les Davey de France

I used to read the Telegraph online. Used to. Well, I still do. Sort of. Well what happens is that every day the Telegraph sends me an email of its headlines - a little customized according to my interests - and then I can click on whatever story I'd like to read. It gives me about 8 to 10 headlines, I think, that could conceivably draw my attention, and I click on two or three. EXCEPT that the Telegraph only gives me a certain limited number of stories that I can read without taking out a subscription. After I pass this limit I kick and it says "Oh no, buster ! You want to mug up, first you cough up!" What this means is that : 1) I have to look on Flipboard to see if the Telegraph story will appear there, because Flipboard doesn't seem be limited in this way. 2) I read the story on my mobile phone, because that's not limited, either. 3) I have started getting the Guradian headlines sent me as well. Where I read this article about TED...  Now don...

Monday found Gwilym and I in a mobile phone repair place getting Gwilym's Christmas present fixed. Oh well. Then hurtling round the Simply market supermarket just next door for last minute supplies - the things we'd forgotten, such as extra chicken for Christmas Eve, meat for Christmas Day... Christmas Eve our meal with our ex-naighbour went very happily. Christmas Day the family was augmented by just one person, a couch-surfer who's borrowed a flat for the Christmas period. Gwilym found some pieces of beef that were reasonably priced, then reduced to half-price, so we got them, then started to worry about what to do with them. They looked like steak, but the label just said "viande bovine" (cow meat) in that especially appetizing way... I decided to throw caution to the wind and cook it briefly in a very hot frying pan after anointing with olive oil, mustard, salt and pepper. We found the steak knives (!) and had the steak with chips. It was very good indee...

Step softly, under snow or rain,     To find the place where men can pray; The way is all so very plain     That we may lose the way. Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore     On tortured puzzles from our youth, We know all labyrinthine lore, We are the three wise men of yore,     And we know all things but the truth. We have gone round and round the hill     And lost the wood among the trees, And learnt long names for every ill, And served the mad gods, naming still     The furies the Eumenides. The gods of violence took the veil     Of vision and philosophy, The Serpent that brought all men bale, He bites his own accursed tail,     And calls himself Eternity. Go humbly…it has hailed and snowed…     With voices low and lanterns lit; So very simple is the road,     That we may stray from it. The world grows terrible and ...

What with us being in France and stuff it means we have two Christmas dinners, but neither is very traditional. This evening we have our French Christmas meal with our old neighbor, Joëlle and her family. On the menu: Apéro, entrée : we don't know yet, it'll be brought by our neighbour, but it will probably be fishy and gloopy, like oysters or something. It was foie gras with pain d'épices and a nice sweet Cadillac white. Plat : Escalope de poulet avec sa sauce aux champignons (i.e. the brilliant Campbell's soup recipe) et ses legumes. This worked wonderfully well, as always. Fromages : Assiette de fromages affinés. You have to have them, but hardly anyone ate any. Dessert : Farandole de fantaisies festives (Mince pies and an ice-cream log) Our neighbour brought a delicious mega-chocolate log from a patisserie, so our ice-cream log stayed in the freezer. We've been given some really nice wines this year, but we could do with something fizzy. I'll ...

I scuttled off to catch the no 4 bus (what would we do without the no 4 bus!) and pick up the auto cool car to go off to Anglade for the service. Gwilym was duty musician at Cenon - all the other musical types have left for cooler climes - so we dropped him off on the way. We wondered what to do about the songs, etc. Anglade has a fine electric piano and Catrin could have played, but we decided to take the magic music machine - the Christian Hymns II mp3 files, my computer and our bluetooth speaker.  O come all ye faithful = O peuple fidèle Angels from the realms of glory = Des anges dans nos campagnes Hark the Herald = Ecoutez le chant des anges Silent night = Voici Noël. It worked very well, though we had a false start because people started singing lustily and with a good courage in the introduction for O Peuple Fidèle. Once they get going there's no stopping them, so I had to let the intro finish, the folk stop, then say "That was the intro, now we start...

This is just something that's stewing away, but I think we have a tendency to confuse things that are good for Christians to do, and things that are essential for Christians to do, that is, that are of the essence of being a Christian. This little ponder, muse, reflection was provoked by something what I read in an article by a person who had, for some reason, been prevented from attending church for some time. When they resumed attendance they wrote something that I thought was a prime example of cart / horse spatial confusion. They said : Sermons are complementary to your daily Bible reading. If you want you can pick this up and run with it. I don't have time to write about this till early next week, but for me it provokes LOTS of reflection, biblical, historical, geographical, personal, ministerial...