Annoyed

Munich Botanical Gardens, December 2019

When I'm about to moan about some aspect of my life, there's always a voice in my head reminding me that it could be so much worse. Of course it could, but still, I'm allowed to get annoyed about stuff. Even if the annoyances are very definitely in the 'First World Problems' category.

My colleagues at work are still very annoying. My wet room still lacks a fully working shower, a screen, a fan that comes on together with the light, and I have a whole lot of other water-related problems. A surfeit of food - that shouldn't be annoying of course, but I almost ran out of fridge/freezer space.

The food surfeit started with something that was entirely my own fault - I mentioned a while ago that I bought some groceries for mum and dad and forgot to take them when I visited. What contributed to this situation was that before Christmas I ordered some delicious vegan ready meals which come in 12 different varieties in a large box. Normally they deliver next day, but I asked for a date in January, which passed without any delivery. When I queried this on Monday they were quick to make amends and announced that I would receive my box on Tuesday. I responded very quickly to ask for it to be delayed until Wednesday because I wouldn't be at home on Tuesday, and was told that this change had been done.

Despite this, the box was left on my doorstep on Tuesday morning, and by the time I got home it was gone. The company was quick to arrange another delivery which came early next morning - and then my neighbour turned up at the door, with my box from the previous day which he had rescued from the doorstep. So I have had to find fridge/freezer space for 24 delicious vegan ready meals, which is no hardship really as they are very tasty.

The wet room situation continues. I find it quite difficult to go through the process of finding someone suitable, arranging for them to visit then deciding what to do when they do or don't respond with a quote. Olf recommended a reliable plumber, and I also had a visit from the company who service my boiler. It's a tricky situation for anyone to come in and finish a job started by someone else, especially now that most of the problems are not about plumbing - the light switch, the ceiling, the drains, water penetration through the wall. I had a chat with Olf as well, but he is shielding at the moment, and retiring soon.

The shower itself has been faulty all along, and I found a guarantee card and phoned the manufacturer. We have arranged for someone to come out and have a look, but if it is a fault due to installation, which it probably is, then there will be a fee. They will fix it at no charge only if it is a manufacturing fault. But since I owe Flf a good deal more than the call out fee I don't think I can lose. I've set a date for the call out that's a little way off, so if Olf's mate fixes it first I can cancel.

In between all these annoyances I spent some time on Zoom with Mr MXF, who shoved so much more stuff into my brain that I couldn't cope. We have started to record our Zoom sessions so that I can go back and replay them in short sections, which makes it easier to take everything on board. It's quite interesting and I like a challenge, but I had to take the rest of the day off.

And the most annoying thing - the pandemic. Or maybe it's Brexit. Or the state of affairs in the USA. Or the cold weather, or the rain. Almost nothing in the world is how I would like it to be, and it makes me sad. While I am cosy in my house (despite all my wet room woes) and have enough to eat and enough money to live on and no sign of plague, I am missing the life I used to lead, with badminton, and restaurants, and holidays, and festivals, and visiting people, and weekends away with Lola II and Mr M, and friends that I could hug. Not that I wanted to hug them back then before all this started, but I could have, and not being allowed to is annoying.

Several types of progress

Brompton Cemetery, September 2019

Lockdown is ending, and my drive to work twice a week is clogged again with other traffic going about its business once more. More shops are open although I have no desire whatever to go inside them, nor will I bother with pubs, restaurants, theatres and cinemas. The easing on restriction about meeting other people in real life is quite exciting, so I went for a walk with a friend on the hottest day of the year so far. And camping is about to be possible again...

The main bonus of fewer restrictions has been my ability to get started on the LTRP again. Ilf finished painting the front of the house, garage door and gate - I decided not to bother repainting the other sides of the house, which meant we managed to use up the last of the specially mixed paint from 10 years ago without having to buy more. I've had a couple of plumbers in to have a look at turning the shower room into a wet room and solve some of the associated drainage issues, so I hope that will go ahead soon. My gardener returned, and I even managed to find someone to have a look at the damp at the base of the pub wall. The garden is still as wild as ever, but with fewer weeds, especially in the paving. I took the bags of excess greenery to the tip, which now requires online booking for a time slot. All went smoothly.

There have been all sorts of attractive offers in the last three months for your 'heroes' of the NHS. I feel a little guilty given that I have done none of the heroic jobs; all that's happened is that all our consultations are being done over the phone, which is difficult but by no means heroic. Yet I have succumbed to the lure of 10% off shopping in Morrisons with an NHS ID card, and another offer of £10 off a box of 12 different vegan pot meals from The Soulful Food Company for anyone with an NHS email address.

I've had indifferent experiences with various 'meals in a pot' before, but these ones looked so good on the website that I thought I'd have a go. Because there are 12 different types I decided to note down any that I particularly liked in case I wanted to buy them again. The first was delicious! I decided to give it the full five stars. The next was just as good - also five stars. By the time I'd had six of the meals I'd had to introduce a sixth star, and so far only one has fallen short and even that one was still delicious. I'll be buying them again, even without the £10 discount.

I had a bit of a blip with the weight loss plan when a friend came round and we each got a takeaway wrap from my favourite brunch spot in Leamington. It was delicious, and just proves that without the lockdown I would never have achieved my current status of 4.6kg (10lb) lighter. I'm back on track again, and finding it much easier to plan meals than I did at the start. It's still a pretty restrictive diet though, and I don't see any way round that. But I can fit into clothes that have lurked in the back of the wardrobe for six years.

Spanish holiday part 3: San Sebastian

San Sebastian, September 2018 (photo by Mr M)

So we arrived at our apartment in San Sebastian after descending from Monte Igueldo by funicular and then taking a bus across town. The International Film Festival that provided the motive for the holiday was in full swing, with red carpets and crowd barriers galore. Our apartment was out of town at the end of Zurriola surfing beach, and it was comfortable, despite having windows in only two rooms with a view of a cement wall. That evening we dined on pintxos at three different establishments, in the Spanish fashion.

We established an interesting dietary regime of three meals: Brunch, Cake, and Supper. J put up some resistance to this routine, saying he didn't usually eat much for breakfast and wasn't really a cake person, but by the end of our stay we caught him perusing the patisserie counter in a fashion very reminiscent of any Lola.

We had booked four films for our three-day stay, and I think they were good choices. Two were on the culinary theme - the first was translated as 'A God in Every Lentil' but contained no discernible gods or lentils. It was Spanish and broadly about a chef who went home to his family to help in their restaurant, but the film started very strangely with a sequence that appeared to show the death and burial of a baby, which was never referred to again. The thought of lentils inspired us, however, and the next evening in our apartment we cooked up a wonderful home made lentil and chorizo stew (the rest of the time we simply ate pintxos and cake). The other culinary film was a documentary about female chefs in the US, Canada, France and the UK. I decided that I really wouldn't want to eat a meal where the food had been placed on the plate with tweezers, no matter how good it tasted.

