Tales of the Unexpected

Some of life's biggest, longest journeys can start without you ever realising that they're about to. You are totally unprepared for them. At 6.45 am on 23 April 2003, I was preparing myself for a journey. I thought that I might take my 18 month son to visit my mother and father in Wales. I wanted to leave London for a while and spend a few days up there surrounded by hills - it's so beautiful. I arose and started to pour a bath for myself, hoping to have a wash before Michael awoke.

The phone rang. "That'll be mum and dad now". I thought. Then, "It's a bit early. I hope everything's alright." Mario answered the phone and I could hear him talking downstairs. I could tell by the tone of his voice that something was not right. I walked downstairs. "Ruth's here now", he said. "No, you should tell her". And he asked me to sit down.

Mum then told me that my dad had died during the night. And I felt my self shatter into a million pieces...

Over time the pieces reassemble, but in a different way to how they were before. I miss dad hugely but I carry this sadness like a rucksack - it's on my back so that no-one can see it from the front, but I can feel its weight. And I am comfortable with its weight too. The wonder of a rucksack is that after a while, you barely notice that it is there.

So I did begin a journey on 23 April 2003. A journey that I have to take without the wit, wisdom, friendship and comfort of my wonderful dad. Except that I still feel his wit, wisdom, friendship and comfort every day. Thank goodness for that.

I want this for my blog

I'm not sure how naughty this is, but I've just lifted a post, lock, stock and barrel, from someone else's blog and I'm going to place it right here (I mean, fortunately, of course, the post also remains on the original blog so it's not that bad, but...)

yearning for the sea

‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea’

-Antoine de Saint Exupery
www.thedeepend.squarespace.com/journal

You can see why I just had to have it, can't you.

To Wee or Not to Wee. That is the Question

My first relationship lasted four years. It ended dramatically and disastrously when I was 24 years old. I figured that one of the numerous things that had contributed to the downfall of this partnership was that we had become so familiar with one another as to saturate all romance. There was no air of mystery or excitement in our relationship. This manifested itself in many ways. One manifestation of this was that we had no qualms about going to the toilet in each other's presence. I thought nothing of taking a wee whilst he cleaned his teeth in the same room. I decided that all future relationships would be conducted wholly outside of the bathroom door.

So, I always ensured that I'd been to the toilet before meeting up with boyfriend number 2 and it was months before I could bring myself to go to the toilet in the same building as him, never mind the same room. It had become a bit of a thing for me. This relationship fizzled out, neither helped nor hindered by my lavatorial policy. It made way for liaison number 3. Again, no weeing together. It ended and I met the man to whom I am now married (although not necessarily in that order).

Mario and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary this year. He has seen me wee, poo, vomit, give birth, laugh my head off, cry my eyes out, drunk as a Lord, sober as a judge (I used to work for a chap who was both a Lord and a judge - don't know anything of his drinking habits though), be totally reasonable, be totally unreasonable, overweight, underweight, angry, calm, depressed, contented... there is not a side to Ruth that he has not seen. He is the only person on this planet and beyond who could put up with me, but he does far more than that. He encourages me to be me. "You do it", he says. Quite often. And I say the same to him.

We have two sofas in our living room. He sits on one in the evening and I sit on the other. We watch old comedies together and laugh hysterically in totally different places. He says potato and I say tomato and there is no one I'd rather be with.

My conclusion: I think on balance it's better to save weeing together until after marriage.

Communication Problems

How does it affect us to receive the depth and breadth of news that is now broadcast?

This morning, I continued to spread my toast when I heard the news on the radio that 8 people were killed in Iraq yesterday by a car bomb. News of 8 innocent deaths? Shouldn't that bring me to my knees in horror? I am immune to tragedies that do not personally affect me or those I love. Maybe people always have been immune to the tragedies of others, but it is only recently that we have started to receive news of them on a daily basis.

A hundred years ago I may have heard of a death in my village or town. I would have heard very little of occurrences beyond that. My sphere of influence, if you like, would have been, say 5 miles in radius and, say 2,000 people. Now, we each have a sphere of influence that is global. We hear of tsunamis in the Pacific, hurricanes in the States, genocide, terrorism, shootings... We also hear of a 13 month old baby who lives in a far away town who dies in hospital because he is mis-treated by the staff there. We hear of the death in a car crash of a celebrity. And via the telephone we hear that someone we worked with 10 years ago and did not know very well has died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 39. And via the internet, we know of the life's work of all those we were at school with. Are our minds designed to cope with all of this information?

