Going live

Maternal Manor, May 2026

My estate agent's representative, whom I'm going to call Mr Celery (because he's tall, thin, and very Seller-y) told me that he appreciates that I am not in a tearing hurry, that I now need a solicitor, and that I won't regret placing the sale with his company. The sales board is up outside the house and we went through the brochure together to eliminate the spelling mistakes, so we were ready for going live on Friday. People keep asking how I feel. At the moment it's still just a project I'm working on, and I'm not looking forward to the time when it sinks in and I become very sad indeed to be leaving.

One issue that still needs addressing is a broken electrical socket in the bedroom. "I can deal with this," I thought, as I identified the fuse in the fuse box, turned off the power to the sockets, unscrewed the wires from the front plate and took the broken back box off the wall. After trips to B&Q, Wickes and the wonderful Action 21 I could only find replacement boxes that had screws in a different place, and I hate it when I experience this sort of helpless incompetence. Luckily, Nameless Man is happy to help out, although our combined busy timetables mean he can't get started until later this week.

My last session with the Diabetes Prevention Programme coach has taken place, although she says I can ask my GP to be re-referred if I think it will help. I may just do that. Due to some relaxation of my willpower during the volunteering in the retreat kitchen I now have to take my eating habits a bit more seriously, and have laid down a couple of new intentions for the next few weeks. I can safely say that this will be No Fun At All.

Mr Celery has already found me two people who want an early viewing before the date that we had set for the main house viewing event. I finished all the weeding, mowed the lawn again, and the main thing remaining is to clean a few windows to make it look that bit more attractive. That was the last day before the massive heatwave that we're experiencing arrived, so I'm glad I managed to get nearly everything done before we all melted.

Then I headed south to see mum and to supervise the transition from copper wire internet and POTS (plain old telephone system) to fibre broadband. There was an engineer who came into the house and another who climbed the telephone pole and strung the new wire to the house. But my suspicions were raised when the engineer said he couldn't set up two wired phones on the new router. He left an extra telephone box and advised me to contact the company to activate the second phone, and told me many things that turned out not to be true. So I had a very difficult conversation with the company which has left me regretting my choice of supplier despite the very competitive price, because we can't have two wired phones on the new system after all, despite having been assured that we could.

Mum has been very flexible and adaptable, and has accepted stoically the loss of her usual phone number for about two weeks (I really hope that the company hasn't misled me about this too). She has one landline phone with a new (hopefully temporary) number and is carrying her mobile phone around with her. Lola II and I are working on getting her a couple of digital cordless phones that are relatively easy to use, and we'll see how things go.

Consideration of furniture

Scarborough, April 2026

I've been at Maternal Manor for a few days either side of a weekend break in York. Mum and I have continued to weed out all sorts of items - clothes, furniture and much else - and have been celebrating that there seem to be no more stamps or envelopes stashed away anywhere. We're doing a little bit of forward planning, imagining where my stuff might fit in the house, what I will put into storage and what I will get rid of. There are three large items of furniture that we agreed can be removed. One is the oval kitchen table that dad made about 45 years ago, the second is a large wardrobe in the second bedroom upstairs (soon to be my bedroom), and the third is a sofabed whose foam mattress disintegrates more every time it is moved. 

We asked the British Heart Foundation to take the wardrobe and the table; they asked if the table came with any chairs so mum considered the chair situation and decided that she could give them the six kitchen chairs and keep the six dining chairs. When they came they rejected the wardrobe saying it couldn't be safely extracted with the stair lift in the way, so I spent a couple of hours taking it apart. I took the bits that would fit in my car to the tip, and the rest is awaiting further consideration in the garage. We put a small set of wooden drawers on the driveway next to the pavement, because in the past people have helpfully taken such things. I had my doubts, as they weren't particularly attractive or sound, but they disappeared almost immediately.

Mum had a few jolly and no-so-jolly trips out. After her Covid vaccination we went to Lidl and to the tip (with the wardrobe bits), and on another day I took her to the dentist. All the people she meets at these places are, without exception, incredibly kind - the receptionist at the dentist offered to remove their barriers to parking on the forecourt next time we visit. She has new gardeners who are also very pleasant and helpful, although she is somewhat doubtful of their skills at distinguishing plants from weeds.

My jolly trip was to York where I spent a couple of days with my friend T, and we went to Scarborough together. The weekend weather was glorious, but being on the coast Scarborough with a fresh breeze was a few degrees colder than York, so I got somewhat chilled. We ate chips and ice cream on the sea front and T paddled in the sea - that's her in the photo. I declined the opportunity to paddle, being cold enough already.

Back at Maternal Manor the kitchen trench is drying out nicely with the dehumidifier in action, but I've done a couple more tests on the water supply. Unfortunately there still seems to be water being lost somewhere in the system - with my newly acquired expertise gained from Severn Trent I'm aware that it's possible that it's being lost via the drains rather than into the floor, walls or foundations.

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs featured significantly during my visit. I called the technical helpline about online access to my tax accounts, the call was answered almost immediately and my problem completely solved. Mum's tax issue on a separate call to the tax helpline took a little longer, and was probably resolved - we'll know in a couple of weeks. I hope never to have to call them again, but that hope is probably unrealistic.

