Imminent departure focuses visitors' attention, so Saturday sees delightful daughters, lunch and a mucky and windy walk over the hill ... Sunday, Peter, blog reader, Mindfulness teacher and generally buzzing on similar frequency ... books exchanged, including Walking the Himalayas by Levison Wood ... bracing walk over the fells, lunch ... assisted shopping tomorrow ... visitors Thursday, maybe Friday, Saturday ... off to Durham for final visit and overnight stay Monday, ready for flight Tuesday ... crikey!
Meanwhile, FB friends expand in diversity, with correspondents from Bhutan and Pakistan ... and after reading about Lev Woods' adventures, an invitation to the Swat Valley .... an exciting option, though not before the walk from Seville, whether or not the traditional Via de la Plata is pursued all the way to Santiago ... or, indeed, Finisterre ...
Friends variously hope "you find what you are looking for", as if there was something, and "enjoy the holiday", though in this story a holiday has a known departure and return time and place, leaving the bit in the middle ... the house provides a pole of attraction and maybe the Wear of Wear and Dao did too, though more likely it was the daughters ... anyway, the trip is open enough and the house can take care of itself ...
Along with the very deep Diamond Sutra and the shallower Walking the Himalayas, Alan Watts' brilliant " The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" provides a culturally consonant critique of the ancient wisdom ...
Back in the mundane life, the fridge freezer fiasco finally reaches a conclusion with the visit of a great Geordie comedy duo from the well known department store, taking away the disgraced and noisy appliance and installing a shiny new one, along with advice on how to let the gas settle for three or four hours before switching on, otherwise "you'll have a noisy fridge for life" ... though such advice was followed with the previous one ... a bus trip to Crook in search of the best bread in the known world, now stocked in the Blue Stone Cafe, where a philosopher is found along with the bread ... return bus busy, but with a seat next to Nancy, regular customer of W2M, internet user and potential blog reader, now she has the link ... home to new fridge, having rested the requisite time, fires up ... quietly ... hooray!
And today's third Himalayan reference from a neighbour due to fly to Nepal soon ... to work on a British Army base there ... hopefully not an official secret ... interesting to note the old Great Game plays on up in the mountains where Russia, China, Pakistan and India have borders, whilst UK, USA and others have strategic interests ... trekking a major part of the tourist economy, pilgrimages to holy mountains, retreat centres and the current home of the Dalai Lama along with thousands of other displaced Tibetans one of whom appears to be a FB friend ...
No comments:
Post a Comment