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.