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.

Meeting in person

View from Bredon Hill, May 2021

Lots going on as usual. In vaccination news, as I suspected, the first wave of vaccinations is complete and the clinic is only opening on a couple of days a week. I managed to work one shift but it wasn't busy, and I had another shift booked but it was cancelled. Managers have been negotiating to keep the clinic open by making it available for public booking, and I think that's going to happen. I am 80% confident that I will be paid at the end of June...

The Commonwealth Games 2022 continues to loom over the residents of my little cul de sac. We had a meeting in the pub garden, and a committee was formed which will liaise with the District Council and the Games Committee to make sure that residents are considered when plans are made and contracts awarded. I still haven't made my official response on the Council website where planning permission is being sought, but I have seen some of the plans and the discussion at the meeting was very illuminating. 

It is anticipated that 2,500 spectators will attend two sessions per day for the nine days of competition. In addition there will be a media and broadcast centre, security, and car parking needing to be allocated for spectators as well as officials, staff and competitors. The current proposal allows for the erection of large spectator stands that will extend over the pavement and into the road and displace about half the residents' parking for up to three months, as well as blocking two of the three entrances to the park.

The main issues are the proposed three months of disruption for the sake of nine days competition, and the fact that residents are not mentioned when it comes to parking allocation. Some people are also concerned that the entrances to the park that will remain open are on the far side and there isn't a safe road crossing. So the committee would like to prioritise remaining parking space for residents by identifying those who particularly need to park close by - people who can't walk too far or perhaps families with small children - and bookable spaces for loading and unloading. I should be fine on account of having a garage.

There has been quite a bit of socialising since restrictions were lifted to allow meeting indoors. I continue to enjoy the company of the Buddhists, and we met in person on a May Bank Holiday weekend for a walk near Evesham. The weather was absolutely perfect, as it has been most of the time since the cold, wet weekend when Lola II and I visited Malvern. The sun also shone on another get together in person to say farewell to one of my badminton tribe, who is moving away. I had both my work leaving parties - low key lunch in the Diabetes Centre with the diabetes team, and pizza with the Dietitians. And Christmas finally arrived with a weekend visiting the friends who were going to host Christmas 2020. Presents were exchanged and Christmas pudding was eaten, only five months late.

And there's more news from the Buddhists. Normally when someone decides to become a Buddhist, as I did a year ago, there is a ceremony. Because we are a small satellite of the Birmingham group, previously this has been celebrated in Birmingham. We are trying hard to establish ourselves as a viable independent group, and one of the ways to do this is to try and hold the ceremony locally rather than in Birmingham.

What with one thing and another, it hasn't been possible to meet for the ceremony - other groups have been doing them online, but we thought we would wait until we could meet in person. This ought to have been straightforward, but while we have been online the church hall where we used to meet is being rented out to a daytime nursery. We want to continue to offer people the option to stay online as well as meeting in person, so we went there to test out the technology. While it was a resounding success in respect of laptop, projector, mobile phones and data plan, the actual environment has changed from a calm, green countryside hall where you can look through the windows at fields with horses or cows, to a busy room full of toys, games, paints, books and cabinets with clutter on every available surface.

So unless the nursery is prepared to clear a lot more space for us, we now need a different venue for the ceremony, and possibly also for our group when it starts meeting in person again. And, depending upon where that is, we need to start considering acquiring the tech that we'll need and trying it out, all before the date we've decided upon in July. Normally I would be happy to manage the whole tech project, but on this particular day I'll be fully occupied with more spiritual matters. The hunt is on for a suitable venue with just a month to go.

p.s. I'm not sure whether to be glad or sorry that the wisteria lives on...

Wisteria: alive! May 2021