Christmas!

Christmas; A time for renewal, rebirth and celebrating the way in which God enters our lives in the least threatening ways that he can, as a baby. Once he's in there he starts turning everything side down. In his ministry he waited 30 odd years. He's started early on me - I'm only 25.

It's sometimes difficult to picture God as the helpless baby who just needs to be loved and cherished. All to often he's the man I want answers from. Generally not the answers that he gives me though. Ho hum. Such is life.

This week has been great. I've chatted to people, slept and generally unwound. Maybe that's why today has been so hard. Visiting elderly Grandparents is difficult; I know that people get old but it's still hard to watch. It was hard with Great-Grandma and I remember thinking then that it was a scene I was going to have to watch over and over again. One day it'll be my parents. That's something I've got years and years to try and prepare myself for.

It seems to me that it's all connected to Christmas but I can't quite work out how. Maybe the way in which they need to be protected and loved until God's timing is complete.

And now on a less serious level; Alice claims she's getting here tomorrow by 4. It's here in writing as evidence. Mainly because I don't believe a word of it... :-)

BLUE!

The world is a very odd place without the colour blue. Everything looks red and green. Most bizarre. You don't realise how much you miss it until it's back.

Our TV feed did odd things last night, meaning we had no blue colour. Watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' with no blue is a tad random. After all, half the fun is commenting on the dresses...

However what was more weird, and still on the same theme of Blue, is that watching William Hague this morning on Sunday am he sounded sensible and normal. The conservatives seem to be sounding sensible. Not that sensible but more so than in the past. Scary stuff.

Oh deer

So does anyone know how much it costs to replace the front headlight (drivers side) and plastic radiator bit on a polo?

A deer decided to say hello to my car this morning.
It will no longer being saying hello to anyone else.

And I’ll calm down soon too.

Cars, People and smoke.

On Friday I sorted out the tail light on the car. Simple. Open Manual. Yes, that looks pretty simple so I bought a bulb.

Now I want you to imagine something. Imagine me. Sitting in the boot of my car (with legs dangling) holding up the parcel shelf with my head, trying to get the lighting unit out of the slot so that I can replace the bulb. Now imagine that I’m in halfords car park in Selly Oak.

It’s a miracle I wasn’t arrested!

***************************************************************************

The rest of the weekend was less eventful. Saw zillions of people and nattered to a few more. It’s nice to get up to Brum once in a while. On the way back down I stopped at Mike/Mic/Michael’s (Can’t remember which spelling to use!) for lunch and we went to the nicest pub and ate really nice pizza. Mmmmmm. If I could remember what’s it called I’d tell you all to go there. Due to the fog I stopped in Oxford as well to break up the journey further and see Alice. She fed me muffins. So by the time I got home I couodn’t be bothered to cook so I had beer. Beer counts as food right?

All in all a really nice, relaxed weekend.

***************************************************************************

Followed by the commute from hell this morning. Yes, it’s a big fire. No that’s not smoke from it. So many accidents today; I swear people are looking at clouds wondering if it’s smoke and driving into each other. Grrr.

Well that was fun.

Useful meeting followed by a rather nice meal, some rather expensive red wine (which we discovered this morning not only tastes nice but you don’t get hangovers) and a few beers in the Walkabout afterwards.

As the only woman there I was a little apprehensive about going drinking with 15 men, but it did mean that they could remember my name, if only by process of elimination. "oh you must be Mary…" And to be fair, they did decide not to go into the table dancing club. It was at that point that someone said in surprise "You can be very assertive can’t you". Most of the people who read this blog may well have realised that one already. Although the word commonly used is ‘stubborn’.

For much of the meal the construction end of the team tried to headhunt me for site experience. My lead design engineer was trying to bribe me to stay put. I’ve explained I only take bribery in the form of money, but he did insist on trying by just refilling my glass. Although on the plus side, he did claim that if I found the bonus scheme stuff filled it in and told him who to send it to then he might do it. Trying to decide if I’m really that cheeky. And if such things should be taken as meant after a few too many glasses of wine.

Weird thing about drinking with colleagues. Even at the end of the evening we were comparing drinking beer to the flow control devices we’re going to be using on site. There’s something very wrong about that.

And I wish I could remember how the conversation at kicking out time went that moved from me not wanting another beer, to a closed gate flow control valve to me probably not really being menopausal yet.

Looking back...

Ferijen has put together an interesting list of what she’s been doing over the last few years.

I considered doing something of the same. It’s a little scary though. Do I really want to re-examine all the things that have made me who I am? After all, I spend a fair amount of time trying very hard not to do that.

So I guess it’s good for me. So here goes. A potted history of some of the things that make me me.

*********************************************************************************

This time 10 years ago I was year 10 I think. GCSE year 1. Reasonably happy and trying to work out who I was. I’m still trying to work that one out.


This time 8 years ago I’d discovered drink. On and was overworking on 4 A levels. One of which I later dropped when school friends reminded me that living on coffee and proplus was bad. I’ve come so far….


This time 5 years ago I was in second year uni. I was beginning to understand what it meant to be chair of Cathsoc and looking forward to passing on the mantle because I’d had enough and Alice had had to support me a lot through the year. Graham once told me off for describing the vice-chair’s role as ‘a shoulder for the chair to cry on’. Perhaps it wasn’t the best role description ever; certainly not for advertising purposes. I was living with the Chickens who are still wonderful people and friends although I’m not sure that I really miss the physical nature of the house. Particularly those slugs on the carpet.


This time 4 years ago I was going downhill with depression. By this point it was obvious to some people but not others. I was eventually diagnosed in January after failing a few exams. Not a good time. And not a time I can remember a lot of at the moment to be honest. However all in all I seem to be stable now so hey, it does improve. Well, Stable in the sense of ‘if you give me chocolate it’s all fine’ ;-) Can't believe it was 4 years ago! Time flies!


So, this time last year, I’d been working for a year and a bit. I’d started working on a suite of work that I’m still working on and had come across the beautiful software that still causes me much grief today. I’d also just met some really nice people in the office who I hadn’t met before and who I now value as very good friends to me. I also began the weekly task of talking several of them out of leaving the company because’ it’s not that bad’. Thus earning my title of counsellor. The company still hasn’t provided training for that. And I’m still better at telling other people why to stay and what to do than telling myself.

Outside of work I was wondering what to do with the newly developed spare time I’d been given by not living on the M40. Today I’m not sure what I did with it. I was, as I still am, living with H, H and A. I think I was coping.


