Happy New Year

Just off to visit Mum.
Will explain the parcel later.

Chocolate log anagrams

I will be making one of these soon for the Open House on Sunday afternoon. Chocolate log has a delicious combination of creamy vowels and crunchy consonants so I cannot resist making some anagrams at the same time.

Here are some I made earlier but I am sure there are more to be found:

Cheat cool log

Hello, got coca

Achoo, clot leg

Cola cloth ego

Catch ole logo

Hate clog loco

Ha, collect goo

Any more?

This is the day ... or is it?

Watching Mary Poppins for the nth time reminds me again how the banking world used to be run with such efficiency and precision. Imagine what Mr Banks would make of the chaos that is our financial system now. But the thing that ruffles my normally placid feathers the most is the fact that twice in recent days the calendar on the wall of my local bank has been wrong. How can a bank open its doors before changing the date? On one occassion, I mentioned it to a member of staff who assured me she was going to do it but then I came in. So it was my fault was it? I must remember in future not to go in until I have given them enough time to change the date. I must try not to become obsessive about this but I do find myself on walking past just looking up at the calendar to check it is correct.

Let it snow!

Snow is forecast again. But this time we are ready for it. We have a big shiny red shovel! We didn't manage to get any sand/grit/salt because everywhere has sold out. There are even reports of shops selling out of cat litter as it works well as grit! But this is all child's play compared to the massive snow falls in northern Japan where we would be shovelling daily at this time of year. And not with any old shovel either. There we used giant scoops called "Mamma Dumpers" (don't ask!) to transport the snow to an agreed part of the neighbourhood. And there would be the bi-annual changing of the car tyres to adapt to the road conditions.

But here we are ready and waiting .... and not a flake to be seen!

Memories of David Taylor MP 1946-2009

It is with deep sadness we read of the sudden and unexpected death of our local MP, David Taylor. He had been on a walk at Calke Abbey on Boxing Day when he suffered a heart attack and later died in Burton Hospital. In the year we had known him, he had impressed us with his down-to-earth manner and straightforward no-nonsense approach to politics. We were grateful that he found time in his busy schedule to attend Graham's induction service at Ashby Baptist Church and that he brought a personal greeting. It was clear to us that his strong Christian commitment was the motivation behind his tireless work for those he had been elected to serve. May God comfort his family and bless all those who were touched in some way by his life and work.

zzzzz

How many ways are there to describe what some are prone to do at this time of a Sunday afternoon?















snooze
a little shut-eye
40 winks
a little folding of the hands - Prufrock, TS Eliot
just resting my eyes - my Grandad's favourite
nap
cat nap
power nap
go to the land of nod
hit the hay
up the apples and pears
up the wooden hill

Any more?

Boxing Day Walk

As Boxing Day walks go, the Pennine Way sounds really impressive doesn't it? .... Until you realise that it is also the name of a residential road in our small town! But a walk it was and a very pleasant one at that. It took us by the church yard which has a name plate saying Church Yard, onto the library that used to be an infant school, up to the new houses and down to the old dismantled tram bridge which on closer inspection reveals a lionhead-shaped stone as one of the drain holes. In to the supermarket for a newspaper and home via the posh end of the shops and the place where the Victorians enjoyed public bathing. I like living here.

Jesus is born

Thank you God for sending Jesus,

Thank you Jesus that you came,

Holy Spirit won't you teach us

More about His precious name.

In the very early days of Spring Harvest (1984) when it was still at Prestatyn, the late great Alan Redpath started every Bible Reading with this prayer/song.

Happy Christmas everyone!

A stocking full of seasonal snippets

• As Adam said to his wife, "It's Christmas, Eve"
• (I am greeted with this one every year with my morning cup of tea in bed so I thought I'd share out the suffering!)
• Doorbell mystery is solved. Amicable conversation with neighbour led to an adjustment of channels and now all is well - we think.
• If you take Christ out of Christmas you are left with M&S!
• Nothing to do with Christmas but try saying this 3 times non-stop:
• IRISH WRISTWATCH

Ding Dong Merrily

Well here's a thing.

Recently our doorbell has rung and when we open the door nobody is there. A quick glance up and down the road confirms there is no evidence of giggling schoolboys or disappearing delivery vans. We put it down to icy conditions thinking water in the doorbell could turn to ice and that could make the contacts necessary to ring the bell.

But today we think we have worked out what is happening. On opening the door to find nobody there today, I did notice a caller at the house opposite. Hmmm! We decided to construct a careful experiment. If our doorbell is ringing when their doorbell is pressed could it be the same in reverse? Like naughty school children we pressed our doorbell and retreated to the living room to see our neighbour open his door and peer up and down the road in puzzlement.

We are going to have to have a conversation with our neighbours. No idea how to solve this but hope we do before our "open house" later in the new year when the whole church is invited here!

Christmas tongue twister

How many deer would a reindeer reign if a reindeer could reign deer?