Mainly snow and water

Lake Tueda, Meribel Mottaret, February 2026

The skiing holiday was another good one, affected only slightly by one of our party (P) falling on the third day. Sitting on the piste, he was in immense pain around the left shoulder and thought it was dislocated; the paramedic on skis (Damien) thought it probably wasn't. Damien called an ambulance which arrived very promptly and delivered the patient to the local medical centre, where an X-ray confirmed a break right through the humerus just below the shoulder. P came back in a brace along with industrial strength French painkillers, including opium powder. We all hoped he would start wearing a smoking jacket and writing romantic poetry, but no, he just winced and went a bit grey and silent whenever the shoulder was disturbed. There followed some discussion with the insurance company, who finally came up with a plan to fly him home, accompanied by his wife, on the same day that the rest of us came home by train.

Aside from that notable event, the rest of the holiday went very well. In advance it had looked as though the weather would be very bad, but actually the clouds came in and it started to snow only on the last day. I went out with JW anyway despite the difficult conditions, and enjoyed his graceful dives into a couple of soft snow drifts. It started to snow again when it was lunchtime and we were just next to a restaurant; when we were ready to carry on the snow had stopped, so that was perfect.

One afternoon I decided to stay out a bit longer than my companions, and confirmed the fact that I have absolutely no sense of direction or navigational skills. I planned a route that would definitely not take me into an adjacent valley, only to find myself in the adjacent valley on a slope that was challenging to say the least. I managed to get myself back, but skied for about an hour longer than was sensible.

Back home I had to return to all the aspects of life that disappear on holiday. I took mum for a CT scan, which she found very helpful and I found very interesting. My main role was translating and transmitting whatever the various clinicians say to mum because they a) mumble and/or speak very fast b) use jargon c) have strong accents and d) don't look at her when they talk. 

At Lola Towers there is still water penetrating through my front wall. Glf (current favourite of all my tradesmen) came and had a look and we have a plan that includes contacting Severn Trent Water to see if it might be a leak around the water meter. The third estate agent visited; his estimate comes somewhere between the first and the second. Before I put it on the market I have decided to get the front painted, if it ever stops raining. I'm still waiting for a decorator to give me a date before the end of February to do some of the interior painting that's needed, and if we get on OK I'll ask if he'll do the outside work too. If not, estate agent 2 gave me a possible lead.

GRUHI continues

Worcester, January 2026

My sojourn at Maternal Manor continues, where I try to make myself useful as well as exploring the locality. I am becoming familiar with a couple of key bus routes - I didn't use the bus much when I lived here as a youth because I'd always be going into London by Tube, and school was close enough to walk (or cycle), and I'd get lifts to most other places. When I did use the bus as a child, I would generally make some mistake and be too shy to ask anyone (often ending up in some bus terminal far from home) or leave something on the bus (most notable was my clarinet). Navigating the buses is now transformed - another thing to thank the Internet for.

My car enjoyed an outing to deliver some stamps and envelopes to one of mum's friends who has connections with Diabetes UK. Would it be a surprise to know that there are still stamps and envelopes lurking in the building? I found some more this week, in an old briefcase in the garage. I do believe these are the last, but wouldn't bet on it. Mum and I unearthed another box from a wardrobe and opened it with trepidation, but it contained old rheumatology journals - I never thought I'd be pleased to see those. This week I also found a large lever arch binder that contained about a hundred photocopied sheets of the engravings on Trajan's columns, each within a plastic wallet. Mum separated the paper from the plastic and now has even more scrap paper and a pile of plastic wallets that her carer took away for her son.

I also took mum to Lidl, which she enjoys, and then on to the municipal recycling centre where we dumped one of the four sacks of rubble that was excavated from the kitchen floor. The dehumidifier continues to extract moisture from below the floor but the low temperatures and the fact that the kitchen isn't actually heated means that it will probably take a long time to dry out. I uncovered the trench so there is more opportunity for evaporation, moved the microwave, and reorganised the kitchen cupboards to minimise the need to go from one end to the other across the trench all of the time. This made me very happy because now the pots and pans are next to the cooker and the plates and bowls are next to the microwave and fridge instead of the other way round.

Along with watching films (on DVD, streaming, at a local cinema and at a cinema a bus ride away), and going to two different Buddhist Centres, one in Highbury and one in Chelmsford, I played badminton with a local club. It has been surprisingly difficult to find a local club. Whenever I have ventured to other parts of the world there are usually two or three that I could try out, but all I could find here were Academies for training young people up to National standard, or courts that you can book in a sports centre, neither of which is suitable for me. Eventually I discovered a club that has a really complicated arrangement for booking a spot on one of four club nights during the week. I went to one of the sessions last Friday and will go again this Friday, but in fact the Saturday and Sunday evenings would be a higher standard that is nearer to mine. I'll have to put off that experiment until next time I stay.

Another social event was a whisky tasting with Lola II and Mr M, where the other guest was a friend of Lola II's who I hadn't seen for 25 years but was still utterly delightful. Due to the nature of the evening I became more drunk than I have been for many years, and I was still feeling not quite sober next morning when I had two Buddhist Zoom calls lined up. Totally worth it, but maybe not to be repeated.

