Time for a Change Well, after a couple of years, a respectable number of posts and a change of job(s), it's time to change blogs too.

That doesn't mean I've actually done anything other than create it, but nevertheless... once I have a few moments (when I'm awake), Dr Moose's random scribblings, reflections and rants will be over at http://2hats1head.blogspot.com but until then I need some sleep!

Labels: Life

  ¶ 9:32 pm 1 comments

  Staying Alive (Cue Bee Gees music!)

Still alive, but with a move due on Tuesday, and still having to work through to Sunday, I hope you'll understand why I've not said a lot recently!

Greenbelt with the family was a qualified success, but that comes of having a 5 year old and an 18 month old as part of the package. They are not going next year, but I am!

Too much happening and not enough time... or motivation at this minute. BUt where motivation fails, determination is needed. Back to tidying the office and the computer...

Pray for us!

Labels: Life

  ¶ 7:55 pm 0 comments

  Greenbelt or bust! Right. GB here we come. We're all packed. The stress is lifting. See you all at the races!

Mine's a pint of Hobgoblin, and if they don't have that, well, I'll just have to stoop to the organic cider at 8% abv.

Cheers!

Labels: Life

  ¶ 9:54 pm 1 comments

  The calm before the storm Well, it's Wednesday before Greenbelt. The weather here is distinctly odd. The tent can't be properly aired, there's nowhere really big enough to put it. The hire car can't be collected until tomorrow.

We are still getting removal quotes. The diocese has gone to sleep. MLPK is pretty much asleep. I want sleep. We still have no confirmation of LM's school place.

Am I worried? Strangely, no. But the Licensing is only a month and a day away...

Labels: Life

  ¶ 3:47 pm 1 comments

  The divine solution Not quite what you might expect, but it tickled me. Advanced maths, popular puzzles and theology lite!

Good for a Friday, any way!

Labels: Life, Recommendations

  ¶ 10:35 am 0 comments

  Not The Good News, but good news At last! I can now officially tell the world (or that tiny portion of it which reads my scribblings!) that which was the worst-kept secret in MLPK - to wit, I HAVE A NEW JOB! :)

In early September the herd of Moose will be striking northwards to sojourn once more in the East Midlands, in Northampton to be precise, which may or may not be a city, depending upon who you ask!

On September 23rd I'll be licensed as Priest-in-Charge of St. Mary's, Dallington and Chaplain in the University of Northampton, two half-time posts which I will try to ensure don't both become more than that!

Dallington looks like a typical East Midlands village, especially if you look at it's heart - the honeyed-stone church opposite the pub, the Old Schools serving as the Church Hall, the almshouses etc... until you notice it's been swallowed up by Northampton - in the form of a couple of council estates! New readers may correct me if I'm wrong, but there appear to be no real links between the congregation and the denizens of the estates. Welcome to the Church of England! It's been rather left to wind down over the past decade or more, so while it remains a big challenge, it's going to need a slow pace and a loving hand.

Having said all that, the University (the second in Northampton!) is typical of the latest batch of universities, an HE college that has grown up. My ministry there will be a gift from the diocese (of Peterborough) and will involve working alongside a group of other lay and ordained, Christian and non-Christian colleagues. There's a Multi Faith Chaplaincy Centre, but no regular Christian worship, yet! I get the feeling that the paces of the two places could be refreshingly different. Dallington isn't close enough to be a student parish, and St Mary's certainly isn't a student church (Common Worship Traitional Language - pray for me!)

We're now in the process of arranging a move while the Vicarage is being spruced up ready for us. So it's busy, busy, busy!

And there's another thing. I'll have to rename the blog. I have an idea I might followup, but not a re-hash of this. NN5seven doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Labels: Faith, Life

  ¶ 11:59 am 4 comments

  From the Archives: Minister's Musings August 2006 I'm trying to write the latest letter for one of the local publications in MLPK, and have just checked the letters for the last few years. (Whether I'm trying to find something to steal or trying avoid repetition I'll leave you to decide!)

