Hurrah for the Spring!

 

                        It was great spending six nights at the Samye Ling during the Makhala Prayers festival. For the first time in three years! That's the longest I've been away from there since the first time I visited in 1988. It was a bit sad to see that the place is still half shut. The cafe was not open and neither was the Potala House, so for the first time I stayed in Johnstone House, room 2. I think they are having a problem with the price of energy, but I just loved being there once I gotten over the fear of never being warm. 

                        I got a taxi from Lockerbie and when I was bailing out, there near the front of the door of the quadrangle was Lama Yeshe, Lama Rinchen Palmo, Ani Lhamo and several other nuns. How auspicious!! I got my copy of the book by Lama Yeshe, From a Mountain in Tibet, signed by him and that felt like I'd accomplished the main task I'd set myself: get Lama Yeshe to sign the book and thank him for all his help. I don't know what he wrote on the book, but was reminded of the joke pulled by the Chinese tattooist who inked in Chinese on someone's arm: at the end of the day this is just a silly boy. Anyway, I thanked him for everything. He was on a mobility scooter. Well, none of us are getting any younger.

                       A couple of weeks ago, I finished the first draft of my latest book, and have since read it through once. For what it is, a first draft, I was very pleased with it. It's much better than anything I've written for years and years. The re-writes won't take me very long since most of it is okay .... well, I should go through it with a fine toothed comb, but it's in the first person, and you're either going to go with that, or hate it.

                        I really should start looking for an agent for it, but the idea makes my heart sink a little. I don't need the money. It won't get me out of a jobbie since I don't work anymore. Anyway, it's not your usual novel and I probably won't find an agent, but I think I should make some kind of effort. If I got it published and made some money (I've only ever made £1,000 from books), I could give it away.

                        I'll be back at the Samye Ling at the end of May and might be going to Belgium with Lama Rinchen after that, but we'll just wait and see how that pans out.