And now… I’m doing too much, not sleeping enough, and generally not quite getting the work/life/God balance anywhere near right. Life has gone mad but is generally calming down. And my manager just signed my leave form. Oh yes.

Life is good. I just don’t give myself enough time to appreciate it.

Company wide Emails.

Every now and again an email comes out to the whole UK company. It is generally treated as it deserves. Below is today’s example. To clarify it went out to 1500 people this afternoon. And doesn't have a whole lot to do with the business. I've left the grammer alone.

EMAIL 1

Dear All,

I am currently considering to buy a flueless gas fire for a living room. The chimney breast and flue having been removed by the previous owner of the house.

I would be interested to hear comments from anyone who has such a fire, or knows anyone with one.

I have doubts about possible problems with condensation.

EMAIL 2

you could leave a window open

or buy another house with a chimney - that's what I done.

Life is so complicated.

F9 to refresh my email
F5 to refresh explorer and get up to the moment cricket scores.

F5 in my email clears all my data and asks me for a password. Which I have done about a million times this morning.

And after all that it’s a draw.

Oxford.

I went to see my friend Alice this weekend.

I arrived in Oxford a mere two hours later than I'd originally intended due to sleeping in (which was probably good for me. I know this really)

Alice suggested we walked down the river to a nice pub. Now this really is a plan that I can't fault. We weren't really expecting the walk to be a beautiful as it was. And then at the pub I learnt how to use the camera on my phone. Downloading the photos was another matter entirely. I bluetoothed them to Alice's Mac as my home PC is too antiquated to let me install the phone connection software onto. I suspect this means that I NEED a new PC so we spent a happy half hour later that evening comparing laptops on the web.

But anyway, the pub was gorgeous. I remember being there years ago with my grandparents. You might think that this weekend with its freezing temperatures is a little too cold to be sitting outside. Let me tell you that with a good glass of mulled wine (or maybe two) that is really not the case.

So here are some pictures of the walk. As we walked back the fog was rolling in beneath a lovely sunset. Would have been quite romantic if Alice hadn't developed an evil cackle laugh half way home. ah well.

I can't help it, I spent the time Alice was at the bar working out the discontinuity losses of this. I am VERY VERY sad. For the non-engineer that's the energy loss factors of the water)

oh look, I've learnt how to do panoramic photos. This is the Trout pub in Oxford. A really nice pub.

The view from the path we took.

There be dragons.. err.. I mean ducks. Ducks can be quite dragon like though.

Cows in the mist. According to Alice this is far preferable to cows on the footpath as we'd previously encountered. Apparently I didn't help with my comment "ooh, look, small cows". I am informed that they were enormous and scary. Maybe the cows are the dragons.


We got back to Alice's and watched CSI, drank beer, and Alice cooked the most amazing food. Mmmm. She is such a good cook. I can't remember the name of the dish but it was a typical Malaysian breakfast dish. A little too spicy and complex for breakfast I think, but that's just my opinion. When I was over there we did have curry and that early morning too. Guess it's the culture difference thing.

But anyway, the food: noodles, with chicken bits, egg, beansprouts, and seafood (prawns, muscles and squid) in a soup of chilli and stuff. Absolutely great. Apparently Alice is happy to feed me weird food as she knows I'll give it a try. This is good. All I need to do now is learn how to cook so that I can return the favour when she comes over here. It's my new aim. Eating and cooking properly (as in preparing interesting dishes, and enjoying eating them) How hard can it be..?

After dinner we went to a 'bop' at one of the colleges because 'someone' was DJing there and Alice had us on the guest list. I've remembered why college parties are things you stop doing. If you want to dance to M C Hammer in no space at all and spend half the night queuing for drinks then it's great. Actually I did have fun even though I made Alice go home early. I just can't cope with staying out till 2am. I'm getting old.

The journey home is was beset by a question. To summarise the answer which I repeated often in the half hour walk; 'Yes, he seemed to like you. No I couldn't see his face; you were in the way' (That should suitably embarrass Alice.)

Sunday morning involved getting up, having a full fry up (mmm) and pottering along to the Oxford Chaplaincy for mass. Didn't really know what to expect as Oxford seems to be full of quite high churches. The mass was really good though. Perhaps a little too much incense, but to be fair to them they were in a big hall with a high ceiling so it wasn't too bad. There was a really nice feel to the mass and the preacher had some interesting things to say. The bit that caught my attention was the phrase 'The kingdom can be found in the heart of a devout believer'. That's not the whole statement, but it's an image I like. The whole talk was about the way in which the kingdom is proclaimed and visualised today, in 2005. I'd expected to be blinded by Academics. Instead, I was challenged to think, and actually spend a little more time being aware of the religious politics type things. If I'm not careful I'm going to have to subscribe to the tablet. Maybe I should do that anyway. Although, it's a little heavy

So anyway, on the way back from mass we accidentally went shopping. But I need NEED clothes so that's all right.

All in all a great weekend. I should do relaxing stuff more often.

This is painfully true.

Sometimes you get a forward that is just too true. My thanks to Jeremy for this one.

You know you have been in the Red Cross for too long when...

• You've put more into the training night tea kitty than you have into your pension.
• You no longer watch sporting events to see the scores but to see how the medical crews handle the accidents.
• You refer to motorcyclists as "organ donors".
• Your Hi-Viz is no longer Day-Glo yellow but faded in the sun to dishwater white.
• You stop looking at clothing for fashion, and look at it for function and durability.
• Reflective clothing patches become a searched-for fashion plus.
• Your Christmas wish list only includes items from Britcross, SP and Laerdal catalogues.
• You have a pet name for your defib.
• Your spouse/partner has his/her hands on you but it's to practice body checks, not passion.
• Matters of the heart refer to CPR and not romance.
• You put your shoes on as soon as your home phone rings.
• You refer to "Blues & Twos", "999" and "Casualty" as "educational television".
• Your greatest fear in life involves a pregnant woman shouting; "IT'S COMING!"

You know you have been on duty for too long when...

• You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, "it's really quiet".
• Your idea of a great meal is one that's warm.
• You've been thinking up ways to convert a wheelchair into a dune buggy.
• You get very, very scared when a child is "too" quiet.
• You are convinced that the amount of complaining by a patient is inversely proportional to how sick they are.
• You've ever said (to anyone) "so, did you find the finger?"
• You've ever wanted to put a notice in the First Aid post saying: "If you are moody, irritable or just plain rude, there will be a £10 surcharge for putting up with you".
• You automatically multiply by two the answer to the question "how many drinks did you have today?"
• You automatically multiply by three the answer to the question "how many cigarettes did you have today?"
• Your own dog won't let you into the family house because it no longer recognises you.
• You won't let your own dog into the family house because you no longer recognise it.
• You are the only one at the dinner table NOT allowed to talk about your day.
• Your greatest fear in life involves a pregnant woman shouting, "IT'S COMING!"