However, having read last August's I thought (in my vanity) that maybe it deserved an airing - to prove I'm still alive and, if nothing else, to remind us about the change in the weather!

As I write this we are all sweltering in the heat wave. (I can't predict what it will be like by the time you read this letter, of course)! Still, a little reading around in newspapers and on the Internet finds plenty of stories of drought, complaints about petty regulations, and, of course, comparisons to 1976.

I'm old enough to remember that summer, but not in any real detail. Old enough to ride around on my bike with my friends, no money worries, no concept of drugs, alcohol or sex. The privileged life of a child. The only different thing about 1976 for me was seeing lots of seriously brown lawns. I've not noticed them here in 2006!

Are your memories of '76 as simple and nostalgic? (If you have any, of course)! Nostalgia, fondly looking back at the past, is something most of us engage in. We might not quite say “when I was young...” like the stereotypical senior citizen, but the thought's there. The danger of thinking that somehow life was better then. Simpler. Slower. More tuneful, even!

But was it really? In some ways, maybe. But in most cases life was just different. We've seen lots of technological progress, personal computers, mobile phones, iPods and countless other things. But have they all made life better? All I know is that nobody asked us. I doubt if any of us have ever really thought it through. It just happened. Like Topsy and Tim we “just growed.” Technology and thought progressed, and we consumed.

Nostalgia can be a way of anchoring us in time, giving us some landmarks in our lifelines. Even so the saying is true “nostaligia ain't what it used to be!” Most of the time it wasn't quite as golden as we remember it. Human nature hasn't changed, even if we might cringe at some of the attitudes of 30 years ago or so. (Just watch old episodes of some old sitcoms to find them – and not just The Good Life!) The cure for nostalgia is engagement. Finding what it really was like.

And God, as revealed in Jesus, hasn't changed either. As a society our ignorance of Christian faith has increased, as a culture our understanding is disappearing. The cure remains the same – to find in the pages of the story of Jesus a character and a message as relevant now as it was 30 years ago or 300 hundred years ago, and beyond. The true question – with nostalgia, with faith, with all of life – is whether we are willing to find out.

I trust that this month, will be one of happy, and accurate, memories!

Labels: Faith, Life, Ponderings

  ¶ 9:08 am 1 comments

  Fahrenheit 451 - or "Book burning at Borders, by and by..." What ho! Shocking news, old boy. That well-known purveyor of fascist propaganda, Borders, is up to it's beastly old tricks again. Peddling offensive literature about those chaps of a different skin colour, what?

Or put it more simply the Campaign for Racial Equality want to stop us reading Tintin!

I should add at this point that I've never been a great fan of Tintin, but this does seem a tad silly. I'm sure I could, as a consenting adult, buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - for all I know it's available as a Penguin Classic - or something by David Irving, who was banged up in Austria not so long ago for Holocaust denial. But to complain, when the offending (and offensive?) book has already been moved into the adult section...

Before you know it they'll be goose-stepping down Whitehall and burning Biggles books for being nasty about the Huns and Noddy books for daring to mention Gollywogs!

Except of course that some re-issues in recent years have bowdlerised Biggles and re-cast Imps for Gollywogs in dear old Blyton's writing...

Labels: Grumbles, Life, Recommendations

  ¶ 12:30 pm 0 comments

  Pointless I heard on the radio the other day that a good dairy was one which was written with no real readership in mind. Just written, whether as an obsession, an aide memoire or as a cathartic activity made no difference. Which just about sinks most political diaries these days, like Alistair Campbell's for example.

It made me wonder a little where blogging fitted in. Blogging, as has been written by far more erudite and thoughtful folks than myself, is a social phenomenon which has exposed the degree to which many normal people write. In blogging, as in so much else of life, I feel like an amateur, that is, when I'm not worried that I'm a fraud and somebody will realise this one day!

This blog, like many others is public. Therefore it is written with at least a degree of expectation that others might read it. Does it then, by the standards of those critics of diarists (above), mean that it has little literary value? Am I, by even posing the question, to be seen as one writing for an audience?

