Graduation

Over to Durham today for my Graduation Ceremony. I finished my thesis fifteen months ago but somehow it took a long time to sort out examiners and I missed the deadline for last summer's event. Not that it made that much difference - with completing most of my studies 7,000 miles away in Chiba I didn't really know any of my research contemporaries much.

Always a good 'bash' at Durham, it is held in the Cathedral and of course it isn't the first time I've attended a 'congregation' there. Back in 1968 I was awarded my first degree in the same ceremony; I have absolutely no recollection of it at all. But I'm sure that we were all about 6" shorter than the current crop and much weedier and less mature.

Bill Bryson was Chancellor this time; it is his last year in the job so I was lucky to have had him to confirm my Doctorate.

I have a lot of complex feelings about it, too much to explain here. Strange to think that there is no further 'formal' step in education. Bizarrely, as 'Dr. Robinson' I somehow qualify as 'fully educated' and I won't ever be back. Of course I'm likely to go much deeper into two or three or the academic themes that have really interested me, but now as a fully qualified scholar.

Edera wore one of her kimonos today. Great! We really cut quite a couple in our own eccentric way. What a pair we are.

Earthquakes on Radio 4.

A mad rush today to get the place nice for Edera arriving tomorrow. Not that it was THAT messy you understand, but I wanted to give it a bit of a Spring Cleaning.

Listening to BBC Radio 4 as I set about the bathroom I was drawn into a science programme about the March 11 earthquake. A British geologist was questioning some of his colleagues in Japanese universities. It proved to be pretty alarming listening, and somehow confirmed suspicions that I already had.

With the newest equipment that seismologists now have available the way in which the tectonic plates moved was captured and measured in huge detail. We are accustomed to thinking of earthquakes happening at one 'epicentre' but this quake was along a very long front - more than 100 kilometres from north to south. It moved 20 metres laterally and 7 metres vertically. With the force of the quake and the two big aftershocks we experienced in Chiba this doesn't surprise me, we were much closer to the strongest tremors than the initial data seemed to suggest..

But here was the scary bit. This big movement transferred crustal stress from the north of Japan to the area off the coast around Chiba, Tokyo and Kanagawa. So actually far from de- stressing the crust it significantly increased the risk of another very large quake exactly in the area of Japan that we live in.

I had wondered about this - the endless 'aftershocks' we have experienced seem to show little sign of subsiding, it is as if central Japan has become completely unstable. While we used to get 10-20 quakes a year now it is more like 10-20 per month. It isn't good news eh?

Relative Values?

I see that Debbie Reynolds Memorabilia Auction is in progress in Hollywood today. Darn it - I meant to slip over and make a few bids but my engagement diary is just too crowded this month. The prices looked promising though - maybe I should have a sale of my own more 'iconic' goodies eh? Now there's a word that we love these days; when I studied art it just referred to old Greek Orthodox religious paintings.

Anyway on the 'plug' the BBC gave the event they were taking about the anticipated prices for various items which will, I am sure, be wildly exceeded today. And the thing that really amused me were the relative values of a couple of the items.

That guitar that Julie Andrews played in 'The Sound of Music' for example was down for an estimated $20,000. Good wholesome stuff and you could also bid on that tweedy dress for the same price.

On the other hand the white dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch" - you know, the one disarranged up by the wind blowing up through the grating - was estimated to be worth around $2 million.

So, there we have it, it's official. The erotic out-prices the wholesome by around a hundred to one. I'm not surprised.

An end to solitude

Six days now and Edera will be here. An end to solitude. I have been on my own here eight weeks now and that is the longest we have been separated since 2002 I guess. Even when I was still working in the UK I always managed to get to Japan once in every three or four months.

I enjoy being on my own though - at least for a while. There is something pleasant in the contrast between being outside the house and involved in many activities and projects and then coming back here and being solitary. The experience of new rhythms has secret pleasures, I find I work harder, concentrate harder. I quite like my own company.

And then the pleasure of being back into a relationship at every level. In a way the isolation just emphasises and points up the pleasure of being back as a couple together again. Always something new too, people can change quite a lot in eight weeks.

Anyway there is all the practical stuff now. Get the vacuum cleaner out, polish the furniture, do the shopping.

Breaking the news

Down to Lancashire today to see how everyone was getting on now that they have had a couple of days to settle in back at home. Just fine; the midwife had been shortly before I arrived and there were no problems with Tom and his mum at all.