The other two films were more conventional fiction - a Norwegian one called 'Blind Spot' which was filmed as if in one continuous take, always from the point of view of one of the protagonists. So if one person had a ten minute car journey (and they did, twice), you spent ten minutes with them in the car. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. The highlight of our festival, however, was a Lebanese film called 'Capernaum', at which we were also invited to cast a vote between 1 and 10 towards the 'audience choice' award at the festival. The film scored a resounding 10 from all of us - it dramatised the life of a child trying to survive among illegal immigrants without papers. The only criticism I had was that it did so by proposing that the child was suing his parents for bringing him into the world, which seemed to strike a false note within what was otherwise a tremendous film.

When not watching films we were tourists. We took a boat trip out to an island, we climbed the hill to the statue of Jesus overlooking the city and visited the museum up there, we walked along the sea front and watched the surf and the surfers and we had a look inside the cathedral. We popped paracetamol against the lurgy and dosed ourselves with regular cake and cafe descafeinado. We became obsessed with a sign on the beach that we could not interpret among the signs prohibiting various anti-social activities. [Lola II tried to follow this up with the authorities, although if it turns out to be prohibiting something that we were guilty of, I hope that we will not be saddled with any consequences. She tells me that the trail has grown cold - they have not responded.]

On the whole, we didn't interact with many strangers, whether natives or other tourists. A notable exception was one evening when at a pintxos bar we made friends with a couple from Australia at the next table. They were on a European tour culminating in a 100-year memorial of a particular battle in France in World War One during which an ancestor had been killed. Our conversation was interrupted frequently by waiters and food service, but our friendship was sealed by the foie gras pintxos (referred to by our Australian lady friend as 'foy') which was the single best item of food I ate during the week, among many great food items within a great holiday.

Spanish holiday part 2: Pilgrimage

Camino del Norte, September 2018

Deba was the starting point of our actual pilgrimage to San Sebastian along the Camino del Norte. It was a little tricky finding the path to get started, and we were concerned for our onward progress when almost immediately we met a long-haired Jesus lookalike complete with wooden staff who stopped to talk to us at length. We imagined spending most of the route fending off other pilgrims going in the 'right' direction - we were going the 'wrong' way - but in fact he was the only devotee of the true path that we encountered.

A jolly party of Germans formed an arch of walking poles for us to walk through at one point, and there was the French couple who were walking the whole route and onwards home to France and had started about three weeks previously, and then there were the Americans who had rented bikes which they must have had to carry most of the way - hardly any of the path was in a fit state for cycling. Non-human encounters included the cat with a studded collar who complained loudly when we didn't wait for it, and the quizzical cow that I featured in a previous blog post.

We spent three days walking, and they were hard days, particularly the first when it drizzled just enough to make the steep muddy slopes too slippery to climb or descend easily - one such slope provided a rope to hang on to that helped us down. Thanks to J's satellite navigation and sports app, we know that we covered 14.5km including 728m ascent that day. By early afternoon we reached one of the significant geological sites on the route: a beach containing an exposed rock formation known as Flysch. We climbed about and took photos for a bit, but time was pressing and by the time we reached Zumaia we were definitely tired. Unfortunately our accommodation in a 'bungalow' on a campsite was a little way out of town and a long way uphill, but we were consoled by the thought that there would be a cafe on site.

There was a cafe on site, but it was closed. Never mind, they offered to supply us with pizza! And we could buy beer and snacks in the shop! After a lengthy introduction to the site Rules, which strongly emphasised their ecological credentials to the point that they were not going to give us a towel each (think of the damage we might do to the planet with a towel if we were not forced to share), we trudged even further uphill to the 'boongalo'. It was small with two rooms we'd already agreed to share, but to get hot water in the shower required the sink tap to be turned on at the same time and even then it wasn't very reliable. Mr M started to feel very ill at that point, and he generously allowed us to share his streaming nose, sneeze and cough for the rest of the holiday as one by one we succumbed.

Lola II was dispatched to collect the pizzas at the appointed time, and she returned with only three instead of the four we had ordered. She had watched as the four sad, frozen pizzas were put in the oven, and watched again as three had been transferred to the boxes and the fourth slowly slid onto the floor (a replacement was delivered to the door some time later). This was definitely not the best meal of the holiday, but we were tired and hungry (and in Mr M's case, ill) and we retired early.

The next day we were booked for lunch in a fancy fish restaurant in Getaria. The seaside town was rather lovely and had an interesting church, and were it not for the need to make progress I would have liked to spend more time there. The fish was good too. Our next stop was at a cafe on the sea front in Zarautz, and we made good time to arrive at our overnight stop in Orio, looking forward to anything but pizza. The booking had been changed at short notice to a pension on the edge of town which turned out to be lovely, and very luxurious compared with the boongalo. It wasn't as difficult a day as the first - further in distance (18.2km) but much less ascent and descent. We got ourselves clean and tidy and set out to find provisions for the evening.

For some reason, there were no cafes or restaurants open in the whole of Orio on that Tuesday night, and we looked quite hard. Eventually we decided to stage a picnic and bought bread and cheese and meat and olives and fruit and cakes, and prepared to take them back to our room - but the cheese was in a large, hard lump, and due to having brought cabin luggage only on the flight over we had nothing that would serve as a knife. Luckily we had struck up a conversation with the server in the bakery, so we went back there and they kindly lent us a knife to cut up the cheese.

The third day of walking was the shortest (13.35km) but still with significant climbs. We indulged Mr M by agreeing on a detour that would take us to Monte Igueldo for our first sight of the beautiful bay of San Sebastian. Monte Igueldo is the location of San Sebastian's 'amusement park', and thus charged a fee for us to go in even though none of the rides was open. I have never seen a sadder amusement park, except perhaps in Scooby Doo cartoons. The view of the bay and the ice cream we ate there were both very lovely though. We had arrived! Now for the Film Festival...

Photo credits: all except the top one were taken by Mr M.

Spanish holiday part 1: Bilbao

Bilbao balconies, September 2018

At last I've found a minute or two to write something about our holiday in Spain. It was a lovely holiday, and if I'd knuckled down to write straight away I'm sure my account would reflect the vivid colour and atmosphere of the week away. Now that we've all been back for a month it feels as distant as any historical event.