I paid another visit to Lola II and Mr M in order to support Lola II's efforts at tidying and decluttering, where my role is split between police officer (stopping her from getting distracted or running off to do something less unpleasant) and Paper Shredder Operator. [This activity used to rank as second most satisfying after my own GRUHI project, but has been relegated to third behind the behemoth that is Maternal Manor.] During the visit we also started the eBay listing for the disposal of dad's fifteen (count 'em, FIFTEEN) 35mm slide projector carousels, and initiated the insurance claim for the water leak in the kitchen. I anticipate that the latter will be a recurring item in these reports for some time.

The highlight of my stay was a trip to Morrisons. This isn't one of mum's usual shopping spots because her neighbours and friends don't shop there, but I prefer their fruit and veg. So mum came with me, and they offer people the loan of a mobility scooter with a big basket on the front, and mum had a great time going wherever she wanted and taking her time because she wasn't having to stand and walk. And I enjoyed it even more because she was having so much fun.

Getting stuff done

Random picture of delicious lunch in Gloucester, September 2025

After leaving mum I had a full weekend back home with three Buddhist events and a birthday party, and then drove south again so that I could accompany mum for a medical procedure on Monday (which went very well). There was a badminton match to be played on Monday evening, and the person who was supposed to play found herself unable to do so, so back I drove for that. I was relieved when Tuesday came and I didn't have anywhere that I needed to be until the evening.

I started with loads of laundry that has been generated by UJ's departure, and then investigated her room, which was in a fairly good state but needs a bit of work - one of the roman blinds was torn and there's lots of dust in the corners. I was thinking of moving back in to that bedroom, but it really is very cold indeed. Having said that, most of the house is quite cold at the moment. Another lovely empty spacious day on Wednesday (I really think I might be getting better at not filling my diary) and I took down the torn blind and made a start on mending it while listening to an audio book, then went to the cinema. Good times.

Finished mending the blind on Thursday. The lining is paper thin and tears at the slightest pressure, probably due to being exposed to the sun for about 20 years. I took down the curtains for washing and managed to get the blind back up again, then made a start on cleaning the windows and wardrobe. Lots more cleaning will keep me busy for several days, but I took a break to investigate heated blankets so I can warm myself rather than the house, which should be a whole lot cheaper. Ordered one for collection tomorrow.

Friday: my regular U3A morning walk and lunch in pub, which I've missed for a few weeks due to weather and everything else. The person who gave me details of recommended decorator was sad to hear that after said decorator visited and I found him utterly delightful, he has turned down the job on the basis of being 'too far away'. However, another walker immediately stepped in with a replacement recommendation. Aside from good walks this group is invaluable for local recommendations (the auction house for dad's philatelic collection was another that came out of this group). After lunch I collected the heated blanket and tried it out immediately; great success on the warmth-providing front but a bit more velvety than in the illustration. This makes it quite slippery as well as difficult to manipulate by someone who finds velvet unpleasant, but I will persevere.

Saturday: Continued to clean up UJ's room, turned mattress, replaced cleaned curtains, furniture polish in abundance, advertised unwanted glass coffee table and tennis racquet - not a hint of interest other than the usual speculative enquiries within a minute that never amount to anything. Sewed on coat buttons, reattached worn string on cord in shower room operating fan but need new weight to hang on the bottom. In the evening there was a fundraising Indian meal at the Buddhist Centre in Birmingham, and I ate so much that I didn't eat anything for most of Sunday, when I did more jobs before an afternoon with my fellow team members supporting the local Buddhist group. In the evening I went to one of the National Theatre Live screenings before driving south to mum's in order to be there when the plumber turned up again at 9 a.m. to carry on trying to work out where all the water is coming from in the kitchen.

A week in London

Natural History Museum, London, November 2025

Some time ago I decided that Lola Towers is too big for me. I've lived there for nearly 24 years, and although it's just the way I want it now and it's also in the perfect location, I'm tired of the responsibility of maintaining both it and the garden it comes with. I've kept it in good condition (at least since Mr A departed) but still there's the roof, the boiler, the shower, the paintwork, and everything else that demands attention, let alone the bills for heating a large Victorian house.

Following a logical train of thought with many considerations both of lifestyle and of finance, I talked to mum about the possibility of moving in with her. She seemed to like the idea, so this has been the additional motivation for GRUHI, for giving notice to UJ, and now for an experimental week's stay with mum. Lola Towers bid me farewell during Storm Claudia by letting water into the kitchen through a different part of the ceiling. I put down a towel, left a message for UJ, and set off anyway. It can wait until I get back.

While in London I shopped around for Buddhist communities. The nearest is actually the largest Centre in the UK, the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green. Coming from one of the smallest groups to the largest might not be my best option in terms of getting to know people, so during the week I attended the Saturday morning group at the North London Centre, the Tuesday evening group in Hertford, and the Wednesday evening group in Chelmsford (as well as the Thursday evening meeting at the LBC). None stood out as the perfect venue so I'll keep my options open for the time being, and visit them all again another time.

Apart from Buddhist activity I've obviously spent some quality time with mum - we have cooked (she has been very complementary about the results) and watched a bit of TV together, and I taught her a new card game (after about three rounds she was already beating me). There are also all the jobs that need doing, including sorting out confusing emails, the change in mobile phone contract that Tesco unilaterally imposed, getting rid of a lot more of the paperwork accumulated by dad and generally making myself useful.

On Monday morning I took myself off to the British Museum. I feel such a philistine when I say that it no longer appeals the way it once did. I visited the exhibition about China from prehistory to modern day, and then I looked at the Egyptian mummies, and even though it was OK and mildly interesting, my pleasure was frequently interrupted by the thought that most of the contents of the cases were acquired from indigenous people without their permission, let's say.