The next question you should be asking is 'so why do you do Red Cross then?'
That's a good question.
Why do I do Red Cross..? ;-)

Must be something to do with the people involved, helping people, and working for an organisation that believes in Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Independence, Voluntary service, Unity and Universality

Youth are like hedgehogs.

Profound words from my Solutions manager.

Kinda prickly and you don’t want to go too close cos you might hurt yourself. Young people give you colds; hedgehogs are spiky. And young people can also be spiky in their own special way. Like when you ask them to do something.

This follows a discussion of why half the office are off sick. We’re blaming it on the toddlers.

WE WILL remember

Let us pledge ourselves anew to the service of God and our fellow men and
women: that we may help, encourage, and comfort others, and support those working for the relief of the needy and for the peace and welfare of the nations.

Lord God our Father, we pledge ourselves to serve you and all mankind,
in the cause of peace, for the relief of want and suffering, and for the praise
of your name. Guide us by your Spirit; give us wisdom; give us courage; give us
hope; and keep us faithful now and always. Amen.

The above is a quote from the Remeberance day service.

Today we processed through Wokingham to remember and to show respect for all those who have died in war. It's one of the only times that we wear the dress uniform for Red Cross. And it's probably the only time that it really is appropriate to have the right hat and shoes etc. There weren't many people there to watch who weren't in the parade itself, and most of the town probably didn't know that it happened at all. But it was right that we were there. That the parade happened and that wreathes were laid at the memorial.

At mass this morning the scouts reminded us that 1968 has been the only year since 1939 when noone from the forces has died in war. I don't know where that stat comes from or if it's true. But as the scouts prayed this morning: Lord, Give us more 1968s.

GARGH!

I've just been reading through a couple of blogs.

Why oh why can't people think about what they type. The BBC and the Times websites may be usefuresearchch sites but not on their own! Never ever use just one source to base an opinion on! It's madness! And please if you're going to link to a vaguely political site then state something about whether actuallyully agree with it or are just tying to be ironic.

And just when I was about to decide that maybe the stereotypes of Americans were unfair.

Right. I've got that out of my system for the moment.

In other news life is 'interesting'. I'm hoping to work out which way is up shortly. I mean how hard can it be?
In better news my Firefly boxset arrived. Happiness :-)

I got asked an interesting question yesterday.

I was in Birmingham yesterday representing my company at recruitment fair. Major news of the trip – Newman house, the catholic chaplaincy now has a dishwasher – Praise the Lord – prayers answered!)

While I was there, and over a Balti, a current Birmingham Cathsoc member asked me how I knew that God wants me in Reading. As opposed to, say, Africa.

As I was applying to uni and later studying for the degree I always imagined that at some point I would use those skills in places where they are really needed. Maybe going out with the VSO. Obviously you need experience for that so it was always a long term thingy. Except I’m beginning to get that experience but I’m not considering going to the VSO website. Well, not much I’m not (and if I’m honest, I don’t yet have the kind of experience I’d need. Getting there but not just yet).

So why am I so sure I should be in Reading? I seem to be involved in lots of stuff. There seems to be amazing stuff going on across the town. There is also terrifying stuff going on as we start to see gun crime and violence becoming more and more prominent in a way that it really wasn’t 10 years ago (and that’s without the rose tinted glasses too). There’s so much that needs doing in Reading, and occasionally I kid myself into thinking I’m indispensable. I’m useful, but Reading would still be here without me.

So why am I so sure that I need to be here?
I’m not sure at all.

I could go anywhere, but I do kinda like it here. One day I’m going to have enough money to live in two whole rooms instead of one, but other than that I’m happy enough. Why move? God does seem to use me here, and despite the fact that I really don’t spend enough time with him he still lets me play.

So I’m here in Reading for no better reason than because I’m not somewhere else. Currently it’s wet cold and miserable so I’d far rather be somewhere else. But I’m honoured to be able to work with the people I do (both professionally and not) and to be able to get to know an awesome bunch of people, and have fun all at the same time. How many people can claim that?

Maybe eventually I’ll put down some deeper roots. Maybe one day I’ll learn to appreciate what I have that little bit more and stop faffing. Now that really would be a miracle.

Would I like to go to Birmingham?

They want me to go help out at a career fair at Birmingham university. Do I know where the great hall is? Umm? Lets see now ;-)

It’s the careers fair where I first came across MWH and essentially why I applied to work here. Talk about returning to your roots!

The Good News about HADES

Having previously taken the mickey out of the Work 'Good News' wall - guess what I'm currently writing. Yes, that's right. A poster for that very same good news wall.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned to a reviewer that the internal software had been really helpful.

I was told yesterday that I was obviously very confident in my work. This was in a meeting of 20ish people - all men, all older than me. I was asked if the flow split would work. My response of "It works." Didn't provoke any more questions or discussion, in fact there was a short pause in the meeting. It would appear that I can blag confidence pretty well.

But it does mean I have no reason not to write this Good news thingy.

Somehow writing Good News about HADES is a little odd though...

(HADES = Hydraulic Analysis and Design Software.)

Intelligent Design.

Does Nature have an intelligent designer? Well, yes, but….
Are the gaps in evolution? Well, maybe, but…..

Currently in the USA Intelligent Design (ID) is on trial.

Is it science or is it religion?

ID questions natural selection and Darwinism. It suggests that natural selection couldn’t occur in the way that is generally assumed and therefore an intelligent designer must be responsible. That designer isn’t necessarily God, but by definition would have to be a deity or Supreme Being of some sort. Most of the proponents seem to be American fundamentalist Christians. Which shouldn’t get my hackles up immediately. Unfortunately it does. It doesn’t help that George Dubyah supports it… However, lets try to look at this objectively.

There is a universe. Well, lets start small – Earth exists. So far so good. Was it designed or was it not? The arguments for a non-religious start to the earth are well discussed and known; Evolution, asteroids, Bangs, suns etc. Natural selection theory does seem to work. It does seem to fit the way in which we can see the world around us operating.

A religious/Christian perspective can be that God created the earth, the universe, and all in it. There is a God who can influence the fabric of the universe; who can make things happen; who can change the world.

However, I’m fully aware that this is a belief. As much as I know it to be true I can’t persuade that to someone who is not willing to take the leap of faith and accept that there might just be a God. In addition I don’t see that there are any difficulties between the two philosophies. I can be a Christian and believe in evolution/natural selection with some intervention/steering from God at times.

