for £90 to one of the Buddhist communities in Birmingham, where six people live together in a shared house.

They wanted vegan food, and although the person with the dietary restrictions said she was fine to do some of it herself, I felt as a matter of principle that I should include her. So I created a soup out of all the vegetables that were on the list, then a deconstructed pasta dish that included gluten-free lasagne sheets and buckwheat, and a lemon tart made with gluten-free flour. Lola II had told me to remember to take pictures, which I remembered just as the last mouthful of the lemon tart was being savoured (it really was a good one). So it went entirely unrecorded for posterity.

The next cooking event was for the chap who hadn't managed to find Lola Towers the previous week and involved another three people too, and then the following evening I offered supper to another friend. And this weekend I've been away with two other friends, and we were cooking for one another again. Now I'm ready for a break from cooking.

What I've been reading

For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway

"The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerrilla unit in the mountains of Spain, tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal."

Perhaps not the most suitable reading for a Buddhism-centred solitary retreat, but what a writer! Within the first few pages it felt as though I had known these characters in the middle of the brutalism of the Spanish civil war for ever. How they behaved was completely realistic, and despite all the killing they were not dehumanised. This is one of the best books I've ever read.

Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story
by Jeremy Farrar with Anjana Ahuja

"Jeremy Farrar was one of the first people in the world to hear about a mysterious new respiratory disease in China - and to learn that it could readily spread between people. A member of the SAGE emergency committee, Farrar was a key decision-maker at the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic amid great uncertainty, fast-moving situations and missed opportunities."

Given to me by Sister D, this book was written just as the pandemic was starting to peter out by a couple of scientific insiders - the Director of the Wellcome Trust, assisted by a Financial Times science columnist. It describes how Covid-19 evolved and was handled internationally, and set this alongside the management of the pandemic in the UK. Despite his flagrant disregard of the rules that he helped to set, Dominic Cummings seems to be the only person within Government circles who actually understood the importance of the science and attempted to direct policy accordingly, rather than focussing on the politics (Johnson), being incompetent (Hancock) or keeping very quiet (Gove). As a book, it is obvious that it was written in a hurry by someone who actually understands and cares about the effects of a pandemic on people rather than politics, so a slightly dispiriting story to read.

Passage
by Connie Willis

"Psychologist Dr Joanna Lander has spent two years at Mercy General Hospital studying patients who have been declared clinically dead but then revived. Many have had near-death experiences, NDEs, which are remarkably similar the world over. Then brilliant young neurologist Richard Wright discovers a way to induce an NDE using psychoactive drugs."

This is the last Connie Willis book that I own other than the two that I love, and I won't be keeping it. It's slightly less annoying than the others I've read recently, but she still needs a good editor to get rid of at least a third of the pages, mostly those containing accounts of the characters simply walking, running or driving from one place to another. But at least there's a little bit of substance here, with a thought-provoking idea of what near death experiences might be leading to an imaginative account of what might actually happen after death.

Orbital
by Samantha Harvey

"A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans."

An unusual book given to me by a friend. The language is very rich and colourful, full of observation of the earth from space as well as detail of life as an astronaut. At one point I became so caught up in the inevitability of the end of the Earth that I despaired (although that's absolutely not what the book is about). A strange and immersive experience.

Positive news

Worcestershire, October 2024

I hardly need report that I've been away on retreat again, this time just for a long weekend during Easter. Four of us from the Warwick group went together, including someone who hadn't been on one of our retreats before. It turned out that he had plenty of experience of meditation and Buddhism and retreats within other Buddhist traditions, and he meditates a great deal more than I do. It was very interesting getting to know him anyway, and he wasn't put off by any of it, which is a bonus.

Another way that I've been stretching myself involves something called a 'kula'. This is a group of people who are both Order Members and my friends, and who commit themselves to meeting occasionally in order to support me in my journey towards ordination. It's by no means compulsory to have a kula, and not necessary at the start of the journey, but I've been steeling myself because I find the idea quite challenging. I've now got as far as asking three people, who thankfully have all said yes, so that's done for now. Now I just have to find a way to get them to meet, which is likely to be a considerable challenge.

Our Warwick group is going from strength to strength, and we have started to find ourselves supported by two regular Order Members, one from Birmingham and the other from Milton Keynes. I've been trying to arrange a team meeting between five of us, and out of 60 different time slots there were only two that were suitable and even then only four out of five of us could make it.

I spent a day with mum taking her to the local hospital to have a lump on her leg cut out. I actually found it quite enjoyable spending time with her, although it probably wasn't her idea of a great day out with her daughter. It was almost impossible to park at the hospital - I left the car in a slightly illegal place in the renal unit with her Blue Badge displayed and got away with it; they also double booked the appointment slot before ours so we got into the clinic room at 4.30pm for an appointment that was scheduled at 2.45pm. Once inside the procedure seemed very straightforward and hopefully her recovery will also run smoothly.

My news blackout continues and I'm getting quite used to not knowing much about what's going on. Have I Got News For You informed me about some female celebrities who went up in a rocket, squealed a lot, talked a lot of rubbish about love, sang a song and imagined they were astronauts - you might as well say that turning a light switch on and off makes you an electrician. And the Pope has died and everyone is watching the film Conclave again. I have to say that even this level of news seems wholly unnecessary.

I am managing various financial admin projects on mum's behalf associated with dad's estate and other investments, and for a change things seem to be moving in the right direction. There's also been admin in respect of UJ and the Homes for Ukraine scheme, also going well, and I tried to give blood but they turned me away because of my imminent periodontal work and the risk of levels of infection in the blood. Swings and roundabouts, people, swings and roundabouts.