There was Lola II, Mr M, and J from family JJL&J. Another J from that family spent the evening with us at Lola II and Mr M's house the night before we left, but she went home rather than to the airport the following morning. The flight was as uneventful as all the best flights are. We hopped on a bus to Bilbao at the other end, and Mr M led us to the door of the apartment where we waited for the owner to come and let us in. It was located right in the thick of things in the old town, surrounded by shops and bars and cafes. J and I each had a room overlooking the street; Lola II and Mr M had a room further inside the apartment. These details became significant later on.

Because it was lunchtime, the first place we went was the produce market. Half the floor area contained cafes selling all manner of pintxos - delectable mouthfuls of flavourful combinations of meat, cheese, fish, pickles, veg and salad. Although we didn't know it at the time, this was the most delicious meal of the entire holiday - not that other meals weren't good, but this was particularly fine.

It had become clear by this time that Mr M was in need of head protection, so after he'd invested €4 in a fashionable hat we wandered along the river as far as the Guggenheim museum. Saving that treat for the following day, we took advantage of a funicular railway to go up to a viewpoint with magnificent views of the city as well as a bit of sculpture, and stopped at a cafe for refreshment. Later we picked out a restaurant near our apartment that served local Basque cuisine. It tasted fine, but in my opinion both the Basque restaurants we tried could do with offering more vegetable accompaniment (although I suspect that Mr M was perfectly happy with the veg quota).

That Saturday night was memorable. It would have been nice to keep my window open, but below in the street the crowds eating and drinking in the bars and cafes were having too much fun. It would have been nice to keep the window closed, but it was very hot. I settled on keeping it open in the knowledge that the bars would close eventually, which they did, and I managed to doze off... until the stragglers came through, shouting drunkenly and kicking cans and breaking bottles as late night drinkers tend to do. Then came the street cleaners, merrily calling to one another as they dropped cans and bottles on top of other cans and bottles in their bins. Last were the street cleaning lorries, making more noise than all of the rest put together.

Lola II and Mr M woke refreshed from their unbroken night's sleep, wondering why J and I were sleeping so late. I did manage to get a few hours' sleep, and we let J sleep on until he emerged at about 11 o'clock (unused to waking so late he'd looked at his watch upside down and become very confused).

After breakfast we headed off to the Guggenheim museum where we spent the rest of the day. We all found something interesting to look at. I am not very good at Art, but my favourite item was in the very last room we saw - a small helicopter covered with pink ostrich feathers and upholstered in pink and red plush, which I now discover is an artwork entitled Lilicoptère, in an exhibition by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. (When I own a pink feathered helicopter it will be called Lolacoptère.)

The second night was much quieter, but we had to get up early to catch a train to our setting-out point for our pilgrimage along part of the Camino del Norte to San Sebastian. Watch out for the next exciting part in the Spanish holiday series!

Volunteering

Leamington Food and Drink Festival, September 2018

Sometimes I seriously wonder whether my choice of activities is driven by the need to provide stories for this blog. But I'm pretty sure I would keep trying new things anyway, blog or no blog.

Today the big story is the Leamington Food and Drink Festival, which is an annual highlight for me. Long ago it featured the 'Taste Trail' which allowed you to go to selected food retailers around town for a taste of what they offered. Now it stays exclusively within the Pump Room Gardens, which this year is undergoing remodelling including the renewal of paths and the refurbishment of the bandstand. This meant there was less room for stalls, so there were about 20 fewer exhibitors this year.

A couple of weeks before the event I started seeing adverts encouraging people to volunteer. Usually I invite people to visit me when the festival is on, but this year Lola II and Mr M decided to go camping instead and I hadn't invited anyone else, so I didn't have any reason not to volunteer. The event is run by BID Leamington, an organisation promoting the interests of Leamington businesses through the formation of a Business Improvement District in 2008. I arrived at the Information Tent ready to serve in whatever capacity was required.

Thankfully I wasn't allocated to litter picking or toilet cleaning. A new initiative this year was set up to encourage public transport and relieve pressure on town parking: people who had come by train could present their ticket and receive a free soft drink, beer or wine in return. I had to record it all in a book, and hand out soft drink cans and vouchers for beer or wine which had to be exchanged at one of the outlets in the field. It went quite well - obviously a trainload of people tended to arrive at the same time, but the queues weren't too long. Sunday was much quieter for the train ticket exchange because there were fewer trains running, but the event as a whole seemed busier on Sunday.

The BID Leamington staff and volunteers were friendly and welcoming, and I had some quite interesting discussions with the Director about various local businesses (including the shop which has just been fined £10,000 for making illegal health claims about their raw juices), and the reasons behind the turnover of businesses in a couple of town locations. The two afternoons I spent with the team were positive volunteering experiences, and I'd be happy to join them again next year if they will have me.

Health and Wellbeing and a camping holiday

Worthing pier, September 2017

What with being away on holiday for a few days, and Thursday badminton starting up again, and also just not wanting to sit at the computer when I'm at home, I've got a bit behind with my online life. I've only watched the first episode of the Great British Bake Off, and it's the only TV programme I watch all year. LTRP update - no, just joking, nothing's happened.

There was the Leamington Food & Drink Festival, which was delightful as usual and attended by Lola II and Mr M as well as cousin Y and one of Mr M's friends from Nottingham and another of Mr M's friends from Wolverhampton. We started early on the Saturday and this turned out to be a good idea because at about noon the rain came down in torrents. It cleared up for brief periods thereafter so the event wasn't a total washout.

At work, I created a Dietetics stand for the Trust's Health and Wellbeing event for staff. It was in the dining room of the hospital along with other stands: Stop Smoking, Join UNISON, Physiotherapy, the Chaplain, the local Sports Centre, Neyber (something to do with cheap loans), and the Occupational Health team offering blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol tests. On my stand were free leaflets from CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health), BHF (British Heart Foundation) and the World Cancer Research Fund, and I wheeled my scales over and brought a tape measure and stadiometer for measuring height.

The only stand that really attracted any traffic was the Occy Health one, which had queues lined up most of the time. Neyber and UNISON had free pens, and the physio offered to time you sitting and standing as many times as you could in a minute, but most people were really only interested in their blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol. Including me. My cholesterol level was even higher than it was when I went for my over 50's Health Check.at my GP.

The Occy Health team sent a few people over to me to have their weight and height measured, including one teeny tiny Asian lady whom I dutifully measured even though it was obvious that she wasn't even close to being overweight, but who seemed relieved to be told this fact. They also sent over someone with high blood glucose to have a chat, but she'd been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes some time ago, didn't really seem at all bothered and wasn't particularly interested in doing anything about it.