So ID is another way of looking at things. Yes.
Is it Science? No.

Science is something that comes with fact and evidence. That a cynic can look at and understand (I’m not saying that the end result is agreement with the assumptions) but how can something be science when it starts from a basis of a leap of faith? That doesn’t mean that it’s not true and by all means talk about it, discuss it, but not in the same way as science is discussed, and not in science lessons in school.

God is present in all things. God is an intelligent creator. But that doesn’t mean that evolution is not possible. To be Christian does not mean that I do not have common sense. We have free will!


I await the outcome of the trial with interest.

Happy Birthday to me!!

And so I reach 25. As Charlie so nicely pointed out – I’m now halfway to 30. With friends like her... :-$

I’ve upgraded my phone as a birthday present to myself. New toy! Yay! It goes beep any everything!

Google mail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

Wonderful! One of the best error messages I’ve seen in ages.

And that’s including the great one on a work package: "Cannot divide by zero". Really… you can’t?!

What’s going on? I can’t keep up!

I’m really hoping that at some point in the near future the world will slow down for long enough for me to catch up.

Grandad’s funeral went really well. Car no. 2 was the grandchildren and associated cousins etc. By the time we got to the crematorium we were left with an interesting philosophical debate. If we hadn’t nicknamed the car the ‘B’ Ark, would the armrest have fallen off? Thankfully the giggling fit that ensued with the car subsided by the time we got to the crematorium. I suspect the giggling was mainly a way to vent some emotion however whether Gran would have seen it like that is another matter entirely. On the whole I think everything went really well and really smoothly. It was all as Gran wanted it to be. It’s just a shame that I learnt some things about Grandad in Dad’s Eulogy instead of from Grandad himself. I suppose it’s better to know people a little than not at all. It’s hard to visualise the Wilf Wells that I knew building his own house or playing tennis.

And today I’m back in the office trying to work out why on earth I would want an MWH polo shirt – oh wait.. It’s free. I guess it’ll do for the gym. Now when did I last go to the gym…?

We’ve also been asked to contribute Good news to the company to show off what we’re doing well etc. How tempted am I to send in something along the lines of "For God so loved the world…." Well, it is about engineering in a sense…. And it’s definitely good news….

Over.

Over
Out
What?
Errr.. red b…
What’s my callsign?
Um..

As a highly professional organisation it’s always reassuring to know that we can grasp new technologies with both hands in order to provide a better service. It would perhaps be nice If we could also grasp slightly older ones.

Last night was Red Cross radio training. We’ve had radios for YEARS. We’re had this set of radios for a fair while too. So it’s perhaps a little embarrassing when you realise that we’re still not entirely sure of the correct protocols. We can use them and get our message across in an emergency with no trouble. Can we all remember to say ‘over’ after a transmission, or tell left from right to pass on directions? Now that’s all a little more complicated. And that flashing red light… what does that mean…. Noone knows. Oh good. Let’s hope it’s not the self destruct.

Apparently for the Wokingham Winter carnival we’re going to use a radio net. This involves adding more people into the loop to ‘help’. The idea is that all communications go through one point where a record is made of the transmissions. All well and good until you consider what kind of situations we tend to need to use the radios for –Emergencies. The last thing you need in an emergency is a very very slow communication path. The whole point of radios is to speed up the process.

I can’t help but think that we’d be better off with a large net to catch the radios with when we inevitably get annoyed and drop them into the nearest water source… Looks likely that we’ll continue to compromise on some of our duties… mobile phones are wonderful things.

Out.

Uh huh.

Mary: Where’s the drawing register?
Stefan: On the computer. You’ll find it, it’s a small computer.

Stefan is the lead engineer on my project. As you can see we work together pretty well. We're both off our trolleys...

RIP Wilfred Wells

Pray, verb: to ask that the laws of the universe be temporarily annulled for a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

-Ambrose Bierce

Grandad is at Peace now. The above definition sent round by Cath yesterday kind of sums up what we've seen happening in that hospital.

ummmm

What do you call a small spoon that is used to make coffee? It’s surely not a teaspoon is it? Is there a separate object for a coffee spoon? Does such a thing exist? And if not, why not?

What am I meant to be feeling?

Happy or sad?
Enthusiastic or depressed?
Optimistic or scared?

This has been a weekend of extremes and I’m not sure how to react.

We took the youth of Earley away for the weekend. The youth weekend aspect was pretty good. Lots of learning points as you’d expect but I think all the kids got something out of it. It was great to see the little ‘uns asking questions about prayer and love (even if they did have their heads on the table at that point due to lack of sleep. I don’t know – no stamina – the leaders were in a far worse state on the whole. I’ve never seen so many green people…

Was fun though, and the kids really seemed to have fun. We talked about God. We made T-shirts. We played wide games. We made a spoof video of Harry Potter. We didn’t sleep. We checked lots of bumped heads for concussion. (When we say ‘don’t run’ we really mean it).

I really recommend working with kids. It’s great to see them learning and discovering new stuff and you really learn from what they’ve got to say as well.

On the negative side my Grandfather had a major stroke on Saturday. All family are on high alert and as many prayers as we can find are required. Mostly for the rest of the family. Grandad isn’t expected to recover. And it really doesn’t help your sleeping patterns.

So on one hand I’m hyped from a youth weekend, if not a tad exhausted. On the other I’m trying to work out how I’m meant to feel about the health of my grandfather as we wait for him to let go.

As ever. It’s all or nothing, and all at the same time.

Things to contemplate.

1. They’ve stopped making smarties lids
2. A pint of Guinness on a Thursday lunchtime
3. God.

Right. So there’s the agenda people. This could be a long post.

Smarties lids. Nestle have stopped making them. Now, I’d just stopped boycotting them having finally got around to doing my research. I may have to reconsider. Surely if nothing else, the lack of Smarties lids is an educational disaster! Lets not think too hard about the nutritional implications – however, if people aren’t exposed to e numbers they might get really ill if they are suddenly exposed to them later in life. Therefore they should be fed Smarties from a young age and learn to spell with the lids. Of course with no lids involved we might have to resort to skittles which limits the spelling significantly to "ssssssssssssssssssss"

Guinness. Well, need I say more? And at lunchtime too. A great combination. Well, perhaps not from the perspective of my hydraulic calcs, but in terms of me feeling good, and the main reason for it – feeling warm in this freezing cold office it is indeed a success.