And, of course, if part of the value of a diary comes from writing and sharing those confidential little details that we would not wish to see as matters of public knowledge, should I really admit to being at a very low ebb at present? Perhaps I should save that for the other, anonymous blog. (Which incidentally I have only posted to once, like the previous version I tried a while back. And what does that say about me?! Even more annoying is the fact that I think that the name is, though I should't say so myself, a really good one. It might have to be applied here when I finally move on...)

Back to the initial point of this rambling: I am absolutely wrecked at the moment, both physically and emotionally (spiritually?). It's just been such a roller-coaster over the last few days, what with trip to GPMC and all the thoughts and opportunities stirred up by it, a lost day off and 3 disturbed nights with the children. There have been some wonderful positives, such as the news about Gloranthan canonicity, and a superb time or conversation, prayer and simply being, with Alain, the minister for the Christian Fellowship.

None of which hides the fact that as an allegedly self-employed individual (ask HM Revenue and Customs if you don't believe me!), provided with an income and housing to enable me to "perform my ministry" I could appear to be swanning around doing nothing. In fact I am swanning around doing very little, with minimal motivation and energy. Inspiration for a sermon? Hah, fat chance. No real target and no real overseer. Pretty much a total inspiration failure in fact.

Except that is, when it comes to writing this.

Pointless, and very, very odd.... One definition of sin is "missing the target." Perhaps the real issue is knowing quite what the target is...

Labels: Life, Ponderings

  ¶ 11:53 am 2 comments

  Canon... but not of scripture It's fascinating how words find new, but related uses.

Only in the last few years have I come across the use of canon and canonical lifted from the ecclesiastical and into the realm of Role-Playing Games. It seems to be applied especially in cases where there is an extensive corpus of published works, from a variety of sources. Hence there is the Traveller Canon (although I'll have to be a pedant and suggest that this definition actually might not match with what the original author and owner the game states) and the Glorantha Canon.

So, what's the point of this? Well, only to note that not only has my Caratan material been published in Tradetalk 15, as blogged previously, but I've heard in the last few days that a mention has been included in the forthcoming publication Blood over Gold, which makes the Auloring people and the land of Caratan canonical. You can call me sad, but I'm also dead chuffed!

(All I need now is there to be enough demand and interest to allow a re-working of the Fan-Published material into a more professional format.... it's not the money, it's the kudos. Which doesn't mean I'd do it for free, of course.)

Canon as in clerical "rank" - that I can live without. An honour maybe, but nothing particularly exciting, but this sort of canon - yes please!

Labels: Life, Role-Playing Games

  ¶ 8:31 pm 0 comments

  Eeek! I was in the middle of writing a post, which will hopefully soon appear, about yesterday's peregrinations, when who should appear but GLW, clutching a tasty-looking piece of white chocolate. Except that somebody agreed with me - there being a series of little nibble marks.

Yes - we have a mouse!

(Should come as a surprise at all - Cat-who-owns-this-human has a habit of bringing them in.... and then losing them!)

And now it's time I scampered off too. Anyone for cheese.

>Ü<

Labels: Life

  ¶ 4:09 pm 0 comments

  In praise of the Orbital Car park... not Very tired today after "investing" my day off in a trip to Grand-Parental Midlands City. It's not that I mind driving, I don't, but the M1 and the M25 are a rather potent combination, although moreso coming South than going North. I'm very glad I had a reasonable run up and a good time there, because it felt like we crawled en masse all the way between the M1 and well-beyond the M11 junctions of the M25.

But now, having referred to the witty (?) post title, here's the meat...

I had the opportunity to meet a couple of key staff at the University in GPMC with a stake in the appointment of the new 0.5 Chaplain, but neither of whom will be present on the interview day next week. But before that I made sure I had the time to do a little sleuthing about the reality of the parish which makes up the other 0.5 of the post.

