Marks and Spencer

We're going to do our pre-Christmas food shop in Marks and Spencer. It may be busy.

Loneliness

There are different kinds of traveller. There are those who travel in groups, companionable; and there are those who travel alone. Perhaps, as the year's turning approaches, I need to acknowledge that I belong in the latter category. Maybe it has to do with the way that I relate to people - always trying to help, not good at accepting help - in a group I always seem to be the loser.

Well, say something, then

Don't know if I'm all that excited about flock. It feels a lot like FireFox, with a few extras - like this blog editor - which is nice. Wish it had a 'source' view, though.

To-day is my last working day before Christmas. The children finish school to-day, so I get to take Thursday and Friday off (wife will take two days off in January under a similar pretext). So I really, really want to finish off smoothly. No crises, please.

Impressive

I'm using Flock to post this entry.

200th post

I wish that I could quote verbatim what somebody wrote in Woman Alive (I may do in a future posting). Roughly, it was that perhaps one's eternal future doesn't depend entirely upon whether or not one has signed up at the back of an evangelistic booklet. Turning it upon its head, perhaps it isn't entirely fair for the authors of books exhorting one to evangelise everyone in earshot to suggest that if we don't, these people are destined for a Christless eternity. Maybe God is able to exercise some common sense.

What led me to a similar viewpoint was the following observation. The most vociferous proponents of aggressive evangelisation - what happens when someone close to them dies. Do they say "tough, my dad's gone to Hell". No, strangely, God speaks to them, to say that somehow, their dad (or son) is going to be OK. My father died, about 8 years ago. He was a churchgoer, but not a believer. According to what I've been taught, he is lost. Yet, he had integrity; I would even say goodness. I have had no special word from God to say that he's OK. Instead, I am going to revise my view of the world, and throw out what I was taught, and say that "yes, he is OK". And many, many more are going to be OK. Not because they've been persuaded to sign up to an evangelical manifesto. But, dare I say, because God loves them. As they are.

One Year Bible

Son has a temperature. So, to continue from a previous entry - The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley - the CCLASP Christmas Party will be attended (from this family) by just wife and daughter. Indeed, father and son will miss church (quite glad not to have to cross the picket line again). No update, then, on the rector's plan to get members of the congregation to read through the bible in a year - following Hodder's Bible in a Year, rather than Tyndale's One Year Bible, unfortunately. I say, unfortunately, because there are more additional resources for the latter, such as versions for the Palm. I must admit to mixed feelings about the project - to read through the whole bible in one year, one has to devour too much (in my opinion) in each day - a recipe for spritiual indigestion. So it's difficult to find the 100% enthusiasm required.

Going nowhere

 
And this is what they want to bring back! 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, no more

A mouse, probably a fieldmouse, or possibly a vole, had the temerity to nibble some chocolates which wife had stashed in the garage; a trap was duly set last night, and by this morning had claimed its victim.

A word, by the way, on chronology: the entry previous to this one belongs properly earlier in the sequence - the immediate response to a difficult time getting the children to bed.

Order

Trying to get the children to sleep - tonight's order (son's story, SnapShots, daughter's story) wasn't a success. Suggest next time start with SnapShots.

Foam swords

 
Are better than real ones ... 

Substitute

Was wanting to document our staff Christmas lunch, but all of the photographs are of other people (because I took them). So here's a picture of the decoration atop one of my computers. 

No advertising

So Nick Robinson at the BBC has a weblog. But with a reference in the text to "the kind of software employed by millions of weblogs around the world", it would have been courteous surely to have placed a "powered by" link somewhere. But I had to download the RSS .xml file to find that it had been generated by TypePad (not surprisingly).

The ultimate accolade?

Mother Goose included a song by Fischy Music.

Having to decide ...

... which blog/s to update. This one seems perpetually on the back-burner.

Our heating seems to be OK. Thinking that I should write a letter to Scottish Gas to say how much we appreciate the work of their engineers. A setback yesterday morning, when the radiators were still cold-ish - turning the heating off and on brought them to life.

Christmas shopping this evening ...

A cold night

My turn to be at home when the engineer calls; he's replacing a part, which is, I reckon, good news - hopefully the problem will be fixed.

When I looked at the TV yesterday evening, it was a news item about how this was the busiest day of the year for British Gas. Just a wee bit annoyed when the engineer said to a lady whose boiler had broken down - "if you have it regularly serviced, then this won't happen". I can tell you that our boiler is regularly serviced, by Scottish Gas.

Fair enough, though. But why is it that more boilers break down when the weather is coldest?

Still a ragamuffin

It isn't easy to keep journeying on.

It's natural, isn't it, to experience, to some extent, ups and downs. I'm not really talking about mood swings, more just being honest. Life may be a steady climb, but the way that we feel about life seems to have a rhythm of its own. And, when blogging enters the picture, then I have to say that the urge is strongest when feelings are at their lowest. Which is a shame, because anyone reading the blog will think - this person's always down. Not necessarily - perhaps this person blogs when he's down - and just gets on with life when he's up.

Feeling a bit powerless just now because for the second time this week, my wife has had to call Transco because she smells gas, and then she has had to call Scottish Gas to do something about it (it seems that there is a problem with our boiler). Unfortunately, for this to happen once is (sort of) acceptable. Something went wrong, it got fixed, life goes on. But second time around, there is a question - something went wrong, it didn't get fixed, how do we know it will get fixed this time?

Waiting for a haircut

It all depends ...

Still angry, I'm afraid

Thought that I'd try SureFish's daily readings for a week (depending on the availability of time), starting with http://www.surefish.co.uk/faith/daily_readings/08_aug/01.htm.

Looking back

The word 'positive' has figured significantly in my reflections on Thursday's funeral. I was told, as I waited to go in, that the note in the newspaper had said 'no mourning', and began to feel conspicuous in my black tie. The only person who cried was a 6-year-old granddaughter. I think that the feeling was that the person who had died had lived a good life, her final illness had been mercifully brief, and the purpose of the funeral was to say a simple farewell. The service was taken by her most recent minister, who spoke well. It was attended by two other ministers, which I think says something about her genuine support for the church, also that of her husband, who died about two years ago.

Words become inadequate. I apologise if anyone is reading this who knows the people. I tend to use this blog to think aloud, and am not really able to apply the sort of care to what I write which I would like to. There is a rawness to this blog, which means that maybe I shouldn't be putting it somewhere it can be read, except that the whole point is that I am trying to make some of my thinking public.

Weary

Always, but to-day, especially so. Life seems to have taken a downward turn. The Inland Revenue replied to my yearly update regarding Tax Credits that we owe them £700. Horribly mean, especially when they don't tell you how they calculate the result. And last night, a friend phoned to say that a mutual friend had died, and the funeral is this afternoon.

As it happens, the place where the funeral is taking place is not far from where I work, so I'm planning to go. I hate funerals.

I'm listening to the slow movement from Bruckner's 3rd Symphony.