Poster

I feel I have been chained to the computer today, yet again, trying to do all the jobs that need doing.  I managed to have a really nice lunch with Ashok in Pondy although we had to do some shopping for bedding for volunteers.  It was much more fun doing it with someone rather than on my own.

This is our Introduction Workshop poster which also includes something about our fund raising campaign.  I realise that I have also got to do the website and the thank you cards for those people who donate at the introductory course.  

Hopefully that can all be done by next weekend.

Today I have been doing this blog for one year and have managed to do a picture most days.  Originally I hoped that I would be able to make a book out of it, but when I can't imagine when I am going to have time to do that.

Our first brick

This is the first poster of our 'brick by brick' fund raising campaign made with the first donation.

There is still a lot to do with setting up the website to provide information and donation links, but this is a start.

A welcome evening out

Today I had a very welcome evening out.  I feel I have so many things to do and not enough time to do them all.  Although often I find there is time to do the things that really need doing.

This is a picture of Karl whose mind ranges over a very wide range of things and so did our conversation.  It was a very welcome break from trying to get everything done.  Even if the so called 'baby corn fry masala' consisted of lumps of fried flour and few corn seeds!  It tasted OK but was obviously food to interest the mouth rather than nurture the body.

Wanting clarity

I have so much information about so many things banging around in my head at the moment that I am finding it very difficult to find clarity about what we should do in Buddha Garden.  Vivek has the idea to build another kitchen and then turn the present kitchen and dormitory into a much bigger dormitory that would have light at night and a lot more space.  We need better volunteer accommodation and this would provide it.

Problem is it would cost around Rs5laks and we would have to take a loan that would take probably five years to repay.  And during that time we would not be able to take on another loan for anything.  Plus of course we would have to continue paying half our maintenances and so on.  It is a big commitment to make and I don't feel that energy to go for it.

As I was walking back from talking to Vivek about it I saw this enormous frog and so I asked him (or probably her!) about it.  But there was no answer....

I know this is a problem that I cannot think through.  Somehow I have to get that clarity which enables me to jump towards the right solution, but at the moment this is eluding me.

It all came rushing back

It was so unexpected seeing this picture and for a moment I felt really confused as to whether Peter was dead or alive.  There was a split second of a delighted feeling that I would see him again followed almost instantaneously by the remembrance that I never will.  All the feelings I had when he died came rushing back as if it had happened yesterday.

It may not be at the forefront of my consciousness but these feelings are with me every day.

Farm group meeting

Had a Farm group meeting today which, although in some ways quite productive, also included a not very edifying fight between several members.  There were some not very nice racial remarks and it concluded when two member left.

As I have been writing the notes it struck me that the energy of the meeting was very cloudy brown and that anything that happened, however positive, was tinged with that.  This is what I have tried to express in the picture.

Christmas......

The last two days - a weekend when I feel I should have had some time off - has been unrelenting.  So much is happening and it has been one job after another which feels like a treadmill.  Despite this I feel that things are getting completed although once one thing is done there is immediately something else that needs to be tackled.

For the last week I have been trying to find time to wrap and send my Christmas presents.  I had planned to do it over the weekend but couldn't find the time as I didn't seem to have a spare minute.  Somehow I found the time this morning, maybe because I knew I just HAD to do it, otherwise they wouldn't arrive in time.

I made everything as simple as possible using cloth bags instead of wrapping paper.  The parcel in the picture is for my sister Anna and her children and consists of lots of nice smelly things that they can share out.  Once I got to the Post Office I was able to take advantage of their new computerised system for parcels where a sticky label is produced which is stuck on the parcel, rather than having to glue on lots of stamps.  So that part of the process was relatively easy.