But are we subject to more tragic news today than were our ancestors 100 or so years ago, when infant mortality was up to 50% and when we ourselves could expect to lose babies to stomach bugs, whooping cough, measles? Is it the case that our own lives are, on average, less tragic than those of our ancestors, but to make up for this we hear a whole lot more about the tragedies of others around the world.

What concerns me is that a century or so ago I may have heard, first thing in the morning that Mrs Miggins from the pie shop down the road had died in the night (were I Black Adder). I would then have ceased to spread my toast and run to the rescue of Mr Miggins and their children, with offers of comfort and practical help. Now, we hear news of terrible things and do absolutely nothing about it. The Morning News washes over us like the soap we used moments earlier in the shower.

When I did hear by telephone, fairly recently, that someone I had worked with 10 years ago had died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 39 I was dumb-founded. I could not stop thinking about it for 48 hours. I had to counsel myself about this and the only way that I could let it go was to tell myself that I ought not to know about it. This was information that had reached me via modern-age technology. It was information that I could do nothing with - I did not know her family; I could neither attend the funeral nor offer help. I had to put it out of my mind (impossible, of course, and I think of her family who I do not know at very regular intervals).

What a jumbled post this is. I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make other than to say that I am fascinated by impact of the "global village" on our psyche. I am intrigued that I know more about Tom Cruise and his wife's birth, Jade Goody and Paris Hilton than I do about my next door neighbours.

I'd do well to save this post as a draft and come back to it when I'm less tired, but I'm terrible for not doing that. I'm gonna stick it up the flag pole and see who salutes. And then I might come back to it and clean it up another time.

London: A Large Village Surrounded by Beautiful Countryside

That's what the estate agents would have us believe if they could. Have a read of Louise's life-style up there in Scotland www.gemini-scotblog.blogspot.com In her most recent post she describes how she drops the children off from school and then goes bird-watching for half a hour or so before getting on with her day. This sounds idyllic to me.

I could not believe it when I first came to London (having spent my teenage years in the middle of nowhere, 12 miles from the nearest town) that people would pay a hefty, and I mean HEFTY, premium down here to live in a house that did its best to pretend to be in the middle of nowhere - e.g. on the edge of Wimbledon Common. And people called part of Wimbledon (where I lived at first) Wimbledon Village. Village???? It's in the middle of one of the largest conurbations in the world.

This morning I took a drive to one of London's satellite towns (which the estate agent's brochure also describes as a village!!!!) to look at a brand new 4 bedroomed house. This house is tucked away amongst a load of other new-builds, each of its rooms as tiny as they can possibly be without totally preventing you from exhaling. It'll cost comeone half a million notes to live there. They'll save themselves ten-thou if they opt for the identical house opposite, as that one does not enjoy a view of the "river": green swampy canal with corrugated iron sides to it. Oh, and there's a footpath nearby, through one field. So this location is almost rural....

Apparently where we live now is "semi rural", according to the estate agents. But we're on the Piccadilly Line! Twenty minutes from here and you're into Central London!!

What price a view, eh?

Sin and Sunday School

As you will know if you've ploughed your way through previous posts in this blog, I am new to the wonderful world of Sunday School teaching. I lead the group one week in six - nothing too arduous - and, in fact, rather enjoyable. I've not been able to take on these light duties, however, without much soul-searching and to help me along with this, the vicar has started to host monthly meetings where I and other leaders can voice questions: anything to do with Sunday School (which I'd prefer to call Sunday Group, but I've not told them that yet.... some of them may in fact read that here for the first time, which will allow them time to arm themselves against that bit of "political correctness gone mad" (except please don't let's use that phrase, as it'll only make me worse).

At the most recent meeting, I voiced my concerns about the issue of confessional prayers. These are prayers that, for children, might begin with "Let us now call to mind all of the things that we have done wrong". I do not say these prayers with my children, nor do I relate any of "what they do wrong" to God, Jesus, Christian beliefs, church or morality. I have a four year old and, oh, I "tell him off", yes! I do a lot of that. But I try to stick to three rules:

1) If he is doing something to jeopardise the health and safety of himself or others, or if he is doing something that will have a tangible effect on his or someone else's property, tell him to stop and why.
2) Keep it short.
3) Move on. Do not rake over it again at a later stage. And certainly not at prayer time.