Immediately afterwards I drove across to see my own mum to let her know that she had become a great-grandmother. I would have done it at the weekend but I just didn't have the energy. In the last six months she has slipped a lot mentally and lives in a fantasy world of her own some of the time. But happily she was switched on enough this afternoon to grasp the details of it all, take in the news at least for the moment.

But she doesn't seem to have got it in any context. We had to make the rounds of the residential home to break the news to everyone about her new 'status' but it never occurred to her to ask when she might get to see the baby.

The thing I slightly worried about beforehand was that she might react negatively when she heard that Tom had my father's name. But no, that angle just didn't occur to her at all, he seems to be long forgotten. There was only the happiness of the news of a new generation which for this afternoon brought some sunshine in a fog of confusion. Good.

Dog sense.

I haven't seen Thomas over the last couple of days - I have been giving them all time to settle back into some semblance of routine at home again. But I did get a chance to talk to Julia on the phone tonight and ask how things were going and also how Hector, her miniature long haired dachshund, was adjusting to the new member of the family. He is doing just fine, I knew he would, he is a sensitive and loving dog with a good sense of humour and a real gentleman.

I think it is really great for dogs and babies to grow up together. Right dog of course, and with some careful supervision. When Julia was a baby we had or old cocker spaniel 'Crackers' and she was just brilliant with both the children, a furry bundle of fun, energy and enthusiasm, you could never have asked for a better dog. As Julia grew into a toddler they were constant playmates. They were almost exactly the same age, they were born in the same month if not the same week. That dog was like a second mother to be honest.

So we will see how Hector gets along. He's a mature dog already, no puppy. I'm looking forward to seeing the pair of them together tomorrow afternoon.

Some first impressions

Well three days a grandparent already. Thanks for all the messages and congratulations I received over the weekend, I don't think I have had as much mail since ... um, let me see ... everyone wrote to me to check I was OK after the March 11 earthquake I suppose.

I wouldn't say my experience of grandparenting is extensive yet but of course that won't stop me pontificating on the topic so here we go.

First off, I'd forgotten how heavy babies were or perhaps I have just turned into a complete weakling at last. Anyway this one is darn heavy when you cradle him on your knee, after about ten minutes your biceps ache and you are rummaging for a pillow to support your elbow. It doesn't help any that he is so utterly relaxed and laid back that he sleeps like a 4kg. rag doll. Still, better that than bawling eh? He is actually a very contented baby.

The other thing that really strikes me already is how 'familiar' he is, there is no sense of strangeness there for me, it is almost like I have always known him. That surprises me a little. When both my own children was born I was struck by how 'separate' they seemed. Not in any sense of isolation but just that they were 100% 'other beings' from the first second. Perhaps that is a matter of age, the difference between being in your 'twenties' and being in your 'sixties'. When you are younger the 'all is different' seems to prevail. When you are older the 'all is one' becomes not simply just a theoretical possibility but a very direct aspect of all lived experience.

Someone said to me "now that you have a grandson you will have to look after yourself better - you have a responsibility there." And it is true eh? Butter cut back on the snacks at least a little and walk a bit faster for the exercise. I'm the only grandfather he has.

Thomas Robert Halstead

Long awaited arrival of our grandchild yesterday evening.

Everyone is doing just fine.

Thomas Robert Halstead. His names are those of two of his great grandfathers, so they follow in a family tradition.

Don't be surprised if 'Little House' proves to be a bit erratic over the next few days, although I will write here when I can.

The Face of Moss?

Looking for a blazer on the internet this afternoon. It is time to get serious in the sartorial department and I can't decide between pea green and crimson this year. Life seems to be full of so many hard choices.

But here's a thing that I did come across. Looking at their web site it seems that 'Moss' (a little bit of re-branding there eh?) are now looking for the the man that will be the 'Face of Moss' for 2012. "Be the Face of Moss!" It has a ring to it.

It is no secret that I have always fancied a second career as a male model and to be honest I think I have not only the talent for it but also the looks. Seriously though - couldn't you see me cutting a sharp and attractive figure on some big spotlit poster site in Slough or Leeds?

All I have to do is complete the application form, send it together with two recent photographs and my chest, waist and inside leg measurements in Imperial units and Bob's your Uncle. The photo shoot is during the week beginning 10th July in London. I have my ticket booked.

Singing outdoors

Very pleasant evening last night. During the last week I have managed to make contact with a local singing group whose summer programme consists of weekly walks in the southern part of the Lake District during which they stop and sing at any attractive spot that they pass by. Yesterday I managed to get along to my first meeting.

