An introspective day

I feel it has been a very introspective day today. It is the 70^th anniversary of the D day landings and I have been thinking a lot about my father who participated in that on what was his birthday. He was one of the first people to be called up and so had been in the war from the beginning. It all culminated in a nervous breakdown for him as the war ended. There was a generation of people who in various ways were devastated by the war which I think explains a lot about how my parents were while I was a child.

Later I went to the Post office to send off the first of the packages of my personal papers to Emma. They  contain letters between Shantam and me. I always thought that sometime I would go through them and perhaps there would be something to write about but this has never happened. They are the only papers I haven't digitised as I just cannot bring myself to look at them again. It brings up too many painful memories. So I decided to send them to Emma although I don't want her or anyone else looking at them until after I am gone. I know where they are if I ever change my mind though.

I felt most peculiar as I handed the first parcel to the man at the Post office. It was as if I had bundled up this part of my life and was letting it go. Which was further enhanced when I came back from the Post Office and saw how clear my door looks now I have cut down a rather overgrown shrub nearby. It is as if I am getting myself clear for the next steps forward.

Sam found paint!

I got this in the post today.  It is Sam's first efforts at playing with a paint and it looks as if he went for it with great enthusiasm.

I was so pleased to receive it and now it is up on my wall.

Soft focus day

As I write this I feel it has been a very unfocused day although I have got a lot of clearing up type jobs completed. Rajan and I went to Pondy this morning where we took back the Wimax materials to the Telephone service although we didn't get the money for it as the person dealing with it was in a meeting. I was most amused at having to write a letter with a pen on a piece of paper as part of the paperwork process! I also got a new and much needed battery for my phone as well as seeing Sangita, Rajan's bride to be. This afternoon I cleared out a lot of stuff on the old computer so that Rajan can have it tomorrow for the office and clear out the office one so that it can be passed on to Gowri's daughter.

I feel it has been a sort of soft focus day when I have cleared up a lot of stuff but haven't really moved anything much forward. Or maybe getting rid of all these little jobs will open the way to something else.

Straightening up

Today I finished doing the notice board that has been repaired. I made one new poster and made new prints of old ones and put them up on the notice board this afternoon. As usual I found it very difficult to get them straight and this is a picture of Rajan who had to go behind me and straighten them up.

I have got an astigmatism so have always had problems putting things up straight and drawing straight lines. This despite the fact I wear glasses which I always presume should correct the astigmatism and never do!.

Hooray!

I am getting along with my new computer better than I thought I would.  I always find it quite difficult when I change computers especially as with this one I have a new operating system.  I am very happy with what I have so far been able to do and the picture shows the 'hooray' moment when I managed to get my graphic tablet working.  To do this involved downloading a new driver, but now it is working better than it has ever done before.  I am very pleased and relieved and surprised at how much I have missed it while I have been trying to get it to work properly.  There are one or two bits of software which aren't working properly but already I am using the new computer more than the old one which is being passed on to the office.

The office computer is going to the daughter of a friend of mine who is doing a degree in computer studies at Pondicherry university.  She has needed a laptop, which her mother has been unable to get her, ever since the course started over a year ago.  So I am very happy to be able to help her get one which, while not brand new, is not that old and still working well.

My hurting hands

Over the last month I have been going to yoga classes three or four times a week. Gradually I have noticed that my body, and particularly my hands, are very sore. Yet as soon as I get up after the last asana the soreness completely disappears. It is very odd.

This picture is what my hands felt like when I started the yoga class last night. My hands felt red and swollen and the joints, in particular the thumb joints, felt very painful. It also felt as if there were little bolts of lightening coming out of my fingers.

Maybe it is because I have just been trying to 'do' too much. Or maybe doing too many things that don't make my heart sing. Or maybe allowing myself to get too downhearted about all the not so good things going on in the Farm group and Auroville at the present time. It could be any or all of those things.

My yoga classes have now finished for the summer so I will have to see what I can do on my own. I would like to continue standing on my head regularly and I think I should continue doing the Somatic exercises which are particularly good if you have pain.  

A new device

A few days ago we had this device, a solar dryer, delivered to Buddha Garden.  It was designed by a German student (the one in the middle with her back to the camera) and this is a picture of the student with her friend and Rajan setting it all up.  

When it arrived I was quite taken by the design which seems to be well thought out.  I gather from Vivek, however, that the dryer has taken much longer than expected to get to this stage because she keeps changing her mind about how it should work.  I also gather that it has turned out much more expensive than expected which I have found often happens when things are developed like this in Auroville.

We are going to try it out to see how it works and if anyone else wants to try it they are going to have to rent it.  We hope this will help people to take care of it better than they might do if they didn't pay anything.  We started off with drying some fruit which we are going to keep for a week or two to make sure that it is properly dried out.  Getting a machine to measure the moisture is apparently extremely expensive, but this would help us to ensure that everything is dried to the optimum amount.