Sometimes, my four-year-old tells lies. I tackle this, despite it falling outside of rule number 1 (I mean you didn't think for one second that I actually succeeded in adhering to these rules, did you?) I am very careful to request that he tells the truth because otherwise it confuses mummy, or it wastes a lot of time. I do not tell him that "lying is wrong". Not yet. Maybe never...

"Why so woolly and liberal?" I hear some of you cry, whilst the rest of you shout "carry on like that and your son'll end up a knife-wielding axe-murderer."

Here are my fears. There are two of them. First, if a child's appreciation of what is right and what is wrong is founded primarily upon a moral code, such as the Bible, then if they let go of that code, they may well let go of their appreciation of what is right and wrong. So, let's say a child flies the nest at the age of 18 believing that promiscuity is wrong because the bible tells them so (can't say for sure whether it does or not, I'm afraid, but many Christians oppose sex outside of marriage so there must be something about it somewhere in there). They go, let's say, to university where they question the bible; their beliefs; the moral code with which they were brought up (all very healthy), they decide to reject it (maybe for a time, maybe for ever) and they no longer see any reason for not joining the rest of those in their Hall of Residence bonking the night away till kingdom come. Far better, in my opinion, for a young adult to reject promiscuity on the grounds of the emotional turmoil that it could bring about and, of course, on the grounds of the sexual diseases that can result from it if they do not use protection or if that protection fails them.

My second fear is this. I fear that too much talk of sin and confession can bring about a sense in a child, as they grow into a young adult, that they are, in fact, a "miserable sinner" and unworthy of being loved. I fear that may have repercussions on their ability to formulate healthy and loving relationships with others. I am concerned that unless it is handled very carefully, a focus on sin and confession can leave a child with a guilt complex that may take years to unravel.

I am open to opinion on this. Am I wrongly denying my poor Sunday School attendees, one week in six, of their opportunity to receive God's forgiveness for their sins, innocent as they are? We do say the Lord's Prayer (and I have not gone so loopy as to omit the "forgive our trespasses as we forgive those" bit). My concerns come into play not at the mere mention of sin and repentence, but when one dwells on it for any length of time. And I am not certain about the age at which I believe confessional prayers should be introduced.

I'm 37 years old and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up

I'm a "full time mum" now and I'm very happy. Today Isabel clapped in all the right places during a rendition of "Wind the Bobbin Up" at her "Monkey Music"class, and that gave me as great a sense of "job satisfaction" as anything ever has.

But this phase of my life will come to an end. Isabel will not be 18 months for ever (give it another month ....) Soon she'll go to "big school" and I'll be back to where I was having graduated at age 21: clueless as to what to do.

Prior to motherhood I was a management trainer. In many ways, that was good and suited me, except that it didn't. Ohhh, what am I here for???? I have considered becoming a career's adviser, which begs a whole new take on that well known saying regarding teaching: "those who can find their ideal career, do; those who can't become careers advisers".

And of course I am not in the same boat as I was when I was 21 and had just graduated. Lots of career doors have now closed to me on the grounds of age and flexibility. I do not want that job on a North Sea oil rig, thank you very much, as I wish to be home every evening to feed, bath and bed the little ones. I enjoy hearing the slamming sound of those career doors closing actually - less choice makes for easier choosing.

In the past, BC (before children), I attended career seminars, read books, completed psychometrics, gazed long and hard at my navel and still did not know what I should do job-wise. I had hoped that during this extended baby-making career break some vocation or other might make itself apparent to me. But no. Retirement appeals. I know that much. But what's to do between now and then....?

Dear Denise Robertson (oooh, I do like her advice. I'd love to talk to her)
I'm a 37 year old has-been who needs to re-train into something exciting and well-paid with lots of time-off. What do you recommend?
Confused of london.

Of course, my plan is to return to not thinking about this for at least another 12 months.

