Burned

Villanueva, Spain, October 2016

It has been a hot, hot time and I have been suffering. Not just because I don't function very well in the heat, but because I was stupid enough to scald the back of my hand by pouring hot water onto it. I then compounded this stupidity with more stupidity by persuading the very helpful and obliging nurse in the Minor Injuries unit at work, who cleaned and dressed it on Friday morning, that it was OK for me not to come back until Monday, which turned out to be a Bad Idea. After that, I have followed their nursing advice to the letter. Except that I actually haven't because I'm not wearing the sling to keep my hand raised - how could I type? or drive?

In between typing and driving I am most definitely keeping the hand raised, because it jolly well hurts if I don't. And taking the antibiotics that have lessened the pain and angry redness and swelling that built up over the weekend of spending two days at the Leamington Peace Festival, in the searing heat. I also lost my best hat on Saturday, and wearing my second best hat on Sunday compelled me to buy a new best hat, which is not as good as my previous one, but will do for now.

The Peace Festival was good, and displayed Leamington at its finest in the scorching weather. I invited TaiChiY (my second cousin from London) to come and see the town and its festival - she could only come on Saturday, so I invited the Buddhists to join me on Sunday. I assembled just five Buddhists altogether, but two of them were kind enough to help move my household furniture as well as sitting around in the sun listening to some of the bands. On Saturday, given that TaiChiY is probably keener on Tai Chi than I am on badminton (imagine that!), I joined a Tai Chi workshop with a flustered little man who taught a small group of festival-goers a series of moves. It was surprisingly pleasant.

There is little else going on at the moment. The large shrubs in the garden have finished flowering and it's time to cut them down again, and the lawn needs mowing as always, and the upstairs sink needs unblocking, and there are more of my belongings to shift from one room to another. I'm getting rid of quite a lot of stuff in the process, but also finding interesting artifacts that I had forgotten about - a pack of letters saved from the early 1990's, for example. If there's anything interesting in there, it might find its way into a future post.