I really enjoyed it, just what I needed after five weeks without singing. We met up at Rydal between Ambleside and Grasmere, parking up just next to the church and outside Rydal Mount, once the home of the poet William Wordsworth. From there we circumnavigated Rydal Water, a short and generally easy walk of maybe three miles although it involved one stretch of pretty steep climbing that had my heart racing.

Singing outdoors is really fun, our Japanese choir occasionally does it too. This excursion took in singing by the lake, by the river, in a large cave with splendid acoustics, near a dog rose tree and several places where the view was excellent. There wasn't a single piece of music that I knew, and no sheet music. So it was a case of learning as we went but of course most of the people there knew the repertoire and it was easy to pick up.

That might be the slight weakness in this for me - it is really good to sing like this AND I might soon feel the need for some more complex and inspired music too. But the two forms are not in conflict with each other. Maybe singing in future might take in this kind of outdoor seasonal delight in the summer months and something more serious in winter for me.

Fly flies by.

A fly came buzzing through the kitchen this evening just as I was washing up after tea, and I realised that it was the first one I had seen around the house since I got back here from Japan five weeks ago tonight. Admittedly it had an overcoat and scarf on but there it was, beating its wings against the window behind the sink. A real insect. And now looking through the back room window towards the sunset I can set a couple more circling outside.

That's amazing eh? End of the first week in June already, and the little blighters are still keeping their heads down. Of course if you go for a walk later in the evening there are always midges down near the river and along the hedge-lined paths around here, even if the weather is cold or they need to dodge the rain. Those species rich hedgerows are ideal hunting territory for entomologists, the insects make a living around the leaves of the perennials under the hawthorns.

Even so you could hardly call northern England an entomologists paradise, I guess they are only around for only five or at best six months in the year. In Japan we have the horrors of being pursued by mosquitoes under the bedclothes at night even in December, there hardly seems to be a moment when you can let your guard down. And of course opening windows without insect screens in place is just asking for trouble.

So that is one thing to be said for living in Cumbria. Provided that you give the river a miss at certain times of the day you can live a gloriously bite-free life.

Almost a granddad.

A bitterly cold day around here today - a sudden blast of Arctic air after a couple of days of really warm weather has had me getting my heavy jacket back out of the wardrobe. "N'eer cast a clout till May" be out is certainly good advice in east Cumbria and you can also extend that into the first week of June it seems.

Grandparent-hood is very imminent for me now. Julia's baby is due tomorrow on the sixth - in fact in Japan come to think of it, it already IS the sixth. Certainly at some stage over the next week or so the baby will be here.

It has been very much in my mind today - this invisible transition in progress. These are the last few hours where there is no explicit blood tie, no visible emotional bond. We don't know whether it is a girl or a boy. My Japanese friends find this very strange but both Julia and I would never want to know such a thing, when she was born we never asked either though we could have. It feels like an integral part of the birth that things have to move from the unknown to the known, a new person has to emerge "all at once".

I thought I might get a very strong intuition around this but there isn't one, nothing has come up for a clue for me. What will be common knowledge in a couple of weeks' time remains a total mystery.

So there is a certain kind of innocence in this moment, and also the last of something, of not being a grandparent. I suspect it is rather like being a parent again - suddenly everything is different, someone else to worry about. And yet not the same. I'll tell you when it happens.

What a laugh eh?

Working in the shop at the station last weekend a customer was buying a jig-saw at the till when he spotted a 'specimen' embossed marketing copy Gibson's on the table ready for mounting on a display and said to me "Oh! Maybe I'll take that already 'made up' one - it will save me some time!" I wondered what Sue would say about it and how to wrap it up and said "I think I'll have to check if it is OK for you to take that one" and he looked puzzled himself and replied "I was only joking!"


Of course he was. Why would anyone buy an already made-up jigsaw?

Huh?!? That is about the tenth time someone has said "I was only joking" to me in the last fortnight. What happened to my English sense of humour? I can't spot when people are making jokes any more. Clearly I have lived in Japan far too long.

But here's the strange thing. In Japan I often make jokes and tease people and they also look puzzled. For example a while back we were discussing what the choir were going to wear for a concert and the ladies asked me "What are you going to wear Iain-san?" and I replied "I thought that my kilt would look nice". And they all looked puzzled until Edera mentioned "Oh! It is just his weird English sense of humour - take no notice!"