It's just that I visited pastures old this weekend and realised that everything had changed and decided that it was time for me to change too. The village where I lived as a child just did not feel like home at all any more. It was like Trigger's brush in the comedy "Only Fools and Horses". Trigger was the road sweeper who won a prize for making his brush last for 12 years. "That's amazing, Trig", cried his mates down the pub. "You've really made the brush last as long as that." To which he replied "Yeah, Dave. Well, of course, I've changed the handle on it 8 times and replaced the head every year, but other than that, it's the same brush". And my old village was about as much like my old village, as Trigger's brush was his original brush.

So people are right when they say there's no going back, I concluded on Sunday evening. Time to look to the future.

Right. Time to bath the children. Except no can do. The water's off owing to a burst pipe somewhere. Remind me not to work for the Water Board.

Out With The Old

It's the time of year when (other) people do their spring cleaning and this year I'm going to do some too. Noooooo, not the house, silly, my blog-profile of course. If it's an interest that I have not pursued in the last three months, then it has to go from the list. So out goes "performing magic tricks" (read one book, learnt one trick); out goes learning Italian (tho' it'll have to come back soon as we're due over there this summer and I've promised relatives I'll be able to communicate with them this time); out goes reading about history (sorry to see that one go - "miss you loads - I'll be back"); and out goes "running toddler prayer group" (I'm Sunday School teacher now instead). Hmmm.

One friend suggested that I should remove "over-weight" from my "About Me" bit but that's because she's not seen me for a few weeks now. It has to stay, I'm afraid.

Movies, music and books can stay the same, even though to admit to liking hymns is "so, like, not cool". I wish my "likes" were a bit less mainstream and I was more mysterious and interesting. But there we go.

If you are reading this today, why not go to www.rivendellfi.blogspot.com and wish Fi a happy birthday!!

Thank You

Thank you for your comments and responses to my theological questions below. What wise and supportive friends I have, both "real" and "virtual". I really did find your thoughts helpful. I also find it very encouraging that not one of you comes across as being a bible-wielding nutcase (sorry, I should have phrased that differently but I can't think of how else to put it at the moment). I do fear that "any member of the public who learns that I go to church" may think that I am either:
a) going to try to convert them
b) going to quote chapter and verse willie-nillie, like Dot Cotton off Eastenders, or be in some way like any of the other vile "religious" stereotypes they place in Soaps that are watched by a third of the population
c) going to be anti-gay, anti-cohabitation outside of marriage, anti-divorce or anti a whole host of other wonderful freedoms that allow us to live our lives to the full in a way that no previous generation has been able to

I don't know why I feel this need to question the issue of faith at the moment, but I do. One of the reasons that I can not simply dismiss it all and turn away is because I have known some really wise and intellectual people who have devoted their lives to the church. A friend of mine who is an atheist responded to that comment from me recently by saying that she knew a host of really wise intellectuals who are atheists (Mario's reading this from over my shoulder and he thought I'd typed anaesthetists there; GO AWAY HUSBAND. He's still there: GO AWAY ). Yes. So do I. A lot of my friends are atheists and very clever ones too. (He's just thrown a hankie at me: GO AWAY). But my counter-argument is you don't devote your life to being an atheist. It's not just that these people believed in God; they became priests or monks, rather than lawyers or doctors or whatever. And I think that if they believed in it all so much, then there must be something in it, or at least, it has to be worth exploring. So once again, thank you for helping me with those questions.

Two Theological Questions

(1) If God is omnipotent and loving, why does He or She "allow" suffering such as that resulting from the Tsumani, which might itself be described as "an act of God"?

(2) John 20, 9: "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead". As Jesus' rising from the dead had been "predicted" in the scriptures, what's to say that the NT is not founded on what actually happened but is simply a document that restates what had been predicted, in order to sort of "save face".

Part of me hates raising these questions, but they are two issues that I am grappling with at the moment. I'd really be interested to read people's thoughts on them. (Hope I've worded them in a way that's clear).

Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land

I do not like to see very young children wearing football T-shirts, be they for Ing-er-land or any other team. To me, it smacks of a "you will wear my opinion" approach to parenting.

I suspect that you might respond to me on this in one of three ways. Actually, no, I'll rephrase that: one of many ways. And here are three of them:

1) Lighten up Ruth. It's just a bit of fun. No-one's forcing any opinions on anyone or anything else. They're just getting into the spirit of the game and hoping that their young offspring will pick up on some happy vibes.

