We’re not long back from a long day in London.

We went first to Khun Peter’s restaurant in Marylebone where I’m invited on the first Sunday of every month to eat and give a talk.

Mae Chee Khema had accompanied me and spoke about her recent experience staying in the NE of Thailand in a remote forest wat. I added a little more about my friend Tan Ajahn Dang at whose wat she had been staying.

Afterwards we went over to South Kensington to visit Khun Jung who is in London for her daughter’s graduation next week.

Then we crossed the river and went to see Lord Avebury who is soon to undergo serious surgery. You can read more about that on his blog.

We’re obviously desperately hoping that that will be successful. This photo was taken in his front room with a portrait of his mother behind.

One of the principal reasons for Mae Chee coming today had been so that she could see Lord Avebury and thank him for the part he played in enabling her to be here. Ex had joined us at the restaurant to come back with us and Crane very ably drove.

After months, well, almost two years, but more intensely in recent months, of wondering and thinking about what to do with our two properties, to consolidate them as one and move elsewhere or stay and improve on and make the best of what we’ve got, we’ve decided to stay and extend our main building. In a few months we will be celebrating twenty-five years of The Forest Hermitage and rather than look back I want to look forward and do what I can to ensure that this place continues far into the future to make available in the Heart of England the teaching and practice of Buddhism.

By the end of this month both properties will be paid for and it will be time to look to the next phase of the development of The Forest Hermitage. We have contracted with a company called Breckenbridge to build two extensions, two orangeries, which are largely glass buildings, on the side and rear of the existing property. Again, after a lot of thought and discussion, this is what seemed our best option. Of course there are various hurdles to surmount before this can become a reality, particularly planning permission. Nothing after all is certain in this uncertain world, nor is it perfect, but this is what we hope to do and what we have already set in motion. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what it will look like.

On Tuesday we had our annual visit by girls from Cheltenham Ladies College. They’ve been coming every year for several years now and spend best part of the afternoon with us, about an hour and a half with me in the Shrine Room and the rest outside drawing and applying themselves to a prepared questionnaire. Unfortunately it’s almost become the tradition for it to rain when they are here and there was an ominous five minute shower about an hour before they arrived but otherwise I’m happy to report that we managed to break with that particular tradition and by the time they went outside it was hot and sunny.

In the centre of the photo you can see a nun talking to them. Yes, I’m delighted to report that Sister Khema has returned to us after fifteen months deep in a remote forest wat in North-East Thailand. She’s been back just over a week now and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who made it possible for her to be here. She stays over at Bhavana-Dhamma, our other property on the other side of Hampton Wood.

Yesterday, on the last day of June, Maureen turned eighty.

I should think that everyone who knows or who has had anything to do with the Forest Hermitage knows Maureen. She started attending my meditation groups way back before this property was found when I was still at Banner Hill, near Kenilworth. In those days she was a bit of a mystery but I remember someone thinking she was probably a school teacher. Then when we viewed this property the then owners talked about how they’d thought that their daughter might not have been able to go to King’s in Warwick because a parish boundary runs through the grounds which puts us for some things in Warwick and for others in Stratford, but it turned out she could and had and was shortly off to Oxford. Relating all that that evening after the sitting I saw Maureen thinking as I spoke and of course soon after we found out that she was in fact Head of King’s. In 1987 she took early retirement and came with a small group I took to Thailand in December of that year and the following year she sold up and went to become a nun in Thailand. After about three years she disrobed and ever since has devoted herself to helping us here, moving into Wood Cottage, now Bhavana Dhamma, when we purchased that property in 2003. Fortunately Maureen remains very active and in good health and we depend heavily on her for all sorts of errands, as well as help with gardening, cooking, cleaning, you name it.

We’re very grateful to Maureen for all that she has done and does for us and wish her many happy returns of the day.

This afternoon we removed and packed away the marquee that had been protecting the restoration of our English Shwe Dagon Pagoda. You might have read of the work to recast the steps and repaint our Pagoda in a previous entry on April 24th. Now it’s complete.

Thank you Tahn Manapo for a good job well done.

