A Lot To Be Thankful For

Today is the birthday of my best friend Chris. Unlike last year, I cannot get over to Norfolk to celebrate with her. But here’s a great video about living in the country!  Happy Birthday Chris!

I cannot grow cress on a flannel, or sing in tune – but I did enjoy this song – the video was produced by a mother, her daughters and some friends and neighbours who live in Amish Country, Tennessee.

There’s green beans in the garden, clean clothes on the line

There’s little barefoot children playing neath the grape vine

The sun is shining bright and the creeks are bubblin’ too

We’ve got a lot to be thankful for

And Lord I want to thank you!

Chris grew up on a farm – I don’t think they had grapevines or a bubblin’ creek – but I know how much she loves the shire horses, so I’ve given her this Robin Smith print.

And I thank the Lord for such a good friend!

The Peterborough Effect**

 

 

 

I have had a brilliant day in Peterborough, listening to the ebullient Chris Duffett explaining how to arrange a “Get In The Picture” event.

 

The people at Park Road Baptist were incredibly hospitable [fabulous lunch!] and the training sessions were really well planned and useful. I have returned bubbling with enthusiasm for the project.

I only had one real problem with the day – I’d gone with the SatNav – I can get to Peterborough OK, but needed it for the last two or three miles off the A47 and into the centre to find the church.

And THREE TIMES I reached junctions and the instruction was to turn down a no-entry, the wrong way into a one-way street.

Therefore I took several attempts before I arrived at the Church – but the others there said that all the current building work etc means many road layouts have been altered, and actually central Peterborough is not a good place to navigate with a SatNav. I am just mentioning it in case anyone else is going there!

Bob has been just as busy doing PA/video links here

…one of the Baptist Churches in the city of Leicester.

And now I am going to get some sleep – because Sunday is going to be even busier…

** ‘the Peterborough Effect’ was a TV advertising campaign of the 1980s by the Peterborough Development Commission. The ads starred the late, great Roy Kinnear acting the part of a Roman Centurion.

I thought they were very clever ads, but they’ve probably been forgotten by most people now

Surprise For A Septuagenarian

My friend Carole was 70 this week, so her daughter-in-law Rachel masterminded a surprise party. Bob and I got to the Church Hall early this afternoon and set up decorations, a buffet table, and an alcohol-free cocktail bar.

Her grandson Matthew was in charge of music

Friends Hannah and Grace were my assistant barmaids

The cake was splendid

Carole enjoyed herself

[as did everyone else]

The cocktails were greatly appreciated

And my young helpers worked incredibly hard

Once the party got going, I was too busy to take pictures – but the Hall was crowded with friends and relations celebrating with Carole.

I hope she enjoyed the evening as much as I did!

Pi and Chips

Nicholas Sze from the technology firm Yahoo has calculated the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of π and he has determined that digit is ZERO. He has used 10 computers, and ‘Hadoop  cloud computing technology’ and it took 23 days. This is more than double the previous record.

Has the man nothing better to do with his time?

3.141592653589793238462643383279…………..

Personally I am quite happy with 22 ÷ 7 as a working figure when I am sewing or making simple models. Back in the Dark Ages, when I started at Secondary School, we had to learn the first 30 places with this mnemonic rhyme. No, I am not sure I understand either – and I have never had call to use it, except as an occasional party trick.

Sir, I send a rhyme excelling,

In sacred truth and rigid spelling,

Numerical spirits elucidate,

For me the lexicons wont weight,

If nature gain, not you complain

Tho' Dr Johnson fulminate.

I treasure this postcard which Steph sent us many years ago. I don’t think she thought it represented Bob and myself!

Winter Draws On!

The seasons are changing fast. Niki has posted this wonderful Canadian Wartime Poster

Someone else is ranting [quite reasonably imho]about the demise of Mamade Thick Cut and Lemon marmalades

Cottonreel and others are extolling the virtues of homemade chutney. And in the supermarket on Tuesday, a complete stranger engaged me in a long conversation about going home to soak her fruits in alcohol in preparation for her Christmas Mincemeat. [At least I think she was a complete stranger. If she was somebody I should have recognised, I am very sorry!]

it is exactly one

hundred days to

Christmas !!!

And the Christmas Charity Catalogues have started arriving. I’ve ordered [and received] some excellent goods from Save The Children this week. I found their catalogue online following a comment on The Madhouse. 

I like to give people hand-made gifts when I can, but if I do end up buying stuff, I like it if I can buy from a Charity catalogue, so that I feel I have helped a good cause along the way.

