A Whale of a Time

April 2025

Apart from the tourist trip to Warwick and the badminton volunteering, there have been a couple of other notable events recently. Following a pessimistic dental appointment I made a return visit to the periodontist, who agreed with the poor prognosis on two sites and recommended further 'regenerative' surgery of the sort that I had before (three years ago), but this time with extra bone graft. I really don't know what to think about all this - I can afford the fees and it probably helps to keep my teeth in my jaw, but it's a most unpleasant procedure and eventually they are bound to come out, so why prolong the treatment? Something to think about when the next crisis arrives.

I went on a day trip to Oxford to pick up Sister D and on to the University's Harcourt Arboretum, which (as you'd expect) has very fine trees, and we generally caught up with each other and had some serious and helpful conversations - helpful to me at least. I'm still dealing with a couple of mum's financial affairs which keeps Sister D and me busy trying to interpret mystifying correspondence and acquiring evidence of identity and address and signatures of everyone in the family.

Then I went on a solitary retreat that was longer than I've done before (12 days), taking all the food I'd need as well as getting jobs done before I went. UJ was in Ukraine for a few weeks and returned while I was away, so there was some anticipatory cleaning and tidying needed. I had a very thoughtful and fruitful time, meditating, walking, reading, reflecting and studying (in preparation for another, more academic retreat in September), but also doing nothing. The time flew by.

A couple of weeks before I went away on the retreat I had started a self-imposed news blackout - have I mentioned this? The news, especially in the USA, Ukraine/Russia and Gaza/Israel, had become too much for me to bear with equanimity, so I stopped watching, listening to, and reading any news media except for Radio 4 comedy and a couple of podcasts. Obviously on retreat I was completely offline, and spent quite a bit of time pondering whether to go back to the news on my return, and if so, how to achieve the right balance of staying informed without being overwhelmed.

I went for a walk with a friend this week, and was going to ask him to tell me in the briefest terms what I needed to know. He very quickly demonstrated that news has no boundaries, and even the most innocuous event is linked in many ways to other events that I would not wish to hear about. So I have concluded that it isn't possible, and have continued to be completely ignorant of all news, both domestic and foreign, and even stopped subscribing to the news podcasts (although I've continued with Radio 4 comedy). It's a strange, unnerving place to be, a bit like driving while wearing a blindfold. 

Up to now I considered it my duty to stay informed, and not doing so seems somehow irresponsible, or negligent, but several responsible and not-negligent people I've talked to say that they don't keep up to date with the news, although a couple of them said they sometimes feel stupid for not knowing what's going on. So I'm trying to let go of my self-view, and, for the time being at least, to focus on the fact that it's not only possible but preferable to step off the relentless cycle of doom and gloom, pain and ignorance, injustice and grief.

A couple of happier stories to finish with. I went to a delightful concert in a Leamington church which involved an adult choir, a choir of primary school girls, a small group of musicians and two solo vocalists, performing arrangements of two Kinks albums with the support and encouragement of Ray Davies (lead vocalist of the Kinks). I knew about it because one of the people involved in the LETS local trading scheme was singing in the choir, but in the queue for tickets I met one of my music group whose husband was also in the choir, and Nameless Man was also there (I'd told him about it but he wasn't sure he would go), and then I met the man in charge of my U3A board games group who turned out to know the LETS woman because they were neighbours and both trustees of the community centre where the Repair Café happens, and then I bumped into an ex-colleague from my last career but one.

The other lovely thing is that UJ brought me a present from Ukraine of a lamp she has made in the shape of a whale.