Locked room mysteries

This is the year I finish the book pile, this is the year of solid savings- enforced - I need a new boiler and they aren't cheap. 

I am still - 8 months later - finishing "40 days John" which has been so good.  But a little reflection goes a long way - bit like too much sweet stuff at Christmas although that normally kicks me into the swimming pool!  Not at the moment as my asthma has flared up nicely.

so, a bit of post Easter reflection which is fairly dozy due to steroid and lots of ventolin.  But it gets me writing.....

The disciples are in a locked room. At best, an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and terrible loss with a candle-flare of hope: this morning brought good news.  Just a shame the key witness is an "unreliable, fairly emotional woman!" The usual males reported similar oddities too but not so much drama. 

So what are they doing here?  They are Jews - I suspect they are praying the evening service, and arguing the law/prophets/writings; the days readings.  And Jesus of course.  He'd taught them to do this style of thinking and they probably hadn't lost the habit even in grief.

What on earth did it all mean?  And they see him standing there in their locked down room. "peace be with you - hello" But more than that - he says it again amidst the predictable uproar. Hugs, shouts? tears?  You fill in the blanks - I did, standing watching from my corner

My response isn't for sharing.  But I talked to him too.

"Subjected to his service Angel Wings"

Yes, well I remembered the quote but had to look it up.  Milton, Paradise Lost.  I studied it at A Level so many years ago but today it was hauled into consciousness.  Although I remembered it as conscripted to his service.  It seemed appropriate..

So, yesterday we had our works Christmas dinner.  A very nice meal indeed crowned by a chocolate tart with caramel icecream.  But in a pub with no alcohol free beer.  I don't have a taste for sweet fizz - I started on ginger beer and a pint of blackcurrant and soda but graduated to a pint of guinness with Christmas dinner. It was going to be a long afternoon!! I'm not very good at "vertical drinking" - and especially feel awkward when the conversation's getting rather slurry around me and the nice lads in the paint shop start giving me one arm hugs....I slide off for a gin and tonic with my colleague/boss in the slightly more sober/older corner and later I think it's time to leave and let them get happily plastered before one of the happy crew spikes my drink!!! All paid for by the firm and something a firm can claim back they tell me.

I make that 3 - 4 units of alcohol in four hours. Which of course is not much but enough to make me feel thoroughly utterly seedy this morning! Heading out to swim and then to spend the very generous Christmas voucher in marks and spencer.  I doze over a saturday early costa coffee and drift into the Cathedral to kill time before the shop opens.

Which is where angels come into the picture.  I wish I had a camera with me or at least my phone.
Paper sculpture angels greet me!  I stroke the soft feathers glued to the card edges of the wings, and notice the wings themselves are comprised of downward facing hands.  Child size hands.  Little child size.  Slightly bigger child size.  And written on the fingers of the hands, words like "hope" "difference" lots of values.  I do have a notebook but I obviously don't have a functioning brain as these are the only words I can remember.  But I remember the stories written on the palms of the hands: "I want to be an astronaut" "I want to work in a cafe and give people drinks" " I want to be a doctor and help people get well" "I want there to be less plastic" "I want children to have a roof over their heads" "I want people to be kind to animals"

Go see the angels.  It's a beautiful cathedral, a lovely antidote to death by adverts and Christmas songs

Hopeful

Two newly weds, bustled, hustled by sellers, crowd into a court of magnificence.  The young man has cradled and smoothed the wings of a dove - a poor man's "thank you" sacrifice.  The young woman cradles her newborn, jostled in the reverence space. Youthful, grateful, hopeful. A healthy first born son!

Wonder, pride, awe - in a word heavy day full of sights, sounds, smells.

And pushing purposefully through the crowd, an aged man, wisdom wrinkled. Simeon asks permission to hold the new baby.  Long promised and hoped for. A promise and guarantee of completed purpose.  His thin worn skin against a new little one's freshness, baby fingers wrapped around his age twisted fingers.

What must he have thought?  I can't imagine the mix of hopeful longing that resulted in the promise of this looked for rescuer.  "A light for revelation to the gentiles, his own people's glory" Huge words.
Simeon's words strike too, a sword in the middle of his joy.

God's timing - impeccable as always.

So it's advent and the above is a small attempt to put into words a little bit of Christmassy reading.  The town is full of racing santas in lycra and woolly hats, red with cold and festive.  It's an annual santa race for charity they tell me.  Santas crowd out costa, I am tempted to cry "Bah humbug" as I wanted a pre church coffee in peace. And there's a massive queue.......

cake and Christmas

This week's joke has been vegan Turkey,  It's not often Kev the senior project manager and I agree.  Currently Tofurkey has made me smile and him rant!! Tofurkey..what a smile inducing name...I like vegetarian food but somehow it seems wrong to call it turkey??