Today I have been flicking through the Bible Lands Catalogue. They have some fun stuff – including lots of retro advertising goods

Their Christmas cards are almost all ‘proper’ Christian themes [only one robin design!] and their Bible Lands mugs and bowls are attractive. They’ve got the legendary “Bethlehem Carol Sheet” updated, in CD Rom and large print formats too.

My only reservation is their apron with the verse from Philippians 4

I am not sure “I CAN DO ALL THINGS” is the best choice of texts– it is rather open to misinterpretation. Which reminds me of the set of pearl-handled tea knives given to my Mum. They had “HAVE FAITH IN GOD” engraved along the blades. Rather worrying for her guests, whenever she served them a home-made cake, I always felt!!

My carefully made plans for the week have gone slightly awry – as two of my 1-1 pupils were absent today – so I only worked the morning, and was home for lunch. Now I am trying to decide how to re-order the next couple of days to make best use of time.

I got loads done yesterday, in order to make sure I was ready for the weekend - on Saturday I am going to Peterborough for a training course about Get In The Picture [website] And on Sunday I am preaching in the morning. The sermon’s sorted, and the Worship Group have planned the Order Of Service. The rest of the day will be spent at The Village Fun Day. Hoping for fine weather there!

I am grateful for these two unexpected unallocated hours – and intend to go and use them in a creative and enjoyable way [beginning with making a pot of tea I think and perhaps relaxing with a Sudoku]

Hope!

Bob and I were thinking again of the Chilean Miners this morning – then I found that my good friend Catriona has just posted the latest news story…

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer”

Thrang!

thrang; to be busy, crowded with work or occupation

That is the wonderful word for today from my ‘Forgotten English’ calendar. It has the same root as ‘throng’ - a crowd, and comes from the Flemish ‘dringen’- to press or squeeze.

Today I am definitely thrang – but very happy to be busy, so not complaining about it!

Tech, Teck, Toque!

Up at 4.15am, and then collected at 4.50am by our good friend Bob, who took us to the Bus Station. Then a National Express Coach, and a short tube ride to Earls Court – arriving by 9.30am

We were going to Plasa – the Professional Lighting and Sound Association show

Bob goes every year, and this time I went along too. You never saw so many blokes in black polo shirts trying to persuade the visitors that they were selling the best thing since sliced bread! Everything you could ever want in terms of lighting, sound, multimedia presentation, pyrotechnics, staging, organising, labelling, cabling…

Bob had a great time, finding out about all the stuff he is interested in,and trying out bits of kit etc.

And me?

Well, I have entered competitions to win all sorts of PA gear [and also a day’s driving at Silverstone] Not expecting to win tho!

I also now have 3 more lanyards, a coffee mug, a pen and a useful guide to stage curtaining.

As far as I am concerned, the stands I enjoyed most were Line 6 where Simon did not treat me like an idiot, and talked to me all about radio mics in a language I understood [this was just before Bob got there and had a much more useful conversation!] and Dymo, where Leslie demonstrated labelmakers with more enthusiasm than I thought possible [then gave me a pen and a lanyard] and also the Mobile Massage Team – who gave me a wonderful back and neck massage, for a donation to charity.

Having arrived really early, we were ready for lunch by 12.45 so walked round to Orjowan in Kenway Road. We’d found this on the internet beforehand and liked the look of the menu.

It was extremely good – we shared a mezze platter of hummus, baba ganoush, falafel, tabbouleh and shawarma [that was cooked chicken and lamb pieces in flat bread] with a basket of flatbreads

Bob finished his meal with Lebanese coffee [very strong and sweet] and I had some Mouhallabieh – which is Lebanese pudding.

It is made with milk, honey, rosewater and pistachios. The lady brought two spoons “so you can share it!” she said.

I am afraid I ate considerably more than half – it was delicious [and he did have a coffee, after all] A wonderful lunch. I may try to make this dessert sometime.

We noticed a pub opposite, which Bob thought ought to be “The Gadget Show’s Local”. There appeared to be plenty to tech/teck people inside, anyway!

Then back to Victoria, and onto the coach home – a lovely day out together [and lots of opportunities to sit down, so my knee is fine]

I have checked up, and the Prince Of Teck was the father of Queen Mary [the Grandmother of our Queen, and wife of King George V]

She died just before Elizabeth’s coronation.

My grandmother, whenever she was mentioned, would say “Ah, May Of Teck, she was so fond of toques”

[The toque is the brimless hat she often wore]

As a child, the whole idea of a Teck-Toque amused me enormously!

