7:05pm Sunday 23rd in Barbados. It’s been raining most of the day and very heavily. I went for a short run this morning from our villa to Oistins and got caught in a downpour on the way back. The previous two days had been very active. On Friday I enjoyed a good session running and meditating on the beach. I posted the following to the Daily Mile website:

It’s hot and too near midday to be running but the tide’s out and I don’t want to miss a whole week’s practice. It takes me about three minutes to run from one end of the beach to another. If I were running on the road the same distance might take two minutes at an easy pace; that would make the distance about one-sixth of a mile. I run up and down the beach six times and then I sit under a tree and do za-zen meditation, being aware of my breathing. I run another six stretches and then sit and do tratak meditation, staring at the horizon, the line where the sea meets the sky. As three is obviously a magical number I run a last six stretches or three laps then sit again and do antar mouna meditation, being aware of my senses and then the flow of my thoughts. I’m exhausted but in a good way. A total of about 3 miles.

In the evening the family and friends went down to Oistins to have a drink with Orin. Sandy and I returned early to look after Xavier who did not sleep well. The next day we celebrated Orin’s birthday but under a bit of a cloud as Xavier had to go to the hospital where he was diagnosed as having an ear and nose infection and given antibiotics a treatment for his asthma. Because of the rain we stayed in all day today. Xavier is still unwell.