Things I have learnt recently

1. 8 mile fast walks are fine until the last mile.
2. Re-hydrating after 8 mile walks with beer instead of water may not be a good idea but you do sleep well.
3. Hazelnuts really can’t replace chocolate.
4. Death is not dignified.
5. In hydraulics there is a very big difference between litres and metres-cubed. Don’t get them muddled.
6. It will snow whether I like it or not
7. Driving in daylight is lots more fun than driving in the dark.
8. If you pester Red cross enough they offer you training courses you need. In Windsor :-s
9. I will be able to get my REd Cross IHCD exam by the summer. Which means Mary might soon be a fully fledged little Red cross ambulance crewperson. Because I don't do enough things already...

It's all going to be ok.

Good.

Can someone wake me up when it is please?

Thanks.

Firefly.

It's great I said. You'll like it.

Ok, she says, We'll watch one episode.

8 episodes later I left Alice watching while I went to bed...

He's got the whole world in his hands...

which is probably just as well.

This is a concept that has been on my mind a lot recently. It occurs to me that if you imagine a picture of hands holding the earth then it looks VERY similar to how my hands look when I'm holding the host at mass. God holds the world in his hands, at mass I hold Jesus/God (and therefore the world?) in my hands. It's like the continuation of a wider pattern and the wider meaning of Eucharist starts to make a little more sense. Intersting.

But then it works on the small scale. I was off work yesterday with a nasty cold, but being off work meant that it was relatively easy to drop everything and take Mum into hospital for an x-ray when she called at lunch time. She has a fractured ankle and is now hopping about madly on crutches. Hopefully she won't do any more damage to herself with the crutches...

Skittles

I had no idea that a skittle night at a local pub could be so much fun! If you ever get the opportunity then do it. It may have helped that the Wokingham Red Cross are all complete nutters. Last night we had our Christmas do, which was only a little late. We managed to get 22 people together and a good time was had by all. It’s always good to spend time with people socially that you work with. It probably also helped that I wasn’t half asleep and lets be honest, a pint and a half, and being chatted up by two regulars in the bar probably also helped my mood…! Although as chatting up lines go this was a little unusual: “You’re wearing a cross, are you a good Christian? It’s hard to tell because it’s all inside isn’t it”

SoulNet

This weekend five of the leadership of EarleyYouthNet pottered along to Elvedon Forest Centre Parcs for Soulnet. Soulnet is a youth leaders gathering run by Soul Survivor. I think it’s fair to say that we all arrived on Friday slightly frazzled by one thing or another, not necessarily anything major – just life in general. By the end of the weekend everyone looked more relaxed although perhaps a ‘little’ tired (apparently Laura and I were sleeping in shifts in the car on the way home).

There were good talks, but more to the point lots of God speaking. Now all I need to do is process it and work out what it actually means in my life right now. There’s a nice simple undertaking. God originally inspired YouthNet at SoulNet so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that he was started to invigorate it again in the same place. Lots of ideas floating around so now it’s just a case of working out which ones are of God and which ones are just us.

It was also the first time I’ve ever been to Centre Parcs. I was really quite impressed although I’m not sure I’d want to be there for a whole week. It’d end up costing you a fortune! However, It was really good to spend concentrated time with some of the other leaders. It really helps to know the people you work with, and I think I’ve eaten more over this weekend than in the previous week!

Now, I MUST NOT log on to either St Andrews bookshop or Amazon. How hard can it be… :-$