We've had sporadic heating in the office and none (business as usual, poor blokes) in the factory and the bay doors all open. So cold.  They wear woolly hats and fingerless gloves. And moan.  The bosses don't seem to care or do anything - it's been like that for five years. Surely isn't legal.
So christmas chocolate biscuits from me lasted two days!  I know it's not December yet but this year, for the first time in ages, I am excited about Christmas. Maybe because I get a decent holiday break, maybe because at last I am in a permanent stable job - no pun intended. The work is slowing down and the piles of metal are ending up in the paint shop and turn into HSBC, Greggs and Jobcentre plus frontages. It is really interesting to walk through from metal shop to decal application to despatch. I try to ask questions - what are you doing, what does this do, what project is this (95 signs for crossrail, all screenprinted the same)

I don't like dark mornings.  Even back on medication.  I feel more together but still have to prise myself out of bed, and I am grateful that I am having to learn to be a little gentle because God and I don't talk much in winter - he talks I suspect I grunt!!!  But a lot of reading gets done.

I'm loving the Tom Wright on Paul book -see previous post.  It must have been like walking on a tightrope, trying to reconcile his Jewish background with the explosion of Jesus-the-messiah honouring faith into the gentile/pagan world.  How radical he was.  All those women he worked with, all the households where the faith must have played absolute havoc with the power structures and norms and cultural festivals and practices..

I'm trying to turn my house into a tidy place that feels warm and welcoming for advent - I need to save for a new boiler and I know I need more windows, so it's budget and candles to tart the place up.
Cheap gentle light...

Weird wild weather

I caught this morning's deluge full on, that will serve me right for reading Tom Wright for an hour!!  What an excellent book and no, shamefully I got it in hardback from Amazon....I know!  An excellent biography of Paul the apostle and less dense and obscure than the last book of Tom's I tried (and failed) to read.

It's a fabulous historical "who-dunnit" of a book, tracking the man, his mission, his character and putting him in context.  And the book smells beautiful - I truly love sniffing books, always the first thing to do with a new book.  Quality ink and paper smell delicious, particularly hardback.  How sad to admit that.

So today the river that is the flood relief channel is a torrent of milk chocolate, covering the posts and decking of the new little bridge and sweeping down towards the mill on the Exe.  I watched four-swans-a-struggling across the basin by the waterfront.  Such bulky birds but they looked graceless and harrassed.  And then my friend and I watched seven or eight coots paddling for all they are worth to avoid being swept back down into the weir.  Little earnest things, the swirly currents kept sucking them back into the flow and one of them just let go and let themself be carried along.

Writer's block?

I've had a couple of months off writing.  And I am not sure quite why.  Somehow I think I have hammered myself into the ground like a tent peg in sunbaked soil.  A phone call from a concerned friend gave me a few pointers to the load I'd been trying to balance on my fairly narrow shoulders.  I cried with relief!  So nice to be listened to!  So here are the months more fun things.  I got my 2 mile swim medal, decorated with orange autumn leaves and little pumpkins and a funky tangerine ribbon.  Yesterday I learned my muscle heavy frame means my legs sink when I swim - which is one reason for a dreadful crawl stroke!  So many lengths over a month...

Meeting a long lost college friend and her lovely wife, and laughing, talking and oh eating - particularly iceland's version of cheesy posh potatoes. So good to catch up on 35 years of life.  I think that being fed and being listened to are my recipe to happiness.  It doesn't take much.

Being told by the "boys" at work that they want me to come to the drinking/pool playing/large roast dinner eating affair that is the factory non official Christmas meal, and being told that as a non drinker (ish) I was very welcome. And buying a new Christmas tree to replace the one that looks like a disfunctional toilet brush!!!!  Talking of which, I will never be quite the same after hearing yesterday that occupational therapist friend used nutella to teach bottom wiping to children!  A "nice dollop of it on plastic" hmmm what if they eat it?????? Oh dear another good reason but I do like nutella.

Books - what am I going to do now that Tombland is the last Shardlake book as the excellent CJ Sansom is so ill with cancer?  It's a brick of a book, but slow steady reading is such a joy, and I knew absolutely nothing about Kett's rebellion.

So I have broken the writer's block at long last...

Brrrrrrr!

Autumn is definitely here!  I have finally given in and put socks on in the evening as well as at work.  Which feels like a definite defeat - I love bare feet but not achingly cold ones...  I have just bought a five pack of bright new toes and heels socks from Waitrose as they were a nice evening stroll away and previous experience tells me Tescos socks fall apart and M&S are completely useless. (my homegroup leader threw her m&S socks in the fire one memorable homegroup evening last year)  Let's hope for the quality sock experience.

Meanwhile at work, the metal shed roof has sprung a leak in the graphics shop and I'm told by the vinyl department that their heating was condemned 10 years ago and they have portable heaters.  It seems our bosses don't feel the cold and put the heating on in December.  I should be used to that and currently don't mind wearing a jumper to work in the morning. It's better than being sweltering hot as we were four or five weeks ago.

I love the beautiful low, slanty yellowing light of Autumnal evenings where sitting in a chair in the garden with a cuppa after tea seems very special.  Evening strolls in the light are so much appreciated and I can't say I am looking forward to wrap around darkness.  Joy over conkers and colours in the trees, sweet chestnuts and crisp fallen leaves to crunch over and having the Devon beaches slightly less ram packed make me happy.  I am so grateful to have functioning legs and lungs and the energy to enjoy using them!

