Categories: scming
Tags: worship, housing, friends, knitting, churchy stuff
Date: 22 September 2006 19:20:08
I think I meant to write something before now. Oh well, that's the problem when life gets in the way. It's been something of a busy month and I don't intend to go through it all but it's been good.
In my last post I threatened to tell you a little more about when Jen and Sarah came to stay. They came to stay about 5 weeks ago now and the date of the Sunday is somewhat imprinted on my brain. Jen recounts the weekend in this post. As she said, we had a good weekend and went to the science museum. She was suitably entertained that I could do about as well with the mechanical digger as my reputation (at times) would suggest. Digging is certainly one of those things in life that I'm quite good at, at times. It also appears that i'm not to bad at mending & fixing either at times but I'll come on to that.
The reason that the Sunday 20 August 2006 was somewhat imprinted in my brain was that it was the date of my trial service to go from 'on note' to 'on trial' as a local preacher, should I be successful. Those are the first two stages of training and I had to do the whole service myself. It was a challenging weekend because I was so nervous and was so grateful to Sarah and Jen for keeping me sane. When we got as far as Sunday morning, we went to leave my flat but couldn't get through the gate. It took 5-10 minutes before we could get the padlock to open. That didn't exactly help with nerves and when we got to the church I realised I'd not printed the order of service for the organist, then she wasn't up to playing so one of my assessors ended up doubling up to do that too! I was so grateful to her too. My mentor introduced me at the start of the service and was really lovely about it all. He said a few words to the congregation and I could feel the tears just welling up inside me. I decided that the start of the service wasn't the best time to burst into tears and fortunately managed to hold onto them but I was so, so nervous. I think it's probably fair to say that the feedback was rather good for the service and I am now 'on trial' following the local preachers meeting. Now I have to do lots of study. It was really great to have Jen and Sarah around though to give me lots of hugs. I think that's probably enough said about that really.
The week after that something rather exciting happened at work. Richard has already discovered what I'm talking about and Wood wrote for it (as did I, a little bit). We made a book and it's great. Check out Richard's review if you don't believe me but it really is fantastic. It's so amazing to have been involved with it since the beginning, before I joined the staff, and now it's real. It's so exciting.
I went to Greenbelt too and it was great to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. I went to my first wibmeet despite being on here for nearly 3 years now. Doesn't time go fast. Greenbelt was great and I think that it has been suitably reviewed by everyone else so I'll leave them to it. ;)
So eventually we get to this month and things are as busy as ever - hence the lack of blogging. I went to a brilliant conference and it was great to catch up with people I've met over the last couple of years. I also got to spend some quality time with a good friend during the week and we agreed to teach each other new skills. Scary eh?
Speaking of teaching. I understand from Jen that my teaching of relaxation techniques has been quite successful. It's really reassuring to know that it's been successful and now I think I probably want to take some of my own advice. This is where the fixing (of Jen, a little bit) has been coming in.
The mending is in relation to my teaching. I've been teaching a friend to knit, and she's teaching me guitar. This is a rather scary concept but exciting too. I've never tried teaching knitting before and it was a little daunting but my friend did very well. I was dead impressed and she learned to knit and purl, and cast on. She did really well and put me to complete shame because it took me about 15 years (not continuously, I hasten to add) to learn to purl. :$ At one point, as is perfectly understandable with newbie knitters she went wrong a little bit and I managed to fix it. It's the first time I've tried actually fixing it properly. Normally I'd just unpull it if it was mine, but it wasn't my knitting which meant I got to learn a new skill too. The guitar playing is a little more interesting. I'm not a very good student at all and I'm very nervous about it. She taught me 8 different chords and I need to practice them but the guitar went out of tune over night so I need to learn how to tune it too. My friend left me a tuner so it shouldn't be too hard but I'll give it a go when I get home. I need to practise more but hope to get there eventually. I've never been very musical so this is quite an undertaking! Oh well... if she's going to be doing so well with her knitting, maybe it's the incentive I need to practice my guitar playing. Wish me all the best with it.
Finally I should provide a little update on my knitting. I went to a knitting and stitching exhibition at the weekend. It was very good and I found some cool yarns made out of such exotic things as Bananas or at least their leaves and stems, Hemp and containing Soy Beans. It was very cool. I also got complimented on my knitting which was fantastic. The people who complimented me do the most exciting things and I've decided I want to go off and join them. They do giant knitting and recycling and it's so, so cool. I texted a friend saying that I'd fallen in love after seeing that stall - she seemed suitably entertained by the concept! I'm still going on with my second sock. I'll be done before I retire. I had a good crack at it last night but I think the tension might be a little tighter on this one. I'll have to have a look later and see whether it's too tight but it's good to be making progress. Hmmm... maybe I should be counting rows though. I'll show you a picture of my new bag (which was what the compliment was about) and my sock progress if I can.
Anyway, having not blogged for ages I think I've now written an essay so should call it a day. I'll try and write slightly more frequently, but I do say that worryingly often.