That was 2008

A year of changes, many of which I've written about, but here's a gap filler, which hopefully will mean something to those from Ferndown.

January found me sat in one of those corporate meetings that you dread, where you can tell from the first slide of the Powerpoint presentation that bad news is coming. And it was - 38 jobs were going at NXP Southampton. Except for me this was perfect - I knew I would have been handing my notice in anyway. I was temporarily quite annoying as I left that meeting beaming from ear to ear, knowing that the following day I would be applying for voluntary redundancy. Meanwhile Beth and Isaac went to Disneyland, a Christmas present from their grandparents.

In February I remodelled the Youth Room at St Mary's, just in time for the Youth Alpha course - our biggest and best yet. Then there was the dark and cold Prayer Walk around Ferndown with the Police - wearing my hoodie I nearly got moved on by concerned theatre staff.

March greeted the arrival of a niece, Martin Howard's institution as Rector of Ferndown, and Helen Miller's wedding, despite the fact that she's still only 9 in my eyes.

April as ever saw a wife's birthday, a review and handover of geeky stuff at St Mary's (has Martin bought those new lights yet?), and Ferndown's saddest event - the funeral of 22 year old Marine John Thornton, killed on active service in Afghanistan. 1500 people, a huge screen, sniffer dogs, a Red Arrow, a Sea Harrier, and an unknowing encounter with Marine Fred Frederick, who now shares my staircase at Ridley. My calendar also informs me that we took small pots to church - I'm sure it meant something at the time!

May was the month I left NXP, and we took the last big family holiday for a few years - Venice beckoned.

I spent most of June and July fixing the house ready for new tenants, and then I started the blog. All too soon came the leaving parties, fun and tears.

August had us saying "no we haven't gone yet" - after several rounds of goodbyes we refused to move until it was actually time to do so. And then we went. All 2500 cubic feet of furniture, books and plants.

September - acclimatisation to Cambridge, new schools and back to school for me. End of reliance on NXP money as the grant arrived, but at the same time having to get used to pay days only coming round once every three months now...

October, only 3 weeks into term, I find myself facing a chapel of ordinands and leading them in prayer on the morning that Mark Autherson died.

November disappeared in a blur of lectures and reading, and distractions on Facebook.

December saw the end of term, 6000 words of worry, and a packed house at Christmas. Now on New Year's Eve I'm being reminded that it's time to go - a party beckons.

Goodbye 2008. For me 2009 is fairly certain - lots more Ridley. For you it may be less certain but I pray that you'll see God's guiding hand in your life.

Kings and Queens

We had a little wander around Cambridge yesterday. Actually it was more like a route march, as the children had an urgent need to deposit their Christmas money in the tills of willing retailers. We parked at Ridley and walked into the city centre. Getting stuck behind the inevitable gaggle of tourists (yes, even in the back end of December) I took avoiding action and ducked into a side-street. But not any old side street. This was Queen's Lane - the lane on which you'll find the oldest part of Queen's College. And it's here that we were reminded that students can be silly old sausages. Here's a picture of the absent statue of the founder, Margaret of Anjou, the Queen of Henry VI. Look carefully and you'll see the modern replacement. Beside her, the equivalent statue on King's College, founded by Henry VI.

Sharper eyed viewers may have noticed that the statue is actually of Henry VIII. He finished what his ancestor started, so got to choose who the statues were of!

Cambridge is a completely different place out of term-time. Most of the students have gone home to Mater and Pater, and you can walk in pedestrianised areas without fear of being mowed down by a random cyclist. Although I did bump into my Greek teacher on Friday....

Hallelujah!

Eddie Izzard said "There's something phenomenally dreary about Christians singing....the Church of England is the only group of people that could sing Hallelujah without feeling like it's a Hallelujah thing" - watch this (but not if you're easily offended - contains language that I won't be using from the pulpit)

There's a good chance that this year's Christmas Number One will be X-factor winner Alexandra singing 'Hallelujah', a song first written by Leonard Cohen. In fact there are three versions of the song now competing in the charts, the original Cohen version, the 'definitive' Buckley version, and the Alexandra version.

Is Cohen trying his best to send us to sleep? If this song was being sung as worship to you would you feel you were being worshipped? Alexandra certainly cannot be accused of a lack of passion in this performance.

