My previous post related the sad news of the death of a close friend, Anne. I have to say though that we all went to Anne's funeral the following Friday with a deep sense of grief, but by the end of it I especially felt a whole lot better.
The funeral service itself was a wonderful celebration of Anne's life and was attended by somewhere in the region of 250 people, the church was absolutely packed - literally standing room only.
The hymns and readings were lovely and the family were so brave I was in awe of their calm courage.
All I can say at the end of it is rest in peace dear friend, I know where you sleep and I will visit soon.

Sad Day

As well as the fact I have een so busy of late the thing that I think drove me back to publish a new post tonight was the news earlier today of the death of a good friend from cancer after a struggle going on for nearly 3 years.

Anne was a lovely lady with never a bad word to say about anyone and always a smile for most
occasions. As a co worker she was without peer and a COBOL programmer of great talent. I will miss her dreadfully as will we all.

I am going home with thee, to thy home, to thy home,
I am going home with thee, to thy home of winter,
I am going home with thee, to thy home, to thy home,
I am going home with thee, to they home of autumn, of sprint and of summer.
I am going home with thee, thy child of my love to thy eternal bed to thy perpetual sleep.

God rest you Anne  
 

Thought I was going to have lots of time!

Well acording to my last post I thought I would have plenty of time to get some things down here to keep you all entertained.

That just did not happen!! Been busy doing lots of things including a three day expedition into the heart of one of the most remote parts of Scotland - Knoydart.

Absolutely stunning scenery but truly trying weather with a howling gale and horizontal rain for a couple of days. That being said I would still go there again like a shot.

Been MIA a Long Time

First post in a while as have been incredibly busy. Now on 2 weeks leave over Easter and can do a few things.

Before the weather turned a bit off I managed a 25k walk with the dog over the moors around here - not too sure the dog was happy about it by then end but it was pretty good

Back to normality - whatever that may be!

After the excitement of last week's course it is back to what passes for normality here and boy is that a culture shock even after a week doing something different.

There seems to be a tangible aura of dispair everywhere, the changes that have been implemented on the service seem to have done nothing except wreck an already fragile morale. Worse still no one seems to care or is hiding their collective heads in the sand.

I can feel a round of "blamestorming" coming on from somewhere inthe upper siberian reaches of the management stratosphere.

Plus ca change!

Something Missing - Something Found

This week I have been on a course in a nearby City and whilst the course is enjoyable I feel that I will be missing out on something because I won't be able to get to the Wednesday Eucharist service at my local church.

I checked out the local churches to where I was but sadly I could not get to the the lunchtime service due to the timings of the course

This has become the break in my week and to be honest a bit of a high point and it has felt like a part of me is missing.

That being said the train journey to get to the course has let me listen to a couple of Podcasts that I have been meaning to listen to for a while.

One in particular relates to the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible and for what appears on the surface to be a rather dry subject is actually a very interesting discussion which can be found here . So overall the week has been enlightening in a number of ways

Mysterious Ways

"The Lord moves in mysterious ways"

Well that is the saying and he has certainly moved in a mysterious way to me today.

How? Well I find myself being in complete agreement with the Local Government Minister Eric Pickles, a man for whom, in a decidedly un-christian way, I have very little time since I firmly believe that his agenda for changing things in this area is appalling and harmful to say the least and probably being done for deeply spiteful reasons at the worst.

However I find that I am in agreement with his comments over the ruling about Council Prayers bring unlawful.

Eric Pickles in a comment to the radio news I listened to earlier disagreed with the stance that has been taken and from the majority of the comments listed on the story above - so do most of the commentators.

I find myself in agreement on a number of levels in that -what is wrong with something that is a tradition? No one forced this man to participate in the prayers at all - he could quite easily have sat or waited outside whilst those who wanted to pray did so.

The decision to have prayers was democratically voted on - yet has now been overturned by the spiteful anti-democratic opinions of one man and a coterie of "religious" bigots intent on imposing their "non-belief" on the rest of us

What a sad day for democracy!

That being said - it has certainly strengthened my belief in God and and our saviour Jesus Christ because making me take the same side as Eric Pickles is a minor miracle!!