On the first Sunday of every month I have a standing invitation to the Two Point Kitchen Thai Restaurant in Crawford Street, Marylebone to eat and give a talk. This has only been happening since February so my appearance there last Sunday was just the fourth. When the suggestion that I do this was first made to me I immediately saw it as an important opportunity for us to have some exposure in London. So far it seems that my talks have been well received and the people who have attended have certainly been very generous. Long may it continue.

On this most recent occasion I went afterwards to see Lord Avebury for an hour or so. We’ve known each other now for about 25 years and it’s always a great pleasure to spend time with this wonderful man. Somehow while we were there the conversation got round to Darwin and he told us that his grandfather who was a neighbour of Darwin’s one day took Mr Gladstone to meet Darwin. Afterwards, as they were coming away, Mr Gladstone, the great Liberal leader and unbelievably modest for a Prime Minister, said of Darwin how good it had been of such a great man to find time to for them. Lord Avebury was sporting two Lib Dem rosettes on his chest which reminded us of how caught up he is at the minute with the General Election so not wanting to keep him from that we soon left and headed back north of the river.

This time our destination was Charing Cross Road and the edge of China town where in a crowded alley crammed between little shops, there’s an entrance that you easily pass, as we did at first,  that admits you to several floors of small flats that you would never have imagined were there. In one of these lives my old and dear friend Victor Spinetti. We have known each other for over forty years, since he directed me in a play composed of John Lennon’s verse. I’d rung him the night before and found myself talking to his brother who was there to care for him since he’d just had a pacemaker fitted and only that night got out of hospital. Just off his bed, not unexpectedly it took him a few minutes to warm up but then the stories of his highly unusual past began to flow as fluently as ever. Ex who was with me is doing a PhD in film studies and I told Victor I particularly wanted Ex to meet a real film star.

Yes, we’ve gone live on the Internet. Now in the privacy and convenience of your own home you can tune in and join us on any Monday, Wednesday or Friday evening at 8 o’clock.

With your headphones in place or your speakers turned on and turned up, just come to this page and automatically you should hear whatever is going on or being said in the Forest Hermitage Shrine Room. Simply close your eyes, open your ears, and in no time at all you will feel as if you have been transported here and are sitting with us.

This afternoon we held a meeting of the Buddha-Dhamma Fellowship (BDF) Committee. The BDF is the trust that looks after the Forest Hermitage.

The business this afternoon included how much was left in the kitty, the purchase of the new car, the live internet broadcasts and a discussion on whether to improve the main building and if so how and when. These meetings are held monthly and we agreed today that any of our supporters who happened to be here when we met would be welcome to sit in and perhaps gain a little insight into what it takes to keep an operation like this going. Our next meeting will follow our Vesakha Puja celebration on Sunday, May 30th at 2 o’clock.

It’s almost 22 years since Sayadaw U Thilawunta (Aung Ming Aung Sayadaw) came to the Forest Hermitage with his young assistant to build a pagoda or chedi in our garden. Apart from the foundations and painting, the main structure took them eight days and was finished on the eighth of the eighth, eighty-eight! Sayadaw named it the English Shwe Dagon Pagoda after the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon.

Unsurprisingly, since then we have had occasionally to repaint it and make some minor repairs. Chief amongst them have been the steps which recently were covered with wood. But of course the wood deteriorated and by the end of this winter it was looking decidedly the worse for wear. So a week ago a cement mixer was hired, a marquee was erected to protect everything and Tahn Manapo set to work. And after making steady progress, one step at a time, one step a day, on Friday it was finished. Now we just have to wait for it to dry thoroughly before it gets repainted.

The top photo is of the dedication ceremony in August 1988. The one below it is of the renovation work in progress last week and the last is of the Pagoda with the new steps completed and waiting for the cement to thoroughly dry and the new paint to be applied.

Thanks largely to Khun Yod’s determined fundraising at Songkran here and in Nottingham we have been able to update the temple car.

A few days ago when it left our service the old green Renault had been with us for four and a half years and about 100,000 miles. It’s been replaced with a younger and rather more comfortable Citroen, better able to care for my ageing thirty-two parts.

Many thanks to all those who contributed and made this possible. Anumodana!