God. He Rocks. Well and truly. However, I probably ought to apologise to housemates for being a moody cow when I got in yesterday and not praying about it (and therefore turning into a human being) until getting to youthnet last night. However, youthnet was really cool. Was a bit apprehensive as I hadn’t met my group before and one of my group couldn’t come because she’s broken her elbow (excuses excuses). Although I had to bite my tongue as her friend explained what first aid treatment she’d received (kicked by a horse, lands on elbow, losing sensation. Lets take her home for some dinner before going to A&E. I really hope she didn’t need surgery!)

But yes, God rocks. One of the kids – first time I’d seen her, now wants her very own street bible for her birthday. Personally I like the sound of the pop corn maker shaped like a duck that she has at home!

I’m currently collecting smarties lids at work.

I have 7. Six of them are orange. One is blue.

And I already have doubles.

So go on people… what words can I make out of the letters F, F, Y, Y, P, C and Z?
And in what language?

Houses

I recommend spur of the moment decisions. But it’s useful to know what else is going on at the same time… one of these days I’m going to factor in sleep. Honest.

On Saturday I ‘popped’ up to Warwick for a pint (or as it turned out - 4 pints) with a mate who I haven’t seen in two years. We’ve been trying to organise this pint for two years now so it’s a major achievement really. Problem is Mike lives in a really nice area. It looks all grown up and stuff. Not a lot like my road. As mum pointed out, I live in the wrong part of the country. I’m looking on that statement as more of the ‘lets get the kids as far away as possible’ theory that the parents seem to be working on.

So do I move or not? Do I hang around in Wokingham and hope that one day I could afford a house/flat of my very own, or do I move closer to work and rent in, say, Woodley or maybe Twyford? Not sure whether I really want to move into a shared house with strangers though. But also not sure that I want another winter of driving 25 miles (ish) to work every day in the dark and ice.

Chances are that I’m too lazy to do anything about it. But then given that Helen is talking about moving out maybe I should go at the same time she does. If she does. And that all depends on her job interview in Winchester.

Crickey! Too many things to consider. Think I’ll go back to my tea!

Apparently....

Apparently most engineers don’t collect Smarties lids on their desk and consider making it a professional objective to get the whole alphabet by retirement. (They go well with the paper penguin and the plastic ‘computer’ wizard)

And apparently most engineers don’t get excited about multiple coloured pencils, and colour in their design sketches.

So apparently most engineers are boring. Or is that just the geotechnical guys…. ;-)

oh I’m so funny…. Boring – bore holes…? Never mind…..

Pretty Handbag

So tell me... is £25 too much for this bag?

It's the perfect colour to match my dress for Saturday, and I *could* use it on other occasions too.

It's soooo pretty..

All I need is for someone to say "Yes, that's reasonable, buy it"

And so it contines

My brother is currently in Texas… and they’re messing about getting him a social security number. It’s almost reassuring that it’s not just this country’s systems that are incompetent at times. Almost, but not quite. Sounds like some prayer needed there.

Other than that let’s see… I seem to be running out of sleeping time again, and I don’t know how it happened. Other than the fact that schools are back so the commute is an extra 30 minutes a day now :-(

Still, I have a funky new dress for Clare’s wedding J Happy Mary. Problem is that it’s green so doesn’t match the jacket I was going to wear. Amusingly my mate Charlie has also got a green chiffon dress to wear to the same wedding. All the way through school we used to accidentally buy the same stuff. It’s kind of scary that we can still do it despite not seeing each other above twice a year.

I’ve achieved nothing today. That’s bad isn’t it. Better go home I guess.

So lets see… Life.

I seem to be back at work. But it’s been an eventful week.

Wednesday – hysterical tiredness

Thursday – travel to Greenbelt, collecting Alice on the way. For some reason pillows seem to be the most important thing to be packed. As it turns out, this was at the expense of silly little things like pyjamas.

Friday – Still at Greenbelt. Meet the rest of the ticket office team. They’re crazy. Sounds of Salvation play Ska mass at 0015 on stage 2. They rock. They seem to be well received, and I make it all the way through the event without bursting into tears. This is a great achievement. Well, it is for me.

Saturday – Sounds of salvation play again at 0915. Drag myself out of bed to go again. Alice doesn’t bother. She spends most of the day asleep. Apparently this is the point of holidays. This doesn’t stop her pointing out that I can sleep more than she can. Particularly at Christmas. I’d like to point out for the record that I was doing night shifts that year – give over!

Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Still at Greenbelt. Chilling. Saw some call bands. I recommend ‘one nation’ live. They were awesome. I don’t recommend Jazz Jamaica, although Alice liked them. Motown songs in a Jazz style with just too many instruments. Not my cup of tea. Speaking of tea, genius idea to have the main stage projected on screen above the tiny tea tent, so that you can sit in the sun on the grass with a cup of tea and listen to music…. Bliss…. Discover that holiday seems to suit me. Maybe I should try it more often. Actually feel relaxed and not shattered. This can’t be normal.

Almost forgot the Organic Ale tent. A new concept to Greenbelt, but a great place to sit and catch up with people. Which, if I’m honest, is mostly what I spent spare time at greenbelt doing. It’s great going as a worker, because you haven’t paid you don’t feel the need to rush about and see stuff. So you can just potter. :-)

Wednesday (back home) – Optician points out that I’m not going blind and I have hair cut off. These two items are not really related. Honest. Optician is going to give me a new contact lens. Apparently I should be able to read text on screens. I thought it was normal until Alice pointed out that Greenbelt wouldn’t have a massive screen with text on it if no-one could read it. It’d be a bit of a waste of resource… ho hum.

Thursday - back to work. Urgh. Feels like a Monday. Two day weeks are the way forward however.

Friday – Still at work. Apparently all future leave is cancelled. So much for that theory. And the process engineers have changed the design again. I wouldn’t mind, but they’ve done one of those fundamental U-turns again. Lets get the most explosive chemicals we can find and put them near people. Yes, that sounds like a great plan. Never trust chemical engineers – I’ve had bad experiences with them since that project in third year uni…

Weekend.

I went to an outdoor concert, danced the night away to a blues brother tribute band, people watched (there was a bride there with the most beautiful dress) and got offered freshly made profiteroles and strawberries from a complete stranger.

And people wonder why I do red cross! (Ok, so we had a few injuries to contend with, but nothing too serious...)

RIP Brother Roger

BBC article about Brother Roger of Taize

It's hard to understand how something like this happens in a place so peaceful as Taize. I know these things happen all over the world all the time, but somehow that it should be in Taize is just really weird. Maybe it's because I've been there (admittedly just once) and found it to be a really peacful and restful place (once I'd got used to the fact that it's just way too quiet and they don't have a drum kit) . Murder is almost expected in cities, you're prepared to see violence, dispute, roadrage. It's bizarre to see it in so peaceful a place.

