Saturday's Farewell Service

 

The church very kindly arranged last Sunday a farewell service for us, as I step down from the pastorate at the end of the month (I will prach most of August and move at the end of September). Well over a hundred gathered (members, former members, locals, family and some few ministers and others from other churches). People are very kind.

The arrangment was that first two (sometimes tearful) long standing Nigerian members spoke about their memories and then one of our deacons interviewed us about our memories. One of the Nigerian ladies had a striking story I had forgotten about her being in a car in America somewhere and hearing an interview on the radio with Gary brady from Childs Hill Baptist Church!

After all this my father-in-law preached a straightforward mosty evangelistic sermon from Acts 10. Just right.

Then there was food and time for chatting. Enjoyed the plantain, the jollof rice and the Iranian food and all sorts of other things incuding the supermalt drinks.

Of course there were flowers and cards and gifts galore too. SO thankful.

Family Pics

 

Then and Now 2

 

We tried one of those reconstructions again recently.

This is me with my three oldest sons about thirty years apart.

Some dates for your interest

Some readers of the blog will be interested to know our plans for the future (ie me and Eleri and Owain). At present we are looking forward to a leaving service here in Childs Hill on Saturday July 11 (2. 30 pm), when my father-in-law Geoff Thomas will preach. All are welcome!

The next day we have a visiting preacher who is preaching "with a view".

My term here will then officially come to a close at the end of July.

However, I have agreed with the church to supply the pulpit on four of the five Sundays in August to help them.

At the end of August we will head to Australia where I am preaching in Sydney and Melbourne. We return from there mid-September and then, near the end of September, we move to South Wales, where the next chapter begins. I am preaching in Guernsey in October.

Birthday Books 2026

Once again the family have been very kind. These are from my wife and sons. (One son made sure he didn't buy me a book as he doesn't like to be too predictable, so I had other good things from him.)

Eisteddfod Yr Urdd Anglesey

FYI The Urdd Eisteddof for young people is on atm. It's live on S4C.

That's my oldest grandson in shot singing in the choir.

Lumos in West Hampstead

My kind wife took me down to a church in West Hampstead (a horrible high church with a statue of Jesus I'm afraid) where we spent an hour listening to Lumos. The Lumos style is to put hundreds of candles out (battery operated but looking like the real thing) and then preform. This time round it was a violin, a viola and a cello and mstly Einaudi compositions. So a very pleasant time that we enjoyed. I've almost never been into a church to listen to music before, although many people do I know.

British Museum

Jononmac46, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

I forgot to say that one of the things we did when the family was here, apart from the London Wetlands Centre and Whipsnade Zoo, etc, was to go to the British Museum to see this wonderful pendnat recently discovered from the time of Katherine of Aragon. See here. We have a friend working in the museum and she arranged for us to see the Samurai exhibition too.

Family Holiday Time

Over the Easter holidays we have and visits from our sons and their families and it has been very nice.

Project Hail Mary

I went to see Project Hail Mary in the cinema with two of my sons recently. It is a science fiction film based on a novel by Andy Weir. It presents a dystopian future that is rescued by an ordinary hero (Ryan Gosling). Quite a long film, I enjoyed it for the most part. Some laughs, some sentiment, some sentimentality. There are a few Easter eggs (eg a reference to Close Encounters, a voice cameo from Meryl Streep, etc). The lead character is called Grace and the echoes of and contrasts to Christ's redemption are almost inevitable and there is one reference to God in the film. (Catholic references seem more likely than Protestant ones, I guess.)

A fourth Grandchild Book

Read this book made on StoryJumper

Day Off Week 41 2025

A little bit different this time as we have a week of prayer this week and there was a prayer meeting in the morning. Seven of us there so that was encouraging. We also headed off to Heathrow in the afternoon to meet our son Owain back from Las Vegas. I bought the newspaper while we waited and read the obituaries (Jilly Cooper, Soo Cat Woman from the punk era and a man who was an official translator of Russian). I also did the crossword and one or two other puzzles later. There was time for reading too and in the evening I watched the first two episodes of The Hack about the News of the World scandal.

Lord's Day September 28 2025

Red letter day last Sunday.  We were in Aberystwyth for the baprism of my oldest grandson, Gwilym. It was a joy to hear is brief testimony and to see him baptised. He has been wanting this for some time but as he is only 11 the church has moved slowly. Lovely to see various realtivs along too. Great to hear a clear baptistic sermon from Matthew 3 from my son and then also to be there in the evening when he preached well on John 3:1-15 and there was a student tea to follow. Nice to meet several students old and new and others. Great Lord's Day.

Happy Birthday Eleri

 

Day Off Week 37 2025

This week was a bit different as my wife, Eleri, has a new regime where she doesn't usually work on Tuesdays and so the first half of the day I was with her. We drove over to Highgate but were unable to park there at first and so we went to Kenwood House for a cuppa and them went to see the current art exhibition called double vision. Kenwood has a Vermeer, the Guitar Player. It turns out there is a copy of this in Philadelphia and they are currently showing the two together. Quite interesting. In Highgate later we had a little look at the shops and I left a pile of books at Oxfam, which I was also able to do last week in West Hampstead. The rest of the day was mopstly reading (a book on Landscapes, a short biography of James Brindley, a travelogue by Shackleton, a book on the Irish famine and a little book onanger byRichard Baxter) and TV and some episodes of the Likely Lads. Good day.

It's back!

Little known fact - my coffee machine has been bust for some time and I have been relying on the aeropresse. However, my third son had the vision to get a repair organised and rallied the troops to sort it. We found a place in Bridgend (Cortile) who dealt with it (at a price it must be said) and yesterday my wife brought it back from there. Good to have it back.

K Pop Demon Hunters

Last Saturday I sat down with some of my grand children to watch the film K Pop Demon Hunters. I was interested to watch as the film is quite popular at present. It was a coherent good v evil story with nice pop songs and one or two twists that it is easy to see winning young hearts and minds.

More Pics

 

Figureheads

The Thames and the Cutty Sark

On Friday I went with family down the Thames to Greenwich, where we looked oer the Cutty Sark, which had not done before. All very well presented. Great weather.

John Keats

Joseph Severn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Family here again this week. My eldest got me down to the Londoon Archives near the Angel, which I know nothing about. There was an interesting lecture from the archiviist Rachel Barratt on John Keats who, of  course, was a Londoner. Blackwood Magazine even tried to rubbish him as a poet of the Cokney School. She went through his life using the variouos archives available to chart the course. About twenty gathered and others were online. Lotsof queestions at the end. We then joined the family for a picnic lunch in the Spa Fields park. Lovely time.