Nemesis

 Holmes has Moriaty, Batman has the joker and the penguin, I have the fear of fried eggs.  Which is not quite in the same league I think.  I needed a weekend of food and walking, so being someone who has a friend who loves to have fun, I borrowed her idea - "go out to breakfast, do a big walk, have a cream tea"  All fabulous ideas.  It brings a wonderful dimension to my life to think "what would Sandy do"  When we talk, I know her values are having fun, and mine I suppose are doing my duty.  Which sounds really, really boring and serious.  But I like fun too!!  Too bad I should have checked the nice breakfast in the cafe at Budleigh because TWO runny fried eggs sat looking at me.  I share with my dad a loathing of the very smell of the things! I can eat them scrambled and possibly poached old style in a round buttered cup.  And HARD boiled.  But definitely not runny.  It helped that I'd paid for them, along with the nice bacon/sausage/tomato/hash brown....it was an immense and beautiful breakfast fit for a king.  I dutifully (see above) ate them dipping the toast into them...they stayed down while I walked, rather tentatively and all too full, around the 10 mile Budleigh to Sidmouth and down back via Otterton via Barrs Lane circuit.  

I'd forgotten how I hate walking up Peak Hill, especially in pelting rain, wearing a waterproof and shorts on a slippy muddy track.  My feet started to feel as if they had been beaten with a stick - it seems a long time since I've done a proper, decent walk and I was tired anyway - hence needing the weekend of food and walking!

The summer is definitely at the tip end, trees silvered along the field edges, grasses bronzed and brassy, seed heads and pods.  The fields have literal "corn rows" and stripes of green and fat rolls of hay. It was so good to feel cool, and to walk in a blustery breeze with chilly edges. Rain dripped off the hood edges and into my socks as I walked down to claim my cream tea.  

Walking makes a bit of space in my head to think.  I had taken the 40 days John book that frankly has been more like 80 days John....and wrote the following on the passage and the questions.  I am just pleased that writing is slowly filtering back down into my life.  I worry when I am word-less.

 

They came for you at night, the Light of the world.

Dark in the garden - with the sudden flare of torches

By lantern light. 

In the place of teaching and familiarity Judas betrayed you.

"Who is it you want" They say they "want" Jesus of Nazareth

But their words twist - a wanted man, taken in the blackness,

Soldiers weapon-ready, a spat of violent threat on a cold night.

Man meeting with God in the cool of the evening garden.

Where have I heard that before? It didn't end well that first time

This time a man is bound and hustled away.

It is truly dark, in the countryside, without lights.

And men flee and slink away, in shame, in relief, in grief.

Leaving Jesus to stand before the hard stare of state.

 The book raises the question:

"Jesus is utterly secure in his identity.  By contrast, Peter has forgotten he is Jesus' "rock" and has become a morass of fear and doubt.  Who are you looking for?  Ask yourself the question - "Are you Jesus' disciple?" How would you answer?" (not too heavy then!!!)

Jesus, you know I love you.  You know I find it hard - to believe you are in me.  Because all I do is think - sometimes there seems to be little heart, no feeling - but you say you love me for that thinking.

I find it hard to see and remember that the pearl of great price, your shining presence, is found in the rough, ridged warped oyster shell of this human being.  I'm not a plaster saint more's the pity.  But you are in my life, and I made that right choice.  You say you love me dearly.  You say I will never leave you.  You say I am preparing a place for you.  My identity in you is solid and fixed, however sea driven I feel.

And that is enough.  I have a rock.  A hold-fast, when everything is swirling currents of doubt and fear.

Fight Club

I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies
I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief
I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody
I raise a hallelujah, Heaven comes to fight for me

Chorus
I’m gonna sing, in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you’re gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes, hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive

Verse 2
I raise a hallelujah, with everything inside of me
I raise a hallelujah, I will watch the darkness flee
I raise a hallelujah, in the middle of the mystery
I raise a hallelujah, fear you lost your hold on me

Bridge
Sing a little louder
In the presence of my enemies
Sing a little louder
Louder than the unbelief
Sing a little louder
My weapon is a melody
Sing a little louder
Heaven comes to fight for me


I'm not sure about the theology, but for the last couple of times this was played and sung at church it's had a powerful impact on me.  I really like the phrase "Up from the ashes/hope will arise" because I have sung this song through gritted teeth, with what has felt like a chestful of tears.  I'm not much of a worshipper but God gets me singing this in the car to him and around the house in the morning and whistling it while copying endless Crossrail A3 plan sheets....let's hope he enjoys it!

So this weekend, I finally got the permanent contract I needed so much.  And I smiled when I thought that God used a firm where the managing director is a betting man who trains and races greyhounds and my immediate boss is a pool playing partying extrovert to give a person who'd rather read and swim a job.  And they cheered with me and were so delighted.  It's been an interesting 18 months.  

Nomads

What to do on a wet blustery Saturday that is cheap and fills in an hour before child friendly swimming has ended?  Obvious - visit the museum! Saunter past the stuffed things and shelly remains and then decide: Art - too serious today - or - Nomads.  I really like the temporary exhibition gallery.

