Munich and Dachau

Munich, December 2018

I worked on Christmas Eve, and then went north to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day with friends, and back to work today. I'm a bit behind in relating what's been going on in the lead up to Christmas, but a week or two ago I went to Munich and visited the Christmas Market there with the same friends who went to Dusseldorf with me a year ago. Another friend who lives there was singing in a Christmas concert in a church, so we went to that too. The weather wasn't great - rainy and cold - but we enjoyed the food and drink, including the classic Bavarian specialities of sausage and cabbage. We also tasted Flammlachs, which was salmon hot smoked before our eyes, and which flavoured our clothing with fishy smoke for the rest of the trip.

Gatehouse, Dachau, December 2018

I had a day on my own in which I went to Dachau, the site of the concentration camp. The trains were in a mess after a strike that morning so I didn't get there very early, and the site closed before I'd seen everything. It felt similar to my previous trip to Auschwitz - sanitised, sterile, recounting atrocities but without giving me any emotional connection. But I was feeling chilly wrapped up in my fleece, coat, scarf and hat in a heated building - I can't really imagine what it must have been like in thin clothes in the open air at this time of year.

At work the main activity of note has been the delivery of another of our Carbs 4 1 courses to a group of people who were probably the most unruly of any I've ever had to manage. We coped somehow, but they didn't make it easy for us. To restore my faith, however, one of my patients last week unexpectedly gave me a bottle of wine for Christmas, which was lovely. So let's end on that note rather than the sombre thought of historical atrocities or the clusterfuck of our modern day political situation. Happy Christmas!

Parcelforce

Parcelforce national sorting lines, December 2018

You may remember that a year or more ago I was selling dad's collection of post office-related ephemera. There's still a single box of it left, looking dolefully at me in my office whenever I allow it to enter my conscious field of vision. Most of the time, thankfully, it remains invisible.

Anyway, I received a significant amount of help in the valuation and auctioning from Jeremy, the Secretary of the Postal Mechanisation Study Circle - a group that really does what its title suggests. I had no idea how much interest there is in postal mechanisation until coming into contact with these chaps, although without parcels I can foresee the demise of the group as I can't imagine anyone from the email generation having the slightest interest in the idea of paper being sent physically from one place to another just for the purpose of communicating.

Mum receives the PMSC newsletter (ironically by email) and forwarded me an issue that mentioned a proposed visit to the Parcelforce site in Coventry, which is on my route to and from work. Knowing that the visit would only go ahead if enough interest was shown, I threw my hat in the ring to support the group and try to ensure that it would take place. And because I like going to interesting places, and this certainly looked interesting.

International sorting lines

There were only four of us in the end, so it was a good thing I volunteered. Our hosts had worked as engineers within Parcelforce for decades and were so enthusiastic that they had been the ones to reach out and contact the PMSC, not the other way round. We were given a brief Powerpoint presentation with the history of and introduction to the service and the site - the largest in the country, handling both national and international mail. Although Coventry airport is on the other side of the fence around the site it is no longer used for international parcel distribution, which is taken by road to and from other airports around the country.

We were all kitted out in steel toecapped boots and reflective jackets before going out to the buildings housing the sorting machinery. While the building and the conveyors for the national parcel mail were huge and impressive, the international depot was much more interesting. Both sites use really fast raised conveyors passing through an arch which reads the routing barcode on five out of the six sides of the box, and tips the parcel automatically down the correct chute for its destination.

The other PMSC visitors asked esoteric questions about the machinery and the software and the routing barcodes and labels, while I asked what happens when the machines break down, and what sort of contraband they discover. One of the people showing us round told the story of how much of the machine was destroyed when a parcel was misplaced, and how quickly it had to be repaired and replaced to avoid holding up the mail. He also had a picture on his phone of all the guns which had been discovered in international mail in one week - they filled a large table.

So an interesting trip to a place that I wouldn't have imagined visiting ordinarily, all thanks to dad's interest in Postal Mechanisation. Now I have to deal with that last box...

Not yet Christmas

Adhisthana, June 2018

Lots going on as usual. Here's a rundown of recent activity, not including trips to Parcelforce in Coventry and Christmas markets in Munich. Those will have to wait for another time.

