Greetings from Hawarden

Last night was lovely at Rhuddlan. It was wet and stormy so I needed my beret as I carried the projector and stuff in from the car! Driving down the Rhuallt I remembered years of driving bookvan, our little mobile Christian lending library, down the same route to the same destination. We go back quite a long way, Rhuddlan and the Daveys !

There were a good number there - it's not a big church - and there were also some visitors from Kinmel Bay and from Lighthouse Baptist Church Abergele. The Kinmel people go to the Spain Prayer Group which I was part of for years, and the folk from Lighthouse know Joy McCarnan who was a good friend of ours in Bordeaux last year. It is a very small world. Again, wonderful questions, and the DVD seemed to work well for people.

Today is a quiet day - well kind of. I am lodged at some friends who have three young children and due to have lunch at some friends who have four musical children so quiet is one of those relative terms. Yesterday I stocked up on pants and socks and got some Cadbury's dairy milk to satisfy the cravings of the tribe back home. Do I get tea bags now or wait till I am on the way home ? That is today's big question. And of course, getting my spirit straight for tomorrow at Wheelock Heath.

ps when I got to Harney Hall I left my beret on - it was still a bit drizzly and blustery - Sarah said "Look what he's got on his head !"

Comments

Alan said…
* not to mention Marmite
8:33 am
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