From the Building-site to the Battle-field

So part of last week was spent with Chris at the church, painting, washing down, lugging things from one place to another, hunting down bits and bobs and generally acting as his gopher.

Some of the time was spent with a plumber, who has fixed two taps and a nasty little drip which MAY be the source of a damp spot in Catrin's room. He'll come back to sort out other things for us, too.

I missed all my meetings. One I decided not to attend. Two of them clashed with each other anyway. The last one I missed the bus !

However I did attend an art exhibition of a friend's paintings. Wow, he's talented ! And it was held in the most beautiful flat I have ever seen.

Wednesday afternoon there was a kids' club at the church so we gathered Chris, Lynton and Barbara together with Patricia and myself and travelled by tram to the Lormont hotel de ville, then walked down to the river to take the Batcub boat back to the quays. It was a super trip to do and showed off the town beautifully.

Yesterday we trotted down to the local park where there's an Autumn festival. We sampled some tapenade, some apples, some bread, some other things. Lynton has dug a flower border in front of our windows, so we'll need to find some plants to put in there before the weedy paddock takes it back over. But the plants at the autumn festival were rather expensive.

In the afternoon I scuttled off with the lads to get the car to go to the airport, we loaded up the bags, this time in the tippy bipper, and got to the airport in plenty of time for everyone to go through security and hop on the plane without too much hanging around.

Then home to a QUIET house. SO QUIET.

Until 9, when Gwilym and Catrin got home from music practice and youth group.

The Music practice had been pretty conflictual, as often happens (remember I am on sabbatical after a dose of burnout!) and afterwards one of the lads was going round to the youth leader's place for a chat. He asked Gwilym to go with him, but Catrin had been quite upset so he stayed to be with his sister.

When they arrived at the youth leader's house the other lad wasn't there. He had been snatched off the street into a car, abducted and drugged, presumably to get his money. He didn't have any. When he came round enough to answer his phone, he was behind the main station in Bordeaux. Gwilym and another lad had gone off to look for him, so they got to him first.

Do pray for the church, for the lad and his family, and for our kids in the aftermath to this stormy Saturday !