And now Bob is busy watching the Gadget Show [he does take his day off very seriously sometimes!]

Use Your Loaf!

We got to church just after 8.30 this morning because Bob wanted to set up for All-Age Worship. He was preaching on Matthew 13:33 -the woman who hid some yeast in the flour and it worked all through the dough.

Three points about bread-making

• The dough has to be stretched and kneaded for the yeast to work properly
• After proving, the dough has to be ‘knocked back’ to get rid of the large holes left by air bubbles, in order to make a better loaf
• When the bread is cooked, the aroma is fabulous – and you just want to enjoy the bread – and share it around.

So here we have

On the left side of the communion table, a loaded breadmaker, set on ‘timer’ function, making a loaf

Two sets of ingredients, aprons and bowls for making dough

And out of shot, two bowls covered in cling film, with the dough which we made when we arrived, slowly rising!

There was no shortage of volunteers to help – here’s the picture on the big screen of Bruce and Sophie kneading their dough

All went well – and as well as sharing the breadmaker loaf at the end of the service, [a sort of impromptu communion] we also cooked up the other dough, formed into bread rolls to eat at the Fellowship Lunch afterwards.

Oh – you want a spiritual point to all this?

• God stretches us, and exercises us, and works within us, to make us fit for his Kingdom
• Sometimes we are knocked back a bit by the circumstances of life – but God uses those times to improve us
• The joy of knowing God’s love is fabulous – not only do we want to enjoy it, but we want to share it around.

It was a great service, and as usual, people really entered into things. We did not sing any of the following hymns

I knead Thee, O I knead Thee

From the Yeastern mountains

We Shall Rise

Let Us Break Bread Together On Our Knees

After the lunch, many of us stayed on at church, and at 3pm our friends from Groby URC came over to borrow our baptistery for Tom’s baptism. That was a great service too, conducted by Louise, the Groby Vicar. [Groby is pronounced Groo-Bee and is the next-but-one-village to us]

And now – after EIGHT HOURS at church, I am home for the rest of the day. Bob is catching up on his recording of the Grand Prix, and I am planning to go to bed ridiculously early because tomorrow I am going to London on the 5.20am coach.[I must be mad]

Thanks for all the comments on yesterday’s Bag Post. I forgot to say you can use any paper – but a sale roll of wallpaper is beautiful and strong and thrifty [modesty forbids me to say “rather like myself”]

Bags Of Fun

My knee was painful again on Thursday and Friday so I decided to do some activity which just involved sitting at a table – and I made a load of gift bags.

I’d bought a roll of wallpaper in Laura Ashley’s Sale when we were in Norwich last month – only 99p. It was a pretty cream colour with gold motifs.

I cut the whole roll into 33cm lengths [the paper is 53cm wide and 10m long]

I then folded and stuck down a 5cm overlap [on the inside] and folded carefully to make a bag with square base [12cm each side]

I got quite carried away and soon had 30 bags on the table and window sill. In the middle of this a friend arrived with a lovely bunch of flowers for me with my poorly knee.

I folded over the top edge, and made two holes with an ordinary hole punch – and threaded ribbon through.

I had the ribbon in the Great Stash – and used up some sellotape and a glue-stick I’d got in multipacks from the Poundshop. So these bags cost me less than 5p each, and I am very pleased with them! They are now neatly packed away in a box labelled “Xmas 2010”

[There is a tutorial for similar bags here]

And my knee is definitely improving, having been properly rested!

Get Well Soon!

An item on BBC Radio 2 early this morning made us both chuckle – apparently ‘experts’ have decided that piping upbeat music round our hospitals will aid the healing process.

We pondered on which departments would choose which songs…

Fracture Clinic – Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run

Gynaecology – Shania Twain – Man, I Feel Like A Woman

 

Neurology – Boston – More Than a Feeling

[as used on the Barclaycard Advert]

Geriatrics – Irene Cara – I’m Gonne Live Forever

Obstretrics – Britney Spears – Hit Me, Baby One More Time

or perhaps, Abba – Mamma Mia!

Podiatry – The Pointer Sisters – Jump!

Urology – Manfred Mann – If You Gotta Go, Go Now!

Rheumatology – Chas & Dave – Knees Up Mother Brown

Any more suggestions ?

For the past 10 years, apparently, the most popular song requested on Hospital Radio is Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way.”

One of my Dad’s favourite hospital jokes…

Q- What’s the difference between God and a consultant ?

A- God doesn’t think He is a consultant.