What a disappointment

Essex County Council have been disappointing in the past... yes I know they gave me a job, paid my wage and still let me walk around their offices on occasion (if I was a terrorist...) but in the last 6 months since they employed someone to paint the town yellow and put up some restrictions (see March of this year), I have not seen one traffic enforcement officer (traffic warden in old money) in Billericay. The only day I saw a little yellow pouch on someones windscreen was the day they painted the lines.

Now look at what has happened



Complete disregard for the law and not a person in sight to tell them that they can't do it. Part of my would like to apply for a job to patrol my estate (say once a month) to see how much money I could earn from issuing parking tickets to parents who have decided to park in my road during the restrictions.

How much did the council spend on line painting and how are they recouping the money? What's the point of having the lines but not issuing the fines?

On other news, we've been preparing for harvest with the young people in the church...praying and painting



Come on Sunday to Christ Church to see what else we're doing... 10am!

Drinking

Is something I really recommend after an hour of Jazzercise...though I seem to have really failed in keeping my liquid levels up after exercising! Hydration is key for my brain to work and I learnt this very quickly in second year after having too much of the stuff I'm going to talk about in the next paragraph...

Beer, particularly the Chappel Beer festival, which I promised I'd talk about when I found the one that I really enjoyed drinking. Chris and I had more than a couple of beers between us, a few which we really enjoyed and some that weren't so great...the two outstanding beers were the first ones we'd picked to try. I had a Raspberry Wheat Beer from the Milestone Brewery which was really enjoyable and I could drink a lot of, it wasn't too sweet and the flavour was at the back of your mouth rather than the first thing you taste. I liked it as an amateur, though if you type it into google the reviews are less favourable. Chris started with a beer called Bodger from the Idle Brewery which was really nice.

The rest didn't quite have the same impact (Brewer-Beer)

Stonehenge - Pigswill (not much better than it's name)
Green Tye - Union Jack (Meant to be biscuity, but wasn't)
Brentwood - Chockwork Orange (Very dark, very strong)
Cathedral - Eight Bells (a little too lemony)
Red Fox - Hunters Gold
Oakham - Warped

Being at Chappel was a little strange. I felt like I'd been there before and when I had a conversation with my mum she thought that we may have been there too. It's a railway station with a footbridge and there's a museum too. When my grandad was alive, he worked in the train industry and one summer, my younger brother drove a steam train with my grandad. I can remember the experience really well, and I think there are some photos somewhere of it. But other than that, here's not much else to go on. I might ask my Nan if she remembers it, because I can't imagine that she would've missed a day out with her grandchildren! If I get any more info, I'll let you know.

Talking of families, my mum continues working on finding out what the members of our family did for a living and where they've come from, she's been clearing out the loft, slowly and has come across literally hundreds of photos of my great grandparents (we think), grandparents on my dad's side and auntie, and of course my dad when he was a lot younger. So the saga goes on, we're not sure whether we're of German decent with an Anglicised surname, because my great grandad's birth certificate isn't in England, and he married a servant girl.... Interesting! I'll keep you posted!

Finding the time

It feels like ages since I last blogged. But I look at the post below and realise that it's only a matter of days.

It's a bit strange, because I don't really know what I've done with my time to be able to blog about anything significant.

Monday was the beginning of Everybody Welcome at Church, which Dad has blogged more in detail about here. I'm looking forward to Everybody Welcome, I have been since I went to a launch night for it, way back when (again it feels like absolutely ages, but is probably not more than 3 months ago), and when Warner decided that he was going to run the course, I decided that it was something I should try to fit into a schedule that is busy at the start of term.

This busyness means that tonight is potentially 10 of 19 nights out in a row...granted not all of them are work related, but most of them have been. That shocks me a little, but the ones that haven't been work related have been a lot of fun! ;-)

Last night we joined forces as the youth and schools workers of Billericay to discover what it means to be stronger with God. Gary spoke about the need to be in a situation, praying and worshiping all the while, whether good or bad, but he particularly focused on the more difficult situations that we find ourselves in, and giving in to Jesus as the best way of dealing with it, letting Him take over and take the lead to find a way through. I always hear this message loud and clear, though following it up is always difficult.

I'm about to start a two year course, that has a requirement of reading the bible in 48 weeks. I'm going to find it really tough to keep the discipline going, especially if I'm away or particularly tired. I've never even tried to embark on what I consider to be a great feat, but rather that this time, it's being thrust on to me. I guess that I was going to do it at some point, and I suppose that sooner rather than later can only be a good thing. I really do just wonder if I'm going to get anything useful from it (though I'm being negative about the most transformational book in the world) and whether I'm going to fall asleep at the boring bits and be tempted to skip over the bits I already know! Any tips for reading the bible in less than a year? I've got a reading plan to stick to, but still, a little help would be great!

Dates for your diary...