In the afternoon I met Lola II and in the evening we met up with Mr M for my last 60th birthday meal (of three), this time at a Venezuelan restaurant. It took me four months to book the first one, and this one took place just ten days short of a year after that. I like to make birthdays last.

On Wednesday we had two notable events. First, a plumber arrived to help us trace a water leak, and by the way fixed the upstairs toilet flush (hooray). The water leak still needs more investigation, unfortunately. Second, two buyers visited to assess the huge collection of books that dad amassed, offered a frankly pitiful amount of money and took them all away. After cleaning the shelves we moved photo albums, cards and ornaments from the dining room to make the room look less bereft, and on my next visit I brought over some books from Lola Towers that I mean to keep.

On Thursday I planned a day out at the Natural History Museum, mainly because Mr MXF and BL2 suggested meeting there for lunch. I've been going there since I was a child, and while some of the exhibits are carefully curated and looked after (a corridor of minerals, endangered birds, the museum's 'Treasures'), the whole experience gave the impression of being just a little bit tired, with missing light bulbs, thick layers of dust and touch screens not working. 

The dinosaur exhibit might once have been cutting edge, but they have filled a gloriously decorated Victorian room with girders and spotlights and made the actual exhibits quite hard to see and the labelling hard to read - one case had white text on an orange background with no lighting and I have no idea what was there. The café staff were probably doing their best, but apparently when an order for decaf tea is taken at the till it isn't passed on (they had to take my receipt away to fulfil my order).

Mr MXF and BL2 were on good form - Mr MXF has succumbed to his genetic heritage and had a mild heart attack, so now he has a stent and a cupboard full of pills but is in good health otherwise. BL2 is enjoying retirement and has discovered U3A. I hope to see more of them next year.

And the saga of UJ as a lodger is at an end - she has finally moved out, although she missed the first flight she had booked, she was hoovering at 1 a.m. and her belongings took a little longer to leave the house, the last few boxes being picked up the following day. I am looking after a few lamps, vases and plants until she returns to collect them. She has returned to Ukraine for Christmas and New Year and intends to come back to the UK next year and find her own place. 

Success

Bookshop banister, Hay-on-Wye, September 2025

Time has been zipping along faster than something that is quite quick. Here I am already in the middle of next week.

First, a celebration. I started my weight loss plan in earnest at the beginning of July, and this week I achieved my target weight after a loss of 4.7 kg. The full extent of my weight loss is greater than this, because by the beginning of July I'd already lost a bit. However, my celebration is fairly subdued because I've lost weight before, and the part that I've never managed to achieve is maintenance. 

I still have a National Diabetes Prevention Programme coach - what happened on our latest call is she suggests that I do something, then I ask why she thinks I need to do that thing and she tells me all the benefits to my blood sugar or my weight, so I tell her the very good reason why that thing is not appropriate for me, and then tell her again and assert that she is not listening to me when she continues to advocate it. I have formed the strong opinion that her advice will not be useful to me, but her monthly call will at least make me accountable for keeping on track with my weight and eating habits. I have no idea whether it will work.

More success to celebrate - a year with Muscles the Personal Trainer and I am now achieving results that I could never have imagined when I started. For example, I'm pretty sure that we started with me lifting a weight of 2 kg, and this week I lifted 30 kg. Muscles says that with most people he tries to get them to aim for lifting their own weight, so there's still room for progress.

I got out into the garden before winter set in and mowed the grass and hacked down about three quarters of what needed hacking down. Other aspects of GRUHI are going very slowly but there is some small progress, and I met a very lovely decorator who will paint inside and outside but not until the spring. UJ's leaving date is a moveable feast but I think it will happen soon, and almost certainly before the end of November. I was going to write 'definitely' but you never know with UJ. We went out for dinner to celebrate our time together and it was very lovely.

There was quite a hectic visit to mum to celebrate her 93rd birthday during which Lola II cut my hair, Sister D joined us and we all went out for lunch, mum got her COVID vaccination, we visited an Eastern European/Asian supermarket, I got a parking ticket, we agreed the layout for dad's gravestone, I contacted the mason to find out what happens next, we agreed a date for the 'stone setting' (which will be attended by just the four of us), sang Happy Birthday accompanying an apple pastry that Lola II had made with a candle in it, and established that some emails mum had received were not malicious or spam but a new patient record platform that she had to sign up to in order to be notified of two appointments. Lola II took photos of the bubbling paintwork and blown tiles and forwarded pictures of the water meter taken by Sister D so that the plumber can assess whether he wants to visit or not. We got through quite a lot.

To finish - strong film recommendation. I Swear, which had me alternately laughing and sobbing and I forgot to take a hanky and had to go to the toilets afterwards to wash my face. Best film of the year.

It's been a good week

August 2025

I've taken over the task of ordering dad's gravestone in exchange for Lola II following up his brain donation pathology report with Parkinson's UK. The style of the stone has to be a particular type because of the rules of the Woodland cemetery, but there are still choices of material and wording and lettering. Lola II started the process and I phoned two companies for further clarification and asked each of them to come up with prices. I never knew how many choices there needed to be, but we're within a hair's breadth of placing the order.

