A Nautical Night

Happy 21st Birthday!!!
So the images loaded backwards, and it takes a lot of effort to move them around. So this is Helen, hugging her balloons. Very pink and very big...Post cake at the end of the night...


Post blowing out candles...speeches time as always at 21st, the dad just has to say something. I can't remember what my Dad said at mine, simply because I was a little embarrassed, and probably too stressed out by the whole day.


This party, however, was a lot different, here we are (Heather and I) waiting for everyone to arrive so that we could give Helen her 21 presents. We were rushing around like lunatics in Basildon shortly before hand...but Sailor and Lifeguard...we were ready and Helen got the shock of her life when we arrived!

So its half term at the moment...there's not a lot going on, which is relaxing, but frustrating too. I know that I've got a busy term ahead of me...Christmas is racing up on us really quickly and I know I've got a lot to do, but I can't plan for it, until I've got an idea of what actually needs doing.

Still, Friday is a big day, Take That tickets go on sale and we've got our second club night at St Mary's on the High Street. Big smiles all round! :-D

You can't stop the Beat!

It's Saturday...Yeay!!

For the second time this week I have watched Sky 1's 'Hairspray: The School Musical' and I'm absolutely besotted by the whole thing. Teenagers doing something enjoyable and showing the world and themselves that they are totally capable of producing a West End production in such a short amount of time. A couple of well known celebrities took a group of students and coached them through 6 weeks of rehearsals, and at the end they went to the Lyric Theatre and preformed to a sell out crowd of friends and family.

If you haven't seen any of it, see if you can find it online...when I was their age I just didn't have the confidence to do anything like that, even now it would take a lot of convincing. But seeing young people working hard and producing something that they're going to remember for the rest of their lives really makes me smile.

Tonight we're all heading to church to celebrate Helen's 21st birthday...all in Nautical gear...it's going to be so much fun...we've got a lot of different outfits and of course there will be photos!

Christ Church Weekend Away 2008

Here's the official report of the weekend away...

We started by getting lost - or at least I got lost on the way to High Leigh Conference Centre...more stressful than I'd ever imagined, and I now know that following someone other than Jesus is an experience that's not so good for me!! Thank you Helen and co for being patient with me though!

We had a good weekend...the young people learnt a lot...here they are with 'Loser' written on their foreheads after the second session...


For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Luke 9v24

Bravely showing off that they'd give up their lives to be followers of Jesus.

In the afternoon, we went to Lee Valley Boat hire to have a go at Pedaloing...

Us after hour on the river...it was really good fun, I'd suggest it as a good afternoon out, if the sun is shining and there's a pub you can get to afterwards!

The rest of the weekend was interesting, I shared my time with people I'd not really spoken to before and having communion altogether on the Sunday was a really good idea.

Stars in his Eyes is our regular saturday evening entertainment, and hopefully everyone enjoyed it, from those taking part or those just watching. I'm very proud of some of my young people who thought of things to do.

I'm still recovering after being at work for the whole weekend, but it does take time. I have a day off this week, so hopefully I can use that time to think more about what went on, and make some notes for the next time I have to do something of this magnitude!

Restrictions

Mainly parking ones atm. There were people in our road putting out notices for the local council this afternoon. I don't know how long they have to be up before the council can start painting yellow lines on our road, but that's what is going to happen. They're also going to put up signs that say 'no waiting 08:30 - 09:30 and 14:30 - 15:30' it's worded slightly differently on the actual sign but you get the drift.

Now the problem with this is they won't actually enforce the no waiting thing at all. Well maybe for the first week. But after that it will be a free for all, and there will still be people parked across our drive come 3 in the afternoon, or whenever one of us needs to be somewhere and the car they are using is on the drive. Yes, mothers, fathers, guardians and carers will intially be scared out of their whits, but the fear will subside and life will continue on as normal.

I've seen it happen, nay, I have parked my car in a zone similar to the one that will be implied and I did not feel the wrath of the council bearing down on me for disobeying their rules.

One problem we have is that we have 5 cars in our family currently, and only three have spaces on the land that my parents own (or are leasing permenantly - not sure how it works, not being a home owner an' all!) So two people will potentially get fined (if a traffic warden would like to watch the road for a whole day). There are two (possibly three) arguments to this -

One - no-one who can prove that they live in the road should get fined for parking on it - it's where we live, we should really have space outside our houses to park our cars.

Two - We as residents should have room for the cars that we own on our properties, so that they can sit during the day without getting fined.

Three - We should have less cars (which is impossible)

And this won't solve the problem, it'll only move it somewhere else...

I don't know how many people protested, but it doesn't seem to have done any good. Which just leads me to believe we're heading for a world where the opinion of the public doesn't matter.

Andy says he will rip up a parking fine if he gets one...We'll see....

Off to High Leigh this weekend, but first I have to pack, go to youth group, lead emarge and raid the hall of all the fun things that I own as a youth worker, and finish what I'm going to say on Sunday morning!! Not busy at all... :S

All wrapped up...

