Just under a year ago, Ross and I went for a short break in the Lake district and stayed at a Quaker guesthouse called Glenthorne.
We were back there this weekend for a Quaker gathering - the last of these I went to was in Noddfa in North Wales in October 2006 - so nearly two and a half years have passed. Whilst I was engaged in discussion sessions, Ross did his own thing - mostly sketching.
We'd learnt a lot from our last visit and Ross's scooter meant that he had a much greater degree of independence. On the first evening, we both went down from the guesthouse into Grassmere. There's a long, steep hill going down. There's a long, steep hill coming back. And coming back, it's all up.
The first trip was an experiment to see what was possible. Ross's scooter took the hill like a champion. I couldn't keep up on foot. The result was that Ross took a further two trips into the village on his own.
We also requested a different room from the the one we occupied last year. This one, Room 23, the Garden Room or Black Sail as it was called, was much better. It was larger, was not next to the reception desk (and so was quieter and had more privacy) and had quite good radio reception. We'd ask for that room again if we went back together.
My experience was the usual mixture of interest and frustration - the frustrations usually being with my fellow Quakers. The theme of the weekend was sustainability. As ever, we agreed that we all did quite a bit already, certainly more than the national average. However, we also agreed that we could do more and that we shied away from things that really were really inconvenient.
After the weekend, I am more convinced that, actually, the science behind global warming doesn't really matter. It may or may not be correct. The prognostications may or may not be correct. The timescales discussed may or may not be correct.
What matters is how much we love ourselves, each other, the land and the land which we are to leave our children's children.
If we love none of these, then we will ruin the land and there will be a cull. The earth is sustainable - human beings may not be.