Sister D and I went to an exhibition at the British Museum about Jain, Buddhist and Hindu art in early India. We agreed it was good but not outstanding. In local news, I went to a 'bring-your-own-curry-to-share' event with the local trading group, and as well as having conversations with interesting people I traded a digital radio to a couple, following which we had a discussion about how they might actually want to buy my house. It will be a good story if it comes off.

The U3A walking group is flourishing with 15 walkers of whom 12 stayed for lunch last week - too many, most agreed, because of the time it now takes to get us all over stiles, let alone the implications on food service in the pub at the end. One of the group who is a surgeon is going out to the West Bank to volunteer via a medical charity that supports the cause of the Palestinians. Another chap had routine blood tests and was given very bad dietary advice by a nurse about his borderline high cholesterol. Another person used to be a palliative care nurse who I asked about her views of the Assisted Dying Bill. More interesting conversations ensued. One person asked me what I thought about Prince Andrew and I was very glad to tell him that I had no view whatever due to my news blackout. This is not quite true; I have been listening to The News Quiz and watching Have I Got News For You, but really? Prince Andrew? On a lovely walk in the country?

UJ has been staying with me for three years now, and will be leaving me soon (at my request). As is her habit, everything is very last minute and nothing much seems to have left the building yet. The evening before the day we had agreed she would move out she admitted that she couldn't do it in time, and we have agreed a further extension. 

Because of this last minute approach she has been paying over the odds for train travel when she has to go to the London office. Recently she discovered that there was a coach direct from Leamington to Victoria once a day, costing less than a tenner, so she gave it a try. It leaves Leamington at 2.50 a.m. and arrives in London at 5.20 a.m. and I don't think she found the cost saving outweighed the sleep deprivation. On the other hand, the direct coach in the other direction leaves London at midnight and arrives in Leamington at 2.30 a.m. which is exactly what she needs after she's missed the last train. 

She told me the story of what happened the last time she needed to get to the office early for a meeting. She got to the bus stop in Leamington but the coach had already left, five minutes early. So she phoned the company who apologised and agreed to get her a taxi to catch up at its next stop, asking only for her booking reference, at which point she realised she'd actually booked the ticket for the next day. So then when her workplace opened she phoned the people who'd organised the meeting to apologise for her absence, only to find the meeting wasn't until next month.

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?)

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.

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.

A very ordinary week

Dovecote, Kyre Hall Park, October 2024

There's been nothing special to report for the whole week, in which I did all the things that I regularly do, and a few optional extras, and it was all fine.

• the weekly shop
• the U3A board games group
• a candlelit vigil in town to commemorate three years of the war in Ukraine
• Monday evening badminton
• a GRUHI trip to the tip and to Action 21 with all the electrical junk
• watched a film at home
• Tuesday evening Buddhists
• visit to mum
• a session with Muscles (my personal trainer)
• a bonus massage (because I'm worth it)
• Thursday evening badminton
• the U3A ramble
• a Buddhist team meeting via Zoom
• the Repair Café LETS trading table to try and get rid of more stuff (nobody wanted anything)
• my music group (I have been given a big solo this term)
• watched another film at home
• did nearly all the necessary routine admin
• a film at the cinema to end the week.

I do try to find interesting content for this blog, but there really isn't any this week. I'm looking forward to warmer weather - I find February the cruellest month. Daffodils are appearing in the garden and the paving is invisible under its blanket of weeds. So, much the same as every year.

Smoke and mirrors

Tate Modern, November 2024

As well as the Assisted Dying event, I spent a lovely couple of days with Lola II and Mr M. We started with an Egyptian lunch in Knightsbridge - I was a bit early so popped into Harvey Nichols out of interest. I only went up to the food department, and concluded that it isn't a shop that I belong in at all. Then we went on to the Tate Modern, specifically for an art installation which beamed shapes of light in a dark room onto screens, and filled the room with haze so the passage of the light through the room could be seen. It was quite fun to play with the installation, although I really don't understand Art, especially Modern Art. It was also pretty expensive even though one of us got in for free thanks to an Art Pass.

Next day Lola II took me to an Art café where we each painted a small canvas. Looking at mine up close I didn't think it was all that good when I finished it, and I wasn't going to take it home. But when I was washing brushes across the room Lola II told me to look back at it, and it looked much better from a distance, so it is now in Lola II's house until such time that I can collect it - I wasn't about to take it with me to the demo and then onto the train.

Back home again, I went to visit my new friend (still nameless for the purposes of this blog) who fell off his bike and ended up in hospital with a broken hip. They gave him a hip replacement and sent him home after four days, when he was already able independently to make me a cup of tea - I brought cakes. We marvelled at our amazing National Health Service while also mourning its huge deficiencies.

Great progress for mum too, where we managed to replace her 2G phone with an almost identical 4G one, and she also achieved a price reduction of £7 by insisting on paying the price displayed on the shelf rather than what came up on the till. I am much less assertive that she is in shops, although I would say that she is a little too assertive on certain facts than she should be - the Blue Badge was not in the cupboard where she said it was, so there. Not until writing this did I realise that we could have parked in the disabled bays even without a badge - I think my assertiveness needs work.

