Thursday 12.40 p.m.
                               The photies were taken yesterday when I went out to try to hide, just before things fell apart.
                                I found the dharma talks and the guided meditation from Ringu Tulku so inspiring that yesterday started with great aspirations. I was going to stop drinking and doing anything bad at all. Totally resolved.
                                Then who shows up out of the blue but Brian Wilson, El Grosso himself, with the half chewed pig's face sticking out of his jacket pocket, the bottle of gin, the cigarettes coming out of every orifice. He was just back from China with a new liver. He's a big supporter of the Chinese government now though the liver they gave him was a bit singed since the Tibetan who had it last torched himself. After about five hours in the pub, I managed to lever him into a taxi and send him back to Portobello.
                                 One of the great things about Buddhism is that guilt is regarded as morbid. You dust yourself off, resolved not to make the same mistake again, and walk on. The meditation I just had was fabulous!!! Everything is cranked up again despite El Grosso showing up.

Tuesday 9.50 p.m.
                            I had a wonderful day today. Meditated in the morning and then I went to the Dzong for a guided meditation with Ringu Tulku. He is a fabulous teacher and said stuff about tonglen I didn't know about before. Then I went home and had lunch, a nap, and then went up the allotment. Then I went out to the second half of the teachings from the Rinpoche. Loved it!! Some cats got it, but I won't go on about how  great it was because you'd have to be there and yous aren't really interested in this juju anyway. Oh well!

Saturday 7.53 p.m.
                            I went up the allotment this afternoon and then on to the Botanics. The last three photies are from meditation spots.
                            I was lying in bed this morning and I heard, or thought I did, some pennies falling onto the floor from a bag of pennies on top of the wee bookcase at the bottom of the bed. This has definitely happened before, a year or so ago. Then it happened again. When I got up, I went to look for the pile of pennies and there weren't any pennies. Neither was there a bag of pennies. I moved them all months ago when I cleaned the room up a bit. This noise, or series of noises has then happened three times after the original set of noises.
                             What do you think, Jack? If it happens again, Hotboy, resist the temptation to put on the light and have a look. There be wee monsters down there!!

Tuesday 5.18 p.m.
                            I have dug up at the path, apart from a tottie wee bit at the hut where I can put the log section for the sitting on top of and meditating. But we don't have a path down the middle of the allotment anymore and that's a bit awkward really. You could break your neck trying to scramble over the big clumps as well. I'm not to sure what I'm supposed to do now. Turning it into a path would be a good idea.
                            Goosegogs!

Monday 4.36 p.m.
                            Saw some of Scotland's finest marching up and down for the Queen's jubilee and was so inspired I just had to get myself a union jack mug! They used to play the national anthem in cinemas before the picture came on. They should bring that back. One reich, one folk! God Save The Queen!

Sunday 11.50 a.m.
                            Everything at the moment is pretty abysmal what with the great grannies both being on the ropes and a friend of mine in hospital as well. Dearie me! Also, it turns out that I've to go to Lanarkshire again today. The only good thing is the meditations. The one this morning was fantastic. It's just so wonderful that such bliss is there and at hand.
                             But only for you, Hotboy. I know, Jack, but it's not my fault they're too dumb to meditate. Oh, I bumped into the Edinburgh nun on the bus on Friday and told her I'd go back to the Monday night meditations. Hope I do. Be nice to be in a room full of folk who weren't total flatheids.

Friday 8.06 p.m.
                         It was a relief to get to the allotment tonight and do some digging. I'm digging up the central path and that's as far as I've planned. Once you've dug up a path there's no path anymore and you'd break your ankle trying to get down there over the lumps and bumps now.
                         You'd wonder what was keeping the mother in law alive. Life. Life doesn't seem to like going away. The poor woman is totally exhausted and can hardly string a sentence together now. She still sleeps an awful lot, and she is not happy. So I sat in her kitchen yesterday and till after one today. She asked me when her girls were coming.
                         Usually, I leave Newmains at the back of eleven so I can go and see the auld maw, but the auld maw is in Wishaw hospital just now. She'll get out soon. She ended up in a bed next to the woman who lived upstairs from us when I was a kid, who was in with the same thing.
                          My meditations this week seemed to hit a new plateau, but I see how amazing it would be to realise non-self and emptiness and think it is so obviously beyond me in my current lifestyle that I thought I should really start writing again.
                          I always wanted to have the chance to write full time and that was what I told myself all through my life when I couldn't do that. I'd like to be a full time writer. However, this desire ebbed over the years of having to go and do a stupid job. The meditations were taking centre stage. When I got an agent, I stopped writing practically altogether, which is the opposite from what you're supposed to do. Anyway, I didn't want writing in my head when I should be meditating, but I think I'll have to consider starting writing again.
                          They won't let you meditate around here, Jack. The phone rings. Flatheids land on you. They used to do that to me when I was writing as well, but if you say you are writing, it is easier to tell them to just fung off.  Anyway, every time I want to write it's because I don't think I got what it takes to do the juju.