I chat to the museum lady and we share a cheap crack at the expense of the dragons of the National Trust and stand and stare at the beautiful, weird, wild, inventive, creative and plain odd shelters that are created by the transient communities of the world.  It seems they are basically grouped into types - cave based, sort of dome shaped, tent shaped.  A world of leaves and woven plant stalks, hand loomed camel hair coverings, felt and rammed earth. Some look like Morris men's capes, some like the wigwams of my not-at-all-politically correct childhood.  North America and Northern Russia - same sorts of shape - land bridges? Migration? - reminds me of watching the fascinating Alice Roberts TV series, "Human Journey" which I must have seen about 3 times - thank you BBC repeats!

I can tell I've got a bible soaked head - I stand in front of the lovely Berber tent and think "Oh maybe this is what Sarah and Abraham's tent looked like?" Hospitable and open, blanket colours and a portable shade in a harsh landscape.  Then look at the little lake dwellings built by a fishing community - can't remember where - who ram stakes into the sand - and build fragile looking platforms and shelters where you can see the water beneath your feet.  And think - definitely here if you are wise, you build your house on sand!!

The texts make the point that you don't need to consume to be happy.  That most of these are community builds.  And I guess that most of us try to build some kind of community as a harbour.

And then, strategically placed by the exit I run into my white lower middle/working class background prejudice.  Because the last exhibit is on Devon Travellers. And I can feel a "grrrrrr" No way to excuse prejudice.

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams?  "If you build it - they will come" - the only line I remember from this Kevin Costner film!  This is my workplace, and they certainly build it.  Working in the greenhouse like atmosphere of the office above the shopfloor I have to walk the length of the factory to the graphics shop who produce the visuals for the signs we are making.  It fascinates me.  My walk takes me past the Pacer - I have looked it up - a big, noisy "CNC router" which precision cuts letters, the paint shop with a spray booth and huge ovens for firing paint finishes.  When I started, my boss got us pasties which were heated up in the paint shop ovens.  There is a massive screen print set up, areas for "decal cutting" and vinyl printing, a full booth designated for welding equipment behind protective plastic curtains and this open, untidy despatch area with packing tables, vast rolls of bubble wrap - this is where signs pile up ready for the van or the couriers truck.  There's quite a distinctive smell about the place - hard to define, not unpleasant - vinyl and metal dust maybe.  It looks old fashioned and worn but the quality of the signs produced amazes me.  I walk past 5meter "totems" for Greggs which dwarf me.  There are big green plastic fascias for Jobcentre Plus, and lovely decorative panels for Kew gardens. I would love to know what the various trades guys do but they are busy and I can't interrupt.

What do you hear? The constant sound of the extraction systems, keeping the dust down, the aforementioned noisy pacer, drilling and a bit of hammering, and the radio over all the factory, the sound of the forklift reversing and one of our project managers swearing when something isn't despatched or made correctly.  I sincerely hope that this will not be me on the end of his burst of Tourettes at any time. He's a volatile man with a catchy temper but a sweet man to work with. They've made me feel so at home.  It's been so very good to get my confidence and banter back - everything the NHS hated, this job have seen as being in my favour - from asking questions to taking my time to work slowly and steadily. No one minds short hair - and it is so hot that shorts are obligatory from the MD down to the guys on the shop floor.  Apparently it is freezing in winter.....

It may not be rocket science but there is something to be said for a stable environment.  It feels like the factory equivalent of my church to me - stable, steady, not known for being massively exciting - but really good.  I've found stability to be such a key value in my life after so much shifting sand beneath me.

10,000 reasons

" 10,000 reasons for my heart to find." Matt Redman's song always acts like having one of those defibrillators you see on casualty applied to me! It was one of the songs chosen at my friend Carol's funeral.  Despite the fact that she hated it - I sat through services when we'd sing it with passion and it seemed to occur almost every week for a while when it was "newly minted".  I'd be aware of a very well mannered but inwardly cringing friend, who was slowly dying from liver cancer having to sing "and on that day when my strength is failing/the end draws near and my time has come etc"  And I hated having to know that's how she felt.  Personally I liked the song.  Now it comes with the memory of crying at her funeral.

Songs act like that. I said goodbye to her and played the awesome Kate Bush song "This woman's work" which I now can't listen to.  It is such a powerful song. And Ronan Keating, "you say it best, when you say nothing at all".  When I was 19 year trying to process depression and anger and totally unable to pray I used to listen to U2 live at Red rocks album.  I've got the CD in the car; it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up (metaphorically) Annoyingly, I find, for a non singer who really really struggles with the embarrasment of "sung worship" God has a way of getting under my skin through music.  Massive Attack "protection" a fairly dubious song I'm sure, was God reminding me he would "take the force of the blow" when I was stuck working for the blokes in Transplant.  Not sure what the soundtrack of my current job should be: we listen to radio 2 and I'm no "pop master" like Dave/Dave/Kev and Jan - but I am getting re-acquainted with some old favourites.

Signs and Wonders

No no not a homage to John Wimber or an overdose of Acts of the Apostles - oh I wish - I am far too "plain vanilla"

But today I got to see the fruit of two months work!  I have spent a lot of time ringing and emailing housing managers patiently explaining what a diameter is (no not measuring around the circumference of a post nor the distance between them) and being super patient when they find additional signage hidden by bushes (which means I need to send the visual packs back to the graphics shop to be redrawn, re approved and then signed off - tedious) or they just say they didn't mean that and can they have a bigger sign saying Private Car Park?? It's hot and sticky in our office and I have grumpily exploded a couple of times as yet more "can I have this one too photos arrive by email.  We have KPIs and the whole project needs to be signed (literally) sealed and delivered by 31st October.