In my own little world recently...lots has been going on, but I still feel like I've got loads of time, when really actually I probably haven't.

I think the problem may be to do with the strange times I'm sleeping at the moment, I really can't seem to get into a routine that means I get up at a sensible time, work through the day and go to bed at an equally sensible time.

I'm working on it...I just seem to be lacking discipline right now. It's like living at home seems to have bitten me and I feel like I'm a teenager again, waiting til the last moment to crawl out of bed and go to school. It's got to change...but as with getting up, I keep putting off that change...

At the moment, there is only so much I can do at home, I'm currently suffering some interference technologically at least...the laptop has decided that it won't connect to the internet, even when it's sat next to the router, and the booster...Dad can't figure out what is wrong, so a phone call to Dell may well be on the cards...but I'm saving that until after the church weekend away.

Yes, we're near October half term, which means its going away time for many churches. This time we're going to High Leigh Conference centre in Hoddesdon. For teaching (which I will be doing with the young people and so will Karen), music and games, as well as a little bit of fun chucked in for good measure. I don't know quite how I'm going to survive, but I know that I'm going to need prayer and sleep.

Episode Two

I feel like I've had an episode, nevermind watched one...I'm going to have to watch the last 5 mins of S3 E2 again, just to understand what went on in a little more detail, cos iPlayer is brilliant, but big screen tv is better!

I'm talking about Heroes, if you're totally lost...it's so much quicker than Series 2, jumping from story line to story line, without losing the intensity of it all and moving rapidly forward with each shift.

I watched the sneak peak build up the other day and now I seen everything twice. I want to give the story line away and say 'wow, this happened' and 'woah, she/he....' but I can't for fear of people hating me because I just don't do cryptic very well.

I'm refusing to watch BBC Three this time round, just because I did exactly what i'm trying not to do right now...

Roll on Wednesdays!

Lee Evans live at the O2

This man is a comical genius...I must have been following him for a good 8 years...but he's been doing observational comedy for 20.


Last night, 4 of us headed to the O2 arena in North Grenwich, to join with 20,000 other people in the biggest stand up tour this country has ever seen.

I love it, I would add explitives...but I really don't want to offend anyone... The second half was better than the first and the experience was made better by Mike having and O2 contract, so we could get exclusive access to a horribly over priced bar. (£7.50 for a cocktail) The bar was nice, forking out £20 for four drinks hurt lots.

Speed dating, footballers, referees, all were mentioned in some vain and I can't wait to buy the DVD to see it all over again and relive the memory of seeing him live for the second time.

It was all new material, a Lee was at the top of his game, I don't know how he does it, but I've got a huge amount of respect for him!

Harvest Service 2008

Aren't we a clever bunch? Three crosses (the yellow one created by members of Christ church) to signify the local harvest (red), the global harvest (orange) and the harvest of the people who are in the world (yellow).


The cross at the front of church, drapped with the colours.

I really enjoyed the service, it got a little heavy, but all the commets were positive.

So thank you CMS for providing and inspirational service pack, to Mark and the band for the brilliant music, to Stephen for creating the crosses on the floor and the Pathfinders for their prayers. (And thank you to everyone who did something in or for the service).

I'm tired now though...I've been building myself up for a long nights sleep. It's not over yet!! I've got Evo to entertain first...

Lun - don Tuawn! (Think Lily Allen)

I have been in London for most of today...time spent on Chadwell Heath station (due to a fatality on the line) with my MP3 player to keep me occupied, on taking pictures of famous landmarks - hence the photo blog and on worshipping God with 400 other women at a conference.


Biker, bus and time piece...London at its most typical..


I was stood eating a crepe at this point...I wrote in September about Child Poverty and this was a 'Keep the promise' march, organised by the End Child Poverty campaign. Basically the government aren't doing anything about what the current situation is.

So I found myself caught up in it, without really thinking about it. Lots of noise, lots of people...no traffic. Watching a walking protest is moving ('scuse the pun). If you've ever been to a carnival you'll know it's very easy to get a beat going with your feet and you start to dance along, well it's the same with this. People feel strongly enough to join together and stop central London to make their point.

I don't know if it was on the news, but I'm sure their will be pictures somewhere...check it out.

So the conference was really good. I missed the set up session and the day ran over, but on the whole it was well attended and thought through. The sung worship was top class, even though it was just a piano, guitar and violin...I met some nice people, got some encouragement, and gave some too. Learnt something about culture and a lot about being a single woman, which I will pass on, to the people around me.

Tomorrow is the event that I've been preparing for all weekend. Harvest service...I'm going to bed...

Harvest 2008

Not only am I leading the Sunday morning service this week, I'm also doing three mini-preaches during the service. Why? Because it's our harvest celebration this week and we (I) decided to do something different this year. Hopefully it'll work, I'm going to give the whole church a chance to take part in the service and what we're doing could be really effective, obviously if everyone chooses to take part. I'm taking my camera, it's going to be visual!

That means my week has been pretty busy, both with running around and trying to think theologically and logically about what to say and how best to get everyone involved.

More blogging when I get over the excitement of Heroes!