Friday, July 31, 2009

Back from the boat

I did have a wonderful picture of the boat, but in my tiredness at the end of camp I deleted it. so no picture of the boat, but rest assured I will find one and show you all where I lived for four days.

It was my first experience of living on a ship, so I was a little apprehensive to say the least. How often do you get to stand on a ship that is purpose build for Christian Mission, but doesn't sail anywhere? I don;t get the chance that often, but I would recommend it to everyone.

My prayers were answers a hundred times over and more. I started the week with a migraine, but that disappeared soon, I had already been away for two days at the start of camp, but by the time the young people arrived, I felt no different than if I'd have started the same day as them. The leadership team worked perfectly together and the FACT team just fitted in amazingly! The young people as well were fantastic. I got to spend time talking to all of them, and the questions that were thrown in the leaders direction were the tough ones that some adults don't even consider asking, or the answer has been debated for hundreds of years! I felt blessed for meeting so many wonderful people by yesterday evening when it came to debrief time!

Also I feel incredibly fortunate that I have a wonderful boyfriend, who helped me to relax, yesterday and today! There's nothing stressful about being allowed to catch up on all the TV I've missed!

Tomorrow I'm going to visit my sister and continue the start of the summer on a definite high!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Since you asked!

Never one to turn down a request (unless it's really strange!), Here's a picture of what my engagement ring has been turned into



You can see what it used to look like here.

I've had a tough time, knowing what to do with this ring. I was trying to find a blog entry about it, but it seems that I didn't initially blog about the receiving of it.

It was a gorgeous ring and now it makes me even happier that it's a cross, something that I can wear to show my faith and with the knowlegde that two people love me very much, firstly to take it away from me and secondly to change it into something that can only be positive. I love my friends very much!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Give us a break!

This is probably the final 30 mins I will get to myself for the next week or so, so I'm blogging! Having caught up with all my regular blogs, I realise that I'm falling behind on the news reporting side of things, so here's a miniture update before I have to leave in 20 mins!



Firstly, here is a picture of me, dressed in my finest for my birthday, which happened in the weekend just gone... I spent a lot of time with friends and family this year, which is not unusual, but more so than I can remember. I started my birthday celebrations nearly two weeks ago, so I was really raring for things to get going when my actual birthday came around. Unfortunately some of my plans were scuppered by 'flu sypmtoms, but hopefully I will be able to see those people soon (Get well soon Lou!)! I went for lunch with Heather on my actual birthday and then for cocktails with some others on Saturday evening. (I would really recommend the southern comfort based cocktail!) Mercifully, Sunday morning was spent painting with the children, in church, we're creating a stained glass window that reflects our Heroes and Heroines series over the summer... no-one pulled me up to the front to sing happy birthday... phew! I will post a photo when we're done!

SUnday afternoon saw the arrival of family and friends for a BBQ. We expected to feed 40 people, and I think we got about 30, but mostly in the form of boys who could eat for two, so most of the food disappeared really quickly. My thank you's go to every member of my immeadiate family and to Chris for all their support over the weekend - apparently a stressed Liz is funny! They all did an amazing job!

I received a really special present on Sunday... my engagement ring had been sent away by Heather and Helen, and was returned into my possession in the form of a necklace and a cross pendant. I will treasure it forever.

There are more things that I want to write about, like the week of work away from home that I am about to embark on, but I've run out of time! I will blog when I have thought about afore mentioned 'holiday' and see you in August!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Something to get you thinking!



I bet you're thinking now!

Well, more like wondering why is there a picture of a badly drawn sheep on Liz's blog...

It's for the weekend away that I am doing next weekend... we're doing the Lost Stories, from Jesus' ministry, so this is the sheep... looking happy that he's been found... but guess what? he's lost his tail! So we're going to play pin the tail on the sheep!

Now you're really thinking!

This is just to give you something new to ponder on, because I don't know when I will return... It could be Monday with news of turning 25 (yes, it happens on Saturday!) or Friday morning, in a panicky moment... and then after that I'm away for a week...

I have a lot of preparation to do, so we'll see how it goes!

I hope to see you all soon!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

It's been a while...

A lot has happened recently, so forgive the lack of blogging!

A couple of main things that have been keeping me from my online writing, namely Torchwood, Take That, Solid and my social life! Obviously that is not in any order of importance, it's entirely random, so I'm going to talk about them in a random order too!!

Let's start with Take That. I was going to dedicate a whole blog entry to the day I spent in London, with Kay, but I feel that it would be a little of an over kill, and really my effort would be lost on many of you! The concert was astonishing, it was a show, a performance. We thought about it a bit while we were waiting for the boys to appear on stage, and realised that it's 15 years since I last saw Take That on stage. I was 10 and it was at Earls Court. I don't remember the whole thing, but the bits I do remember are really vivid and this time it was no different, my emotions however were hugely different. I was surrounded by people who have shared a lot with me and after a long day, I just couldn't wait any longer. I'd brought the tickets 8 months ago, I'd spent 9 nervous minutes waiting for the website, the phone, everything, and when we got the tickets, I lost my voice from screaming so much... all that waiting to hear them live again got the better of me, and I still don't think I've really recovered yet.

The two hours that they were on stage was just so amazing, you can see that they really love performing. It was better than Girls Aloud and Boyzone put together, and I think now, every time they tour again, I will be there. Every time I turned on the radio, someone was talking about how good the concerts were and the hour Radio One gave to it last week made me cry again. I just hope that I don't have to wait 15 years to see them again. The only thing that would top that show, would be to meet them. Words can not really describe it...

What's next - Torchwood! If you haven't seen it, I would ask that you get iPlayer up and have a look. I really enjoyed it, though we got to the middle of the week and I started to complain that they were drawing the storyline out a little. But I watched the final episodes yesterday and am now wondering if Captain Jack will ever return to our screens! Here's hoping that he will do in the future. Russell T. Davis is so good at creating iconic characters, it would be a shame to see Captain Jack disappear, but I know that everything has it's season.

Solid was good this year, for my first year in charge, I've learnt a lot of lessons, I understand how it works now, what to do, what not to do, how to deal with some people, better than others. I gratefully adopted some young people over the weekend too, and I think spending time with them, chatting about difficult issues and talking though some theology, has been really good for all of us. It's a shame that some of them are moving to college in September! Still the future is rosy and their are already plans in my head for next year as to how we can get everyone involved!

Finally, a brief word on my social life...this weekend sees me turn 25 and I feel immensely blessed that I get to spend a lot of time with my friends and family chatting, eating and generally being surrounded by wonderful people! 2 of my best friends took me out for drinks last week to celebrate being 25, and being a youth worker for a year!

Yes, I've been Christ Church's youth outreach worker for a year now... maybe over the summer I'll do a review for you!

Friday, July 03, 2009

Fix up, look sharp!



I've got a new car!

So this vauxhall corsa is the car I will be driving for the next 5, 6, 7 years... who knows what will happen between now and tomorrow for that to change, develop, etc. But this is the plan. Keep the car for as long as is possible and then change it again.

It's slate grey and the interior is black. If i give you any more than that I'll get in trouble.

Not a lot else is happening...i'm waiting patiently (hint) for tomorrow, so I that (hint) I can take (hint) all of my friends to the concert of the year (hint)!