The camping season begins

July 2018

Lola II and I have been off for our first joint camping trip of the year. In fact I don't think we have another trip planned together this year, but you never know. We went to Badgell's Wood in Kent, and the heatwave continued, but we survived because the campsite is a forest and all the pitches are in deep shade - it was almost chilly for some of the time. Lola II was a bit disappointed that they weren't allowing any sort of open fires because of the drought and heatwave, but I can take it or leave it when it comes to camp fires.

We shared my tent, partly because I drove and Lola II went by train, but partly because my tent is so good that we heard two boys who passed our pitch in the woods saying "Look at that tent, it's so cool!" It's been a while (decades) since I possessed anything that could be described as cool by a young person. My tent is also so good that Lola II and Mr M have finally bought one just the same.

There were a couple of downsides to the camping situation. The campsite had no drinking water, so we had to buy some - not really a problem. We also discovered only as we were about to leave that the office would have charged our phones for us overnight if we had asked, but instead Lola II covertly plugged hers in whenever we were in an establishment with available sockets. I just spent the last two or three days without any phone except when I could charge it in the car. Nobody ever phones me except Lola II so this wasn't really a problem either. The site was really quiet when we arrived on Wednesday, but a lot of children arrived on Friday night and made a tremendous racket.

After I picked up Lola II from the station we headed off for a fine lunch at a local pub, pitched the tent then went foraging for water, milk and other provisions in West Malling. Frank's restaurant was advertising their Mussel Night the following evening, so being fans of the bivalve we booked a table and it was delicious - Lola II triumphed with her fennel, chorizo and cream sauce (no onion or garlic), although mine was good too.

The mussel feast came at the end of a day when we visited Eltham Palace and gardens, which was built by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld on the site of a 14th or 15th century hall that they also renovated and used for balls and parties. Both the house and hall were opulently and lavishly decorated - the owners were astonishingly, mind-blowingly wealthy. Virginia was a keen ice skater, so her husband built her an ice rink in London. Anything they wanted, they could have - gold plated taps, underfloor heating, sound-proofed bedroom walls, a pet lemur... and then war broke out, and they just couldn't get the staff. They had bought the place in 1933 and moved in three years later, but by 1944 they were tired of getting bombed and headed off to Rhodesia, where presumably there were plenty of workers.

A trip to Sevenoaks another day was underwhelming except for the James Corden lookalike in the watch shop. We tried to get a bit of culture in the Sevenoaks Museum and Art Gallery, but the fire alarm went off after we'd been there for no more than two minutes and we had to evacuate the premises. Maidstone was another matter altogether - a large museum and art gallery which was quite interesting in parts (and no fire alarms), many many shops, a theatre and a river. We even went to a show, which stopped us spending much time near the river. It was an amateur local company performing 'In The Heights' and it was pretty good but stiflingly hot.

Lola II has taken up crochet in a big way. By this, I mean that she is obsessed with it, and seems to have several projects on the go at the same time. To my certain knowledge she has made a cushion cover for Mr M, I received a unique (translation: slightly non-rectangular) tea towel and also a dish scrubber, and she has made at least one scarf and probably some more things too. What this means is that each morning I was able to sit and read a book quietly for at least an hour while she crocheted, which I'm pretty sure hasn't happened on any of our camping trips before.

Lola II had ordained that I would be in charge of ridding the tent of anything with more than two legs, which duty I fulfilled despite my own squeamishness. We tried to play a game one evening in the dark lit by one head torch and two wind-up lanterns which had to be regularly wound during the course of the game. It required sets of cards to be laid out flat, which was pretty precarious without a table as we had to balance everything on our duvet-covered laps while vigorously winding up the lights. The most interesting moment came when an eight-legged guest made its presence felt at a crucial moment mid-game.

LOLA II: "Aaaargh! Get it! Get it!"

LOLA I (trying to trap spider in paper towel without scattering game cards throughout the tent): "Missed it!"

LOLA II: "There it is! Squish it! Squish it!"

LOLA I: "I can't! I'm a Buddhist!" (not true but I really don't like squishing creatures)

LOLA II: "I'm not a Buddhist! Squish it for me!"

The spider escaped, but was evicted along with its mates next day when I could approach the situation unencumbered by wind-up lanterns, game cards and duvets.

Camp cooking included a cracking onion-free spiced chickpea concoction with watercress in pitta bread, mozzarella with pesto and tomato in pitta bread, and pasta with mushrooms and truffle pesto. Snacks included wasabi peas, strawberries and cherries, anchovy-stuffed olives and a can of gin and tonic. On the last day we thought about going to Chatham dockyard but in the end, after striking camp, we went to a local Country Park for a late breakfast, walked around for a while, ate some cake and went home. It was a very hot holiday, but a good one.

Things done and not done

Adhisthana, June 2018

Things done

I went to a festival in Leicestershire. It was very hot - this made it difficult to get enough sleep because the tent was uninhabitable when the sun came out, but was a distinct advantage when all the music and dancing is in the open air. The dress code extended from total nudity to someone I saw who appeared to be wearing a Victorian ball gown complete with parasol. Trends included thongs, nipple rings, skin-tight leggings for men, and lots and lots and LOTS of glitter. I danced for three days and came home exhausted and filthy but happy.

