les Davey de France

Read about them here.

Est-ce que vous êtes Anglais ? Non. Est-ce que vous êtes Americain ? Non. Est-ce que vous êtes Allemand ? Belge ? Non. Espagnol ? Hollandais ? Italien ? Non. Monsieur ? Vous êtes d'où ? Je suis Gallois. Ah bon ! De Galilée !

If all our regulars came every week and all our visitors stayed we'd be bursting at the seams right now ! As it is I need to take pictures of people and put their name alongside to try and remember everyone (but I don't dare...) I was preaching on Ephesians 5:21 - mutual submission shows the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That's one we tend to forget, eh !

Yesterday the celebrated Pessac Jazz Band was playing at the 8th annual Pontenx Jazz Festival deep in the heart of the forest of Les Landes. We went by bus, shared with a group from the St Médard-en-Jalles music school. Also playing were the Mimizan Big Band and the orchestra of the Pontenx music school. It was a fine time spent in this really small town with a full hall of people who'd spent 5 euros each to hear some pretty good stuff. Some of the players were really not bad at all, and the Mimizan Big Band is coming on in leaps and bounds. Their music school has started a jazz workshop for people to learn improvisation etc. We played last on the billing, then a new English friend who plays saxo for St-Medard but who lives way down in Bazas came zooming into the changing room and said "That was brilliant". He was very complimentary, though we were not awfully happy; the amplifiers for the singers were a bit rotten and we felt we'd done better on the past. Still. ...

Friends who live in the heart of Bordeaux are anticipating sleepless nights as the Girondins de Bordeaux beat Marseille in the Coupe de la Ligue this evening, then as they proceed to beat Lyon THREE TIMES over the next couple of weeks. It's a tough life sometimes.

This weekend we change the clocks. On passe a l'heure d'été ce weekend.

After the catastrophic failure of the mother-board on my study computer I decided to reflect a while to see what my computing needs are and what I ought to do about them. Here's the "fruit" of my reflections. 1) My study computer (deceased) is really my master storage for all my files, including music, photos, ebooks, etc. That doesn't really need to be a PC. It could just be a hard disk. 2) My main work computer is the mission laptop, bought in 2005 and beginning to show signs of its age. The wifi fails in the middle of the most important emails and a hard disk diagnostic programme that I run occasionally always says "Blimey, mate, I hope you've got this hard disk backed up!". 3) Then to carry round to churches etc. I use my little netbook. It's great for presenting powerpoint and for work on the fly. To carry to Britain and on the trams and buses it's super. But it's no good for preparing powerpoint files or even prayer letters becaus...