Random Comment

Looking back through this weblog, and rediscovering the comment about Bismuth, I'm reminded of another random comment overheard.

Scenario: I'm walking home from work in the evening on 7th December. Two 'girls' walking towards me chatting. One of them says to the other:

"It's not as warm as I thought it would be this evening."

Chrismas Message 2007

Taking my lead from Her Britannic Majesty, the Queen, I thought I do a Christmas day message to the world.

So how do you concisely describe nearly a year of life? Chronologically? Thematically? Or some kind of hybrid between the two?

From the depths of Winter blues, it is tempting to say that the my personal year was a microcosm of the British Summer. Some say that this year it arrived towards the end of July and left again in August. People who take the Long View however claim that wee still waiting for it, it seems to have got lost somewhere in the Mediterranean. My hollyhocks voted on it by coming in to flower from about September onwards ?some of them still haven made it into flower, although I blame that more on their location than on Summer itself. However I suspect that seeing hollyhocks in flower in December is still a somewhat unusual experience.

Work has inevitably been a major element of 2007. And it took until December to get live experience of anything I hadn done in 2006. Unless you count recruiting new staff, and training them in using the redoubtable program Pipesafe. I suppose there is value in having had the experience of guiding novices through the intricacies of what the work system (although it isn actually that complex.) It just I think I would have preferred the technical variety of experience. Ie been getting quite bored with my role of late.

It was May when my housemate David left Loughborough for Surrey. So since then Ie been alone in the house, which isn the preferred situation. So if you want to come and live in a nice house, at reasonable rent in Loughborough, apply to my landlord. Unless youe a young, pretty woman of course. My landlord, being a Christian of the old-style wouldn approve of that sort of thing!

But of course 07/07/07 was a special day. I was actually attending a friends wedding on the day. So I only noticed the exciting text message the following day. To quote it in full:

i Uncle Philip. Ernest-Rayne was born at 6.46p.m. last night weight 7lbs 12ozs. Baby and mother are doing well and should come home this evening.?

Ie decided I rather like dark-eyed babies with little wisps of dark hair, especially when theye good and quiet. It a bit of a pity though that when babies are awake, they seem to spend most of their time trying to find something to get their mouth around. Adara loves him too, which is good. Since the birth, Andrew and Kay have also been frantically busy with house hunting activities.

Ernest-Rayne is a Lees; there is still no sign of a little Carter. So Esther decided to abandon her office job, in favour of taking up hostessing again. She flies with Virgin, which means long-haul flights.

The 08/08 was also a day of note, as it was then that I passed my driving test. This enabled me to rent a car on occasions, mostly for the purpose of travelling south, which facilitated the process of seeing my favourite nephew and niece, as well as various other friends.

The 09/09 was not a day when anything too dramatic happened, as far as I can remember. Before the however, I had my Long Holiday ?3 weeks in total. Ie never previously spent that long away from work (while in employment). The first part of the holiday was spent near Portsmouth, sailing on an 8-person yacht in a cluster of casual races. Yes, years after reading swallow and Amazons, I am a landlubber no more. I now know how to haul a mainsail up and trim a spinnaker. I also somewhat acquainted with sleeping a very close quarters with the world worst snorer, and adept at declining the excessively numerous offers of pints of beer etc, but that a different story. As they say in Jeeves and Wooster novels nto each person life some rain must fall? On the whole I did rather enjoy the sailing experience. If  were to go again though, I want to do a slightly more formal training experience, to get to try out the various jobs that are still unfamiliar to me.

So the Long Holiday went on, with the Quiet Interlude of some 5 or 6 days spent at Esther and Simon house. Then on to Switzerland, with an Oakhall holiday. The coach drive there and back was a bit galling, but the time in Switzerland itself was great ?plenty of walking, pleasant company, good Christian meetings in the evening, as well as other activities. So I keen to explore the world further with Oakhall, especially if it can be done without having to sleep overnight on a travelling coach. (Now playing Jenga on a coach travelling at 70mph is a different matter entirely, but that too is an extra story!)

Switzerland was also the chance to visit the relatives in Zurich and also Dad was staying in Luzern. Alongside of his lady friend. Who is now his fianc嶪. Wedding date unconfirmed yet, but it is good news that Dad will have someone there with him as they go forward together.