When I'm not liaising with housing managers, I am sending production instructions to the factory.  This makes me intensely nervous: yes, my manager signs off everything and double checks but basically our factory will make whatever I send through into production.  So it needs to be super accurate, all measurements checked, all quantities correct and no room for errors at all.  Certainly not for saying the sign comes with angel and colour matched screws. I was reluctant to change it to angle and colour matched screws, thinking that it would be fun to have a sign with it's own angel.

So when my boss said "oh I need to take some more photographs for the project team" I trailed along like an over excited labrador.  My hands are the hands holding up the signs in the photos sent to the customer's project team, and we carefully checked the production bench didn't have any lewd drawings that would appear in the photos!  Some of these signs are big!! I felt like all the nit picking work of the last couple months was worth it.  I would so love a full time job and the insecurity of this one makes me nervous and derails my joy - if only I was a little more solidly trusting, but there are bills to pay and planning ahead into a fog of uncertainty is super scary.

End of summer walkies

Annoyingly I can't tile or arrange the photos - cheapo Blogger isn't up to it.  Rather like me at the start of yesterdays walk which should have been Goodrington Sands.  Except that the driver - me - wasn't awake!  I picked Sandy up at 8am insisting we went for coffee first - me with hooded eyes and wearing a hoody and apparently "not connecting or listening" oh dear! (I get cold when I'm tired!) So we went to Exmouth with the car windows wide where a medium cafe nero was dumped in front of me.  Way to go when all I wanted to do was sleep - but sleep escapes me at the moment.

And walked. Exmouth to Budleigh in overcast, billowing breaks of bulging grey clouds and sticky humid air, which cleared as we dipped down into the pebblebed heath part of the walk.  I thought we'd done 6 miles but apparently there and back is 10 miles according to our tech.

I tell Sandy summer is fast ending - the flowers - thistles, daisies, dandelions are heading to seed and summer nights are drawing in.  She didn't want to listen.  Deep roots I might have but my eyeore tendencies are annoying!!

My chore of dead heading Sandy's mum's flowers was because I refused point blank to paint the "should be in the dustbin long ago" gnomes.  It's a summer ritual, keeping them looking spruced up in this mad house of a family that I call my 2nd home.

Paint and sticking plaster

It's too hot to paint.  That's what Dr Google says after I check why my windowcills look dreadful - streaky, oily, patchy. Crap. It's good paint, Dulux weathershield but like me it doesn't work well in heat and humidity.  So that's another coat to put on in September when it's a bit cooler. Serves me right for trying to smash my way through the neglected chores list and to smarten up the place before the surveyor measures up for my replacement kitchen window.  I've had the house 22 years and the window is knackered - rotten cill, rotten frame.  The sash windows, antiques at 150+ years look on in disdain.  Little do they know I'm planning their demise in the next couple years.  I'm fed up with painting them - badly - they rattle, they don't shut, are draughty and don't open too well. Not exactly fit for purpose.

Like a lot of antiques, they look fabulously classy.  I don't have the heart to tell them their replacements are not upvc sash but top hung casement.  Snooty lot, they wouldn't forgive me but I'm not made of money.  Sitting through 2 1/2 hours of Anglian windows hard sell when oh surprise, the price drops the more times I say "no" and resist hard sell, I am glad for local, honest companies who don't inflate the price and push finance at me.  Sticking plaster finance is more my style: replace what's rotten and save up slowly and hopefully not too painfully for the balance.

I thought basic DIY was something everyone does - until I talked to my hairdresser yesterday, who told me that sanding, filling and undercoating sounded very technical. She tells me she can't go through me losing another job: she cut my hair the day I walked out the call centre that was Taylor Wimpey.  Not sure she's recovered!!!  I'm hoping that one postponed contract doesn't mean what I dread it does as I'm loving being the Lord of all Databases: I was the Lord of the Filing Cabinets in the bladder and bowel unit - same thing, just more hi tech! (see Lord of the Flies or if you prefer "Lord of all the pots and pans" which I think is "practising the presence of God" - Brother Lawrence - always struck me as a fun phrase for an ordinary worker)

pontcysyllte aqueduct sheep

There's a sheep theme to this holiday.  The hotel had sheep in the field behind me and thanks to being totally wired on steroids I spent a lot of time trying to sleep and listening to BAAing from the field. A nicely soothing noise and it was fresh and clean air, not a hot hotel thank heavens.

We walked to Llangollen, through a lovely wooded valley and along a limestone scree escarpment path and lumped up a hillside to Dinas Bran, with glorious views and a blowing a hooley breeze. It's a knocked down and about castle, which a recent TV programme tried to associate with King Arthur.  It was probably one of the worst history programmes I've seen so no idea if Arthur actually existed or is still a mythical figure!  Welsh ice cream and a well deserved cuppa followed in Llangollen. It's always weird getting into civilisation after a day out walking. Pontcysyllte aqueduct the next day was my own personal holiday highlight.  It was a really nice dry day, we had an hour to explore the canal basin, with good sculpture and moored boats and somewhere dry for once for our picnic. Oh and a shop that sold kit kats.  Steroid hunger.  I jumped on the scales after the holiday and regretted the nice hotel food...oh dear.