So there we are. It seems like I have a foot in each culture. I can chortle at kilts but jigsaw jokes leave me cold. I am mixed up. What a laugh eh?

Indictment

I was watching the TV this morning and I found myself absolutely glued to the courtroom scenes of the indictment of Ratko Mladic. Did you see any of it? There was a kind of tension there that I am not sure that I could begin to put into words.

For a start the whole position of the accused, the 'strange' yet predictable dissociation with the proceedings. Insuperable force meeting an immovable object. It seems inevitable that there must be an absolute rejection on his part because if you admitted to yourself the validity of even a tiny part of those charges the sky would fall in on you. You can only continue to live from hour to hour by building an insurmountable wall to keep reality out.

How would you or I feel in the same position? It is a meaningless question, we never would be in the same position. To have such stuff on our consciences would make us crazy. But of course we are all potentially capable of such terrible acts, sucked into them by anger or fear.

And yet the really interesting thing is the awesome power of judicial process. Somehow it is underlined rather than diminished by a mild mannered Dutch judge politely checking each detail with infinite care, patience and courtesy. Going back half a dozen times to repeat the question until an answer comes which is clear at last, leaving no corner for doubt. There is no way that Mladic can step aside from or prevent this process of justice, no matter how he reacts.It has a diamond-like quality. So the conflict between the two has a kind of epic quality.

Foreign marriages

There was an interesting discussion on Radio 4 today, it quite caught my attention and I settled down to listen to it. Three people were debating just to what degree we can ever understand other cultures which are not our own. The general consensus was that the answer was 'not much'.

But they also suggested that the deepest insights into other cultures usually come from those that are married into them and live as a foreigner in a foreign land. Although they may miss much of what goes on around them, such lucky people they suggested often see even more deeply into foreign cultures than those who have always lived bound within them.

How very true! I have often thought so.

The other thing that they suggested was that in marriages between people from different cultures you never really understand your partner. Like men and dogs, each builds a very happy and strong relationship with the other on the basis of many subtly false assumptions about what makes the other 'tick'. It is maybe hard enough to know someone in your own culture who grew up in the same area as you and went to the same kind of school and shared the same friends. But a foreign husband or wife - forget it! There will always be whole areas of their outlook on life that are a total mystery.

Again I think this is all very true. But it is not necessarily a bad thing - often quite the opposite; life is seldom dull. Maybe it is even often easier to get on well, be 'close', just because there are so many grey areas. And when you realise that you aren't really 'tuned in' to what is going on it pays just to shut up, shrug your shoulders and get on with something different which is no bad thing in any relationship. On the other hand if you don't have the ability to shrug your shoulders and move on you are surely doomed.

'Memorial' in Lancashire

Down in Lancashire all day yesterday and I didn't get back until nearly midnight. My 'evening out' was to get along to the meditation group in Preston where I was a 'regular' all through the 1990's. There was a 'memorial' ceremony for one of the group members who died in May and I wanted to get to it.

Rosettta. She started to come regularly after I moved on from Lancashire so I never spent a lot of time with her but over the last ten years I must have come across her at least a dozen times either on meditation evenings I made at Preston or at the Abbey. A very kind, smiley, cheerful sparrow-like person, the kind of person that you only had to sit down with to start chuckling. On our altars for 'memorials' we always put a picture of the person concerned right in front on the Buddha statue and offer 'candles, incense, flowers and fruit'. Hers was a lovely picture but kind of serious, I never saw her looking so serious in real life.

The group meet now in a modern office meeting room just off the Guildhall Arcade and it is one of those places where a forest of smoke detectors and sprinkers mean that you can't even light a candle, let alone offer a stick of incense. We had to make do with a little flickery electric candle and just bow in gassho. But it doesn't matter of course, it is the open heart and intention that counts.

Listening to 'Thought for the Day' yesterday morning on Radio 4 there was a Buddhist from Bristol offering a short reflection and he quoted a poem about karma that I found quite striking. People often think of karma as 'fate' or even worse something judgmental like 'retribution' - that absolutely isn't the idea at all. 'Effect' would be a much better word to use. Well, darn me, by serendipity exactly the same quotation appeared in the Urban dharma Newsletter I had in my e-mail. It is anonymous and not even specifically 'Buddhist' but to trip over it twice in a day is something to notice eh?

Sow a thought, and reap an action.
Sow an action, and reap a habit.
Sow a habit, and reap character.
Sow character, and reap a destiny.