Since the holiday, it bee mostly humdrum work, with the odd visit to people Down South. Nothing too dramatic seems to have happened in my immediate vicinity, at least not the sort of things one publicly talks about. I in Cumbria, with Dad and his fianc嶪 Vreni for a few days, trying to recharge the batteries for 2008, and decide on strategic directions in various matters. I a lot less excited at the outlook tha I was at the start of 2007, but that may not be a bad thing - I may be able to settle down to equanimity with a more realistic set of aspirations for 2008.

Best wishes for 2008, to all of you who have stuck with this post for this long!

New Year

Well it was only 2 bulletins in Autumn.

Life got somewhat busy in November, when I had another interview in Cheshire. I was offered the post, and they wanted me to start at 2 weeks notice. So when I told my boss at Advantica about it, he expedited the offer of a permanent job at Advantica. (As in, I told him about the Cheshire offer about 4pm on Thursday, he gave me all the paperwork for the Advantica job offer on Friday morning.) So that left me with an agonising weekend of soulsearching - do I go for the job I thought I always wanted even if it means leaving Loughborough, and incidentally earning somewaht less than I would do at Advantica. I could digress and tell a few vaguely amusing stories of "God's leading". But suffice it to say that I'm now on the graduate development programme at Advantica. I officially started it on 4th December.

So I have to start thinking about being in Loughborough long term. And the question I must not forget in the excitement of a permanent graduate position after 4 years of trying to get one is: what can I do for the kingdom of God here in Loughborough now.

Some years ago, someone in Kings Church sponatneously coined the phrase "In 2003, we are free". The next year, the leadership came up with "An Open Door in 2004". In retrospect, it has been "Life took a dive in 2005", and "Time to fix in 2006". And that has more or less summarised the year - nothing too spectacular in my life, but some steady rebuilding after the disasters of 2005, punctuated with high points- especially Andrew's wedding and The Job Offer in December.

So I'm feeling very optimistic about 2007. The hopeful phrase "Foretaste of Heaven in 2007" springs to mind. Who knows, this might be the year when I get engaged and start to think about buying a house.

But caution is required. These things after all, might not count as a foretaste of heaven.

I spent a week Down South over Christmas and new year. The first few days at were at Esther's - Dad and Grandma came too, and we saw something of the Carters. Then I had a 24 hour interlude at the Johnsons. Superfically the news from them is good - Chris is still in work, Matthew has got a good apprenticeship, Melissa is engaged, Gemma is busy and Ben is happy enough. Spritiually, it's harder to tell - Chris and Paula are enthusiastic about Kingdom Faith, but it seems to be a long way from Bisley for Gemma and Ben. Ok, so I suppose that's superficial, it's not like they had great Christian friends at FGA anyway, but I think Gemma especially would benefit from good Christian fellowship outside of the family, which is a bit hard if the church is distant.

Anyway, I went on to Andrew's for the new year, and spent some time playing with my favourite niece, before she went off (a bit unwillingly) with her dad over the weekend. For anyone who didn't know: Andrew and Kay are expecting a child in late June - wouldn't it just save postage in later years if the child's birthday was 26th June - and so following the 12 week scan, Andrew is proudly telling everyone "The child is 72mm long". Kay is better than earlier on in the pregnancy, but still struggling somewhat.

In summary, the outlook for 2007 is good.

Autumn

Well, some things feel like much of a muchness. Towards the end of October, as my latest work contract was petering out, I was duly asked if I wanted to extend it until Christmas. Hence the wolf should be kept away from the door until at least its officially Winter.

More excitingly, I've moved house. I'm now living in Valley Road. It's a more up-market part of town, and is, incidentally the street where the Frosties live. I pass their hous on the way to Tesco's. The way in which the move came about involved a bit of a story....