Ok, so I don't blog about dates. I do however blog about events.

So head to http://www.christchurch-billericay.co.uk/html/events.html#BillLegend to find out more about The Bill Ledgend Band at Christ Church on Saturday 26th September.

And pop along to http://www.ridinglights.org/o&l to find out about The Riding Lights Theatre Company Tour that is hitting Billericay in November!

Woop...other dates to be released shortly. And I'll blog about the Chappel Beer Festival once I've found my favourite online!

09/09/09

Apparently, according to Cake Wrecks, it's the unofficial day for the Emergency Services, with the date being 999 and all! Quite a funny blog to be fair... Just thought I'd point it out, cos I don't really blog about other dates!

Jazzercise

Today, more like last night as I was falling asleep, I decided that I was going to start doing some exercise... not Wii fit exercise, because as much as I love it, I've pulled muscles from not warming up properly, but proper class exercises, ones with warm ups and warm downs. Ones where I can push myself in a safe environment, where there are people watching what I'm doing and I get a lot of different exercises.

So Jazzercise, which happens in the church hall just behind where I live, is the perfect combination of aerobic exercise and weights. So I can burn calories and build up some muscle tone as well. It should also help me sleep a bit better.

I went for the hour long session this morning for the first time and didn't find it difficult to keep up, some of the moves are a little more complicated and not very well taught, but done so many times that you can easily get into step. I enjoyed it, and will go again, hopefully it will get better as I get to know the steps and get to know the instructors.

I hope that I won't get lazy about it!!!

Here it is...

The email that was promised has been delivered, so here is a photo blog with captions and photos by Chris...and the rest by me.

The weekend just gone was spent with numerous people, some whom I haven't seen for a long time, others I have spent a lot of time with recently.

We started off with a trip to the pub, for my youngest brother's birthday. Like my Dad said, there are no more teenagers in our family. It's shocking to think that he's two decades old, when I remember him being just two days old. A lot has happened in the last twenty years. I'm glad our family keeps growing. It has changed shape quite a lot and that's a good thing. We had a full clan, all four siblings together, plus significant others. It's weird to think that we could potentially be ten strong, if we were all together in the same room. It's nice to be able to share and know that everyone gets along. There aren't any pictures of this event as far as I know, it would've been nice to have one of all 10 of us though.

So that was Friday, and Saturday started earlier than I ever imagined. Chris and I were out of the door at 7:20am heading to Brands Hatch to see the DTM Qualifying. We were there as part of Chris' birthday present. So spent the morning watching the free practice and the support races. In the afternoon we walked around the pit lane (the surprise part of the birthday present) and paddock, and the photo's tell the rest of the story...



Sparks fly as Alexandre Premat exits Paddock Hill bend.



Me and British Driver Jamie Green who finished fourth in last seasons DTM Championship. (Jamie was lovely, he must've been out signing for ages)



Johannes Seidlitz's VeggieTales.de sponsored Audi sits in the Garage. (So excited about the sponsor for this one!)



British driver Katherine Legge blasts through Graham Hill bend.



Pole sitter and race winner, British driver Paul Di Resta heads round Druids bend.



Ralf Schumacher signs autographs after borrowing Chris' pen. (Chris was super excited)



Me on the Brabham Straight with the grid behind.



Brit Susie Stoddard in her bright pink Mercedes. (I want this car)



Winner of more Le Mans races than anyone in history, Tom Kristensen exits Druids followed closely by Christian Bakkerud.

Aren't they all brilliant pictures? Chris spent a long time taking photos and I think he's done a really good job of picking out some great photos for my blog. Of course you can visit his website here.

Sunday started early too, Chris went to race day and i had to be at church for the start of term. Then I went over to lakeside to be a bridesmaid for the afternoon.

It's been really busy, and I am really still recovering, but very happy that I get to start the year doing so many wonderful things! long may it continue!

Waiting

Waiting on an email, before I blog about the fantastic weekend I had.

Back to School

It's September. It's time for everyone to head back to the classroom. For some, it's today, for others they've got a little longer to wait. It means for me that things are now going quickly and before I know it, it will be a week on Friday and I'll be faced with Shaken Up restarting. We'll be back into school and thinking about how we can effectively minister to all of the schools in the town.

I'm at home now, back from a long weekend in Bristol, staying with Kay and her family for the last time, since Kay is moving in with her brother on the other side of the village. So hopefully when I go back at some point, I'll stay with Kay instead!

I really enjoyed going to Bristol, there are so many things to do, and we always find something new to do. I didn't get a chance to see some of the tourist attractions when I worked there, so I get to do some of that. This time we went to Cabot Circus, which was only opened this year and we went to Salsa lessons, which was a lot of fun!

I'm hoping that plans for the new term will slot into place soon!

Karen is coming to stay for a couple of days so we're going to do some catching up and have a look at some Africa pictures!