LTRP

The new television is up and working! I had to phone a friend to help me lift it onto the table, and after I'd connected it all up it didn't seem to want to find the Internet or the sound bar. So, ostrich-like, I left it alone to see if it cured itself. I did have a look at the manual and fixed the sound bar by changing where the cables plug in, and miraculously it found the Internet without any further intervention, so all is well at the moment. Let's hope it stays that way.

So with that little project completed I have visited a carpet supplier of national repute and a local shop to have a little look at my auditorium carpet options. I just want a plain dark grey carpet, which I thought would limit the choices a bit, but even so there were seventeen different carpet options in the big shop which seem to be suitable, and no obvious way to choose between them. There is a free sample service so I asked for four samples to be sent, and we'll see how I get on. The local shop suggested just one option, which seems just as unsatisfactory.

Work

I went to an evening meeting about Pancreatic Exocrine Insufficiency, which wasn't very useful but there was a nice dinner and I sat next to a very chatty doctor. Diabetes is a disorder of the pancreatic endocrine system (insulin is an endocrine hormone), but the pancreas also produces enzymes as part of its exocrine activity. These are primarily lipase, amylase and protease to digest fat, starch and protein, and it seems that this function often fails in people with diabetes. Essentially the treatment of PEI is Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy, i.e. swallowing large capsules of enzymes along with meals and snacks so that they replace the enzymes that the pancreas is no longer producing. The main lecture was about symptoms and diagnosis rather than management, so I now know how prevalent it is in people with diabetes, but no more about what to do about it.

My Team Leader was also there, and she brought me up to speed on what is going on with the DESMOND Type 2 education programme in our region. I mentioned previously that the Clinical Commissioning Group is getting very 'hands-on' with DESMOND, and it seems that courses have a very poor attendance rate and keep getting cancelled in the main area covered by the NHS Trust I work for. Apparently the Trust's Clinical Director for Diabetes (who is also Clinical Director for another couple of specialities) had a very uncomfortable meeting with people from the CCG. I don't have a great deal of time for our Clinical Director because he seems to show no interest whatsoever in directing clinicians, clinics or anything else that is clinical, so this was a very interesting move on the part of the CCG. I don't know whether anything will come of it, but it's testament to my new Team Leader's dogged persistence that this meeting even came about.

Talking of the CCG and education: I had to attend one of the CCG's regular meetings about education for people with diabetes in order to present the results of my evaluation of our short Carbs and Insulin course, which we're calling CANDI (see what we did there?) This was one of the last times I had an idea at work before I became determined to have no more ideas, and it has resulted in a lot of work for me but not much progress. The results show that the people who attended got a lot out of it subjectively, but objective measures don't show much improvement. I then compared the objective measures of CANDI with those from a similar population who attended the longer 4-day carb counting course, and those were no better. What happens next is anyone's guess, but now that we have our tenacious Team Leader I suppose she will have to decide, so I've put it on the agenda for our next team meeting. Which is the day after Boxing Day when I will have even less than my usual motivation to talk about matters at work.

Badminton

Matches and club nights continue twice a week, My duties as Social Secretary led me to try and arrange a 'Not Christmas Social' in November so that we wouldn't get caught up in all the pre-Christmas shenanigans. I offered various dates so we could include the maximum number of people, and Friday 30th November was chosen. Unfortunately in the chosen venue, this night was already designated as a pre-Christmas shenanigan, so the event became the 'Not Not Christmas Social' and fourteen people came along and enjoyed themselves at a local pub. I had the best vegetarian option I think I've ever had in a pub (a pie with mash and veg).

and the rest

I can't remember exactly how it came about, but Lola II was interviewed for a project focussing on views and opinions and thoughts on childlessness from people who have consciously chosen not to have children. She passed the contact on to me, and this week I was also interviewed. It was very interesting and I'm still mulling over some of the things we discussed.

I went to see mum and dad and this time mum had a great job for me to do. Often the jobs I am called upon to perform involve either the computer or a ladder (there were jobs of those varieties on this visit too), but this time it was all about the sewing machine. As well as using the zigzag option to sew hems in shortened sleeves, we took down the kitchen blinds and shortened them by about a foot, cutting off the dirtiest part and revealing fresh fabric. It all went very well and they look great and it felt like we had really achieved something.

There have obviously been other activities at home and at work, but having ended the weight management effort my weight has obviously gone up by a kilogram. I knew it would because I haven't been feeling hungry lately and there have been celebratory meals and food provided during work events (which always leads me to overeat). Now what shall I do?