2) Get serious Ruth. This is not just a game you know. Football's a matter of blah blah life or death blah blah 1066 blah blah all over it is now blah blahGermany blah blah

3) Will you stop blogging about children and parenting please. It's boring for those of us with kids; it's even more boring for those without. And if you're going to get on your high horse about something, can't you make it something really important and then actually do something about it instead of sitting there spouting....

And my response to that would be "well I have done something about something important actually. This very day. I've made a complaint at the Tesco Customer Service Desk about all the cars who were parked in the parent and child parking spaces with no children on board (having been beaten into the last available space by such a vehicle).

What? Is that not what you had in mind...?

Help.

Will somebody please tell me that it's ok to miss karate for the 4th lesson in a row this evening, on account of feeling totally cream crackered?

Thunderbirds Are.... Gone from our house for the time being

I take my children to the local library every fortnight (good mummy). Last week I allowed my son to borrow a Thunderbirds DVD (not so good mummy) - his friend enjoys watching and "playing" Thunderbirds and he'd been talking about it a lot lately. That afternoon I let him watch the DVD whilst I was out of the living room cooking the dinner (bad, bad mummy: TV ought not to be used as a "babysitting device").

It wasn't long before son was asking "mummy, what is a gas explosion?"

"Where have you heard about gas explosions?" came my reply.

"On Thunderbirds. A lady was trapped in her cellar when there was a gas explosion. Do we have a cellar...?"

And last night he had a nightmare that our house was on fire. "Do we have gas in our house? Why do fires happen? Will our house have a fire?"

It was hard to resist giving my natural response which would be something along the lines of "Yes, fires are a real danger with terrifying consequences; I sometimes go to bed fearing what might happen if the house were to catch light during the night. And I am forever double checking to ensure that I've turned the gas off. And that glass over there is half empty, son, I tell you, half empty."

But I did resist (good mummy), and he should sleep soundly tonight, safe in the knowledge that fires are extremely rare, and firemen are there to help in the unlikely event of one occurring.

We go to great lengths, don't we, to gradually introduce our children to the harsh realities of life. There was so much "Winnie the Pooh" in our house after Michael was born that I wondered whether he'd grow up thinking he'd been born into 100 Acre Wood. Piglets and Eeyores grinned down at him from cot mobiles, sang at him from toys and spoke soft cuddly rhymes at him from books. When would he realise that a bear would not actually appear yellow with a barrel of honey in one hand and a pink piglet in the other. How was he ever going to recognise a real, live cow from the pictures he'd seen of smiling, flower-chewing Ermintrudes in his board books? I was mildly concerned but not at all surprised when he actually saw a field of cows and said "look sheep!" on the way to Wales a couple of years ago.

TV does accelerate the process of getting to grips with reality though.... a little too quickly sometimes. I'm not sure whether I ought to continue watching the daytime news now when he is in the room.....

I'm off now. He wants me to get him some ice-cream (not so good mummy), one hour before dinner time (bad, bad mummy). Well, it's hot outside.

I've written a terrible poem...

... so it'll feel nicely at home with all the other rubblish that I've dumped onto this blog!

Busy old foole, unruly sunne,
Why dost thou...

No, not really. That was John Donne, complaining in metaphysical verse at the sun for rising and bringing an end to his night of passion. He liked a bit of how's your father, did John Donne. We read him for A' Level Sex, oops, I mean A' level English Literature*. I hope I've not misquoted him; I'm certain I've mis-spelt him a bit. After a hard day's toil I can not be bothered to shift my heavy frame from this long-suffering chair of mine to scan my bookshelves to check - anyway I probably lent my Oxford Book of Verse to the Bermuda Triangle (my sister) months ago so it'll not be there.

"And this," as Mike Yarwood used to say, "is me":

I like to listen to Radio Four
But there's one programme on it that's really a bore
And it's "You and Yours".

Every day from noon to the news
They talk on and on about consumer issues
And it's poor.

I'd like to complain of this dull waste of time.
So why do I listen (I can't find a rhyme)
Whilst I'm doing my chores?

It's a habit. But really I'd rather not know
Which Councils are better at clearing up snow
And which wait till it thaws.