What I hadn't reckoned on was the emotions that would be stirred on going into the city though. Not so much the rather unexpected familiarity with much of the central ring road (whether they call it that or not) because in the mid-eighties I tended to visit Nan on about a fortnightly basis after Granddad died, but the feelings that bubbled up upon on driving past the familiar statue and park close to the old house, or the familiar names of the streets. I almost wanted to stop, get out of the car and look at their old house in Forest Road. To somehow grasp the past of 22 years ago, almost to go back in time and see Tom again. Forgive the sentimentality if I say that I'm sure I will again, but you know what I mean. I don't think of myself as a very emotional person, but it was simply a very moving experience which hit me totally unexpectedly. Not quite coming back home, but not far from it.

The parish was everything I had expected, although again it was the emotional resonances that hit me. A ground visit, coupled with my research on the internet (thank you Office of National Statistics!) had confirmed what the Parish Profile had lightly touched upon - a Parish of quite stark contrasts - as well as raising a number of questions about the state of the congregation and their geographical distribution and social expectations.

On the one hand, as illustrated in the Profile, there's the charming rural idyll of mellow, honeyed stone, the country pub facing the church, looking for all the world as if hidden in the depths of Leicestershire and pulled out from my former deanery - even down to the brewer's ales in the pub. (Shame I don't think much of their beer!) Yet within a stone's throw of the Vicarage the warm country stone and leafy tranquility disappear to be replaced by the familiar architecture of the inter- and post-war housing estates.

The contrast was quite disturbing. My last place had a small council estate, and there's one just beyond the borders of MLPK. I know that the encounters I've had before with residents have been very good, satisfying. But this was a pretty big area. Some of the streets looked very familiar and reminded me that often the computer acronym WYSIWYG applies. What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get, at least with regards to people. A sort of no-nonsense openness and baptism visits competing with the TV (although I've had that here too...) Having said all that it still came as quite a shock. What I know in facts and figures translated into bricks-and-mortar reality.

Still, it was a good shock to have. To remind me of my preconceptions. To remind me how privileged we are in MLPK. And to spark some very important questions that will need to be asked at interview... questions which I really hope will prove my hunches wrong, but will probably prove them right. If nothing else it has given me some very good ideas for what might need to be done in the Parish, and of the starting point. It could be a long haul, but I'm not Superman, and all I can play is my part. Nobody else's.

Then on to the University. A quick shufti at the smaller site before driving back to the larger one where the Chaplaincy has a physical presence. It had a lot of resonances with St Martin's in Lancaster, or Liverpool Hope, the main difference being that as a secular foundation it has no chapel or established Christian tradition. I had the privilege of an hour or so's conversation with the Pro-Vice Chancellor (and why do all these different places have different titles for the Head Honcho?) which was friendly, informal and informative, helping me to get a picture of the place, where things had come from, and where they might be going.

After that a chat with the Director of Student Services, which was interesting in coming at things from a different perspective, as well as with the dynamics changed by the arrival of D, the other short-listed candidate who had managed to get lost at the other campus and was also friendly and affable, despite the embarassment of arriving late. D looks to be a strong candidate too, so Thursday next week could be interesting.

Nevertheless I want this post! I won't deny that there are some fairly daunting dimensions, but also some very appealing prospects. There's no such thing as the perfect post - and anyway if there's no way of being stretched there's no way of growing either. I do have another possibility, of a similar nature (0.5 Assistant Priest, 0.5 Chaplain) and in another area of the country that I know well (Pretty North-Western Town), but I'm not taking my eye off this one! I have no intention of spilling D's blood on the church carpet - he's far too nice a man - and anyway the secret is to use a blunt instrument (allegedly) but even so....

Prayers for His will to be done would, of course, be greatly appreciated, dear readers.

Labels: Life, Ponderings

  ¶ 2:24 pm 0 comments

  10 things pastors long to hear... Some excellent stuff from St Casserole.

Done for laughs, but as with all humour many a true word is said in jest.

Go read, and don't forget the comments.

On a more serious note: why don't I ever think in these terms? Answer: because I'm burning out and need that change.