I do like the comment towards the end of the article about 'different species of Protestant'. It explains a lot... ;-)

How are you?

How are you? Anything new going on?

Is it right that just because I can't think of anything new to say that my life is automatically dull? I do lots of stuff and I enjoy doing it. But I can't help it if that means that I don't' know what to say to people when they ask how I am.

So, a quick glossary:

Fine, in maryspeak, means doing good, bit tired, but that's because I was involved in this great duty/prayer meeting/youth event/discussion/drink last night. And I'm tired now because in all honesty that was more fun than getting to bed on time...

Tired, in maryspeak, means tired. Don't expect sense or intellectual conversation.

URGh, in maryspeak, means leave me alone unless you have chocolate.

So next time someone asks me how I am how should I respond?

"I'm tired"

To be grown up or not to be grown up

All around the office networks are grinding to a halt, servers are crashing. Basically IT is having a few issues.

Is this stopping me refresh the cricket scores every 5 minutes…? Is it going to stop me..? Do I really care if I can’t do any real work?

Thoughts...

Hmnmm..

Just got back from meeting with my parish priest. It was one of those meetings where you come out way too enthusiastic, and things just seem to be going well.

I went to see him to talk about youth work. More precisely to try and persuade him to let our parish get more involved in Youthnet and the other things in Earley. There was me thinking that some commitment to publicity would be good. Maybe some prayer support. The odd visit from a friendly priest to one of our events...

So I'm a tad blown away by the concept of me standing up at each of our 4 masses in September and inviting the whole parish to take on board what Youthnet is, why we should support it, why their children should think about coming, and to encourage the rest of the parish to think about the importance of talking and thinking about their faith and formation.

Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. He asked me to standup and talk about Youthnet and why we should encourage or young people to be involved. The rest of the list is an inevitable part of it, at least it is as I see it.

ok.

right.

Better get over that fear of microphones....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We also had an interesting chat about sin, mission and engagement with traditional Catholics. All in 50 minutes :-$

Incidentally, as part of the discussion we got to this deep theological concept... Have you ever considered that sin is like poo? You don't want to be near it. It smells. It brings disease and sickness...

So this poses and interesting question...
if sin is poo... What is a wastewater treatment works?

A baptismal font?

So being an engineer is a vocation. Finally the proof of what I've been telling everyone for years...

PUB!

Yay!

Today I have achieved something.

I got half the office into the pub for a swift pint. Oh yes. 

Ok, more like a quarter.
Maybe a third.
15 peoples.
Ish.
Not bad eh?

All it took was one email to the entire office telling them that we should all go to the pub to get to know each other…

So now I have a problem. Why on earth should I do any work? It’s nice out there… and I could just fancy another pint….

So peoples… reasons. I need reasons to work. Failing that I need reasons to leave the office early….

Philistines

I work with Philistines.

How can people not be excited about a score line of 0-1 in the Cricket. Against Australia. In the Ashes?!!!!

I mean really?!

How am I supposed to work under this pressure?

Celery

I decided that instead of nibbling on chocolate at work, I’d do the whole fruit and veg thing. It’s good for me.

But is it really good for me? It’s greeny coloured. It’s stringy. And it’s dull. Dull dull dull dull dull dull.

Therefore, in an attempt to right this wrong, I have a suggestion for any supermarkets out there that want to increase their sales of celery.

Chocolate covered celery.

Genius!

Calorie wise you could make it balance out I’m sure, after all celery is supposed to be good from that point of view. Taste wise it’s got to be more sensible that chocolate covered carrot – I mean really…. Who’d suggest something as silly as that.

And last but not least, it would save me from the fact that having got so bored of celery today I’m going to end up buying chocolate at lunch time anyway. Chocolate covered celery would pre-empt that.

Brilliant.

Patent pending.

Randomness

Martin: I've bought some new cycling gloves
Mary: What for?

D'oh! It’s been a long week ok?

However, I feel that any stupidity of comments is superseded by this exchange between two of my housemates at the party last night. In order to fully appreciate this you need to picture Helen with a bottle of purple vodka in one hand. It's vodka with lots of parma violet sweets in it to add 'flavour'. It tastes worse than it sounds. Lots worse.

Helen: It's ok, I've diluted it
Heather: What with?
Helen: Vodka

Later Helen successfully 'danced her socks off'. I didn't know you could stand on your own foot and remove a sock while dancing.

Be prepared.

All scouts should be prepared. Apparently this is also true of engineering offices. We must never run out of pencils. We must always know what the client is going to ask before they do. We must never admit that we’ve made it all up.

And It’s never to early to plan a party. Apparently. We just had an email round to plan the Christmas dinner 2005. Just in case you were wondering it is still July. And it is still rather a long time till Christmas. Unless Christmas has moved. Has Christmas been moved without anyone telling me?!

On an associated work note, Being prepared is also a useful motto to apply to digging yourself out of holes… Particular after comments insulting the place your manager lives by stating that the only bright lights of the town (High Wycombe) are the ones on the police helicopter circling above.. oopss...

What church should be

Pottered into my old university chaplaincy on Sunday morning.

Was met with a hug from Father, and a ‘hellloooooooooo’ from Sister (who is now remembering my name most of the time). Within approximately 2 minutes of walking in I was asked to organised the offertory procession, to make sure the urn was switched on for coffee and was invited upstairs for roast lunch.

It’s like I’d never gone away. Which is great. Surely it’s what church should be isn’t it?

Google Moon

follow this link

Zoom all the way in...

It's just not fair. Stamps foot.

Ok, so Steve is going on about Church unity in his blog).

And it’s a whole different angle to the one that I have issues with. Great.

So just as soon as I’ve got my head round the whole communion thing I’ve got the teaching side to cope with. Unless they’re both actually the same thing.

I’m really hoping that one day I’m able to make it through a communion/Eucharist service in either a Catholic or Protestant church without falling apart and dissolving into tears about the difficulty of division amongst Christians. Steve states that we’re either unifying with bad teaching or bad living when we try to unify churches. But it’s deeper than that when you realise that even when you get good teaching and good living of the world you’re still so divided that it physically hurts.

But is that so bad? Are we meant to be pleased that all these different Christian groups have such serious divisions that we can’t even come together as a community in communion? Maybe it is something that we should all be getting upset about, instead of working and compromising around. All to often ecumenism is about doing what we can and ignoring the rest. For the record, the ecumenical stuff I’m involved in doesn’t do that at all.