When you next 'stand before the Lord of song with nothing upon your tongue but Hallelujah' will it be in the style of Cohen or Alexandra? How much sincere passion will you put into your praise?


At this point of course the more observant amongst you will have noticed that this song isn't really that Christmassy, neither is it an act of worship, it being an express tour through some interesting Old Testament stories, starting with the musical King David watching Bathsheba's rooftop bath (if that sparks your interest in the OT, go to 2 Samuel Chapter 12 for more).

But I hope you get my point.

Let the holidays begin

All done! Church History essay and New Testament essay finished and ready to print out and hand in.

So there will be a short bike ride a little later today to my study at Ridley to print them out, hand them in and return a huge pile of books.

After that I'm free to relax. Did I say relax? I meant to say 'do the huge list of jobs that Tasha has been preparing for me'.

Window cleaning here we come. At some point I might even get to celebrate Christmas and remember what it's all about.

One down, one to go

A milestone!

The Church History essay is finished. Well, nearly - it's written, and will now be put aside for a day or so to brew, at which point I'll go back to it, read it afresh, tweak it, and hand it in.

In the meantime I'll make a start on the New Testament one. Once I've fully recovered from the after effects of last night's Ridley Hall Christmas Party. I've never seen so much wine on one table!

Further distractions

We had a staircase breakfast and communion this morning, followed by a Hall Meeting (staff and students together, mulling over the term's events) which took us up to 11am.

I'm 2000 words into my first of two essays. The last 1000 words is going to be the difficult bit, so what better to do than get on with it, leaving the whole of next week free to polish off the second one.

Alternatively I could just check my e-mails, update my Facebook status, go for a cup of tea and have an interesting theological debate, pay a bill, meet Tasha after the spouses group and give a Christmas present. Before you know it there's only twenty minutes left before lunch, hardly worth starting now.

After lunch I hoovered my study (a very common essay avoidance tactic today, last day of term, when so many people discover where the hoover is kept), and then I thought I'd make another blog posting.

So here we are. I've run out of things to do. There's nothing now until chapel at 5.30. Three and a half hours. 1000 words. Head down, here we go.....

Avoidance Tactics

So we've got past the end of lectures, and we're now into full essay writing mode. At least, we're trying to be. Just to help us fill out our precious reading and writing time there's plenty of things to help us postpone the inevitable.

Lectures finished on Wednesday. On Thursday morning there was a short meeting about a mission trip - only an hour, but add a cup of tea at both ends and that's a good 2 hours out of the way. In the afternoon there was a meeting of all the students (known as the 'Common Room meeting'), where we discussed weighty matters such as the financial and physical state of the college punt. I just know that if I'd gone to any other college I wouldn't have had to be worried about a punt! More tea, more time taken. A bit of reading and suddenly it's time to go home.

Friday was a College Quiet Day - each staircase does something prayerful and sociable. I'll write more about that in another article, but suffice to say that a lovely day in Coventry doesn't get much essay writing done.

Saturday and Sunday being the weekend are family time, and we haven't yet got to Emergency Essay Status so it was quite easy not to work. On Saturday evening one of our lecturers was having an Advent Party so we took a car full of students who all gawped at his converted church out in the middle of nowhere - it's like something out of a magazine. We're all incredibly covetous now.

Today (Monday) we had a Short Course (all morning) on Child Protection. Kind of ironic that I left my belt at home and spent much of this course pulling my trousers up. The afternoon involved a combination of filing, e-mailing and reading. When I eventually sat down with a book I did manage to speed read a 190 page book in an afternoon. I'm now about as knowledgeable as I'd like to be about the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Empire. Until tomorrow, when after another Short Course ('Reading Scripture Out Loud') - I'll read two more books on the Romans! And after that I intend to write the essay on them.

More Greek than I thought

We had a Greek test yesterday - exam conditions for the first time in many years, even if it was only 45 minutes long.

Tensions leading up to the actual event were running high, or maybe not. I was pretty laid back about it. I wanted to make sure I did as well as I could, but after vocabulary stopped sinking in I stopped revising, deciding that if I didn't know it by now I wasn't going to know it. All through this term Greek has been the subject that's got my least attention - I'm not a natural linguist, and other subjects have captured my interest to a greater degree. At times the only thing that was keeping me going was the label in the front of my textbook reminding me that my youth group had presented it to me as a leaving present - I couldn't quit Greek and let them down!