Labels: Faith, Life, Recommendations

  ¶ 9:12 am 1 comments

  Believing Thomas Funny things, labels. They tend to stick. To the exclusion of anything else. Names and associations from the Bible still have weight, embedded in culture, even if the culture has apparently moved on. For example, have you ever met a Judas? I haven't.

And today the Church remembers another labelled individual. Thomas, rarely referred to without his prefix, "Doubting" Thomas. The one apostle who as far as we know dared to speak for the majority of us when he said unless he could see and touch the resurrected Christ that he would not believe. A worthy saint for scientists and sceptics.

Yet, as I was reminded this morning he does have another name and another side. Thomas the Apostle. Faithful Thomas. The apostle who, when confronted with Jesus wish to return to dangerous territory, a place that might even cost him his life, en route to raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, said, "Let us also go and die with him." That's not the language of a doubter. That's belief and trust.

And lest we forget: very little evidence of the ministry of the apostles has passed down the centuries to us. We don't really know much of their mission and journeys, just a few uncertain tales and legends. About Thomas comes the story of his journey to South India (far more probably some disciples of his school), and a martyrdom. But, unlike so many other apostles his name lives on in the ancient-rooted Mar Thoma church and other related groups.

"Doubting" Thomas? Somehow I doubt it!

Almighty and eternal God,
who for the firmer foundation of our faith,
allowed your holy apostle Thomas
to doubt the resurrection of your Son
till word and sight convinced him:
grant to us, who have not seen, that we may also believe
and so confess Christ as our Lord and our God;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

Labels: Faith, Life

  ¶ 8:23 am 1 comments

  Muddled Thinking? It's probably the sign of a fizzing brain - which is a very good thing on a Monday morning as I might get some quality creativity done - that I picked up on the following point on the news.

The body representing Fertility Specialists across Europe is calling for a harmonisation of standards across countries to enable equality of access to services. Which is all well and good, I suppose (although I'll be a tad contentious and say that while I think all women might have a reasonable expectation of bearing children that that does not equate to a right to a child).

My prognostications aside though, the spokesman then went on to say that this call was being made due to rising phenomenon of "Fertility Tourism" - the phenomenon of traveling overseas to get access to better facilities and ranges of treatments.

Forgive my pedantry, but isn't a tourist one traveling for pleasure? From the little I know or have gleaned (including from medical professionals) about the travails of fertility treatment, it's not something a normal person would seek to do for enjoyment, surely?

More slack phraseology! :)

Labels: Life, Ponderings

  ¶ 7:46 am 0 comments

  Here we go again! I have just heard, via the delights of email, that GrandParental Midlands City post wants me for interview. Not bad for the day after applications closed! (What do the others know that I don't?)

The only real question in my mind is... will the other candidate be another middle-aged woman? (Not that I have anything against middle-aged women, of course!)

This is unquestionably Good News. Prayers would, as always, be appreciated.

Labels: Faith, Life

  ¶ 12:28 pm 2 comments

  Retirement Planning You will either get this or you won't... but I think I'd book a place (if GLW would let me!)

:)

HT to Darran at The Tavern

Labels: Humour, Life, Role-Playing Games

  ¶ 8:13 pm 0 comments

  Saturday Sermon-Block The title says it all really. I have a talk for Tea Time Worship, but that's usually a little less difficult since I tend to use only the one text. Sunday mornings are, however, a different matter. Since I see scripture as important we tend to use the three readings (although not, in common with much Anglicanism to my experience, the psalm... but that's a separate point).

It's not that the readings are incompatible, far from it (even if sometimes at this time of the year the Semi-Continuous sequence reading sometimes seems to fit better with the theme than the Related one). It could be something about the nature of the setup here, where the afternoon is the main service, but both the same set of readings is used through the day. Now that I think of it one reason for that has now passed... but never mind. It's more likely to be something about dynamics (and if I've written all this before I apologise now). It's very different, and difficult, to preach to a congregation that can be counted in single figures. It might sound strange, but I think I know them too well. Of course, possibly I should stop worrying about upsetting people, but with that few you really can't afford to do it! In a bigger congregation somehow it's easier to be challenging or provocative - there is statistically a good chance that something might hit home. But with a small congregation you can almost be sure of hitting the target should you so choose a target. Maybe that's better left for a different setting (although we have no different settings).