Mrs Brister, moved to this house a long time ago, and lived here for decades. Upon her death earlier this year, her son John was left with the challenge of what to do with the house and all the old lady's stuff. As it happened, David Wilks, the then minister-in-training at Holywell Church, had to leave his former residence, a granny flat whose OAP owners were selling up to downsize their own living arrangements. John spotted the opportunity, and persuaded David to move, rent-free, into the Valley Road house to housemind. John's aim was to turn the house into a rentable property, so over the course of 6 months or so, Mrs Brister's stuff started to disappear, and a few renewal modifications came into place, while progress was made with the issues of legal compliance for renting properties. Then in September, I had a phonecall from David. he was desperately looking for a housemate. As it happened, I had come to the conclusion that living alone in a flat had its drawbacks, so jumped at the opportunity.

The move itself took place in mid-October, with assistance from both David and John. There was a little bit of early cold-water effect on the move... On the Saturday that I moved in, I left Valley Road to go back to Glebe Street at about 3pm, for a final cleaning session. I got back to Valley Road at about 7.30pm, to discover that david had left the house. So I marched up to the front door, inserted my key, and found that it just idly turned the lock without opening thedoor. Hmmm. I deduced that David must have locked the door form the inside, in such a way that it couldn't be unlocked from the exterior, and then left through the back door. At that stage I didn't have a backdoor key. I decided that David would come back sooner or later, so went to get some fish & chips before returning. David still wasn't back, so I pushed off to visit the Frosties (who were out) and then on to Tesco's, and got back at about 9.30-ish, to find that David still wasn't back. That was when I left my bike here and went for a wander around this end of Loughborough. I sat down on a bench near a cycle/pedestrian path and decided to wait there a while.

It was while I was sitting there, that Margaret Bettany walked past. She didn't recognize me. I later found out that she was on her way to do a bit of late-night decorating of Bruce P's house as a birthday surprise. Seeing a man just idly sitting on a bench, she decided it was best not to return home that way. After all, you never know what these strange loafers might think of doing!!!

So anyway, I went back to Valley Road at about 10.30pm, and found David still out. I waited for him at the house until about 11pm. Eventually I got fed up of waiting, and, as I still had the key to Glebe Street, set off in a huff for there, to spend the night as best as I could on the sofa bed. (Remeber that Glebe Street was basically empty except for the landlady's furniture.) In the morning, I cycled back to Valley Road, to tackle David about matters, and got here at about 9am, to find he wasn't here. I decided to try my key in the lock again, and hey presto! the door opened.

The mysteries of this stroy don't take that long to clear up. Bruce P had recently had a stroke, and preferred not to be alone during the nights, so David had gone to sleep over at his house. The front door of Valley Road has a peculiarity about the lock - I won't tell you what it is, because you never know who might be eavesdropping - which I managed to unwittingly crack on the Sunday morning.

But still it wasn't quite the Saturday evening that I had planned for myself!

Anyway, at the end of octobe, I had an interview in Cumbria. It was rather unfortunate that it was during the week that Dad was away in Africa with Andrew. So I simply had the double train journey to do in one day.

The interview itself had unusual features. I found myself in the HR office, about 15 minutes early, and saw one person after another arrive and go into the room, (although I didn't know then that it was the interview room)including the chap who introduced himself to me as I was waiting. At one point I heard some laughter coming from the room. Then when I got in there, I found 4 peole waiting to interview me. Needless to say, each one of them had little time to say things, and one could tell that at the start that they were trying to work out how to organise things.

It wasn't a terrific interview. I feel that, though I managed to establish some rapport, I don't think I really sold myself. I haven't heard anything back yet, which at this length of delay, probably isn't good news.

Anyway, it did enable me to ask my boss whether there was scope for becoming a permanent employee. He's asking his boss about it. We'll see if anything comes of it.

In the meanwhile my CV has gone out on a few other directions. I idly wonder whether it would be worth posting here???

Things are a bit strange in cell group at the moment. Back in September, the former cell group leader resigned to join the leadership team for The Youth. I suddenly realised that we have recently embarked on our 4th leadership configuration in 3 years - which doesn't exactly make for good long term planning and stablility! The new leader, Ed, is still settling to things - I think he's a bit busy writing up his PhD - hence things feel a bit unstructred and disorganized.

On the somewhat amusing side - my sister-in-law seems to be enjoying her new found role of having a 'little brother'. She seems desperately keen for me to meet this woman she knows in Dunstable. As she points out - it's not that far away, and her friend has got a car. So far I've avoided the encounter, but if I do a Tour of the South over the new year, as I'm thinking of, the matter might resurface.