And then I found this sheep!!  Walking the acqueduct is very exciting due to the canal boats driving alongside you and the height as you look down to the river below.  So tall, so imposing yet walking along the narrow path, I didn't get any sense of height or drop, unlike the glass floor in the tower at Stratford on Avon theatre!

Offas Dyke

It's taken me nearly a month to look at the photos from one of the wettest walking holidays ever.  And they are not bad, taken mainly on the first day walking from Prestatyn and thinking that, with the sun, we had escaped the devastation the rain was causing down south.  But not for long.  Walking when you are actually feeling dreadful due to not being able to take a deep breath, held together by the sticky tape of a combination of duoresp and steroids asthma medication and with fairly zilch energy is not great.

The next day featured rain in stair rods, sheets, driving rain, the sort that soaks your jacket, finds it's way down your neck and into your sleeves.  I lasted 6 of the 8 1/2 miles and baled out when offered a minibus back. I've never done that in my life.  Wales is a beautiful place but oh it was miserable in the rain!  I had a whisky and a hot bath to warm up and spent the next day in Chester drinking coffee and going round the cathedral.  I love sculpture and there is the nicest of modern bronze ones of Jesus and the woman at the well.  I was so struck with this that I spent an age staring at it and enjoying the sound of the water, the cool of the air.  Inside the cathedral, an art installation of panels of scripture and the story of Jonah and the theme of water kept me very happy.  I stuck my head round into the main part of the cathedral but the strong incense kicked me out after 10 minutes, love the smell, love that it's a symbol of prayer, hate what it does to my dodgy lungs.

Croaky voice worship

I've come to the end of a very damp holiday with the remants of a truly vile cold and an ear infection so although my colleagues and I are no longer doing Darth Vader impersonations, I tried singing this Sunday and produced a disapppointing growl allied with an annoying base to tenor squeak. So I ended up listening to the words we were singing and went home and wrote my own far-less-holy version!

Chris Tomlin Take my life

"Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord, to thee."

Lord you see my everyday walking around, going to work, swimming, talking, walking life.  I pray you'll use it as a whole, an offering if you like to put it like that.

"Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise."

Lord when I hear Kev's watch alarm, let me find a quick thank you moment, when I'm walking at lunch time and see flowers and trees, remind me of your goodness, help me remember each day is supposed to be yours even if I'm deep in a database or sitting in a coffee shop reading a detective novel

"Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love."

Lord that's religious speak for driving taxi for Maureen, ordering the shopping for parents, listening patiently to friends and colleagues when I would rather be reading!

"Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee."

Father I want to be a useful "salesman" for Jesus! A good living advert for an ordinary life lived where despite my failures God is in me doing stuff

"Take my voice and let me sing always, only for my king."

Not a chance - it's croaky, broken and I'm an "outside in nature" not a "shower Diva" but may those who know me not hear grumbly grumpiness but blackbird notes of God inspired happiness

"Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee."

Father if I am honest I use humour and banter and only do deep godly honest when I've had a beer or am writing stuff down- so we have work to do here!!

"Take my silver and my gold not a mite would I withhold."

Lord more religious stuff: take my bank account and the way I plan financially, help me balance a generous heart with what is a lean salary - keep me trusting and open hearted.  Challenge me if you need to!! Not sure I am up to not withholding a mite - I am not that trusting or generous...

"Take my intellect and use every power as you choose."

So when I'm not feeling too challenged, help me remember I can read and think, remind me I can spend time watching or reading sheer rubbish, don't let me be afraid to write and share.

: Chorus:

Here am I, all of me.

Take my life, it's all for thee.

Take my will and make it Thine it shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord I pour at your feet its treasure store

Take myself and I will be ever, only all for thee,

Take myself and I will be ever, only all for thee.

Here am I, All of me.

Take my life, It's all for thee.

Lord this is sometimes true, and I wish it was more so, I am afraid this is an aspirational song and singing it as I'm writing it would take far too long and wouldn't scan!!

With thanks to Chris Tomlin and the worship series at church which encourages us to use our whole lives in worship!

When you are not 25

When you are not 25, you spend a week wondering why it is your shoulder (long term pec minor injury) hurts.  And then you remember!  There's a bit of resistance on this park lat pull.  But it was fun.  I've just had to alter my ridiculous June walking target to a more sane figure as June has started with a truly vile cold. And I'm walking in Wales next weekend! Reading the excellent "the salt path" by Raynor Winn.https://www.bigissuenorth.com/reading-room/2019/04/author-qa-raynor-winn This is one courageous lady who has battled more than I will and makes walking 630 miles seem a healing thing.  I would never have been able to walk on so little food or manage on their lack of resources.

Never give up, never surrender!