I've had a few long, full days, but have been a bit more successful than previously at building in gaps between them, to the extent of not going on my Friday morning U3A walk because Thursday and Saturday had so much in them. This was the right decision. On Saturday I volunteered to staff the Leamington LETS stall at the local Repair Café on a day so filled with wind and rain so that hardly anyone came, then went straight on to my last music group rehearsal before the concert next week. The music this term has been so challenging that I've actually had to practise both saxophone and clarinet parts, which is probably a first for this group.

On Sunday, UJ announced that she'd joined a choir, something she's been thinking of doing for a while, and their carol service was taking place that afternoon, so I went along. She seems to have joined the Parish Church choir, which is somewhat surprising (she did say there was quite a lot of talking about God). The service was sparsely attended, which was a shame because I love belting out a Christmas carol among other enthusiasts. Unfortunately the bits between the carols reminded me why I really don't get on with Christianity.

Mostly difficult stuff going on

Hlf, September 2024

Recently I visited mum and realised that I'd left one job so long that her email client (Outlook 2007) was going to stop working in less than a week - Microsoft no longer consider it secure because it's so old, and will prevent it from accessing her emails. So I swapped it for an alternative client, and the best part was that I also managed to upload her stored history of emails and her address book, which took a very long time but made me very happy to have achieved it. Then on the next visit I discovered that the new client was also blocked, and I managed to wrestle it to the ground and unblock it, but at the cost of losing all the emails that had arrived within a period of five days. Initially I thought I'd lost the whole Inbox and all the Sent items too, so losing just five days felt like a win.

I managed to go to the RSC to see The Merry Wives of Windsor. Whenever I go there, which is very seldom, I always vow I should go more. It's top quality theatre on my doorstep, so I don't know why I don't. And the roofers and my new glasses arrived on consecutive days in an expensive week. While the roofers were working I did a session of pruning in the garden - only three bags full, much more is needed.

Another thing that's been going on is renewing my car insurance. Over the years I have chosen to use a local broker for many of my policies - car, household, landlord insurance - but it has been well publicised that prices for insurance are rising. Generally what happens is that the broker gives me a quote, I go online and find the same cover at a lower price, and up to now they have managed to reduce their quote to something more acceptable. This time the renewal quote was £200 more than last year and when I went online the lowest quote was £170 less than this. I don't always choose the lowest quote, but the most common amount was still about £150 less than the broker, and they couldn't or wouldn't go anywhere near matching it. I don't quite see how they are going to survive on the High Street.

I've also been on retreat, which went very well - it was aimed at people who don't necessarily know anything about meditation or Buddhism, and so a) was much shorter than the heavy-duty retreats I've been attending and b) was at an introductory level in terms of teaching. But I chose it because it focussed on a topic that I've always found difficult, so I thought that starting from the beginning again might be useful. It was, but not in the way I expected. It was lovely to see people finding something they'd been looking for without knowing it, and to remember what I was like when I went on my first retreat at this centre when I didn't know who I was or what I wanted either. I've come a long way and all for the better.

I was going to carry on northwards for a weekend in York so arranged to drop in on H+B on the way. The York weekend had to be cancelled, but I went to H+B anyway, and talked about dismal things like the Office of the Public Guardian, Enduring Powers of Attorney, Executorship and Probate. But we wandered round the garden too, and admired the brickwork and freshly painted frontage of the house, and marvelled at the flat upstairs which is up for let at an eye-watering monthly sum. H is well, looks good, but is feeling his age (aren't we all). We agreed that the main thing for the avoidance of excruciating administrative entanglement is for H to remain alive for the time being, which thankfully he seems happy to do.

The launch of GRUHI

July 2023

I've managed to start the huge project to try and free myself of all the accumulated stuff in my house that might come in useful one day, or that reminds me of something or someone, or is broken or just needed to be out of the way so it found its way to the loft, or that is nice to look at but taking up space and accumulating dust. So much Stuff. Just looking around from where I'm sitting: a silver desk clock with the second hand broken off. A small plastic dinosaur. An English dictionary and Thesaurus. A non-functional electric blanket. Three French language course books. And mum has also been passing me things that she no longer needs.

I don't want it all to end up in landfill, and ideally I'd like to find new owners who would appreciate the items. As with the LTRP I feel that to maintain momentum I need to apply an acronym. Get Rid of Unwanted Household Items seems appropriate: GRUHI. Sounds suitably gruesome to signify the tedious and difficult nature of the job and yet with a jolly little hiccup at the end which is the joy when it is accomplished.

Anyway, the first item to achieve the GRUHI status is my old iPod, which I have listed on eBay along with various compatible items - the iPod speaker docking station and assorted cables. The auction ended on Sunday and the iPod sold; I relisted the docking station and received one bid; the other items aren't even getting any views, so how will I get rid of those?

Leamington has a number of local initiatives as well as branches of national initiatives, which is one of the reasons I like to live here. LETS is a local trading community where the currency is 'Oaks' and people trade services rather than goods - giving lifts, swapping plants, make and mend sessions, recommendations for tradespeople and helping with any sort of household jobs. I've been a member for some time but haven't actually offered or asked for help. Leamington also has a monthly 'Repair Café' where people can take items that need repairing, and I have used that - they have extended the life of my camping chairs and a shopping bag.

