les Davey de France

Well I need to get this application in to do this masters under Vaux-sur-Seine in Missiology and Church Planting. They understandably want some documentary evidence of my having succeeded in studies in the past. No problem. I gave a copy of all the relevant ones to the UNEPREF on the occasion of becoming a Pasteur Associé, and what's more I remember taking them out of that folder I gave to Gwilym. He remembers me saying that we ought to put them somewhere safe. So they're safe. Somewhere. But since our house resembles a disorganised paper recycling plant our hopes of finding them quickly, if ever, are slim, expecially since Mrs Davey had a good root around while I was in the UK. So I have one recourse. To ask Universitas Cambrensis if they would kindly send me another degree certificate. No ! Two recourses ! Will the UNEPREF still have the copies I sent them ? They did ! and the excellent Pasteur Bru sent them to me by return of email. Wonderful !

The café opposite said "Jamie's Italian", but I'm sure he isn't.

Just alongside the Pont de Pierre in Bordeaux lives a little family of coypus, or ragondins. Yesterday they came out as we were watching. I took a photo with my phone.

On my departure for the UK Gwilym passed on to me his Starbucks and Costa loyalty cards. Now I like coffee, but I do generally try to avoid the coffee store chains if I can. Easy in Bordeaux because we only have 'The French Coffee Shop' where the coffee is REALLY EXPENSIVE and comes in paper cups. Anyway what did happen is that some friends took me to Colonna and Small, a coffee temple in Bath, where there are three types of coffee on offer any given day and they are prepared with scientific care, not to say fastidiously, and I have to be honest - the first cup I had there was life-changing. It had character. That's what I'd say. It was like the difference between a really good baker's loaf of bread - say a caraway and poppy seed half rye half wheat bread and sliced Mother's Pride. I was furious ! All subsequent cups of coffee would henceforth be "ok". What a disaster ! Subsequent thought produced a plan of action. 1) purchase a coffee grin...

of my return and so on Mrs Davey left her bike overnight chained up at the tram stop in Pessac. "It'll be OK!" she said, cheerfully. It probably is OK, but it's no longer at the station and its wherabouts are not known to us ! Oh well...

Last year I found the UK in party mood ! JUBILEE ! This year the party is over, the fancy decorations are all stored away and we notice again how dingy the place is. Well - perhaps that's not altogether fair, but I DID notice how bad the roads are now - in one place the "give way" white paint at a junction had all but disappeared and it seemed pretty dangerous to me. Motorways are still as busy as ever, if not busier. I made one train journey and it was great. At the same time, driving in rural Wales in my borrowed Seat Leon was a joy. The way the landscape changes so quickly from the bleakness of the Beacons to the lushness of the Cardiganshire valleys, then the garish jollity of the coastal towns. It's a delightful country.

Hi chaps ! It's a long time since there was an update on the blog. This is because, as you know, as I was away from home for just over two weeks visiting churches in the UK. My trusty iPad, which performed beautifully for projecting my PowerPoint (Keynote) presentation nevertheless was showing its age, decrepitude, fatigue, whatever, by refusing to cooperate for blogging, reading emails and sundry other activities. Hence no blogging. Till now.

Monday saw me haring off to the railway station at Bath at 6:00 to catch the train to Hawarden, pick up a car I was being loaned by friends and scuttle away to Bala for the Evangelical Movement of Wales' Ministers' Conference. The Bala Conference is held at Bryn-y-Groes, the conference and camps centre, and I was billeted in a dormitory with four other chaps. They all snore. The main conference addresses were given from Hosea by my old friend, Ian Parry, from Cardiff.there were helpful sessions from others, too, but the best thing again was simply to be together again and to  meet the newcomers to the happy corps. Tuesday evening I was at Ebenezer in Mold, on Wednesday in Borras Park, on Thursday in Rhuddlan. Tomorrow I head south to Swansea and environs.

So Thursday found Pat and I at the CNEF33 meetings, a happy time, followed by a barbecue lunch. Afterwards we took the trusty 48 to the airport where I was leaving for Blighty. At the airport I got talking with a French couple about Bordeaux and the various improvements made there and the good and less good areas of the city. We were in different parts of the aeroplane, but at Bristol they found me and asked for my name and address to get in touch. Maybe they will... The weekend was full and happy, here are some highlights : Bristol men's convention : a good day, I learnt some new songs, mostly Getty/Townend Colonnade and Small : a most excellent coffee which in one foul sweep has ruined  all past and future cups of coffee Widcombe and North Bradley : always good to meet with God's people. I preached two very different messages from the same notes. Oh well.. Then yesterday a long trek leaving Bath at 6:30 to get to Hawarden, pick up a car loaned by. Some friends, th...

Always a nightmare. Not because of paying tax - tax thresholds are high in France so you have to earn quite a lot before you pay income tax - but because in order to sign in a declare this year's taxes you have to have the "Revenu Fiscal" that they calculated for you last year. This changes every year so that means that to declare this year's taxes you need last year's tax statement in front of you. Anyway I found the tax statement and declared for taxes so we are up to date again.

The village where we were heading this past weekend is not served by any means of public transport of which we are aware, so we hired a car from our local hire place - about 500 yards from our house. We get a special deal because of being members of the Autocool association. I have not checked how special, but I suspect it is not as special as all that. Still, we needed a car and we hired one. And got a swanky new Clio, 10000 km on the clock, equipped with bluetooth gizmos, GPS, cruise control and sundry other bells and whistles. The GPS and radio were good and the car was spacious and comfortable, if a little bouncy now and again.

March 13th was our 20th wedding anniversary. February 13th was the 20th wedding anniversary of our old flatmates, Duncan and Mary. They took a gîte in the Dordogne and invited us up, so we went for the weekend. It was a super time in a super place, quiet and green. Well I say quiet, but the grasshoppers were making their presence felt !

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