Anyway, I've tanatalised you with enough hints and slight insights into my life for one evening. Perhaps even for one Autumn, who knows?

Summer Activities

Towards the end of May, I got my contract at Advantica extended for 2 months.

At work, when we acces the Internet, the Adavntica port has the date at the top, and also says if it is a significant day for some group or other ?mostly religious. 9th June 2006  was marked as a significant day ?the start of the 2006 Football World Cup

It quite challenging working during the World Cup, while supporting two teams. I did manage to see all the England games (well, part of, at least). The first one was watched at The Bachelor Pad at Beacon Road, the second group game at work (big screen, entry fee, raising money for charity, and the 3rd game back at the Bachelor pad.

Switzerland games were a bit more problematic I watched part of the game against France on a TV at Woolworths, missed the second one entirely, and went to Simon and Esther for the crucial 3rd group stage game. We excitedly got into the living room from the train station at about 8.15pm, switched on the TV ?and can you believe it, BBC had decided to show the France-Togo game instead of the Switzerland one. They were showing Switzerland, but only on BBC 3, which Simon and Esther can get. So we kind of watched France, while waiting for updates from Switzerland, as a 2-0 scoreline took them into the knockout stages.

That was on Friday 23rd June; the first England knock-out game was on the Sunday. I was still in Berkshire, and only got to see the first 20 minutes, so I missed The Goal that saw England through to the dizzying heights of the quarter finals. A day later, I watched the end of the goal-less game between Switzerland and Ukraine, which resulted in Switzerland exiting the World Cup through a penalty shootout. Thus Switzerland have managed to become the first team to be knocked out of a World Cup without conceding a single goal during regular play. They have probably also won the ignominy of being the only team to get knocked out in a penalty shootout without scoring a single penalty. Still it was a brave effort!

Anyway, the reason for going to Simon and Esther was for the Murder Mystery evening on Saturday 24th. I had always been somewhat curious how murder mystery events worked, so it was an interesting experience. The scenario was that we were all diplomatic persons in the 1930s, travelling on the Siberian Express, on the way to a Peace conference ?when the Japanese Ambassor bodygurad got murdered. I was playing the role of Hoo Flung Dung, the Chinese chap. Andrew was the Japanese ambassador, Flashi Mota (also known as Dodgi Mota as we found out during the evening), with his sidekick, Kay, aka Miss Hanki Panki. All names which caused some amusement. Honours for the evening for fancy dress, I felt went to Simon brother Anthony with his wife Emily ?when I first saw Anthony after he had got dressed as General Pushov, I was struggling to work out who he was in real life!

After that it was back to World Cup fever, especially watching England disappointing exit (a penalty shootout, after a 0-0 game). Verdict: England have the same chronic problems they had at the last World Cup ?good in defence, but with a definite lack of goal-scoring talent. And these days, it quite hard to win a football match without actually scoring! - especially as England invariably lose penalty shootouts. Anyway the Final was on 9th July.

Roundabout the middle of July was when contract extension discussions came up, the result being that I had another 2 month extension at Advantica, but due to work shortage, the other two temps were left o pursue their careers elsewhere? There were 4 of us (counting Kate, the year-before-University-student) all working with a program called Pipesafe, and sitting together on a island of desks that became known as Pipesafe Island. We were even given a paper flag, showing the Pipesafe icon, which we attached to a ruler, and stuck up in the middle of the desks. We tore it in half when Tom and Duncan left at the end of July. And Kate left at the end of August, so we ripped the half that left into two.

Round about the start of August, my focus transferred to the great adventure of the year, namely  leaving Europe for the first time. I kept on checking in the library to see if the travel book about Barbados had come back yet, but ended off concluding it was simpler to just buy one. Then there was all the shopping to do ?I took the opportunity to decide that my fading Tshirts needed an upgrade, and wandered round Loughborough trying to find a suitable trousers for Barbados weather.