Why can’t it be simple? After all – It’s not as though any of us are out here with a complex message is it?

Answers on a postcard....

Socialising.

Is it possible to go to too many beer festivals? I mean really? Two so far, and another booked in. Must be careful though, work people have realised that I drink, and photos from the ball show me with a different man in every photo. Apparently this is bad, but I was only talking – being sociable!

Everyone from uni who is reading that can now stop laughing. I have changed since then…. :-p

London

So it's happened. We've had a terorist attack. On Thursday morning several bombs went off in London. On Thursday Lunchtime the emergency reponse matter slid into operation. And on Thursday afternoon lots of Red cross personnal sat around at Branch waiting and hoping that we wouldn't been needed. Front line vehicles were put on standby and moved closer in to London. The rest of us went in to support people getting off trains coming out of London.

It's fair to say that a lot of good was done, and the plans seemed to work. I say seemed to because our lcoal branch staff aren't that good at communicating with their volunteer staff.. I shouldn't be suprised. Most communications get to us, the volunteers, about a month after they've topped being relevant.

I don't mind sitting around not doing anything. In the Red cross that's always a good thing. However, I do have problems with being taken for granted, and not kept informed. If they're going to call us in then they should make the effort to tell us what's going on. Even if it's just "We're not sure, we're talking to so and so and should have a better idea in a hour..." It's only common courtesy isn't it?

Olympics

So we've got the olympics. That's nice.

On a more important note, the BBC website has crashed leaving me with nothing to do in my lunch break. Except maybe going for a nap under my desk...

Ambitions

I must learn how to NOT look like I’m asleep in team briefings.

And for the record I really wasn’t! I was merely overcome with the exciting concept of ANOTHER data management system, and closed my eyes to imagine it...

What have I been doing?

30th June?

What? Already?

How on earth did that happen?

And what have I done this year so far? Lets have a 6 month review shall we? What have I learnt?

There's been an election.
Making lasagne without an oven is complicated.
God Rocks.

That's not a lot for 6 months.

I must have done something else? surely? I've been ever so busy.. Maybe I need to learn how to take time to mentally process all the stuff I do.

Naaaah.

That sounds way to sensible.

In the meantime I shall contiue to dash form place to place armed with only a first aid kit and a Bible. And possibly some chocolate. And a phone. And cash for petrol. And...

Random question..

Does weightwatchers food have eyes to watch you with?

In space no-one can hear you scream. In the office, no-one wants the screens.

Or do they? Therein lies the issue.

10 years ago the office was refurbished, and redesigned. The architect still works for the company. I got into work today to one email from said architect to the entire office

At the staff meeting on Friday there was a proposal to remove the screening round everyone's workspace. I, and I understand many others would not wish to see this happen as I consider this would detract from the working environment and distract me from working.

Swiftly followed by another, although this time not to the entire office, from another colleague..

If you are in favour of removing / reducing screens, please forward your opinion to Erica.
If you'd rather have a tiny, stuffy, ill-lit cubicle to work in without seeing any other members of staff all day, and only finding out if it's raining by looking it up on the internet, please forward that opinion to her as well.

I’m very amused. This looks to be the start of an interesting battle of wills. The no screens lobby does however have the best sense of humour. The concept of the removal of screens distracting me from working doesn't really seem to be that big an issue compared to the fact that they let me have internet on my PC...

Normal?

So far everyone in the office is more normal than me... That can't be right can it? I mean surely everyone finds bookcases hilarious?!!!

You Are 40% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Go on, have a go, let me know if you're even less normal than me......!

How to be a professional

Do not walk into your team leaders bookcase.

If you do walk into your team leaders bookcase, it’s probably worth not finding it hilarious, and getting a fit of the giggles.

However, even this is excusable if your team leader doesn’t notice. If he does then explaining that walking into bookcases is funny is probably not the way forward. He may start to think that you’re a little odd. This is if he hasn’t already worked that out.

Maybe I’ve had too much coffee, but I still think it’s funny – and it’s a bookcase! What’s wrong with me!?!?!!!

(To be fair, said team leader was fairly busy being amused at me giggling to have any serious concerns about my mental state)

42 minutes!

I survived.... I made it round the course in a whole 42 minutes. I ran about 1.5 km of the 5km course. But I survived! And it wasn't THAT bad....

I didn't have to crawl for any of it, however, there are stairs between me and my bed.... now who's bright idea was that....

Mum also made it round, and if you want to sponsor us (All monies to cancer research) then see my previous post! :-)

what was I thinking?

On Sunday I'm walking/stumbling/crawling 5km. That might not sound like a lot to some of you supertfit people, but it's not bad for me...

Mum and I are both going to complete the course, and intend to do so without need of first aid assistance...

The money raised goers to cancer research.... If you feel that it's a good cause please sponsor me here:

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/zobtheblob

Skittles flavoured vodka.

DON’T do it. And don’t let your housemate do it either. It might look pretty... But...

Urgh.

How Stuff Works - the lightsaber

Uses for a lightsaber

This is great. I particularly like the concept of reheating coffee.....

A friend sent me this..... How true? 

Passwords

• You must change your passwords regularly.
• You must never write them down.
• Never give out your passwords to anyone.
• Don’t use the word ‘password’ as a password
• etc etc.
  

I’ve realised today why it is so important for security to do the above… Once you’ve changed your password, forgotten what it is and locked yourself out of the system then no-one can get into to your stuff. Not even you.

How’s that for secure?

Grrrr.

discrimination

"The dosing pumps are not man enough for the pressures required"

So now we have sexual discrimination of pumps! What is the world coming to.

I wonder if I can take legal action on their behalf. I’d probably need them to sign something though, and I don’t think pumps can sign things… oh no, I’ve discriminated on grounds of disability….

It doesn't look like me, and I no-one called Bob phones me..... but other than that this cartoon is all about me!  

Apparently there's an election coming...?

At last, a manifesto that makes sense.... unfortunately, that's why I know it's not a good idea to vote for them... Ahving said that, this is brilliant:

"We pledge to reduce class sizes by making the pupils sit closer to one another and issuing them with smaller desks."

Take a look for yourself....

Monster Raving Loony Party Manifesto

Boggle boggle boggle

Today at work someone is advertising a double bed It is advertised as "a double bed with headboard and storage in very good conduction"

Good conduction?

The mind boggles.

Boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle boggle

Google is conservative?

