Confused seasons

It was quite bizarre to see thick flakes of snow falling against a backdrop of autumn trees on Tuesday evening – such a shame I didn’t have my camera to hand as it would have made a beautiful picture. Having had a white Easter earlier this year, I was beginning to wonder if we would have a white Hallowe’en – but today’s weather is lovely and sunny and so this doesn’t look like it will be the case. I couldn’t ever recall it snowing in October before – not too surprisingly though as the last October snowfall happened sometime before I was born!

Hooray for annual leave!

Being on call 24 hours a day, 6 days a week can be incredibly draining, particularly when there is a long gap between holidays. My last holiday was back in June so it came as quite a relief to be able to turn the pager off this evening and look forward to three weeks without being on call! Over the last couple of weeks, I have been feeling quite exhausted so it will be good to finally be able to recharge my batteries again. I’ve got quite a lot planned, but at least knowing I can sleep undisturbed will help!

Musical challenges

I’ve only had my flute for about five months and have barely reached Grade 1 standard so playing for worship during the weekend was a bit of a baptism of fire for me! Fortunately most of the time, it was to accompany Michael on the piano, but yesterday’s service was held in the room without a piano and being the only person who had brought a musical instrument on the weekend, I was asked to play. I think I managed reasonably well after a somewhat shaky start and on the plus side, I got a lot of extra practice in!

Church weekend

I’ve had a great time at the church weekend. It has been refreshing to spend the time focusing on what Christmas is really all about. Even though the story of the Nativity is so familiar, somehow by focusing so much on it, new things have jumped out. There was a manger at one of the prayer stations, with a card saying that for one night, a stable became “God’s throne room”. The reality of God loving us so much that he came to be amongst us and save us hit me anew at that point. It’s such an amazing thought.

The three Wise Men

We've been thinking about the three Wise Men in our Bible study this morning. One of the things that came up during the discussion was about how their visit to Herod indirectly caused the massacre of the baby boys in Bethlehem, which is something I never considered before. We also discussed that sometimes by trying to be clever and complicated, we miss the obvious and make things more difficult for ourselves. Of course, it has to be said that if there had been three Wise Women, they'd have arrived on time, delivered the baby, brought food and cleaned the stable!

Off to the church weekend

Michael and I are off to the church weekend this evening. Neither of us have been before and I’m really looking forward to it, particularly as I’m starting to feel a little frazzled work-wise and in need of some time out, The theme for the weekend is “Journey to Bethlehem” – looking at faith-filled preparations for Christmas. There’ll be some Bible study, craft workshops and a new carols workshop. Michael and I are leading morning prayer tomorrow and helping out with teaching new carols tomorrow evening. I think there is a piano available but I’ve packed my flute just in case.

Perhaps I should stick to the day job...

I have come to the conclusion that public speaking really isn’t my forte. The talk last night went reasonably well, in terms of content at least, although I wasn’t very good at speaking to the whole room and didn’t realise that I was directing my talk more to one corner until one old lady pointed it out mid-talk. Things got a bit better once we got to the questions, although it always seems to be the men that ask all the questions! Still, I survived the experience, but I think on the whole I would prefer not to repeat it.

Talking shop - again!

I’m due to be giving a talk on midwifery at church this evening. Despite being able to talk about my job with people almost endlessly, I find the thought of getting up and doing so to a roomful of people (even though I know them all fairly well and they are very friendly) quite nerve-racking. However, I think I am better prepared than I was last time I talked about midwifery at church which makes me feel a little better, but still I find myself wondering how I manage to get talked into doing these things in the first place!

The Dads' Birthday

Today is the Dads' Birthday (both my dad, who is 75, and Michael's, who is 61). Despite still being on call, I managed to get home for a couple of hours (all the while praying that I wouldn't get called!) to see my dad, and most of my siblings who had also popped in. I don't get to see my family as often as I would like (whereas Michael's family live locally) so it was great to see them. We are out tonight for Michael's dad's birthday as the blues band they do technical support for is doing a gig.

Reasons to be thankful for men...

I discovered yesterday that I have been trying to mow the lawn all summer with a lawnmower that has no blades! No wonder it was such hard work!! To be honest, I had noticed it had no blades but had thought maybe it didn’t need them as it was still managing to cut the grass somehow. Michael noticed it when he went to mow the lawn and has ordered new parts to repair it. He also mended the fence and gate and found out why half the sockets in my flat aren’t earthed (they are now!). Aren’t men great sometimes!