So the diary for Barbados was as follows:

11th August: Simon, Esther and me left Wokingham to go to Gatwick ?at 3am! Long wait at airport, short hop to Manchester, and a long wait there. But rather enlivened by the fact that Dad, Grandma and Mark, the Best Man joined us there. Then the incredibly long flight across the Atlantic, with some pretty boring stuff showing on the TVs, and of course, no hand luggage allowed, so no books. All the while trying to sleep off a minor headache, when not eating or drinking. Coming into Barbados was quite amusing. We seemed to fly all aroud the island before actually finding the approach to the runway, and one of the two youngsters next to me saying she recognized places, while her brother insisted she couldn do.

At the airport we were rather counting on Andrew/Kay meeting us, as they were the only ones who knew where Mark and I were staying. But as they weren there, we trundled off with Simon/Esther/Dad/Grandma to their place, and so onto where we were staying. The hostess apologized for the late change of plan ark and I weren sharing one of the nice rooms but had two separate rooms in the rather rustic basement. Ah well, I can say I minded that much. Then after we had spent a little while there, Andrew came along ?they were going along to a place where one of Kay friends was playing music, would we like to go? So we trundled along, and who should be there, but the Thurley family, with Gemma Johnson. This was where i first ate flying fish, of which I heartly approve. The girls were keen to get me on the dance floor, but I withstood them. They were rather more successful when the idea was mooted of going swimming in the sea (in the dark). (The Thurleys, I should explain, were staying just around the corner.) The sea, at night, is quite a good place to talk, and it was about midnight, Barbados time, when we exited the water, so about 6am, British time, that I got to bed. The rest of the week wasn quite so mad!

12th August: WEDDING DAY

About 10am, before I even had time to shave, Andrew came along and bundled Mark and I into the back of Ernest (friend of Kay mum, Esther) pick-up truck, and off we went, along with Kay, Adara, and Gemma J, to Hastings Rock, to set things up for the wedding at 4pm. Tables, and chairs to set up, balloons to blow, decorations to do, etc. The wedding was going to be overlooking the sea, with the reception under a gazebo next to the seats for the ceremony.

Dad, Simon and Esther turned up, and  Kay sister and mum Even Kay dad put in an appearance. It was a very do-it-yourself kind of wedding, with the usual mystical conventions such as groom not seeing bride on the day until the ceremony being largely ignored! At about 2.30pm to 2.45pm, people began tactufully suggesting that Kay (who was largely responsible for organising everything) and Andrew, ought to perhaps go and get ready for the wedding itself. So Andrew, Mark and myself went off to Kay mum to get changed, while (I think) Kay and her followers went to her Dad. Although when at about 3.30, Kay and the bridal party suddenly turned up where we were, I got rather worried (Esther house is not exactly large!) Fortunately they were just getting flowers, or something.

At about 4pm, Kay dad turned up in his car to take us to the wedding. As time passed, I got a bit worried that we were going to be late, and that the bride mught actually get there before the groom. If only I realised that Kay dad  obviously couldn pick her up before he dropped us off, it might have gievn me a bit more peace of mind. So anyway, we got to hastings rock at about 4.30pm, to find what looked like  full house?sitting waiting for us. And at 5.15pm, the bride finally arrived. (Grandma fumed ? lot of English vicars would have gone home by now!? But Barbadians, it seems, are a more patient bunch.

The wedding itself was short and sweet. We hope Andrew and Kay said all the right things ?it was only the minister who had a microphone, and being outdoors, it was harder to hear what the happy couple were saying. Later, after the food, Andrew and Kay demonstrated the first dance (Grandma aside hey don know how to dance, do they?? The rest of the dancing consisted largely of one English woman and a few Barbadian women showing off, while everyone else ignored them and concentrated on food, drink and conversation.

13th August: Mark and I, in a thoroughly unconventional manner, were invited to breakfast in what was labelled he Honeymoon Suite?(Andrew and Kay were staying just along the road from us). The phone rang all the while we were there, but at least we got directions to the beach where the Thurleys were staying. So Mark and I spent the afternoon in the water with the Thurleys and Gemma J, and the evening in a restaurant with them. Inbetween times, we made our way along the sea to where Esther and co were staying, though only Dad and Grandma were in.

