And on to Inverness

This morning was beautiful in Stornoway. The harbour was still and the sun bright making lovely reflections as we rose at 5:30 to get ready for the early ferry to Ullapool. We had a splendid crossing - a bit of roly-poly as we crossed the Minch, but then a super cruise up the loch to Ullapool watching the porpoises play. En route we read and talked about the "Abrege de la discipline" of the Eglise Reformee Evangelique Independante - extracts from the Floirac church's constitution.

From Ullapool we had a dash down to Inverness where Iain had to catch the train to go down to the UFM Council Conference at Melton Mowbray. The plan was that we would locate Revd David Meredith's house then drive to the station, then later I would return alone to the manse. David foiled our little plan by seeing us, getting us in for coffee, then driving us to the station.
Then off to the church for a pensioners' lunch club where David interviewed me before a splendid fellow in plaid recounted (reenacted?) the story of the battle of Culloden.

This evening I met with the UFM Inverness Prayer Group. I found my way there easily with David's directions and Iain's map and managed to set up the (enormous and ancient) data projector all on my own. It was good to meet the folks who are partners with us in prayer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor...
Read more

Good news from my sermon buddy

Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
Read more