Looking back I don't know what I was afraid of - the test was actually relatively harmless, and I don't think anybody failed. Fear of the unknown was the dominating factor.

24 hours later we got the results. At 86% my Greekness is approaching Prince Philip proportions. Our Greek teacher Mark took us to Starbucks to celebrate. 'Accompanied us' would be a more accurate description - Rebecca seemed to pay for most of the coffee!

So here's a few pictures of the celebration, I'll let you meet my new Cambridge friends:

Me in a rented hat

Chris in a rented hat

Mark and Jude (no hat)

Rebecca (no hat), Gill and Sam

Helping Ridley Hall when you use Amazon

When you buy things through Amazon.co.uk, why not help Ridley Hall at the same time by following this link before browsing? All purchases made this way will benefit Ridley Hall, as Amazon donates a percentage of your purchase costs to the college, at no extra cost to you.

http://www.ridley.cam.ac.uk/amazon.html

Ridley Hall - every little helps!

End of Term approaches

I don't know how we got here this fast, but we're getting to the end of term. We seem to have three end of terms - Dec 3rd is 'end of lectures', Dec 12th is 'end of term' and by Dec 22nd I have to hand two essays in.

Of course, those nearest and dearest to me latch onto the earlier date, but the reality is that the gaps between those short Cambridge terms are quickly filled with other stuff, especially for those of us who are only here for two years and have to fit lots of non-lecture based training requirements into our holiday slots. I've already had to start thinking about which church I'll spend a month in next summer and where and when I will do a mission trip. The family calendar is getting filled up in advance like never before, and the trick is to reserve family holiday time first! I have no idea when I'll get back to Ferndown - the family Christmas is going to be in Cambridge, and there isn't much time spare.

With end of lectures approaching there's a change of focus as individual subject courses are coming to an end. We've 'done' the New Testament, and by Monday I will have re-read through it all since starting in September - mostly by reading through whole books in a single sitting - you ought to try it. We've covered Church History from 0 to 1000AD, I've learnt the basics of the ancient Greek language in the last nine weeks and I have a formal test on it on Monday - and I've never felt less prepared for a test.

After lectures finish it's time to turn our attention to other areas: First Years have a half day session on Child Protection, and my staircase has a Prayer Day for which we'll be visiting Coventry Cathedral - the new hangout of former Principal of Ridley, Bishop Chris Cocksworth. Also there's an opportunity to find out about a mission trip for next Easter, and an 'end of first term' tutorial with my tutor.

Around all that there's reading to do in preparation for those essays. I have to write one for New Testament, and one for Church History, each of 3000 words (that's about 6 pages of A4). The preference seems to be for you to have read 4 or 5 books in researching each topic - that might sound a lot, but actually you're not reading a book from cover to cover, just skimming through for the relevant bits. The danger of doing this is that you'll mis-read something and get the point wrong.

I handed in a formative essay for New Testament this week and got good informal feedback on my writing style, and we have a Study Skills session coming up to coach us through essay writing, so things aren't looking too bad in the essay department.

However, with the upcoming lack of structure comes the potential to be mightily distracted. My reading is a bit behind to the tune of 3 hours or so, but my new Bible has beautiful tabs marking the location of each book. My laptop is a valuable tool for writing, but also for Facebook, and writing blogs when I could be revising Greek. And there are so many interesting books in the library, but unless I'm writing about those subjects I haven't got time to read them!

Must go - I have to read through Acts of the Apostles in a single sitting before Monday.

All in white shall wait around

I preached my first sermon at St George's Chesterton yesterday, and I got to dress up to do so.

No jeans and T-shirt preaching here - in the attached picture you see me in an ordinand's robes. Close inspection may lead you to the conclusion that the robe is borrowed - you'd be right - I'll have to buy my own before I'm ordained, and I might even consider not wearing trainers for the occasion.

Preaching from the same pulpit as a former curate, one Rowan Williams, was a novel experience - I was elevated to on high and was looking down onto the masses. It was a bit wierd to have everybody straining their necks to see me, and to be constrained in the box, not wandering around a stage on a radio mike.