Isn't this what they want? No more europe?

follow the link and scroll east...

http://maps.google.com/

Feeling lightheaded

"There’s something different about you today"
"You’re looking a bit different"
"Have you had your hair cut?"

The observational skills in this office are impressive, as, yes, I have had my hair cut. It’s about 3 to 4 inches shorter than it was on Friday. I’d anticipated comment, but not office wide discussion… The secretary has been heard to comment that she likes it so that’s ok. I can breath easy now. She’s not said it to my face though… (is that good or bad?)

The comments about maybe it’s the reason why I’m asleep this morning is a little more disturbing, (Like Sampson I apparently lost my strength along with my hair) and serve to demonstrate the randomness of the people in this office and their state of boredom at present.

Unfortunately, the theory that if they didn’t recognise me they couldn’t give me any nasty work to do has been proved wrong. Ah well, better luck next time…

Alleluia!

They've replaced my phone! And it beeps and everything! wooooo!

It's only taken 2 weeks. Lets just say that three customer service is better than O2, but they don't do joined up thinking.

And don't even think about getting an LG phone. Not now, not ever. They just don't work.

snowbbq.

bbqsnow

bsnowq.

snobbqow

Nope. Whichever way you say it it makes no sense.

This weekend I was helping with a scout camp. (Because I don't have enough things to do in my 'spare' time as it is...) I was there to help with catering for the core team.

It was a scout camp called Nemesis 3 for all the scouts in Berkshire. There were about 250 scouts plus associated leaders. The idea was that the scouts went round doing all sorts of exciting activities sich as climbing, caving, sub-aqua, firemaking, woggle making, tie dying, pioneering.... etc etc etc.

On Friday night as they all arrived we were running a BBQ to feed them. Great. A BBQ for 300+ people. Makes sense. Logical.

Except for that funny white stuff that kept falling from the sky. Some might call it snow. Some might call it sleet.

Whatever way you say it BBQ and snow are not an ideal combination.

Was fun though. And scouts are indeed resourseful... It's the first time I've seen people make a roller blind door out of excess bog roll....

Which Muskehound are you?

I'm Juliette! I might look as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, but in fact I'm brave, clever and resourceful. Friends know they can trust me with their most important secrets; enemies underestimate me at their peril.

I like the sound of that....

Find out which one you are..... on this link...
Which muskehound are you?

Karol Wojtyla

RIP John Paul II.

Whether you agree with his theology or not, you can't disagree that John Paul II was a good man who stood up for what he believed. Religious or secular - you can't ask for more than that.

He's with God now, and I'm happy for him. Now we need to pray for the rest of us left on earth to listen to the Lord and hear what he wants us to do. This is the first time I'll know a change of Pope. We live in intersting times.

RIP.

hmmmmm?

It must be Easter. The new phone list is bright yellow.

I wonder if it’s yellow to symbolise the light of the world that Easter is all about..? I must remember to ask the secretary….

Gardening

An interesting concept is gardening. You pull out the pretty little flowers because they have been designated as weeds. But you leave in the ugly monstrosities that are apparently ‘meant’ to be there. Those are generally the really spiky plants that really hurt if you sit on them.

My brother decided the best way to cope was to pull out everything, examine the roots, and then put the important looking ones back in the ground.

I went for the talking to the plants option. If they didn’t answer they must be bad. However, as Alan pointed out I was even less likely to get a response from a dead plant from a live one..

So despite my efforts, the Grandparents’ back garden does look a lot better.

Today I have learnt an important lesson.

Never ever ever let anyone over 30 near any kind of software. And more importantly, don’t tell them what the software might actually be able to do. Keep it a mystery.

Otherwise they start to get ideas.

And then it’s chaos.

They think that they can do what you can do, when it has been carefully planned that they can’t because they’ll cause chaos if they it. As a result, the cause chaos because they don’t have it.

So essentially… They cause chaos.

That’s all we need to know.

Just let them have paper and pencil. Absolutely nothing else. And whatever you do don’t try to explain that they need to do QA on that paper…. (Let alone H&S on the pencil….)

Making Poverty History

Go on, follow the link.... Click on the band in the corner.....

Launderettes

In Eastenders EVERYTHING happens in the launderette. Mainly however they fall in love in there. So what I really need in life is a launderette. Without a launderette how can I hope to find a man…?

Lasagne.

I went up to Birmingham this weekend. And it was mad. There are many other words that could be used to describe the weekend, but in all honesty none of them quite hit the nail on the head.

I was staying with Lindsey Chicken. Lindsey is great, if not a tad random. There are many entertaining moments from this weekend, however the best has to be the cooking.

We decided to cook lasagne for some of the other chickens on Saturday night. We got half way through..we'd made the bolognaise sauce without too many problems. Well, if you ignore the fact that the lid fell off the pepper and half a jar of whole peppercorns fell into the sauce... But ignoring that it was going well...

At which point Lindsey remembers an important piece of information.

The oven doesn't work.

right.

This could make things interesting.

How would you cook lasagne without an oven?!

We decided to pre cook the lasagne and then heat it through in the grill. Obviously this was far more sensible than just doing spaghetti bolognaise. Obviously. uh huh.

now if you've ever tried to pre cook lasagne then you'll know how complicated it can be. We ended up with Lasagne stuck to the pan, lasagne hadging form the collander till we needed it, lasagne on the floor.... Lasagne pretty much everywhere... coupled with a sudden realisation that the cheese sauce really didn't taste of cheese, or indeed white sauce, or indeed much other than flour.

Now as you can imagine when you put two chickens in such a situation it's going to get worse. In this case it got worse by our guests arriving and seeing the state we'd got into before we could hide it all and pretend nothing untoward had happened.

It actually tasted alright in the end, unless you bit into a peppercorn. And the burnt tang from teh white sauce gave a BBQ sauce hint to the event...

And Lasagne is a simple dish to do....

We were laughing so much that we didn't hear the doorbell... I haven't laughed so much or so uncontrollably in a very log time! It was great!

Heaven

I’ve just had a vaguely profound conversation, and I’m recording it here so that I can’t forget it….

We were discussing God, and how are relationships with him is ever important, and in constant need of work. However, it doesn’t seem to matter how hard you work at it, there is always that feeling of hollowness from time to time. The feeling leads you to forget to pray, or to search for human relationships to fill the gap.

We realised that the hollowness feeling that you notice sometimes, even when you are feeling close to God is due to the fact that while God is physically present with us, he’s not actually physically there to touch directly. So feeling apart form God, and as though you’re missing something important isn’t something that you can do anything about. It’s the gap that will be filled when we (hopefully) make it to Heaven.