Retreat

Adhisthana, June 2018

I've been on another Buddhist weekend retreat at the same venue as before: Adhisthana in Herefordshire. There were more of us in the group this time, mainly because the weekend was promoted more widely. It started on Friday evening with supper followed by a gathering and ceremony, on Saturday morning after meditation and breakfast the group got together and then split into two for discussions, lunch, a walk, more meditation, dinner and another ceremony. On Sunday after meditation and breakfast we finished our discussion, had lunch, cleaned up and departed.

This time I ducked out of the ceremonies. The routine is that some passages are recited in Pali and in English, people are invited to make an offering at the shrine (a candle, incense, a flower) and matras are chanted. It doesn't suit me at all - I don't like the recitation or the mantras and I'm not going to make an offering. Last time I thought I'd just observe, but I sat there feeling a bit resentful, so this time I just avoided those bits of the programme.

It is an interesting time within the Triratna Buddhist movement. The movement used to be called the Western Buddhist Order, and was founded just over 50 years ago by an English man who was inspired by Eastern culture, religion and traditions, spent some considerable time learning about Buddhism, mostly in India, then brought his ideas back to the UK. He intended the WBO to provide a westernised version of the Eastern traditions and philosophies of Buddhism, so for example the Order does not discriminate between sexes and did away with the monastic tradition and the hierarchy of seniority. You could decide to become a Friend of the Western Buddhist Order, or if you felt enough commitment you could be ordained and be given a Sanskrit name, but you still live and operate in the world as you did before, albeit according to the ethical principles suggested by the Order.

The founder and leader of the movement was given the name Sangharakshita when he spent some time as a monk in India. He lived at Adhisthana ever since it was acquired as Triratna's headquarters a few years ago, and was buried there just over a month ago when he died at the age of 93. He wrote and published prolifically: poetry as well as learned and philosophical works on the subject of Buddhism, and many of his lectures and talks are recorded and available online. He was clearly a charismatic, visionary and pragmatic leader, and in only 50 years built a sustainable movement that seems robust enough to survive even now that he is gone. Quite an achievement, although some serious mistakes were made in the early days that are still causing a good deal of trouble today.

So visiting the Headquarters of the Order so soon after the death and burial of its founder and leader was interesting. While the end of his life was not unexpected, and leadership arrangements have been in place for some time, it still feels like a turning point - a 'weighty event' as one person put it. One of the leaders of our retreat was part of Sangharakshita's household for many years, and was happy to share his stories of coming into contact with and joining the movement in the early 1980s and his continuing participation up to the present day.

So where do I stand on Buddhism from a personal viewpoint? I went to the introductory course about 2½ years ago, and have carried on attending on Tuesday nights since then (whenever badminton hasn't interfered). We start with meditation, then a tea break, then a discussion on some aspect of Buddhism, which may be utterly esoteric or entirely practical. I sometimes meditate at home and usually enjoy it, and the meetings have prompted me to make some other practical changes to how I live and relate to other people. The group is planning to run another introductory course in January, and I have volunteered to host meetings at my house for those who don't want to attend the course.

There were a couple of reasons why I starting thinking about Buddhism 2½ years ago. With Mr A out of the picture I was determined to expand my social contacts, but going to the pub after badminton really didn't suit me, and the badminton social events that I organise are not very stimulating intellectually. I joined the music group and the Meetup walking group as well as Triratna, but the Meetup walks are no longer taking place and while I love playing in the music group the social contact hasn't extended beyond one afternoon a month. I was considering trying either the Buddhists or the Quakers, but went to the Buddhists because I have a longstanding friend who became a Triratna Order Member about 20 years ago, and I always puzzled over why he did it and what he gets out of it. He recommended the local group as one of a number of options.

To be honest, the social contact with the Buddhists has also been pretty limited: two hours weekly, of which most of one hour is silent meditation. But the discussions in the other hour have been worthwhile, and I feel much more comfortable with the whole ethos and philosophy of Buddhism than I did with Judaism, given that I don't believe there is a God. There are a few of us now who would like to work a bit harder at growing the group and doing a bit more than just holding the weekly meeting. I am finding the retreats to be an opportunity to relax and take some time out alongside like-minded people, and shed some of the cynicism and dissatisfaction with the terrible state of world politics at the moment. The effect wears off pretty quickly as soon as I get back into work, though.