Temple: Kokubunji – it has a statue of Kukai you can shake hands with. There I am, looking like the Queen Mother.

Dedication: I met Butty through Tash just after he’d been sectioned for smashing up my favourite bar during a psychotic episode. I lived with him and Ish for a few weeks before uni and remember one afternoon when he asked me to join him finding the best cup of tea in central Manchester. I think about that afternoon often when someone asks me to do something and I’m unsure. Just say yes. Hope you’re doing well Butty.

I am furious. I was going to stay in the tsuyado at the previous temple. It’s only an enclosed hut but it means less chance of mosquitos and at that temple you could attend the morning service and sometimes even use the bath for free.

Anyway I suggested Toppo ask as well and he told another old henro on the way. The silly old prune told Toppo that young people should sleep outdoors, not in tsuyado, and that he should be walking alone, not with me.

Toppo took that to heart and was really upset for the rest of the day. He wouldn’t hear of staying in the tsuyado (he told me to though).

I have a big problem with people like that guy like that who have shriveled-up hearts and think they can tell other people what they should be getting from the pilgrimage or how to do it.

To borrow a phrase: when he dies, if they give him an enema, they’ll be able to bury him in a matchbox.