First sunburn

Today was a little bit of quiet peace in what has been a frantic couple of learning a new job weeks. I'm "crying at the adverts" tired, as my friend Carol's mum used to say.  The kids in the pool today screamed as kids do and I wanted to run away and hide.  My lungs still feel tight and ineffective and I have to tell myself that I have the underscoring of good fitness and 9 miles a day in North Wales in two weeks will be fine. My lovely honorary aunty and I drove to Parke, for tea, lunch in the sun (hence the sunburn) and a gentle walk by the river, up a hill and a look over into the softening greys and lime greens of new spring tree growth. I'm a much better "by ear" bird spotter and we listen to the fantastic, inventive, full voiced male voice choir that is a song thrush. 

I know it's this bird - and I feel totally vindicated when my friend sees him flit away through the trees. We see a couple of grey wagtails perched on a stream bed rock but the place is teeming with families and dogs so we don't see a dipper.

I love the dappled green of river light and trees and the edges and complexity of tree roots. New growth springing up from an old stump.  I didn't want to sound truly pretentious but it reminded me of the bit from the bible about the new growth on an old stump - a metaphor for a renewed line of hope of a righteous ruling king. So I kept quiet!!  But it does!

We walk down along the river to Bovey.  There's an outdoor gym in the park and I have a horrible feeling there's a photo of me trying the lat pull - the chest press, lat pull and air walk are fun - the other machines look like instruments of torture built for far bigger people! And so to another cup of tea in Devon Guild of Master Craftsmen.

I've never been there.  And having walked in the woods and revelled in these beauties of blue swirls of glass, tattooes of black on slim neck wood turning and the loveliness of silk textile it strikes me God might be bored!!

I'm no singer, and being confined in a building to worship doesn't feel enticing sometimes.  I can't summon up the intensity.  I love the bible and I love Jesus, but I am a totally useless worshipper in a conventional sense and at the moment a stunning failure of a christian.  Surrounded by the most awesome artwork of God in nature - trees and water - and the outpouring of outstanding photography I just think God must feel a little bit cheated.  For the one who sculpts the deserts, arranges butterfly wing patterns and swirls the galaxies in space deserves my best.

So I will come empty handed, and give back what I have- photographs, good-enough work, good enough friendshipping, fair attempts at writing and sheer stickability.  And know myself heard and understood.

Saving for a rainy day

I never thought it would be possible to even think of paying off my mortgage.  When I first bought this house, it was sadly neglected - the owner had left sealed up windows, a gas leak, doors hanging off.  I haven't done half the things I intended to do as limited cash flow goes to holidays, swim membership and paying bills! I've done the essentials and it is at least well painted.  I have always enjoyed mucking around with coloured paint and brushes.  But this month's mortgage statement shows me how long I have lived here - which shocks me.  And shows me that I could pay off the bill if I was prepared to be a little more thrifty this year.

Hence buying a coffee maker.  I did a little calculation on costa - and was duly impressed by the thought that capital investment meant I could save A LOT!  There's a funny thing with capital investment for me.  My family aren't wealthy and I remember the day (about 10 years ago?) I bought a very expensive paramo walking jacket.  My poor mother was horrified when I told her how much it cost.  And at the thin lightness of it.  "Doesn't look very warm"  Well, it is still going, despite a repair/rebuild and it keeps the rain out and the wind out and only needs a shirt and thinish fleece to be cosy.  Yes, it looks grubby and battered but it's done time rolled in a rucksack on a lot of walking holidays.  I recently bought a sat nav after realising that the navigating total anxiety that I have is stopping me having fun and that one easy way to solve it and increase my personal confidence (I love to drive and couldn't navigate my way out a paper bag) was to buy sat nav.  When I was a young christian I read "celebration of discipline" and somewhere along the way picked up the idea that buying stuff was a BAD THING.  But I've come to realise that a little careful spending can enhance a life.  Funnily enough I never feel guilty about holidays!

Politically correct crockery

My crockery would be at home in Rockfish.  In other words, it's full of chips!  My dad calls such china "chippendale", I call it fit for the bin.  I've spent quite a lot of time listening to radio 4 lately due to aforementioned dodgy lungs, so I have had my values challenged a little bit. I don't want to just thoughtlessly buy stuff if I can source it elsewhere.  I decided that rather than buying a nice new set from Tesco, I would look for replacement cereal bowls and side plates from the charity shop.  After all, my existing set is bland white. I now have 4 nice white bowls with swirly black patterns and 4 solid "catering/nhs basic white" china side plates for a total of £2.75!  Who cares what the china looks like when the food is good?

Having said that, I tried yet again to produce home made cake for homegroup.  The mix tasted good, the product tasted good, but unfortunately when I cut into it, the whole thing collapsed into lumps.  Oh well, it is now packed into freezer boxes and I've eaten a chunk of it: chocolate courgette cake has to be the healthiest and nicest cake around - a sticky, dark not too sweet cake that even has one of your 5 a day in it. I ended up buying cake in waitrose.  Because for the price of the cake, I get 2 hours parking - which is cheaper than paying for it, and I wanted to swim before turning up at my friends' mum's house with one of the cakes. 

True family even an adopted one - my friend is cutting tree branches.  I hear her and her mum argueing and bantering before I see them! I walk through and put the kettle on, find a knife for the cake and get compared to one of the garden gnomes (red sunburn nose and sweatshirt) I feel loved! I feel no obligation to help with the tree cutting - I plead asthma as an excuse! 