I spoke to no more than about ten people in the four hours I was there, not counting people on the other stands who were similarly idle - I don't think the Chaplain had any customers at all. But it was a nice change of scenery, and despite not having much to do it was a great deal more interesting than the day at the ante-natal clinic.

Shipley Church, September 2017

The main event recently was an epic camping trip with Lola II to a beautiful campsite in West Sussex. It was one of the best campsites I've ever been to, mainly because of the facilities. These include covered areas for sitting, eating and washing up (and for cooking if you'd hired one of their tents), delightful composting toilets, open air showers and baths (we didn't try these) but also properly plumbed indoor toilets and showers and a wood stove and sofas in a communal area which was very welcome when the cold and rain arrived one evening.

We were the only campers on Thursday night, although there were a few inhabitants of the fixed cabins and tents. When a single chap arrived on Friday we went over to offer help him put up his tent, and found out that it was his wedding anniversary and he was going to surprise his wife with a couple of nights away from their three-year-old. When we were sitting on the sofa in front of the wood stove we got chatting to another couple of campers who were a nurse and a carpenter, and then another couple wandered in and they had just got engaged. They had put up two tents, and it seems that there are still people in the world who do not share a tent until they are married.

Knepp Wildlife, September 2017

This was a great deal more interaction than is usual at a campsite, and enhanced the experience no end. But it wasn't all chat - we went for a long walk and saw a herd of deer, we ate a really good meal at the local pub, had a couple of similarly good meals in the tent, and went to Worthing Food Festival which is about a quarter of the size of Leamington's. But there were some good pastries and pies and we made the most of the opportunity. They also had some activities, and while we were there an American guy was overseeing children constructing structures out of wine gums and cocktail sticks, which were then tested to see how many bags of sugar they could support. His commentary was highly amusing, including a section where he forced his audience to pronounce various words as Americans do: To-MAY-to! YOH-gurt! Say it! YOH-gurt!

Lola II was due to blow the ram's horn ('shofar') at mum's synagogue where she has a regular annual booking, and following a bit of a disaster one year when she didn't practise in advance, she had brought the shofar with her. Back in the tent I took a photo of her in mis-matched pyjamas with a tea towel for a prayer shawl and a sock on her head and put it on Facebook for a laugh, expecting it to attract no attention whatever, as is usual for my posts. Over the next few days I had more Facebook 'Likes' for this appalling spectacle than for anything I've posted before. Lola's horror was most entertaining (for me) as she writhed in embarrassment at each new visitor.

On the way home we stopped at Watts Gallery and Artists' Village in Surrey, where George Frederic Watts and his wife Mary set up home and did their art - painting and sculpture (him) and pottery (her). I'm not great with art galleries, but I really liked this one. We also went up the road to the chapel that they built and saw his grave as well as that of the Huxley family - one of the gallery staff told us that the actor Patricia Hayes was also buried there.

The weather was very variable - clear skies full of stars the first night, pouring rain, hot sunshine, just what you'd expect of September in England. That was the last camping trip of the year, I think.

Watts Gallery, September 2017

Speedy, healthy and fishy

There's been too much going on for me to spend much time enjoying my new expanded electrically-lit living space, but I have dipped into the upstairs room most days to turn the lights on and off just for the enjoyment of it. As Lola II pointed out, the downstairs door that was initially so exciting to open and close must be fairly envious now it's getting no particular attention (although I do still experience a slight thrill when I use it). My delight with the upstairs light will no doubt pass into normality eventually, like the door, and the door handles, and the other lights, and the garage, and everything else. But at the moment simply turning a light on and off is a treat. Planning permission for the kitchen has now been granted, so the fact that I've been able to cope with a few other jobs at the same time makes me feel like a superhero.

In the last week at work I managed to implement a development regarding Christmas cards, whereby I let everyone in my local team know that instead of giving them cards I would make a donation to Diabetes UK. I invited them all to do the same, but only two joined me. It worked well for me, and I plan to extend it to include more colleagues next year.

Two weeks ago the evenings were full of mostly badminton - one club night, one match, one tournament and one Christmas meal, and - unusually - we won the match. The other weekday evening disappeared into the longest working day ever. I got caught up in a conversation with the doctors at the end of the day, which was interesting but not particularly important, and gave me no opportunity to extract myself gracefully within a reasonable time.

Our concert went well at the weekend given that I was sight-reading second clarinet because of a player dropping out at short notice with a broken wrist. Playing the tenor saxophone has been pretty good but I'm going back to the baritone sax next term, and looking forward to it. That weekend I also baked a gluten-free lemon drizzle cake and a dairy- and egg-free chocolate cake because Monday was the last club night before Christmas at the other badminton club, and there are players with dietary intolerances.

Tuesday started with a Speed Awareness course. In November I got caught by a mobile speed camera on the way to work doing 37mph in a 30mph zone. That was actually because I was going to work later than usual; at my regular commuting time the traffic is too clogged up to go that fast.

It was an interesting morning in a large group being reminded of speed limits for various types of road and types of vehicle, and spotting hazards in a short video and still photos. Rather than dry figures for stopping distances at various speeds they used the stopping distance at 30mph as the comparator, and told us what speed we would be doing at that point if we were driving at higher speeds, because most of the speed reduction is achieved in the last few seconds of braking. I found out that there are only 35 fixed camera sites in the whole of Warwickshire and not all of them are active at any one time, while there are 60 mobile locations but only three vans (and generally only two out on the roads at a time). I also know now about gateway signs and repeater signs, which are different ways of telling you what the speed limit is.

The key things are that by attending the course I have avoided getting three points on my licence, and I have to avoid getting caught again for three years because in that case prosecution (i.e. points) is unavoidable. Certainly at the moment I'm being much more attentive to speed limits, especially in the spot where I was caught.

That wasn't the only appointment on Tuesday. I followed up with the routine NHS Check that's offered when you're my age in order to estimate your risk of cardiovascular disease. They measure height, weight, BMI, activity, alcohol, smoking, blood pressure and take a blood sample for on-the-spot cholesterol. My results were as I would have expected - very good level of activity, great blood pressure, BMI not bad (borderline overweight, doh! I can't seem to shift this), very little alcohol, no significant family history. My total cholesterol is higher than is desirable but includes a high level of HDL (good cholesterol), so that the ratio of total cholesterol:HDL is well within the ideal range. Overall my risk of having a cardiovascular event (heart attack or stroke) over the next 10 years is 2.7%. The average for my age and sex is 2.6%. I am considering doing something about my cholesterol level. I could certainly cut back a bit on the saturated fat and I haven't been eating much oats, fish, soya or pulses recently - but making up for it over Christmas with fish at least.