All very different from St Mary's Ferndown. Which is why I'm there.

Light and Dark

"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not put it out" - John 1 verse 5.

Last Sunday night, whilst the family were warmly tucked up in their cosy villa at Center Parcs, I was making my way back to Cambridge in order not to miss fun-packed lectures on Monday morning. This meant that I had to cycle about 6 miles to the nearest railway station, from where I could get a train back home. Being night it was dark, and when I set out the moon was shining down from a clear sky. I was looking forward to my moonlit crossing of Thetford Forest. However by the time I got out onto the road it had clouded over - there was little light coming from the sky, and my tiny little bike light wasn't much use in helping me to make out the edge of the road. My eyes adapted and night vision kicked in quite quickly.

The occasional car overtook me, and for a while the light from them shining ahead of me was useful. And then cars started coming towards me. Even with their headlights dipped I was suddenly disoriented, and had to slow down and almost come to a stop to ensure that I didn't steer into their path. My little light was insignificant compared to the headlights, but it still shone, and was still there. It's at this point that you are waiting for the great analogy with Jesus. You're going to have to wait.

On Tuesday it was Mark Autherson's funeral, which you can read about on his blog: http://pleasepray4markautherson.blogspot.com/2008/11/marks-funeral-time-to-remember-marks.html.
It was an emotional event, and a number of us at Ridley are struggling with the 'why Mark?' question. A man taken from us far too early, leaving a young wife and 3 small children. I just can't cope with seeing a woman younger than me carrying a baby into her husband's funeral. I did a lot of crying in that church. Despite the brilliant sunshine outside lighting up the bright and airy church, despite the celebration of his life, despite the warm stories and emotional tributes and the reassurance that Mark is now free of pain and with Jesus, it was still a dark day.

But as I've been reflecting about it this week I keep coming back to that cycle ride through the forest. It was dark, but my little bike light was shining. Occasionally it was overpowered or overtaken by a brighter light, which allowed me a brief glimpse of the road ahead. But at no point did the darkness win. There was always a light shining in the darkness. My light was nothing compared to the glory of the bigger light, but it was still contributing in keeping the darkness at bay.

Never let your light go out.

"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not put it out"

This is my week - Friday

Nearly there (actually I am there already, writing this from the perspective of 'next Monday'!)

Each Friday we do Morning Prayer in our staircase groups, rather than communally in chapel. Still reasonably formal, but with the bonus that we can have a cup of tea in our hands while doing it, and for some of us the opportunity to spend a little bit of social time together.

For the rest of the morning we have 3 hours of 'Life and Service' - which is where we get to talk about all sorts of vicary things, rather than the intellectual academic side which occupies the rest of the week. This term we're spending quite a lot of time on Theological Reflection (or 'how to find God in a situation'), learning techniques for analysing conversations, encounters, and the various things that life in the vicarage throws at you. Often we are given case studies of awkward pastoral situations, and asked to think about how we would approach it. After half-time we changed tack, and looked at the privileges and abuses of power, which took us into some interesting territory. Whether we like it or not, a vicar has a certain authority by virtue of his position, and with that authority comes a responsibility towards our congregations, to care for them, to demonstrate servant leadership, but when necessary providing strong directional leadership without being a bully.

Lunchtime comes around all too soon on Fridays, and with that I was off home for a family weekend away - Tasha's dad recently turned 60 and we're celebrating with him in Elveden Forest.

So that was my week - Saturday would normally be my day off, so you're not getting a report on that!

This is my week - Thursday

As usual, Morning Prayer at 8.15, swiftly followed by 'Quiet Hour', which many use for prayer with a prayer partner. However, I'd done that bit yesterday, so instead this precious hour was used to catch up on some New Testament reading and Greek.

Down the road to Westminster College for a lecture on Mark's Gospel, then a seminar on 'The Messianic Secret' (Mark 8:27-9:1), during which, dear reader, I was apparently 'on fire'. An hour of unusually focussed Greekness took us up to lunchtime.

After lunch a bit more reading, a bit more dithering, a bit of tea drinking, and all to soon it was time to fetch the children over for College Communion.

Upon return to Ridley, I was on duty on the sound desk, so a swift soundcheck for the band, whilst trying to prevent Isaac abseiling from the chapel balcony (where he's not actually allowed to go.....I blame the parents). The band were fantastic - every time I descended from the balcony to listen to the sound mix they stopped playing. Hmmm....