14th August: Another beach day. This was the day we went snorkelling. I should explain that the beach where the Thurleys were staying was protected by a reef about 100m off the beach. The reef provided a shelter for all manner of small fish. When the tide was low, in the early part of the day, was the ideal time to go and see them. As the day wore on I got sunburnt ?so too did Gemma. We were quite glad, when we visited Kay mum in the evening, that she had plenty of aloe vera, which took away some of the sting. (That was the third time I had flying fish to eat.)

15th August: This was the day when Kay mum and co had organised a tour of the island for the English party. The minibus (airconditioned) wasn big enough, so Ernest obliged with his pick-up truck again, and Kay mum took some of her personal frineds in her car. Needless to say, there was a clamour amongst many people to get out of the a/c minibus and get on the back of the pickup truck . Personally, still suffereing with a bit of sunburn, I was quite happy to stay in the minibus.

That trip was quite an interesting tour from the point of view of getting a bit of a flavour of the island inland, and of course the company, but apart from that fell a bit flat ?we stopped at the two oldest church buildings and a couple of other places with a view, but we didn have time to get stuck into anything in particular. The main ighlight was lunch at Bathsheba, by the Atlantic. Another fun memory was when the rain clouds broke, and the people who had fought their way into the back of the pickup, crammed into the car and minibus ?except for Jutta and Tiffany, who volunteered to stick it out with a plastic sheet for protection.

I seem to remember going into the sea again in the dark, from the beach near where we were staying as well. The sea is such a good place to socialise!

16th August: This was the day that dad and co hired a car ?or more precisely a minivan. So Esther/Simon.Grandma, Dad and Mark went off to visit places. It was late morning when we set off, with first stop being at a sort of National Trust plantation house, that dad was especially interested in. It wasn a terrific tour ?one doesn, after all, think of Barbados in coneection with fine architecture. But we had a nice lunch there.

Then we continued on our way to find Orchid World. I was map reading. In my defence, I would like to say that mapreading in Barbados is not exactly your typical scenario. There are only two truly major roads, and we were not using either of them. Sign posts are not to towns/villages as such (apart from the tourist area along the south and west coast, there don really seem to be any towns or villages), consequently signs are for parishes ?which are quite diffuse areas. We had 2 small maps, and after the stop at the plantation house, I had inadvertently switched over to the less reliable one. When I later compared the 2 maps, I saw that they didn show the same junctions and didn even agree on which roads were the major ones and which were the minor ones. Consequently we found ourselves bumping along a minor road which ?well lets just say, if youe ever in Barbados, only switch from a major road to a inor one whrn you can actually see your destination! I still have no idea how we managed to take the right turn towards the sea instead of the left turn inland, but when we realise dwhere we were, we abandoned the plan to go to orchid World, and just carried along the coast road.Thus we came to Bottom Bay, where Mark and I went into the sea. At this point, on the east coast, the sea is not the Carribean but the Atlantic ocean. Consequently the waves are huge. Yeehaw, that was fun!

17th August: This was the day we once again braved the interior, to get to the Andromeda Botanical Gardens. It took us something like an hour and a half to drive the 40km to get there. But it was worth it. The flowers and plants there were the best part of the holiday not involving the sea.

Then in the evening we went on a cruise ship up the east coast of the island. A few mildly interesting points in the onboard entertainment, but I can really wax warm over eating a meal while watching the coastline bob up and down in the swell.

18th August: Unfortunately, almost entirely taken up with getting packed, out to the airport, and home again. It was an overnight flight. In desperation, I drank some wine before lights out to try to encourage sleep, but it felt desperately short.

By the time we got back to Esther and Simon, at about 2pm, I was so profoindly tired that I don think Ie ever been tireder. I felt strange during church the following day, and on the Tuesday, I didn manage to get to work within the core hours start of 10 am. Fortunately my boss didn comment while signing the timesheet.

And well, what has Spetember been all about? I not entirely sure. Mostly getting back into Loughborough ways and concerns after the excitement of Barbados. I ought to have mentioned that my work contract got extended again, this time until the end of October.

But one thing is for certain, if there a real prospect of getting this posted before the end of that contract, I can write in such detail about what happened since Barbados. In fact, i might as well just draw to a close here, and post what Ie got. Believe it or not, Istarted writing this post about a month ago! Well done to anyone who still reading it.