There was more to come on Task-based Tuesday - kitchen shops. Now that I have planning permission and an agreed outline plan of the new kitchen, I thought it would be easy to get some help from people whose job it is to design kitchens. How wrong I was. The two shops I visited (one large chain, one small independent) absolutely refuse to do anything for me without detailed architectural plans that define every measurement of the new layout, including location of utilities such as gas and water. They agreed that it was a Catch-22 situation - in order to get help in designing my kitchen I need to give them a detailed design of my kitchen. I have investigated briefly, and there appear to be a number of online tools that may help me.

From Wednesday onwards there were no more appointments and commitments outside work, my evenings were free, and then four days off for Christmas. I planned menus and put in an order at the fishmonger. I actually went for a run on Thursday! and it wasn't bad at all. Work was very quiet as nobody really wants an appointment on the last working day before Christmas, and it gives me a chance to catch up on clearing out the pile of stuff that I've accumulated over the year. Some interesting items in there!

I followed up my Thursday run with Parkrun on Saturday, picked up my order of fishy treats from the fishmonger, then a few jobs in town and then Christmas arrived. The oysters were surprisingly enormous and almost defeated me - they definitely defeated my oyster knife. I was planning to eat half a dozen in each of two meals, but they were so huge that I went with just four at a time and it was plenty.

Now Christmas is almost over and I have to motivate myself into greater activity. I was going to prune the Wisteria but the online gurus seem to be saying February not December, so I'd better wait. I need to get rid of the compost bin and carry on tidying away the various items like flower pots, buckets, planters and such which have seemingly found a permanent home in the garden. There's always something to do, although sitting and reading or watching films has certainly been significant in this household over the last few days.

A good week for puddings

Leamington Food and Drink Festival, September 2016

In the time since that lovely, warm holiday the memory of lovely, warm days has faded and I have taken to wearing socks in bed to avoid waking up in the middle of the night because my feet are cold. The drive home from the airport was dreadful. I thought that because it was around midnight, the traffic would be kind and I would be speeding back home on a deserted motorway. The Powers That Be evidently knew of this plan, because they chose to close the motorway. They also chose to close my alternative route, and it all meant I got home considerably later than planned, although on the positive side I did get to hear lots more of my audiobook. And I think I drove through Surbiton, but I can't be sure.

I am Cold! I am Itchy! but the good news is that the frozen shoulder is almost recovered, with just an odd twinge now and then to remind me. Badminton has resumed with quite a lot of matches as well as the club nights, and an abundance of work events.

The first thing I did on Monday morning after the holiday was to attend a course to introduce ten of us to a shortened version of our four-day carbohydrate counting course for people with Type 1 Diabetes. The course has been created by one of the diabetes technology companies in association with experienced Dietitians, and is designed to be delivered in 3 hours. I have some reservations about the whole thing but we may try a pilot event if we think there is demand. Lunch was available as well.

Badminton club #1 in the evening. Monday puddings = 1. I remained in control of the pudding situation.

Tuesday: day off. Man from Dampco turned up promptly at 8 a.m. just as I was coming in from photographing the car parked outside my garage. 8 a.m! This was because he actually lives 50 yards from me, and he was very helpful and didn't even require payment. Essentially the plaster is wet because it has been compromised by being wet, and although I have dealt with the cause of the wetness the plaster needs to be stripped and replaced before it will behave itself properly. Further chit-chat revealed that his father founded the company, he hopes to pass it on to his nephews, and I offered to buy him a drink if I saw him in the pub. This seems unlikely because I hardly ever go to the pub any more.

Photographing the car outside was because I'm thinking of contacting the Council about the white line demarcating the entrance to my garage, which doesn't quite extend to the full width. A car parked legally can obstruct my access to quite a large degree, although so far I've managed to get around it. A car parked only slightly illegally would properly stop me driving in or out, so I have to make the decision whether to start the process of trying to get it rectified, or just to live with it.

I was also expecting my first HelloFresh delivery on Tuesday, courtesy of Mr M and Lola II. This comprises three boxed meals in the form of measured ingredients and recipes. I had been putting it off for a month because of holidays and not being at home, and I probably should have put it off for longer because last week was particularly full of other people giving me lunch and badminton in the evening (so no evening meal). But when the doorbell rang it was actually Man from the Planning Department making a site visit following the request for planning permission for the kitchen extension. They pay a bit more attention because it is a Conservation Area, but all of the the proposed alterations are at the back and not visible from the street so there shouldn't be a problem. Apparently my neighbours have already been contacted in case they want to object and there's even one of those notices attached to the lamp post with cable ties. I was astonished when someone at badminton mentioned that they'd seen the notice in the local paper too. I had no idea that anyone ever read those notices.

Badminton match in the evening (lost 7-2). Tuesday puddings = 0. I do not keep puddings in the house.

Wednesday was an ordinary day at work without any badminton or puddings. But Thursday was another study day, this time at the Diabetes Education Network conference. I had high hopes but it was most disappointing. There were presentations from the people who created various programmes (DAFNE, DESMOND and X-PERT) about how they had audited their education to prove that it is effective and meets NICE guidelines, but this is neither interesting, novel nor enlightening. One presentation even showed us all the teams around the country who had won awards for delivering the most courses, or getting the best results for their patients, which was simply a waste of my time. The team that developed the course that we deliver to our Type 1 customers spent most of their session finding out from all those present how we had improved upon their course, and didn't give us anything useful in return.

The only worthwhile session was one from a most controversial Dietitian who believes that saturated fat is good for you. She avoided that particular topic but still irritated me by, for example, focussing on how many grammes of glucose are in the whole of the bloodstream of a non-diabetic person as if that were important. The only reason the session was worthwhile is because I may be able to find a ready-made comparison of the pros and cons of various diets in Type 2 Diabetes without having to construct it myself. However, despite the disappointing content of the conference, the puddings at this particular venue were something else.

Badminton club #2 in the evening. Thursday puddings = 4. They were amazing.

On Friday I had an unusual morning in that every slot in my clinic was full, and all but one of them turned up. This was the day that the lunch for our ex-colleague was scheduled, and luckily she was collected to make sure she came, and many people made the effort to turn up. Speeches were delivered, flowers and a card and presents were handed over and it all seemed to go very well. The only thing that made me laugh was when a colleague told me that during the event the departing nurse whispered that she felt "a bit of a fraud accepting all these presents, because I'm coming back to work soon."

Friday puddings = 0 although there were chocolate biscuits. And cheese. Lots of cheese.

