Heavenly Worldliness: Weather

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Day off week 30 2019

I did take a formal day off last week and want to record it to encourage myself and other ministers to take it seriously. I chose Thursday, which turned out to be the hottest day of the year, etc. As we are now in the holiday season I spent the morning preparing for Sunday as I had rather frittered parts of the first three days of the week. The day was then dominated by two activities. First, I went with Eleri down to the Hilton on Park Lane for tea. This is not our usual patter. This was a kind gift from members of the church who arranged it in celebration of my turning 60 this year. Getting there was tough in the heat but then we sat in the lovely and cool lobby at the Hilton and then went into their Podium restaurant where we enjoyed open sandwiches, scones, beautiful cakes, tea and a champagne alternative. Very nice indeed. We then headed home and binge watched most of the BBC drama Keeping Faith. Can't recommend this to everyone due to the swearing but it is an amazingly good drama on its own terms. In Faith Howells they have created a very real flawed but attractive figure who is compelling. The supporting cast are brilliant too. The drama is recorded in Welsh and in English. My Welsh is insufficient to enjoy it. Eleri tells me, however, that because the Welsh one needs to be shorter to allow for S4C adverts there are minor plot differences, which is always interesting. Good day then.

10 New names for London Underground Stations

1. Baking Street

2. Swiss Hottage

3. Kilburns

4. Charredwing Cross

5. Sprayswater

6. Hotting Hill Gate

7. Templeture

8. Furn'cechurch Street

9. Searsden

10. Sultry Docks

Day off Week 41

Last week's day off fell on Saturday, as we wanted to join Eleri's father celebrating his 80th birthday down in Cardiff. We travelled on Friday night and were pleasantly surprised at how straight forward it was for a potentially stormy Friday night. We stayed with Eleri's younger sister. I spent half of Saturday morning catching up on my Bible reading journal - behind again. I then discovered that I had brought no change of shirt and so had to head into Whitchurch, which only has a Peacocks when it comes to men's shirts (I don't buy clothes from charity shops). I nearly bought a trartan shirt but went for the black denim in the end. Geoff's daughters and thers had worked really hard and so we had an excellent get together in the church where two of our sons now worship with their wives. (In fact one pair now live in a bungalow right next to the church so it was good to visit them for the first time in their new home beforehand) About sixty family and friends turned up and we sang happy birthday, etc. Lovely time. It was nice to be with some of the family after the party before we left, getting home around 10 pm. The only sad note was missing sons - one in America and the family who couldn't get down from Aber because of the flooding.

The Heatwave

This picture of Hampstead Heath appeared in The Times today

Frost

Great to see these frost patterns this morning. Reminded me of seeing such patterns on the inside of the windows as a kid.

Mild at Christmas

I read these lines in a novel recently

"It was one of those mild indefinite days, which we now associate with Christmas in England, a day which had in its clouded sunlight nothing of autumn and nothing of winter, but seemed rather to suggest the spring — a feeble spring seen in a looking-glass. ... These meteorological reflections of mine were prompted entirely by the feeling that I was perhaps wearing too thick an overcoat. ..."

Sounds bang up to date? This C H B Kitchin in Crime at Christmas first published in 1935!

Apparently, the idea of Christmas being snowy can be traced back to the fact that eight of Charles Dickens' first Christmases were white. It is suggested that he associated snow and Christmas in his successful Christmas novellas and we all followed suit.

Enfys

"tambourines and elephants are playing in the band"

The Severn Valley fog

Philip Halling / Fog in the Avon and Severn Valley

More here

Lord's Day February 24 2013

It was a very cold last Sunday of February, yesterday, and there were a few away with illnesses and for other reasons. In the morning we completed our studies in 2 Peter looking at that interesting verse about Peter finding some things in Paul hard to understand and the closing verses. In the evening we completed the fascinating section in Numbers about Balaam and his oracles. We were quite low in the evening but there were still about 15 of us, which is good in these days when some have had to abandon evening services. It'll be good to get into March and, hopefully, some Spring weather at last. I hope we'll be starting on a new book too.

UK Summer

The weather has broken now but my boys and their cousin were having great fun

while the sunshine lasted.

Snowgates

I'm sure they've mentioned them before but there seems to be a lot on the weather news this winter about the closing of snow gates. I'm not entirely sure what these are though I suppose they are designed to keep people from putting themselves in danger.

Dandelions

Loads of dandelions in England this year

Kenyan weather and food

It was quite hot in Kenya, of course. The heat is dry, however, not too humid and there is always a breeze from the east so not bad really (the terrain is Savannah grassland).

The staple meal is rice (wali) with beans but we also often had meat. Ugali is a stodgy fairly tasteless mix of maize flour and water. There are plenty of bananas, mangoes and avocados. I had chappatis quite often. They love their chai (usually made all in one with milk and sugar). I had mandaazi once (unsweetened doughnuts). I was also given fried goat liver with fried intestines (matumbo ya mbuzi) in one place. Quite tasty. I ate well.

Foggy Day in London Town

It's been quite foggy today. "A Foggy Day" is a song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, introduced by Fred Astaire in the 1937 film A Damsel in Distress. It was originally titled "A Foggy Day (In London Town)", and is often still referred to as such. Many people have recorded it including Frank Sinatra and Michael Buble. The lyrics are I was a stranger in the city

Out of town were the people I knew
I had that feeling of self-pity
What to do? What to do? What to do?
The outlook was decidedly blue
But as I walked through the foggy streets alone
It turned out to be the luckiest day I've known

A foggy day in London Town
Had me low and had me down
I viewed the morning with alarm
The British Museum had lost its charm
How long, I wondered, could this thing last?
But the age of miracles hadn't passed,
For, suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London Town
The sun was shining everywhere.

Banner Leicester 06a

After lunch I did something I hadn't done for a while and played football (or tried to). About 18 of us gathered to play a good natured game. After a cuppa and a shower I headed to the prayer and share. Right at the beginning there was a terrific hail storm so loud on the copper roof that we could not hear the speakers at the front. Thunder followed.
We eventually got under way. Iain Murray chaired and first the following people spoke:

1. A Reformed Baptist from Slovakia introduced by Brian Freer
2. John Nicholls on the work of LCM
3. George Curry on the work of the Christian Institute
4. Gurnam Singh who is based here in multi-cultural Leicester and is co-pastor with Paul Bassett. (Gurnam, a former Sikh, lived with me many years ago as a single man).
5. Iain Murray himself mentioned the deaths in the last 12 months of Leslie Rawlinson, Alistair Johnston and Sir Marcus Loane.

Please, rain, go away!

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