I'm trying to make small, slightly more gentle politically correct changes too.  I'm reasonably horrified at the extent of use of palm oil so have reluctantly changed peanut butter to Meridian brand.  Don't even mention that I like nutella....

Kingfishers and Owls

I've spent a lot of yesterday and today dividing my time between the sofa and slow pottering around.  I hate it when my asthma flares up, I feel very un strong! I guess it is good for me!

So I ended up watching "Naked Beach"on channel 4, which really isn't how it sounds. So much for channel flicking! It's prime time, so it is 3 people with serious body image problems, invited to spend time at a beach resort with hosts of both sexes, all different body sizes, and featuring some amazing body paint artwork! Cynically it's reality TV, but here are folk who have blamed instagram, and social media for so much body loathing. Their hosts, either resplendent in body paint or pretty naked, are such confident, affirming people.  It is good to see TV programming that features women of plus sizes as awesome role models and men one of whom carries a serious diasability as a result of a motorbike accident who cheer on the timid guests and help them accept the complex, fantastic bodies they have. Got to be healthy TV in many respects, given how much body hatred there is.

I can't imagine anything more terrifying myself, but if I had to go for the body paint option, I think I would go for kingfishers and owls - kingfishers are my ultimate favourite bird spot and I love the silent presence of an owl fly past, and the wonderful wake up call of owl hunting calls in the early morning or depth of night at Lee Abbey.  I even heard them whilst at Aunty's party when I wanted to drink the shower after drinking red wine and gin and tonic and had already plundered all the hotel tea bags and milk. 

It's a good antidote to the wanting to be taller, wanting to swap out the Farrant family strong but really stocky legs I have been genetically endowed with and after reading the Sue Black book on forensic anthropology, it reminds me of the mind blowing complexity of our bodies.  Once upon a time I was an occupational therapy student and I have vivid memories of memorising bones and muscles and watching how people move and walk.  It's a habit I still have - I can spot dodgy hips and wonky knees at a glance!!

Artwork and curtains

I am never going to cheat again and buy one coat gloss.  Dad and I shake our heads ruefully over my attempt to avoid the smell, mess and sheer asthma exacerbating nuisance that is undercoat + liquid professional gloss. He's tried it.  Now I have.  I run my hands over the surface and think it looks like sort of shiny undercoat.  Not good enough, and a rush job anyway - the sun was shining and I wanted to go outside. I've agonised over curtains, comparing the benefits of butterflies (which I love) over a spray of bright pink flowers (which I also love) They both go with the soft gray of the new paint, which tones at last with the hideous gray and pink 50s fireplace.  And I have my photocanvas on the wall.  I step back and look at posts and stones and think "did I do that?"

Consequently the rest of the house looks like a bomb site with bits of unfinished everything everywhere. The garden is a mess of pulled up bulbs and compost that needs sweeping up, the summer shirt collection is heaped on the ironing board and half the garden seems to have visited the kitchen floor.  My prayer partner comes round Saturday - always a fabulous kick up the bum to tidy up!!

I'm re reading Sue Black's " a life in death" and it is even better the second time round.  She has a light touch of humour and a passion for forensic anthropology.  I really liked her "history cold case" series several years ago.  Good book.

One I prepared earlier

In the famous and now ancient phrase of Blue Peter, here's a couple of things I wrote earlier - around Christmas, with the logic of my bible notes providing Easter reading somewhat unseasonally.

In response to the question below:

"What would happen if Pilate met the resurrected Jesus?" I wrote:

So what would happen if Pilate met Jesus?

Only it's not the stripped and bound

Sleep haggard man who stood before him once?

Nor even the ragged, bloodied, abused "king of the Jews"

Bayed by the hound like crowd, dream haunting man.

This one's alive, a "gardener" king.  Shows up unannounced.

Life treasuring, love affirming, slippery with the material world.

A judge - but it's him judging, 

A king, but his army are blades of fiery wings

A man of truth. True to his word.

I wonder what shifty Pilate would have made

Of a resurrected man he'd thrown

To a common fate?

And for those with little imagination who like to think through details (me)

"If you were a witness to Jesus crucifixion

What do you see? What do you hear?"

Early morning brutality

An unwilling traveller shouldering a beam

Jesus stumbling, bloodied, towards execution

The sweat of fear, iron tang of blood

Sweating soldiers in leather and metal

The creak of body armour and the slap and scrape

Of military boots on paved stones

A totally human, courageous man

Who just happens to be God, refuses a drug

That would have taken the edge off the agony.

He would not shirk from any of our pain.

Screaming, swearing men as the nails thud

Home through flesh into beams.  The dull thump

As the cross piece drops into place.

The hammer blows of the notice of death.

Mocking, insulting, coarse and cultured voices

Scorn, derision.  The sound of dice hitting hardened earth.

And the world narrows in.

Sounds of women crying

And the words of wracked out God.

A death with little pity or compassion.

And I don't know what to say.

Sometimes it feels academic

Because it's real but I've been there

A lot of times.  Forgive me when I don't

Appreciate it as I should.