I don't really care if Ms Chisholm from Leeds
Can't get a plumber out just when she needs
Or which kettles have flaws.

And so, I'm going to stop listening,
But first I'll write to the infernal thing
And say "up you and yours"

Apart from that, Radio Four is the best of eggs and my ambitions are to:
1) form an opinion on something and ring Any Answers with it on a Saturday afternoon;
2) be an audience member with a question on Gardeners' Question Time (imagine having (a) enough time to seriously garden (have to stop blogging for a start...) and (b) so few cares in the world that you can turn your mind to questions about which variety of cabbage grows best in a north facing, humus-rich patch just slightly to the left of the strawberries and downwind of the spuds);
3) go and see one of their funny programmes, like The Now Show or Money Box.


*it was definitely the latter and not the former - I was awarded an A for A' level English Literature.

Try this. It's Great

At last, the cure for information overload. Stunning!

Head Banging

Dear all,

Answer me this: am I the only one to follow this routine after accidentally banging my head? First, I think unprintable thoughts along the lines of **** it all, who put that there? ****, ****, ****** that hurt. Then I check that I've not done untold damage to the old grey cells by reciting a times table (to myself; in silence). Can I still manage the 4 times? Yes, even the tricky middle bit, so I must be ok. You never know, I may even have "knocked a bit of sense into my head".... but I have to wait to see whether that's so, and to date: nope.

I suspect that everyone follows the same thought processes after a blow to the old nut, but I can't be sure. I've never really given it much thought. Until now, I've never mentioned it to anyone. And it's a silent routine so no-one's queried the habit in me. However, I now have offspring who ocassionally bang heads. And I have a compulsion to follow the same neurotic pattern with them - at least the older one. (It doesn't work unless and until they can talk). "Ouch", cries Michael as he plays a little too vigorously at the local playground. "Ok Michael?" says a concerned mummy. And then I can't stop myself. The 4 times table's no good. He's too young for that. It has to be more of a: "look at those flowers over there Michael. Tell mummy what colours you can see..."

Phew, he's ok.

But am I? Am I?

Faith

www.cartoonchurch.com/blog has drawn my attention to the threatened closure of the chain of Christian bookshops called SPCK. Father Richard has commented on the threatened closure and one of the points he raises is this: "What worries me, as a bookseller and as a parish priest, is how much harder it is becoming to engage people in thinking about their faith, in exploring it, pushing at the boundaries, growing a deeper knowledge of Christ."

I think that this is a very interesting point and I have some thoughts on it, based on personal experience. One of my thoughts is this: I believe that people are especially, though not exclusively, driven to examine their faith or their spiritual beliefs at times of loss: when someone close dies, for example, or when a partner leaves them. If I am correct in that belief, then the decrease in a search for spiritual truths might be a healthy reflection of a healthy society - no more is infant mortality or death in childbirth commonplace; life expectancy is good 'n' high and we're not losing our husbands and teenage sons in World Wars.

But in the midst of life still comes death, and divorce rates are soaring; loss continues to present us with tremendous struggles. For that and for other reasons, people still have a desire to explore spirituality. Why do they not flood into our churches or SPCKs in order to satisfy this desire? Atheists aside, I just wonder whether people find more satisfactory solutions to their spiritual dilemnas elsewhere.

I shall be very interested to read whether other commenters respond to Father Richard's point on the cartoon blog, and I'm sure several of my friends (church-goers and non-church-goers, atheists, agnostics and theists) will have some very interesting views too.

My life has been rated:
See what your rating is!
Created by Bart King

OK, if you really want to know...

A number of you* have asked me how the May Fair went on Monday. I was in charge of the children's stalls. Here's a copy of an e-mail I sent to my helpers. I think that it says it all.

(* one actually. But hey, "one" is a number - or it was when I did maths. It was the first of many, if I remember correctly)

Dear helpers

Just a quickie to say a HUGE thank you to you both for yesterday's work at the May Fair. We'd have flopped big time (do people still use the expression "big time"?) without you - my nerves would have caved in had you not been there. Both of you have a very able and calming presence. According to the Treasurer, the Sunday School stalls made something in the region of £500 (after expenses). And that's brilliant.