Apparently Leamington LETS is represented at the monthly Repair Café. They have said that I might bring some GRUHI goods and see if anyone will take them off my hands - either the visitors, or maybe the people doing the repairs. That's all very interesting for the future, but the second Leamington Film Festival was about to take place and I needed to sort out the door to my toilet, which is dragging on the threshold and would be in danger of damage at the hands of multiple strangers pulling and pushing at it. So I put out a request via LETS, and who should respond but one of my U3A board game friends?

So he came over and we have improved the state of the door - I wouldn't say it's fixed but it's certainly much better. And he stayed for a cup of tea, and I told him about the Film Festival and sent him the link and he came to two of the films, which was very nice. And when I was out with my U3A walking group I mentioned my new project, and they told me about a company in Warwick that might be interested in dad's stamps - I haven't yet had time to do anything about that yet but it could happen soon.

And there are many charity shops in Leamington, and one of my Buddhist friend volunteers in two different charity shops in Kenilworth, and there's the shop at the tip, so many other ways to take forward my GRUHI initiative. It's now mid-September and I think it would be helpful to have some kind of time-based target for what I might achieve. Difficult to imagine what that might be at the moment - maybe I could go round the house listing everything to get rid of by the end of the year?

Now I am 60

Then I was 8

My significant birthday has been and gone with very little fuss. It was hot, I went for a walk but spent the day mostly at home. The next day I went to visit mum to get some more of the admin done, but first we had to get her to a clinic appointment and then took advantage of the proximity to Lidl to give her the opportunity to do some shopping in person. As dad had acquired lactose intolerance in the last few years, mum has been enjoying the opportunity to indulge in dairy produce again and we came home with three kinds of cheese.

The admin seems to grow each time I look at it. Unfortunately, as I pick up the different strands we seem to uncover conflict each time - in addition to the fight with Thames Water about their overcharging for the period when we had a leak, we're in conflict with an investment company and now possibly also the Burial Society that arranged dad's funeral. Then there's the routine stuff that just comes around every year - household insurance, a new gas and electricity contract, broadband, servicing the stairlift, the Lifeline pendant for communicating in an emergency, and on and on. I am starting to recognise where I need to pass things over where before I imagined I would be doing it all.

After visiting mum I went on to pick up Lola II and Mr M and bring them to Leamington for a few days. Mr M had to work for some of the time, but he joined us for meals. Lola II and I went for a lovely walk with friends, and then an organ concert in the local church with a student organist who looked much too young to be out on his own. Then I had to get home for a couple of phone calls, one of which was with Mr MXF who has kindly passed on one of his old phones but needed to help me to unlock it.

I needed a newer phone because various apps had started telling me that they would no longer run on my old one. The transfer process wasn't too bad except that at one point I lost concentration and all of my past WhatsApp messages disappeared. Luckily this isn't a disaster, in fact it's barely an inconvenience. Given the state of the old phone's screen protector, an early priority is to get similar protection for the new one.

At the weekend, the Art in the Park festival was taking place in town. I'm sure this event has happened for many years, but somehow I've never been - it's huge, and full of all kinds of artistry from photography to an art-producing bicycle via jewellery, spray paint, oil, watercolour, collage and almost everything you can think of. We saw about half of it, and I was going to go back for the second day but had too much to do at home.

One of the reasons for Lola II's visit was to help me get some jobs done that are difficult to start on my own - they just need a bit of encouragement, or go easier with two of us working together. We started with my old iPod, which used to mean more to me than it does now - it has become redundant since Audible discontinued the app that allowed me to download podcasts onto it.* It will eventually go onto ebay but I need a period of 10 days when I'm at home so I can manage bids and postage and that isn't happening until September. While I was grappling with that, Lola II cleaned my windows!

[* Since then I've started using Spotify for both podcasts and books and cancelled my Audible subscription altogether, so who's the loser?]

And finally I had a non-birthday treat which ended up feeling like a birthday treat because sisters and friends came with me for lunch at my favourite Café Soya in Birmingham followed by a performance of the musical 'Hamilton'. It was quite a spectacle, which was lucky because there are a lot of words and it was quite difficult to follow the plot. Some of our party had seen it before and others had done some homework, but I now feel the need to go and listen while reading the lyrics to catch up on the bits I might have missed.

The aftermath

July 2024

The administrative processes around death and burial will be familiar to all who have experienced a loss, so I shouldn't imagine that what we experienced was unique. We made it harder for ourselves by wishing to conduct the funeral as quickly as possible. If we'd agreed a date the following week then I wouldn't have had to get quite so familiar with people at the GP practice, the Register Office, the medical examiner and the coroner's office, and we wouldn't have been at the cemetery 30 minutes before the funeral started still not knowing whether the burial would form part of it. But it worked out fine in the end, even giving us a few opportunities to smile.

Dad was a medical doctor through and through, and although his body could not be donated for medical science because he died at home, he managed to donate his non-Parkinson's brain for research into Parkinson's disease. He was strongly anti-religion, and we reflected this in our choices at the funeral. There were a couple of readings, an 'appreciation' of his life constructed by the remaining four of us and read by Lola II. The coffin went into the grave with another reading, and mum recited the Kaddish prayer for the dead, either because she wished to or for the Jewish people in attendance, I couldn't work out which. Maybe both. Then we went off for tea.

I was away staying with mum for very nearly a week, sometimes with Lola II and Sister D and their husbands there too. On the day after the funeral we'd long been planning to take mum over to Lola II and Mr M's for the day, and there seemed no reason not to go ahead with the plan, and we even persuaded her to stay overnight. Mum reviewed and gave her seal of approval to all changes that had taken place in their house since she was last there, and Lola II arranged to borrow her regular adoptive dog as a treat - for him and for us.

