Archive: 2026-04
Week 277: An annual inconvenience
I gave blood on Wednesday. I usually go to Stratford, but they’re currently refurbishing the donor centre, and the temporary replacement (a van in a car park) has far fewer slots. And, of course, it’s a van in a car park, which is not such a pleasant experience. But on Tuesday, as I was looking for slots for Friday, I noticed that there was a session in Peckham the very next day, only a minute’s walk away from where I rent a desk. I booked in for mid-afternoon and spent a relaxing hour reading (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, loved it) while I waited, donated, and ate crisps afterwards. Maybe it doesn’t sound like a relaxing afternoon break to most people, but it was for me.
Wild axolotls
Week 276: Back to reality
After a holiday that was busy, full of new places and experiences, but also very relaxing, going back to sitting in front of a computer all day has been a difficult adjustment.
Week 275: From Athens back to London
Our journey back home started well. We reversed our steps: train to Kiato; bus to Patras; taxi to the port; overnight ferry to Bari. This time, we were on the Superfast I, the twin sister of the vessel of the we’d taken on our outbound voyage, and we even had the same room, identical except for tiny things like the placement of a few electrical sockets.
Week 274: London to Athens via Rome (and a few other places)
The London Okinawa Sanshinkai was invited to perform at Japan Festival Greece in Athens on the Easter weekend – our Easter, that is; Orthodox Easter as celebrated in Greece falls a week later this year – and I decided to take part. L— and I chose to make a proper holiday of it: rather than flying to Athens, we’d take the long route by train and ferry, and stop off at some other places along the way. The itinerary, travel, and hotels were all organised by Byway, who we used to arrange our trip to the Basque country last year, using their concierge service. It wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t all that expensive either, considering that it included travel, hotels, and first class upgrades on most of the train journeys. It was also very easy and almost certainly cheaper than the nightmare of administration that booking it ourselves would have been.