£5 well spent…  A pink plastic cover for my Macbook Pro, in order to stop the little scratches that are appearing from constant ‘commuting’.  Also, it makes my laptop pink!  ‘Nuff said.  You can buy more expensive ones that are BARBIE pink (so cool!) but I opted for the cheaper version which clashes beautifully with our sofas.

Keith Hitchman has gone on sabbatical.  Now I know a lot of jokes are made about Keith on stage due to his occasional tendency to commit the odd faux pas (such as publishing the bans of marriage between ‘Brian and Alan’ by mistake - that truly had me in stitches!!) but I would just like to take a moment to give a little tribute to someone that I hugely admire and respect.  This is someone who can connect with more cultures and personality types than most people.  He always has time for people and never fails to share his faith with others, even in the most unusual of circumstances.  It is people like this that change the church of England for the better.  Have a great time Hitchmo, eat good food, drink good wine and get some sunshine.

On Sunday we went to lunch with my parents, ‘rad gran’ and brother Tim, which was a very tasty meal indeed!  Here are a few highlights…  Rad Gran with a bracelet (her “bling” as she calls it) on her head (as you can see, she is looking much better, much to our relief!) and my Dad, brother and husband looking at a train video on the laptop!  Geeks alert!  Haha.

Grandma… Chillin’ with her illest homies.

the boys.

Nothing like posting a bit of good news.  Story that happened this week to my friend Jo from our cluster at church:

Jo works in Swindon and the other day, when driving to work, she did that classic move on a round-a-bout where someone in front of you pulls away, you look right and start to pull away too, not realising that they have jammed on the brakes.  She went into th back of the car and was naturally quite shaken and upset.  People were honking their horns to tell her to get off the road (as if the situation wasn’t stressful enough!!)  She pulled over and got out the car to find Keith Traill (our cluster leader) standing there!!  Keith works all over the country as a landscape architect and just happened to be driving through Swindon on the exact same day, over the exact same round-a-bout at the exact same time in exactly the right lane to pull over.  He saw it was Jo and, being a kind, gentle and caring sort of bloke (perfect in a crisis) was able to give her a big hug, use his jacket as a pillow for tears and get her back on the road.  Now how cool is divine intervention??

A lecture can be measured by doodle volume… Most of the time in design, doodles are part of the lecture and necessary for the development of projects, but there are other times when the doodles are, well, ridiculous. Our lecturer (we call him ‘G-unit’) was being a little dull and chose some choice phrases such as “osmosis” and “shebang” which of course turned into a famous Ricky Martin track (She bangs). Gangster-style doodles of ‘G-unit’ and his favouritre phrase “osmosis baby” appeared all over pages of notes as Fab and I tried to save ourselves from slumber.

Gig wear….

I have been to a couple of good gigs recently… Last Friday I saw Doug Walker live at the University of Gloucestershire, with his band. It was really excellent and they did a great cover of ‘Kids in America’. Look out for him and his new single being released in June. A good laugh live.

Last night I went to Slak bar, where Chris Corsano (Bjork’s drummer) and a guy called Paul Dunmall were playing. Paul plays awesome sax and Northumbrian bagpipes (?!?! Different…) Chris Corsano was amazing, I don’t know how anyone can play so fast and make such interesting noises with a drum kit! You’d expect him to be some big beefy bloke if you heard him, but he isn’t. At one stage he was playing his kit with a violin bow and used all kinds of accessories to make interesting noises. Check him out on YouTube. Improvised music, but impressive to watch.

Yesterday Mark R tried on Mark C’s glasses.  He looked so cool that I had to take a picture!  What dya reckon?  Aviators for Rayfield - lookin’ good!  Further amusement occurred when Gabriel (aged 2), so overwhelmed by the novelty of a picture of dad on my phone, demanded that we take about 10 pictures of him.  He then, somehow, carefully selected one where my face was squashed like a pitbull and he had an elephant in his mouth and sent it to my friend Aarti from Uni!!  (She is the first in my phone book!)  Comedy.

Now I do not usually take to slating a nation, people group or anything like that, but there is something that I have noticed about Americans, when they talk in interviews or documentaries on TV. Have you ever actually listened to what they say? Somehow their slightly cool accent makes what they are saying sound viable and even profound, but when you actually stop and take stock of what they have said, it is actually a load of jargon!! Something like: “We got to this bit and I was like woah you just gotta you know, like yeah and that was that so I was kinda, you know, weirded out by that.” Eh?!  Apparently this translates as: “The music video was unusual, to say the least”.   Seriously, have a listen.

It is always around this time of year that I end up on the blag for The Noise…  Whilst this might sound like a chore, it is always an EXCELLENT lesson for me in the Lord’s provision.  It is sometimes hard for us to accept verses such as “ask and it shall be given unto you”  because we are all too proud to ask for stuff (particularly help) in this country as it is some kind of sign of weakness.  We are certainly too proud to turn to friends and family for help unless things are absolutely desperate.  Yet we want to help others.  How silly.

One of the biggest problems for me with verses inviting us to ask and we will receive, is that it sort of makes me think that it invites us to sit on our backsides all day and just click our fingers as if God was some kind of butler.  Are we not supposed to serve him?  I was reminded of when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, how humbling that must have been.  I am also reminded of when Mary sat at Jesus’ feet whilst Martha rushed around like a mad thing and Jesus said that Mary had sussed it by sitting at His feet.  I always felt a bit sorry for Martha, until I realised that point of the story was not that Mary was allowed to sit on her ‘derriere’ for the day whilst everyone rallied around her but that we are not to worry about the trivial things of life. Yes, work is important, but it is not the priority of focus.  God should be our focus and work a part of that, not God a part of something squeezed between work, worry and stress.
Jesus said: “And for this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?  And which of  you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life span? And why are you anxious about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if  God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?  Do not be anxious then, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “With what shall we clothe ourselves?” For all of these things the gentile eagerly seek;   for your heavenly father knows that you need of all of these things.  But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness; and all of these things shall be added unto you.”

This struck a chord with me as I have been working literally round the clock of late, trying to finish off my modules for the year, trying to earn money, trying to do almost ALL the housework and trying to manage our accounts, do the shopping, remember birthdays,  paperwork, cook every meal, etc etc and I feel the need to sit back and look to God for help.  Yes, I am struggling. There is a ludicrously long summer to look forward to but I have to get there first.
As I sat asking for God’s help for the Noise (which somehow seems easier than for your own needs) He started to provide.  Sainsbury’s offered to help with the Whaddon project with food.  I put a note on Freecycle asking for a sofa bed for a lady who sleeps on the floor because she has 5 kids in a 2 or 3 bed house.  I got no reply until someone offered a Futon on Freecycle.  I emailed to ask if it was like a sofa bed and it turned out that the lady offering it was from Trinity and had felt led to buy a sofa bed for this project.  She is now doing that.  Others too have donated and businesses have come up with just the right equipment.  Bizarre.

So ask for the Lord’s help.  “Be strong and brave and ask for the Lord’s help”.   

Yesterday I sat with three of my tutors and, with deadly serious faces, the recommended that I write my dissertation about the colour pink.  I didn’t know whether to take them seriously or not but they were actually for real.  So I have emailed my theory tutor and he has recommended a book called “Any colour as long as it’s pink” by Penny Sparks.  At this stage I am keeping an open mind.