On my bad days I just feel like I'm giving people what they want to hear (which isn't always what they need to hear, of course).

All this is hiding the point: I have all sorts of material for the morning, in one great big formless blob. I've had ample time for preparation, but I'm lacking something. That holy cornflour, the divine baking powder, simply isn't there.

Which is why it's easier to write about just about anything else. Like my discovery of Faithspace and the presence of a certain Longsuffering Clockmaker (let the reader understand!) or my renewed intrest in Role-Playing Games following my recent trip to London and the final publication of Caratan in Tradetalk 15. I'm finally a published author! (Admittedly in this case virtue is it's own reward and my "pay" is a free copy of the magazine, but there is something tremendous about seeing your own stuff in (somebody else's) print.)

I could even point to the Annual Area Church Meeting on Friday a week back and deconstruct at length the significance of those who attended and those who didn't (a straightforward, age-based divide), of the fact that our back door seems as wide as our welcoming arms, or our/my inability to translate good relations into life-changing faith encounters (and yes I know, that's God's job, but you know what I mean!)

And then there's the spotting of a Lesser Snark and the opportunity it entails. So the paperwork is in and thoughts and prayers are bending towards Grandparental Midlands City and a good-looking post, mixing challenge and comfort, familiarity and possibility. We still might make the Great Escape from MLPK yet, and maybe in time for the new school year. Prayers would, of course, be appreciated.

But while I can witter for England I have things to do. I need to dig out the Journals for amusing anecdotes about Alex over at Faithspace, not to mention resisting the lure of my new presence on Facebook (as well as finding a better picture). Then there's not doing the lawns and hedges, not spending money I haven't got... and making another coffee. Heaven forbid, I might have to try that sermon again....

Labels: Faith, Life, Prevarication, Role-Playing Games

  ¶ 1:41 pm 1 comments

  On London I had earlier this week one of those things that has been increasingly rare of late. That was a trip into London. As a man who is on record as saying that he would rather work abroad than in London that may seem a little strange. Maybe I've changed, but I still wouldn't want to have to commute into the Big Smokeless.

The occasion for the trip was our annual Deanery Chapter excursion. The first one I did was to the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity two years back, and it was a good day. Last year we managed a tour of the Houses of Parliament and an hour or so with Lord Anderson of Swansea on the role and place of Christians within Parliament, which was also highly enjoyable and stimulating, even if we had to concentrate over the lobbying of protesters using the novel approach of taking to the Thames with loudhailers to make their point.

This week it was St. Paul's Cathedral for the adptly-named "Super Tour" preceded by half an hour or so with the lovely Lucy Winkett (am I allowed to say that? Oh well, I have!) After looking slightly harrassed and apologising profusely for not being able to give us more time, we were treated to a short account of how things work "from the inside", about the ways the Cathedral is trying to engage the visitors in the liminality of the cathedral, the thin-place between earth and heaven, rather than being a mere tourist attraction, museum or architectural glory.

It was all rather encouraging and "helpful". Did you know for example that of 1.7 million people who visit the cathedral in a year (yes, 1.7 million!) that the majority are worshippers rather than tourists? (1m) I didn't! Then there was all the stuff about how you re-order the worship in such a place and the need to put in a new organ console, so that the organist can actually see the choir in Eucharistic worship, and so on.

The tour was highly enjoyable too, contemplating John Donne's memorial (carved while he was still alive and lying in a coffin to simulate death, no less), the incongruity of gorgeous Byzantine ceiling mosaics juxtaposed with clear glass in the windows. Not to mention the veritable biographic treasure trove that is the crypt: the likes of Hubert Parry and Antony Van Dyke, and Florence Nightingale (one of only three women to be buried there) between the solid, no-nonsense Cornish stone tomb of the Duke of Wellington and the rather extravagent casket seized by the crown from Cardinal Wolsely before being used to house the mortal remains of a very different national icon, Viscount Horatio Nelson. You could spend many a happy hour in the presence of the memorials to the departed - although what I found most moving was the memorial for UK personnel killed in Korea, facing the late nurse Nightingale.