Santa v. Jesus

"Are you looking forward to Santa coming?" the girl in the supermarket asked me.

"Well I don't actually believe in Santa" I whispered, not wanting to be a spoilport.

"What? You don't believe in Santa?"

"No" I explained, "I believe in Jesus. That's what Christmas is all about really."

To my amazement, her tone changed and she said more truthfully, " Actually you're right. I agree with you there."

I wonder how many people hide behind popular mythology and why they are so afraid of the truth. Jesus came to bring joy and peace. Why would anyone want to hide from that?

Order out of Chaos

This morning's sermon was all about God bringing order out of chaos. Diane could well have written yesterday's blog posting as she shared with us how she arranges her Christmas cards with such attention to detail: silver ones in the dining room, nativity on the mantlepiece, kings coming in from the surrounding areas! She went on to challenge us about the idea of returning to our hometown for a census (the ultimate Christmas list) and how the story in Luke 2 contains so many precise details. Jesus was born into our chaotic world at the exact time, in the exact place and in the exact way as planned by our God of order.

Stick em up!

Christmas cards.

What do you do with yours? I have heard of people sorting them into categories: religious theme cards on this shelf, plants and flowers on that shelf. Or cards-from-family here, cards-from-church there. I'm not that systematic but I confess this year I have a shelf with pretty blue ones together. The others get stuck onto a hanging thing like in this picture but you can get some very odd combinations of adjacent images. eg a jaunty Rudolph next to some very serious looking wisemen. Or a desert scene with camels next to a snowman! I suppose variety is the spice, and there's another Christmas theme. Does anyone use those strings with little plastic pegs still? Anyway, whatever you do with your cards, I hope you manage to leave them there longer than I do. Due to a family tradition stretching back decades, long before recycling was fashionable, I like to cut up my cards to make tags etc for next year. So by about boxing day I am eyeing them up and planning how I am going to hack them to pieces. It is not long before I have a great pile of chopped up cards to clear up. So tell me dear bloggers, what do you do with yours?

Christmas food anagrams - the answers

Well done to the deacon over the road who was the first to send in the right answers which were:

cranberries

chocolate

gravy

walnuts

cookies

pudding

turkey

stuffing

Thanks also for the contributions of the following:

belrssu oprsstu

osoge

meni spice

STICKLEBACK is coming - whatever it is!

This is all the rage at the moment in Ashby. Don't know what it is but I'll be there! Will you?

Tuesday 22 December

7 -9 pm

FREE

Ashby Baptist Church

Christmas food anagrams

Unscramble the letters to find Christmas food:

ABCEEINRRRS

ACCEHLOOT

AGRVY

ALNSTUW

CEIKOOS

DDGINPU

EKRTUY

FFGINSTU

Answers tomorrow!

The goldfinches are back

After months of carefully coaxing goldfinches to our garden using nyjer seed, we enjoyed frequent visitors in Spring and early Summer, always recognisable by the little red faces and shiny dinner jacket buttons on the tails. Then they all deserted us in late Summer and we wondered if we would ever see them again. But today they came back - not one pair but 2 pairs!

I like happy surprises like this.

Christmas joke

Q. How does Good King Wenseslas like his pizza?

A. Deep and crisp and even!

Have a break - Have a KitKat

When Cadburys produced their Fairtrade Dairy Milk Chocolate Bar, we were urged by Fairtrade campaigners to buy one, enjoy the chocolate and write a letter to Nestle on the wrapper asking them to follow suit and make their chocolate fairtrade too. Well, about 6 months later, here it is: the four bar Nestle KitKat is now a fairtrade product! Hooray!

...but why only the 4-bar KitKat? I don't understand why in the same factory they would use different chocolate for the 2-bar KitKat and all the other products when they are happily churning out fairtrade 4-bars. Any ideas?

Is your joy increasing?

Today in church we meditated on Isaiah chapter 9. The bit that jumped out at me was verse 3 which says:

You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy.

I had never thought about it before but joy doesn't come in standard sizes. If you have a tiny bit of joy, it can increase. If you have lots of joy, even that can increase. In fact, how ever you are feeling, your joy can increase.

So have a joyful Christmas everyone!

Ashby Victorian Christmas

It was all happening in Ashby today. Half of Market Street was closed and been taken over by funfair rides, farmers' market, and all the usual seasonal bits and bobs. Ashby Churches were busy giving away mince pies and offering an expert gift-wrapping service. A make-shift stage hosted acts of various talent and styles including comedy, folk, brass band and rock. All finished off with a firework display to ensure everyone went home saying "ooh!" and "ahh!" Not sure what the Victorian bit was, but a good time was had by all!

Wot, no water!