Despite having a number of Very Important Tasks to complete, on Saturday I managed to stay in bed for a considerable proportion of the day before I dragged myself into the garden to pay a bit of attention to the lawn and the shelves in the garage. On Sunday I didn't even wake up until 10 a.m. and was similarly unproductive for most of the day. I did manage to make the second of the HelloFresh meals - I divide the portions for two into three and it's still plenty. But because I try to have only breakfast and lunch on badminton days, the ingredients have to hang around for quite a long time unless I cook it all and freeze the portions. All the meals so far have been tasty, but I don't think I can manage a regular delivery.

Borough Market, May 2016

Everyday tales of Not Much

Borough Market, May 2016

It's been a bit rough at work - not so much for me, but the main nurse has had a bad time. There have been two premature deaths, a stolen mobile phone, the start of a new Type 1 education course, conflict (there's always conflict) and we are all quite glad when the weekend arrives each week.

A couple of weeks ago I did a foolish thing - I attended a badminton training weekend at the National Badminton Centre with a group of Young People (and one other Old Person) from another club. This entailed arriving on Friday night and having a bit of a play around, then six hours coaching on Saturday followed by another six hours on Sunday. The coach was a very pleasant young man who was once in the GB squad playing men's doubles, and he did a pretty good job. I was pleased with my level of fitness and managed not to fall behind right up until the final hour, when due to a serious misjudgement I ended up having to play two games of singles against the youngest, fittest, strongest man in the group. But until then it was fun, and I learned a few things too. I don't think my badminton is going to improve much, but it's good to keep learning.

The unexpected benefit of this extreme weekend was that I was amazed to find that my frozen shoulder improved quite a bit. I have no idea why this should be - it's not my dominant arm, but badminton does put demands on the non-racquet arm for counterbalance, so perhaps this was what helped.

Lola II came to visit on a school night because she had to go to an event in Birmingham. We went out to a restaurant that I've had my eye on since they had a stall at the Food Festival, but the food wasn't as good as I'd hoped (and I accidentally set fire to the menu). After our main courses we reviewed the dessert menu, but it just didn't hit the spot, so we went to Tesco and carried out a thorough assessment of all possible options before realising it was 10 minutes to Bake Off. Making our final choices at great speed I then packed them into a carrier bag with a hole in it and managed to lose one of Lola II's choices on the way home. However, we not only made it in time for Bake Off, we sneaked in an episode of The West Wing and marvelled anew at how good it is.

The only other news of note is that I decided to treat the lawn with feed including moss killer. It turns out that the lawn is about 60% moss and is now looking a bit brown and sad. I also have some seedlings and some bulbs to plant, and while preparing the ground I ended up chopping down a large pyracantha. So that's been another trip to the local amenities site with a car-load of bags of hideous thorny branches.

I did this, then I did that

Krakow Botanical Gardens, July 2016

This is getting more like a diary than a blog - a succession of things that seem to fill my life sufficiently so that I am rarely bored and mostly have too much on my plate. Literally and metaphorically. The weight loss plan is not going brilliantly, despite me having completely stopped buying bars of chocolate. Bother.

Topic 1: Health - physical and metaphysical

I have had an ultrasound of my shoulder which identified some inflammation and degenerative changes typical in a person of my age. This was followed by a consultation with a specialist physiotherapist who diagnosed slow onset frozen shoulder. He offered a steroid injection to address the pain temporarily, which I declined because the pain doesn't bother me that much. I just feel resentful that my body is finally rebelling and giving me some trouble, just to remind me that I'm not as young as I was. With time, the shoulder should get better, but I doubt that I'll get any less grumpy about being as old as I am. This is as good as it gets.

On the other hand, I have started looking forward to the meditation and Buddhism group. I started with a four-session introductory course in April, then carried on attending over the summer, and now they are holding another introductory course and it feels very much like school when the new kids arrive and you're in the second year and not the youngest and littlest any more. I can very nearly remember everyone's name, although if they sling in a multi-syllable Sanskrit name I forget it in less than 2 hours. I spent one of my days off with the Buddhists I know of old, and pumped them mercilessly for information, and am still processing the results to decide whether to just stick with the meditation and mindfulness practice or to dip my toe further into the metaphorical Buddhist pond.

Topic 2: Food and drink

I have already mentioned the chocolate reduction plan, and I think I have reached the stage of acceptance in the continuum of despair-anger-denial-acceptance that I was once taught follows a trauma. Back when I was taught about this, the examples used were having your car stolen and sight loss, but it seems to apply to no end of situations including, it seems, breaking a serious chocolate habit.

I have continued my tour of Leamington Lunches on my days off - there are more restaurants than I have days off in a year, but I'm trying to pick those who charge less than £10 for lunch. There are still plenty to go. This Tuesday's was Cuban - I had a stew involving peppers, sweet potato and chickpeas and some amazing yellow bread that appeared to have been fried.

Other eating and drinking highlights in the recent past included a night out with work colleagues starting with drinks at Pub Next Door and progressing to a very fine Turkish/Eastern Mediterranean restaurant in town. It was such a success that those present immediately formed a Dining Club and set a date for the next outing. There was also my second Whisky Tasting evening with Mr M's whisky collection and matched food. I am very lucky to have been invited on two separate occasions, and there may even be a Whisky Tasting On Tour event in Leamington at some point. I discovered that I am starting to like whisky. It's always worth persisting with these things.

On the same trip to London there were two more food-related experiences. The first was the local international grocer where this time I picked two random tins of spinach-based and aubergine-based slop (I've already tried the spinach-based one topped with an egg - yum). The second was a Japanese restaurant in Notting Hill, where five of us ate until we burst for only £15 a head. Delicious and good value.

Topic 3: Housing and the LTRP

Not much progress to report on the LTRP, although the architect has now surveyed and drawn up plans of the ground floor in anticipation of our next meeting, in which we will define the alterations. These are primarily to allow more light into the kitchen and replace the stairs, but also to extend the kitchen a little to provide a utility/boot room. Olf the builder who worked on the garage finally came round to accept payment (I had to chase several times!) and he may be able to lead on the kitchen works whenever that time may come.

I'm still gradually emptying the loft (books and motorbike parts in the last fortnight) so that Ilf the handyman can sort out the electric lights in the upstairs rooms. In the meantime Mr M and Lola II stole Ilf and he decorated large parts of their house. Now that I've been to see it, the work done looks absolutely lovely. Ilf then came round and gave me a bunch of flowers to thank me for referring the job to him.