It was good to come back home afterwards, and I tried to recall the effort I'd put into reflection while I was on retreat, and my determination to change my lifestyle, but it all felt a little remote. I'm trying to take the steps I worked out then to make positive and constructive changes, particularly around food, exercise, Internet access and meditation. 

We had planned a day for the Buddhist group team to come together on Sunday at my house, and it couldn't have been a better time to meet. Since then I've done pretty well with my resolutions - there's been no chocolate or snacks, I've enquired at the local leisure centre about what I might do for exercise, I've meditated every day (which absolutely wasn't the case before I went on retreat) and I have set an alarm so I don't spend more than 60 minutes at a time sitting at the computer. Which is one reason why this blog post has taken so long to put together.

I also went to the doctor with my hurty arm, which (as so often happens) started to hurt a lot less as soon as I made the appointment, but I've got some heavy duty anti-inflammatory drugs to take for two weeks anyway, and a self-referral to a physiotherapist. I also joined an online meeting of the Comms team for the Warwick Folk Festival and I'm still pretty confident that they won't try to put me in charge. Then I went back to mum's for a couple more days to continue with the admin, and here we are, two weeks on. Apart from mum not being tied to the house any longer, everything feels very much the same as before.

On stage again

Somewhere in Devon, June 2023

The excitement of the unexpected gig lessened after a week, and it was time for the summer concert for my clarinet and saxophone groups. The clarinet numbers were very depleted this term for some reason, and the performance was decidedly ropey but we got through it; the saxophones were somewhat better although I was partly liable for the poor performance of the difficult piece that I should have practised. 

But my performance at the unexpected gig had clearly been noted because the soul band were lacking a sax player again, and this time for the best gig of the year - the Kenilworth Lions Club's open air event in Abbey Fields. The soul band has been the closing act for the last two years, and there I was on stage again. I enjoyed it more this time, given that I was not quite sight reading and could pay a bit more attention to what everyone else was doing. And there were three people in the audience that I knew, and it went onto Facebook and more people commented.

A little less fun is the fight that I am having with Thames Water on behalf of mum and dad, who experienced a major water leak in the autumn last year. I have reached the end of the line with the normal helpdesk people and it's time to escalate up a level; I have the feeling that it may take some time to reach a satisfactory resolution.

Then I was back at Adhisthana, the retreat centre, for a five-day stint this time because they asked for an extra two days help in the kitchen. Another new cook to work with, a delightful young man who probably had the least tolerant attitude of anyone I've worked with so far to the aversions and allergies and intolerances and craziness of the people on restricted diets. On this retreat one or two people must have thought that we were professionals paid to cater to their whims rather than volunteers struggling to avoid serious illness in the retreatants.

I'm getting more used to living in the women's community, and joined them informally more than usual - I often have 'business' to do in the evenings catching up with emails and other things going on at home so don't tend to sit chatting in the lounge. It was also useful this week to be able to talk at greater length to a couple of the more experienced women about the path towards Buddhist ordination and also about the experience of living communally with all sorts of different women over the years. I'm very attracted to the simplicity of having few possessions and not being responsible for running a house, but the randomness of the other people I'd have to live with is probably more than I could take.

I'm third from the left!

Another busy week

Adhisthana, April 2024

I only managed two days at the retreat centre last week, because on Thursday I joined Lola II and Mr M for Mr MXF's 60th birthday dinner in London. Obviously all my peers are reaching this milestone within the same 12 months, but this is the only event I've signed up for. I'm not all that comfortable with parties, people I don't know well, small talk, and waiting ages before you can start eating because somebody is running late. But Mr MXF is a good egg and I'm glad I went.

A full day competitive cycle ride is due to take place where mum and dad live this week, which is all very exciting but the local roads will be closed and it isn't at all clear how the carers will get to them that day. That was the first job I had to tackle at my last visit to the parents, along with contacting a financial firm, the water company, the electricity and gas supplier, and the next-door neighbour. I also met one of the newest carers while mum went to the hairdresser on her mobility scooter for the first time since hurting her back many months ago.

My volunteering at the retreat centre last week was enlivened by the unexpected appearance of some visitors who turned out to be the original architect of one of the buildings with his wife and a friend. The building won a RIBA award in 1989, long before it was turned into a retreat centre, and he talked about the design and construction in a way that showed he cared a great deal about the project. I was very happy because having to write the monthly blog is quite tricky and this gave me some good material.

All the other parts of the job are stalled, because I received some feedback that the senior team wanted to see things before they are sent out. Not knowing exactly what they wanted to see, I've outlined to them what is lined up but I want some sort of signal that I'm clear to go ahead. Response times from these same senior people can be rather long. And this situation isn't helped by two email messages that I received, one of which came from the email address I'm supposed to be using. I worked out who the sender was for this one, but the other came from the woman who is away. This second message must have been created before she went and scheduled to go out automatically, but I wasn't expecting it and have no idea what else is in store.

I am starting to find the balance in my position between the retreatants who come for a weekend or a week and the community who live there full time. It's a little awkward to be part of neither, but last week I was invited to watch a film with two of the women who live there, so I've started to feel more relaxed.