Catching Up!

A bit of a catch up post for everyone tonight... so much has been going on that I've not had time to blog or breathe. So here goes a rundown of the last five days, with a couple of pictures!

So last week was a major time in the calendar for the year 7's and Religious studies department at Mayflower - they spend a day out of the classroom (two for staff members) at Canterbury Cathedral, learning about the differences between a cathedral and a church for their church project. The last time I was in Canterbury, I was visiting someone, and I’ve never been there specifically to see the Cathedral , so last Thursday it was great to spend time with the staff and students, learning something about where the Archbishop lives! I won’t bore you with the facts but I promise that you won’t be bored if you head to Canterbury and take a tour. The funniest thing I remember from the day was making the connection between sermons and stained glassed windows – they used them as sermon prompts! Made me laugh... what didn’t make me laugh was the coach breaking down and it taking four hours to get home!

The place where Thomas Beckett was killed

Friday was spent recovering in part, but spending time with the Baptist Mission Society people, who have started a four week tour. I love hearing about Africa, so it was good to talk to them about their time in Uganda. Then in the evening we said goodbye to one of our members of staff at Shaken Up! She’s worked with the young people for at least 5 years, so we are sad to see her go, but very grateful for all her help.

Saturday was extremely busy, I went to Chelmsford to sort out my eye situation – I’ve been wearing glasses for nearly 10 years, so I thought that I would try contact lenses... thankfully I took to them really well and now I’m on the lookout for a pair of sunglasses. Then I raced back to Billericay to get in my sisters car and head to The Hoop in Stock for their beer festival, for dad’s birthday, we were joined by everyone in our family who lives in Essex which was wonderful! I loved the food and the beer. After four hours there, we rushed home, for me to get ready to go out again. Jen and I headed towards the 02 Arena in North Greenwich to see Girls Aloud in concert. It was a really good though not the best concert I’ve been to. We eventually got home, just past 1am and quickly fell asleep. (National Express are going to get an email once I’ve taken some time to think about what I want to say)

A bad picture of Girls Aloud flying over the audience

Sunday was spent getting ready for and travelling to Cambridge for punting fun...a little exam time fun, I’ve seen how hard these young people work and I know that they need time out, so seven of us got on the river and shared some food, and the tour guide did a good job of not getting us hurt, and telling us about the different colleges. We got an ice cream afterwards and headed home. After that we headed as a family to stock Brook to celebrate Ryan’s 21st birthday party... he’s my brother’s friend and it was a great chance to see everyone and have a bit of a dance.

Monday was mainly spent sleeping – as I tend to do on my day off. I managed to stay awake enough to see Star Trek at the cinema – after seeing Wolverine last week (which was really good, though a tad of a pointless movie, still nice to see Hugh Jackman back in the role!) – it was great, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like crying right at the start of the movie and the humour was spot on, as well as the casting. And I wasn’t disappointed by Sylar from Heroes – he plays a good Spock, though I really would still like to see him when he’s not being serious!
Today I have given blood, been on the radio and been Go Karting. I do enjoy giving blood, it makes me happy that I can, and that there are regular donating opportunities in Billericay. Being on the radio is wonderful too, it’s nice to be taken seriously by people, and for the voice of my generation to be heard. I’ve been on BBC World service before, talking about R.E. in the curriculum and today I was asked to comment on Scientology, the little I know about it helped me to make some very good points, including talking about taking money from people. It makes me really nervous, because I know so many people are listening, and I don’t want to mess up. Dad has put the link for the podcast on his facebook, I’ll post it here tomorrow for you to listen to!

Go karting was so much fun, I love driving and I love watching F1, so getting to do some racing was really quite a lot of fun! I came third in both the races that I drove in, and was the second fastest leader. We were with the St John’s youth group so I’ve got stories to tell about them and an experience that we will be talking about for a really long time! (Mainly because all the boys thought that the leaders were cheating – we’re never going to get rid of some peoples pride!)
So it’s now Tuesday evening and I’ve just watched the funniest episode of CSI in a long time... bless Hodges! (Mum’s just made a comment about CSI Miami – she’s watched it too much!)
Tomorrow I’ve got a planning day booked (SOLID, Summer party etc!) and then Kay arrives in time for us to see Boyzon in concert! Fun weekend!