Then I went to London for a work visit with four colleagues to a hospital which is a centre of excellence for its diabetes service, led by a very dynamic and charismatic doctor. It is also where my previous Room Share Buddy and Really Supportive Bloke now works (he was introduced to the blog here), and he came over to say hello before going off to deliver a course elsewhere. I miss him - he is an excellent chap as well as being good to work with. They have 800 patients on insulin pumps compared with our 125, and a further 170 on Continuous Glucose Monitors compared with our 2. They are ahead of us in so many more ways, but that after all was the purpose of the visit, and maybe soon we can do more of what they are doing.

The weight loss program continues successfully, BMI now 23.9 kg/m², but a week off work and two jolly trips coming up next week may slow progress a little.

Things not done

• I am still a loyal customer of the local launderette
• I haven't replaced the tablet that I broke in frustration at its slowness and inability to connect to my wifi extender
• Lola II's dress has been started but is now languishing on a shelf
• The stuff for the car boot is still cluttering up the hall
• The new TV and old DVD player have not been themselves since the lightning strike, although the way that they have been failing takes a variety of forms. I have spent more than two hours altogether on the phone to the support team on three occasions so far, and each time the immediate problems were fixed, but only temporarily. Resolving this issue is going to require some considerable effort.
• Tax return. Again. Every year.

What I've been doing instead of filling in my tax return

What I've been reading

Change Your Mind: a practical guide to Buddhist meditation
by Paramananda

"With key reminders on the importance of our body and suggestions on working with it in meditation, he also considers the distractions, and how to set up and maintain a regular meditation practice."

These Buddhist books are tricksy creatures. The first time through they are a bit like that book about Richard III, because I don't have the baseline information to build upon and make sense of it all. If I leave them for a bit, I find that I've gained a bit more knowledge about Buddhism and sometimes another piece of the jigsaw clicks into place. This is one of those books, and I've got just enough baseline knowledge for it to be occasionally helpful. I'll put it away now and come back to it in a year's time, and I'm sure it will make even more sense.

Faro's Daughter
by Georgette Heyer

narrated by Laura Paton

"Fiery, strong-willed Deb Grantham, who presides over a gaming house with her aunt, is hardly the perfect wife for the young and naive Lord Mablethorpe. His lordship's family is scandalized that he proposes to marry one of "faro's daughters", and his cousin the proud, wealthy Max Ravenscar - decides to take the matter in hand."

This must be my guilty pleasure, for I'm sure Georgette Heyer is not a sophisticated author. But Regency chick lit is so much nicer than 21st century chick lit - no embarrassing descriptions of snogging or bedroom activity, a kiss on the hand is more than enough thank you very much. It also stops just a whisker short of the type of farce exemplified by The Men From The Ministry, where if there are two letters to be sent you can be sure they will go in the wrong envelopes, which becomes quite wearing on the twentieth repetition. But I do love Georgette's characters, especially her females, even though the 180 degree shift in virtually the last paragraph is a tad unrealistic.

Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories
by R. K. Narayan

"An enchanting collection from India's foremost storyteller, rich in wry, warmly observed characters from every walk of Indian life - merchants, beggars, herdsmen, rogues - all of whose lives are microcosms of the human experience."

Very interesting stories set in a different place and a different time and written in occasionally unfamiliar English. It all makes for a confusing and sometimes upsetting experience, laced with beauty and poignancy. The subjects of the stories are often put upon, bullied or simply poor and unfortunate - there are few stories of joy or redemption in this lot, or if there are, I can't bring them to mind now that I've finished. So it can't say I really enjoyed the stories, but somehow I still did.

The Blessing
by Nancy Mitford

"It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping."

I wasn't particularly interested in the story, but I do love her writing. She has a particular knack for endings, which I noticed in her other books - the story just keeps going when there are so few pages left that it seems impossible to understand how she will tie up the ends, and then she just finishes and it's fine.

The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver

narrated by Dean Robertson

"The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil."

I enjoyed this book from the start, but not quite to the end. It's a book of two halves, the first about the lives of the family as they live in the jungle village, and the second about what happens to each of them afterwards. If the book had ended at the midpoint, or perhaps told the future direction of each character much more briefly it would have been fine. The second half wasn't terrible, it just wasn't as good as the first half. But the first half was excellent.

Wild Awake: Alone, Offline & Aware in Nature
by Vajragupta

"What is it like to be completely alone, attempting to face your experience with only nature for company? Here the author recounts how 'solitary retreats' have changed him, how he fell in love with the places he stayed in and the creatures there."

I was keen on the idea of the solitary holiday before getting involved with the Buddhists, who make a point of encouraging the solitary retreat. It's not for everyone, but I like being on my own, and this book describes the practice beyond what I've ever done before. I've previously rented an apartment in a town, and spent my time making clothes, visiting local attractions, watching films, reading and eating out. The type of solitary retreat described in the book is far away from towns and includes thinking, reflecting, meditating, walking, reading, writing, and doing much less in the way of organised activities. I may give it a try some time, but my leave from work is nearly all committed for the next 12 months already.