Topic 4: Financial matters

• I researched and bought car insurance A WEEK BEFORE IT WAS DUE. I am so proud of this.
• I bought fancy carbon fibre walking poles for my holiday A MONTH IN ADVANCE. [Can you see a theme developing?]
• I joined a team of four Young People and we won a tenner each on the pub quiz, with a score of 76 out of 80. I probably contributed no more than 4 answers out of 76, but I like to think that without my 4 we would have come second.
• The posh butcher in town sharpened three of my knives for free. Unfortunately they only gave me two of them back, but produced the third when I went back to enquire. Still, I now have three sharp knives, which is lovely.
• I have listed quite a few random items on ebay, one of which has sold! I am not optimistic about any of the others. So after postage and commission I am £1.43 in profit. Now I'm ready to start on the postal mechanisation material. Hang on to your hats for literally pennies of profit.
• With the help of Mr M I have switched my current account and opened another three accounts including transfers between them in order to maximise interest rates. Now every time I am faced with paying for something I have to think for five minutes about which card to use depending on whether I qualify for cashback or Clubcard points or a foot massage or puppies/kittens. However, not only is this a great problem to have, I am about to spend a whole load of money on my kitchen, so maybe it won't be a problem for long.

Topic 5: Work

I have had my first abysmal failure with a patient whom I will not see again (nor would the patient want to see me). Much reflection and 'what could I have done differently' but it's someone who's been within the service for years and years and nobody else has done much better. Apart from that, I have delivered three DESMOND courses for Type 2 patients in the last month and am looking forward to not delivering any more until December. I do enjoy it though, seeing how much people learn.

Food and paint

Leamington Food & Drink Festival, September 2016

Another stupendous weekend in the company of Lola II and Mr M, this time at the Leamington Spa Food and Drink Festival 2016. Before they arrived I squeezed in an attendance at Parkrun, deciding not to actually run because of the time it would take out of my schedule (not so much the run but the cleaning up afterwards). My volunteer role was Finish Token Assistant, where I hand the finish tokens to someone else who hands the finish tokens to the runners. Unlike the Token Finnish Assistant who is an unnecessary Scandinavian helper. So that's clear.

Unfortunately Saturday was wet and a bit miserable, but it did mean that there weren't too many people clustered around the Food Festival stalls in the quest for samples. I think we overdid the samples, as usual, mixing sausage with cake with cheese with fancy oil and vinegar with syrup pudding with hot chilli sauce. It all ends up in the same place, but makes for a fairly odd gastric experience. I lunched on an overpriced pancake with maple syrup, which collected in the bottom of the cone and dripped down my coat sleeve. Call me Lola Sticky Hand (and that's not a hand that's like a stick).

Knowing that we would return to the Festival the following day, we had other jobs to do on Saturday. Lola II and Mr M are in the midst of renovation - not to the extent of the LTRP, but they have stolen Ilf who is spending a couple of weeks actually staying in their house while he decorates and fixes various household essentials. Luckily Ilf lives near me and does not have to stay in my house when he works on Lola Towers. Unlike Lola II and Mr M I am not good with visitors, let alone visitors whom I do not know well.

Anyway, there has been much discussion and negotiation about paint colours, and in order to try and resolve the impasse about their choice for their hall and stairs we each chose 2 tester colours from the local Dulux trade shop using vouchers from the Food & Drink Festival Little Book of Vouchers. Because of the difficulty in reaching a decision, I volunteered as intermediary and painted each of the colours plus a few more I had hanging around on lining paper, numbered the samples and Lola II and Mr M rated their choices. Nobody was more surprised than they were that they both chose the same colour as their top choice!

On Sunday we paid a quick visit to a friend of Ilf's to pick up some necessary paint for him, and then back to the Food & Drink Festival. This time we were a bit less enthusiastic with the samples, leaving room for some real food. I had the allium-free vegan option (salad, felafel, houmous, salsa) while Lola II tried hard to resist but went for the most delicious allium-tainted samosa and dip. Mr M met a friend and went round with her so I didn't see his choices. And I'm blaming my week-long self-imposed chocolate restriction, but I bought a huge jar of sponge, chocolate and ganache confection. In my defence I did share it, and even made it last until Tuesday.

Again we had other jobs to do, and Lola II was after some shoes. The little book of vouchers included 20% off at a local shoe shop, and both I and the shop assistant were 'entertained' for some considerable time by Lola II's attempt to buy shoes. The assistant even tried to sell me some shoes, and persisted despite my clear indication that if he brings me any to try on I may try them on but I'm not going to buy them. Lola II gave him much more to do with different socks, styles and sizes, but achieved her goal in the end. I took a photo of the scene of devastation.

Other notable events of the weekend: the cherry chocolate tart (bad news for the self-imposed chocolate restriction), the disappointing fruity buns, the charcoal cheese, the pork pie and the wood pigeon breasts which are now in the freezer. I hope that the pigeon will be less hassle to cook than the hare that I bought from the same stall two years ago.

Long weekend

Krakow Botanic Garden, July 2016

Since the brief flurry of activity my social life has dwindled to its usual state, although I made an exception for Lola II and Mr M's garden party, which was lovely as always.

The long Bank Holiday weekend was extended even further for me given that I don't work on Tuesdays. I started on Friday night by shopping for the week, then making one of the Polish soups that Mr M gave me - chłodnik. It needed Google Translate to work out the extra ingredients needed and the cooking method. I finally finished watching Schindler's List, which took three sittings because of both its length and its intensity. There were a few locations that were recognisable as Krakow.

I had made a bit of progress on the patio weeds before the long weekend, but managed to strain the muscles in my legs and crippled myself for two days. The rest of the weekend contained much, much more work on the patio, which is now fully weeded without further damage to my legs, and the ivy is gone. I wouldn't bet on it being gone for good; it's been astonishingly resilient to everything I've thrown at it. Now I need to return to the wisteria.

I did some more Polish cooking (gołabki since you ask) and watched about three quarters of the opening ceremony from the London 2012 Olympics, only four years late. The only reason I've watched three quarters of it is because it doesn't all fit on one DVD - it goes as far as all the performances about British history and then all the teams coming into the arena, but not as far as the lighting of the Olympic flame. No wonder the Queen didn't look very amused; that will have been about five hours of her life she won't get back even if everyone did love that she agreed to be in the James Bond mini-movie.

There's been a lot of other stuff to do which isn't worth reporting, mostly online research about one financial commitment or another - a joint account, the best mobile phone contract, best buy ISA, hard wheeled case and stand for my baritone saxophone, how best to sell on ebay, and more. Mr M would be proud of me - I've started making use of different offers on various current accounts, but it's making my head hurt a bit.

At work I've presented the website I've created for the Very Low Carb Lifestyle to the relevant Dietitians. They have all been very complimentary about it, which is very pleasing. It can pretty much do without much attention now, except that I hope to put up a new recipe every week or so. This won't be sustainable, so it might have to be once a month to avoid raising expectations. Next will be to introduce it to the new Dietetic Manager and a few potential customers, to see what they think.