I've learned some lessons - as you know it was my first time - and I should probably jot these down for next year. I feel a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad compulsion to take the reins on behalf of the Sunday School again next year - if only to improve on this year's performance (which was v. good in that it raised a nice sum of £ but was less good at times for us poor troops running the stalls, frantically searching for toy number 185 on the tombola, and trying to keep people's thieving little hands off the prizes!!). Next year.... no tombola, no guessing games and lots more dippy duck type things (i.e. activities followed by instant gratification). It was the tombola where we incurred all of our major expenses too... I don't watch the programme, but I feel certain that Alan Sugar's verdict would have been "Ruth, you're fired"!

Of course, if anyone else wishes to take responsibility next year, I won't hesitate to graciously allow them the dubious honour, but if the position remains vacant, I'll have a second crack.

Anyway, I have some nice cakey things to give to the Youth Group who deserve an enormous THANK YOU. Without them we'd have folded. Might I suggest, if it is at all possible, that you give the Youth Group a 5 minute de-brief regarding the fair? (You may have already planned this or you may think it a bad idea - please forgive me if I am being either patronising or silly). It's just that we had some rather difficult customers from time to time and I wonder whether they might like to talk any of it over. On the clothes stall, one of my helpers whose name I've forgotten (age 12) felt quite belittled and teased by an older customer (may be 12 - 13 - 14 years old) who goes to her school and who was quibbling about prices. I, needless to say, put my foot in it (sometimes feel my foot's never out of it...) by quoting the customer's price as the correct one, not realising that she'd been quibbling with my colleague. It was embarrassing and I think that she was a bit hurt. There's no need to single her out at all (as it could make things worse) but it might be worth a general discussion.

Hope this makes sense, if not, please feel free to ignore, or ring me!

Finally, I'd like to write a note of thanks for Sunday School parents whichI'll hand out on Sunday. Those who helped on stalls were fantastic AND it's extremely hard if not impossible to volunteer to run these stalls when you have little children who need looking after at the same time. The donations of clothes and toys were first class this year.

Best wishes

Ruth

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the ridiculous length of some of my sentences

No. I've not "done time". Nor am I a magistrate, although one day, definitely. I'm talking sentences - you know, the things that a little boy at my school once defined as being "a line with a dot after them". The second sentence in my previous post had 100 words in it. Impressive, yes; but not good. So I am going to really try to reduce my posts' average sentence length henceforth. I shall use words like henceforth so to reduce them in length. Take a look at the next one. It's short. But I can do even better than that. See? And if you liked that one, take a look back at the first one in this post.

I've nothing to say today, but I think you'll agree I've managed to say nothing at all in rather a succinct fashion.

I'm proud of myself

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 7/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Swimming

I've recently started to take Michael swimming on a Saturday morning. I'm not sure which of us hates this more, but when he announced this week that he felt a little too tired to go swimming, I had his trunks, towel, goggles, arm-bands, noodles and floats unpacked and back in the top drawer, and my "teach your child to swim" book back on the shelf, faster than you can say "it's hard to know whether the worst thing about swimming is actually being in the pool, or clambering inelegantly and shiveringly out of it and then attempting to re-dress yourself and son without drenching everything you wear from top to toe". It's impossible to get yourself dry (must be something to do with the humidity) and it's impossible to prevent your clothes from getting wet. Hate it. Always have done. Always will.

Blogging I like. And I think that my blog might be rather like the small, shallow, baby pool that Michael and I use when we can't think of any way of persuading ourselves not to go swimming on a Saturday morning. It has squirty dolphin fountains, bubbles that come up from the floor (at least I presume that's their origin ....), a wave machine and a helter-skelter slidey thing at the side. It's ok for a frolic and a splash about, but if you want to swim some serious lengths, look elsewhere.

Here are three of the fabulous blogs I read when I'm looking for something challenging and thought-provoking; when I want to "swim lengths" instead of lark about (I'm not including commenter's blogs as you can already access those):
www.john.pettigrew.org.uk/blog
www.thedeepend.squarespace.com/journal
www.goodinparts.blogspot.com

and for a giggle:
http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/

I haven't asked permission from these people to list their blogs. I'm not sure if you need to ask permission as all blogs can be accessed via links on comments etc. anyway (and I only know one of the writers). They are all either theology-based or include lots of theological posts in them, but that's what I enjoy reading and pondering at the moment.

Happy blogging.