les Davey de France

The DWP first acknowledged my request to be paid my UK State Pension from April. Then they sent me back my birth and marriage certificates. Then they told me by SMS that they had studied my case and written me a letter. We might be all systems go for the next phase of retirement. 

We both got ill at Christmas - I blame the foreign Parisian bugs - and it's taken us both a while to fully recover. My asthma got set off, not with major crises but with a fairly constant wheeze and rattle. I slept through it but apparently I was noisy all night. Pat, for her part, got over her infection but then had one of her back problems. So we've not been on the bikes for about a month, relying on shanks' pony (walking) and the trams and buses. It's not been a great loss as we've had very cold weather and occasional torrential downpours. I saw the doctor and predictably am being sent for x-rays, blood tests and probably a cardiologist later on, just in case it's fluid retention. Pat saw the doctor, too, and also an osteopath. I took herbal anti-inflammatories and maxed out my asthma treatment until things settled down.  Anyway, long story, on Friday we looked at each other and at the forecast, and hop, bikes it was. It felt good to be back in the saddle. Co...

 1 cup sultanas 1 cup strong tea 1 tsp ground mixed spice 1 egg 1 cup self-raising flour Soak the sultanas overnight in the tea with the spice Next day mix in the egg, then the flour Bake at 180°C till a skewer comes out clean (30 to 40 minutes) Cool, slice, butter if required. Note well, if eaten unbuttered this tea-loaf has no fat and no added sugar.

There were no direct flights to Bordeaux from a convenient English Airport, so we rented an apartment in the Paris region from Monday to Saturday. Catrin, Froim and Dorothea stayed overnight on Sunday evening and on Monday morning we sneaked off to get the 840 train to Montparnasse. Then we had a metro and a train journey to get to the apartment. Well, travelling by metro and train in Paris with a pram is all kinds of dreadful. Lifts that don't work, or will only go to the floor you don't need. Trains that you have to climb into or jump down from. Hordes of people everywhere. Long queues of able bodied people who could have taken the escalators but instead are waiting for the small lift that anyway takes you to the wrong floor. Tickets that will randomly refuse to work. (a railway worker told me that they demagnetise. I told her that I wait for someone else to go through then run behind them and she laughed.) But the apartment was great. We managed to eat nice meals in Paris fo...

Christmas comes early in International Churches, because so many people travel home for the holidays. So it was that the Marseille Carol Concert was held on 1 December. Here in Bordeaux we held off until 15 December, and some of our students waited to go home until the following day. Now we're in the post and pre Christmas period - our major festivities are over, but the great day has not yet arrived - so we've suspended our Sundays in Judges and we're spending a few Sundays looking at aspects of the incarnation until the New Year. 

The International Church in Marseille is one of our sister churches, and does a lot of event evangelism. Recently they held a Thanksgiving Feast, with an interview with Governor Bradford, and 111 people present. They buy imported American turkeys, make pumpkin pies and green bean casserole, and hire a chef for the day to get everything ready. Then each year they hold a Carol Service in the Basilique du Sacré Coeur, which is on one of the Boulevards of Marseille near the Protestant church where the international church used to meet. Although the Marseille church usually has fewer than 30 people attending, there are some wonderful networkers there and so they get a great turnout for their special events. They've invited me to go and be their speaker at Christmas a couple of times over the years, but Marseille is a long way to travel, and the talk lasts about 7 minutes, so I felt I could never accept. Anyway, who would preach at Bordeaux while I was away? But this year a couple of thi...