Kraków

King Casimir the Great, carved from salt, July 2016

What a terrific holiday it was, one of the best I've had. Highlights:

• Spending quality time with Lola II and Mr M
• A Polish food tour
• Trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps and Wieliczka salt mine
• Pretty good weather and some cracking thunderstorms
• The botanic garden (if you like pictures of plants then you'll be happy with the blog header pictures for quite a while)
• The food!
• Learning the odd word in Polish. Dziękuję!

We signed up to the food tour first thing - for about £8 each we would be taken to various food outlets and given typical Polish food to sample. Mr M has kindly provided the following report on this section of the holiday.

Mr M here! On our first night, and as the only person who did any non-food related research before the trip, Lola I wisely suggested we should spend our first morning on a food tour.

The tour was run by the free walking tour company, although this was one of their 'paid-for' tours given that we would be trying 10 dishes along the way and, as Dora the guide explained, it would have been very fiddly collecting money at every stop!

Źurek

The first restaurant was Restauracja Samoobsługowa which was just round the corner from our hostel, and we were offered small cups of Polish cucumber soup (zupa ogórkowa) and a sour rye soup called żurek. Lola II had tried the żurek in a posh tourist place the previous night but this one was much thicker, and contained sausage and was amazing in comparison. We liked this place so much, we returned the next day for breakfast.

We then moved on to a bar the other side of the railway tracks to Pyzystanek Pierogarnia where we tried savoury (Russian) and sweet (blueberry) pierogi and some kompot - a popular Polish soft drink which Lola I & Lola II continued to order throughout the holiday but in my opinion was just like on of those fancy orange squash flavours like 'orange and grapefruit'. The pierogi were good but probably not the food of choice sitting in 30 degree sunshine!

Next was the market and the chance to try gherkins (ogórki kiszona), sauerkraut (kapusta kiszona), two cheeses, two sausages and two different sweets (fudge and chocolate). We were given 10 minutes to wander the food market, and noticed retail differences from the UK, for example Polish onions were sold without the brown skin.

Makowiec

Bigos, and the route of our tour

Next - two kinds of cake including poppy seed cake from patisserie Caiastkarnia Vanilla which we visited again several times. After a short walk we then went deep into the tourist part of the Jewish quarter and a basement of a brasserie (Wręga) for some Hunters Stew (bigos) and bread - and then on to our final stop, a vodka bar where we were forced (!) to try four vodkas: honey, elderflower, plain and quince, which rounded off the official tour (though in my mind, the food tour wasn't completed until we had tried at least four placki (aka latkes)! 

Thanks Mr M! In subsequent forays we consumed more classic Polish fare including cabbage rolls stuffed with barley and meat (gołąbki), buckwheat (kasza) and the potato pancakes (placki) which were Mr M's favourite. In terms of sweet things I tried kremówka, which is like a custard slice, and some more of Lola II's favourite poppyseed cake (makowiec) as well as more ice cream (lody) than I would usually eat in a year.

We ate in a couple of quite fancy places and a couple of basic canteen-style diners where I came perilously close to ordering tripe (flaczki) because it was quite a short word that I would probably be able to remember and reproduce at the till. Luckily someone produced an English menu at the last minute and I switched to something else. The posh meals weren't all that much better than the canteen meals, which cost in the region of £2.50. Our money went a long way.

It wasn't all eating, there was a lot of walking too, and some history. I learned quite a bit about Poland's past, from its founding in the 10th century through the reigns of some imaginatively named kings to its more recent and devastating past in the years 1939-1945, and more recently as it produced the first non-Italian pope for 450 years, and he even came from a communist country. As you walk around a medieval city that feels like many other western European cities, it is easy to forget that it only emerged from communism in 1989. Berlin puts much more of its divided past on show.

We joined walking tours of the old town and of Kraków's Jewish past - we were staying in a hostel on the main square in the Jewish Quarter (Kazimierz), and on the Jewish tour we crossed the river to the site of the Ghetto in Podgórze. There is a memorial consisting of sculptures of chairs in the square where selection took place for deportation and from where the trains set off for concentration and extermination camps. Oskar Schindler's factory is here and now contains a museum devoted to Kraków's history during the Second World War with only a very small exhibit about Schindler himself, who turns out to have been quite an unpleasant man. No matter, he saved lives and deserves credit for that.

The visit to Auschwitz made less of an impression on me than I was expecting. It was very orderly, highly choreographed, as I suppose it had to be given the number of visitors that are marshalled through the site. Our guide was a painfully thin young woman who recited her script with a suitably deadpan attitude, but she occasionally picked out one of the group and aimed her speech directly between their eyes. Mr M reported this as being very uncomfortable. I was mostly preoccupied with her obviously malnourished state and wondered distractedly throughout the tour whether this job of relating the worst atrocities imaginable on a daily basis was damaging her health.

Auschwitz is a small camp and now contains exhibits on different aspects of life in its restored brick buildings. Birkenau was built a year or two later as a concentration and extermination camp and contains the remains of gas chambers and crematoria, and is much bigger but has only been minimally restored. It was a hot day when we were there, and the whole trip felt unreal, like a visit to a film set. I remember being much more disturbed and moved by the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and another holocaust museum in Israel founded by survivors (Beit Lochamei HaGetaot/Ghetto Fighters' House). Whether the Israeli monuments were more skilled at manipulating emotion or did in fact have more of an impact factor I can't say, but I was also much younger and perhaps more impressionable.

One of the large halls inside the salt mine

Chandelier made from rock salt

I had about a day and a half on my own after Lola II and Mr M caught their flight home, so that's when I went to Kraków's botanic garden and the nearby salt mine, which dates back to the 13th century and is inconceivably enormous. Tours are taken round a teeny tiny fraction of the tunnels on three of the nine levels within the mine, and I noticed that they count visitors in and out very carefully. They only stopped extracting salt in 2007, but I'm sure the mine still pays for itself with the numbers of tourist visitors.

The abiding memory of the trip, apart from the culinary delights, was constantly being faced with the choices that were made during the dark days of the Second World War by the residents of Kraków, Jew and non-Jew. If we were faced with those dilemmas, the deprivation, the humiliation, the choice between death or dishonour, what would we have done? How would we have behaved? Would we have fought, hidden, surrendered, dissembled, betrayed others, been brave and strong or craven and weak? Would we have died of starvation, of violence, of disease, or perhaps survived? I think the conclusion that we arrived at was that there is no way of knowing unless it happens. And cling to the hope that we will never be forced to find out.