After a decision to tramp the hundreds of stairs to the Whispering Gallery, the Stone Gallery and up to the Lantern I made the most of the opportunity to do a little eating and shopping near Leicester Square. To get there needed a quick trip on the Tube (which I always enjoy, proof that I've never travelled it in the rush hour, I suspect!) and then a random to decision to alight at Covent Garden and walk to Seven Dials to find my restaurant of choice. If I hadn't still have been feeling slightly fatigued from the stairs of St Paul's I would probably have taken the tannoy warnings about not using the stairs in the tube station ("the equivalent to a 15 storey building") as a worthy challenge!

Unable to find the delights of The Souk unaided (I was working from memory, after all - and one that had been operating through a gentle alcoholic haze at the time!) I was forced (such hardship!) to confront the Role-Playing goodness of the competent and accessible Orcs Nest first. Having parted with a modicum of credit for the Traveller 1248 setting material and Mongoose RQ Glorantha 2nd Age (and inexplicably failing to pick up the Classic Traveller reprint volume of the final installment of the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society) I obtained directions to my chosen food outlet. And very pleasant it was too! I can think of fewer simple pleasures than eating houmous and pitta bread to the accompaniment of a good book and a cold beer on a hot day!

It was the sort of day that I don't, and can't afford to do, too often. It, and the experiences of the occasional LondonGlorantha outing for chat, beer, more chat, more beer, food... and more beer, will mean that I will miss London when we finally do escape from MLPK, unless we don't travel too far.

Still, despite the delights of the week I now have to prepare for a very different delight: the Annual Area Church Meeting. Oh well, at least I organised it in the pub and we're having a buffet supper...

Labels: Faith, Life, Role-Playing Games

  ¶ 9:44 am 0 comments

  Blackbird Pie (with apologies to Bill Bryson)

I think that most people who know me would consider me a relatively gentle soul. I mean, I have been known to terminate bluebottles, wasps and ants with extreme prejudice, but generally speaking I rarely wish ill on any one or anything for very long. Even as I write this I've had to stop and rescue a sparrow from the claws of the cat. (Not enough sparrows around if you ask me). True, I sometimes, for a split second wish that that idiot going too fast on the roads would wrap themselves around a lamp-post, but I tend to repent within a second or two. I wouldn't want to see it happen, or to have to take the funeral after all.

But these last few days are an exception. I have so longed for air-gun, a catapult or a BB gun. And what has turned the meek and mild Dr Moose into a potential killer, you may ask. The answer, as you might have deduced from the title of this piece is blackbirds. Strange, but true.

One pair have nested close to the back door, you see. In a tree just over the shed. And then there's another pair somewhere close by. So if a male blackbird is not "chuck-chuck-chuck"-ing through the glass of the utility room door at the slightest movement, or defecating messily over the swing while engaged in a eyeball-locking exercise through the kitchen window, then he's scrapping with the other male blackbird in a noisy turf war.

That is, of course, until the cat-to-whom-this human-belongs turns up, whereupon all conflicts are put on hold and the poor feline is subjected to a double dive-bombing attack.

And all this, of course, accompanied by an insistent "chuck-chuck-chuck"-ing through most of the daylight and evening hours. It is, as they say, driving me to distraction.

Said feline is a clever one, but instead of doing my dirty business for me and bringing me a balckbird on a platter, has resorted to sheltering indoors for prolonged periods of time and seeking a lap at the most inappropriate moments.

So if you hear a story on the BBC about a Vicar being had up by the RSPB, that'll be me.

Now, I must go. I wonder where GLW has hidden the spare knicker elastic and LM has put her marbles? Failing that I'm off to ASDA to buy a water cannon and give the bird a bath it won't forget in a hurry!

Labels: Life

  ¶ 9:14 am 0 comments