"There's no water" my husband declared as he was about to clean his teeth. None at all, not a drop. Panic. Where is the leak? What is the cause? How will it affect the boiler? Quick phone call to neighbour across the road who is one of our deacons. Sort of comforting to hear he also has no water so it must be a general thing; not just us. Nothing we could do about it so try to sleep. Then ... gurgle gurgle splutter splosh ... stagger to bathroom and try the tap. Out came mud! Feel sorry for anyone who was having a shower when that happened. Back to sleep and in the morning fresh clear water came out of the tap just like it should! The only sign that anything had been amiss was the Severn Trent Water vans and engineers populating the turning into our road. I think they must have been working through the night to fix it for us. Thank you water people!

Did you feel God's magnetism this morning?

Another gem from Jack Hayford this morning...

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights. James 1:17

With every gift you purchase, every gift you wrap, and every gift you place under the tree, remember this:

God has gifts for you, and in quantities greater than you can dream. These gifts are infinitely more valuable than the tinsel and materialistic toys pursued so desperately by the world. He has gifts of peace, strength, joy, fulfillment, and significance in life that will draw you out of bed each morning like a magnet.

He's looking to lavish His gifts upon people who will come to simple dependence upon His grace and rest in simple faith upon His greatness.

We're going on a bear hunt

Michael Rosen reading his own version of "We're going on a bear hunt" will cheer you up on a dull winter's day. Any Michael Rosen book would make a great Christmas present for someone with a young inquiring mind. I am a great fan of his work and like the fact he grew up in Harrow near me. And I just love the way he says on this video "What a beautiful day!"

Warning: if you listen to this, you will never be able to say that sentence in any other way again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc0U2WAz4s

How many people in your village?

No I don't mean the village where you live. I mean the village in your heart. The number of people you meaningfully connect with. Your Christmas card list perhaps? Though not necessarily. A fellow minister's wife once told me the normal capacity is about 100. And when you move from town to town, or church to church, there is a major reshuffle. Many in your village leave at that point and new ones take their place. It is not that the old ones are gone and forgotten completely, just that the quality of the friendship changes. Take for example people who have 500 facebook friends; how can they seriously be really good friends with them all? Anyway here I am in a new place and inevitably there are some friends from previous places who have faded into the background. But I thank God for the many new friends populating my new village this year.

Luke 2: 1-20 Sermon in a nutshell

When God's glory was revealed to the shepherds, they expressed fear in the glory of God and faith in the gospel of God. May God's glory be revealed in all our Christmas services.

Let the Christmas baking begin!

First off ... mince pies made with my old o level cooking formula for shortcrust pastry of half fat to flour (and the half fat is then subdivided into half marg and half lard.) Mincemeat mixed with a grated apple and some orange juice makes it tastier, moister and it goes further. Then little stars for lids saves all that sealing and bubbling over.

Next is the Christmas cake. Found a recipe on the internet this year. Claims to be really moist and was easy to mix up. It is in the oven now ... and will be for the foreseeable future.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1160/simmerandstir-christmas-cake

Deck the halls

I've met some who say we should not put Christmas decorations up in a house, and others who cover every spare wall with so many glittery trinkets that it no longer looks like a home but a grotto.


This is Jack Hayford on the subject:

Decorating the house at Chistmas is neither a surrender to pagan
traditions nor a capitulation to commercialism. Listen:

If God commissioned angels to roll back the night and fill it with
blazing light,

if God provided a celestial choir to serenade a few startled shepherds and
graced the heavens with a miracle star,

if God went to all this trouble to open our eyes to His entry into our
world, then we needn't apologise for festooning our home with a few seasonal
reminders!

Time to go and find the box from the loft I think.

Mmm what a lovely smell

It's not often you walk past a factory and say those words is it. But in Ashby you can because here we have a soap factory - Standard Soap - that supplies many of the hotel soaps. It smelt delcicious today - they must have been making a sort of fruity soap or shampoo.

http://http//www.standardsoap.co.uk/home.htm

Imagine a dirty, smelly stable suddenly being filled with the sweet aroma of frankincense. Wow.

Prepare the crib

As part of Advent, Oasis (our group for older people) prepared the crib for Jesus by laying cloths one at a time over it and praying silently. Children from the local school joined in and I hope they too were able to prepare their hearts for Jesus. I took a photo of it with the blue cloths draped over it but it is stuck on my camera so this will do for now.

A is for Advent

A is for Advent ... Isaiah is a great book to be reading in advent. Look what you can do with the words of Isaiah 9. Go to http://www.wordle.net/.

A is also for Alpha

Another form of new beginnings.

Following the usual scrumptious meal and Express Nicky Gumbel talk, we will be in our groups discussing and maybe experiencing healing.

Advent starts here

Advent

Dec 1st and I think of all the families all over the world arranging rotas for their children to have their fair share of opening the advent calendars and having the much prized shape of chocolate inside. Our favourite is the Divine fair trade one with heart shaped chocolate.

I have hung up the advent wreath on the front door. It was bought in Redhill market some years ago and has pretty red and gold decorations including some little toy drums one of which was pinched by a cheeky carol singer!

So, let Advent begin.

Come, Lord Jesus!