With Isaac delivered to the creche, and Bethany dispatched to my study to do her homework I could now focus on the service. Which went brilliantly - well led, well structured, good choice of songs, inspiring message. Oh, and the sound was out of this world. Along with my humility. Somebody burst my bubble please.

Supper, the real reason for bringing the children over, was an interesting variation on the advertised Toad in the Hole, in which the part of the Hole was played by mashed potato.

A swift return to the chapel to pack away the sound kit, and then home at 8.15pm to biscuits, bathtime, a huge pile of ironing, and bed. A long day.

This is my week - Wednesday

It was a running morning this morning - although I didn't make it out of bed in time to run from college, so I ran in the drizzle from home instead. Tasha was a little surprised when I arrived back at 7.15 and got into the shower - as far as she was aware I was long gone!

Again, chapel at 8.15am. Veterans of Poole's Farside youth events may recall a beany-hatted young man who used to lead there - he's here now, a fellow student, but the hats are gone. Seeing Jon lead this morning took me back to various school/church halls around Poole, and I was half expecting him to take a completely different direction from what we're used to.

Wednesday is a completely unstructured day for me - I have no lectures scheduled, so the day is mine to control. The morning looked something like this:

• Drink a cup of tea
• Shuffle paper around desk
• Read some New Testament textbook
• Read Gospel of Mark (in twenty minutes flat, speed reading!)
• Read a small bit of Mark in somewhat more detail and prepare for tomorrow's seminar.
• Eat a banana
• Shuffle a few more bits of paper
• Go to Greek self-help class, work on translation exercise with Sam
• Have another cup of tea
• Go back to study, pack bag, go to lunch

Lunch was so uneventful that it doesn't warrant a mention (that's no comment on Jude, Mark and Peter's entertaining conversation though). Nice cauliflower cheese though.

The afternoon was slightly more organised. Whilst the musicians practiced for tomorrow's communion service I twiddled a few buttons and reassured the artistes that they sounded wonderful. Which they did.

Then home, exchange the bike for the car, and over to a secondhand book dealer who was disposing of a number of theological books. Upon re-arrival at Ridley these 6 boxes of books had to make it all the way up my 54 stairs. Another banana was necessary after the exertion, and it remains to be seen if there are any gems amongst the boxes.

The day's college programme concluded with a meeting with prayer partners Mark and Charlie, where we compared notes on how things are going, and how we could support each other in prayer. This all took place in the setting of a Bella Italia restaurant where we extravagantly splashed out on coffee and tea that we could have got for free at college!

That done it was hometime where there was time for a brief refuelling stop before getting back on the bike with Isaac and going to the city's free public firework display along with 25000 others. Spectacular! Thanks to Will and Grace for the company and the hot dogs. Will has learnt not to invite not-so-small boys to sit on his shoulders

This is my week - Tuesday

Tuesday is a slightly more relaxed affair than Monday.

Into college for 8.15 Morning Prayer, which from Tuesday to Thursday is a community event, in the chapel. The chapel was built for Ridley's original intake of (I think) 20 to 30 young men, so we're doing quite well to squeeze in the current population of 80-ish students plus staff. Week by week a different staircase group leads this 30 minute service, which is based on the Morning Prayer service in Common Worship - there's so much flexibility in the liturgy that we're unlikely to ever have 2 services the same.

At the end of Tuesday's service it's ''Principal's Notices" - where today we learnt the arrangements for this evening's American party. Apparently The Colonies are having an election which Lewis Hamilton's twin brother is going to win.

And then to Greek - which day by day gets a little clearer, but just when it does you learn something new and it gets a little murkier again.

By 10am the formalities of the day were over - the lecture program complete I had some unstructured time, during which I returned books to the library, printed off some lecture notes, caught up with e-mail, started preparing for Thursday's New Testament lecture, tried to ring the plumber and went to lunch.

Lunch done, I returned home. Tuesday afternoons is when I do my Social Context Placement - I have chosen to do this with Romsey Mill - a Christian run organisation which aims to "overcome disadvantage, promote inclusion and develop well-being". Their main programs are for children with autistic spectrum conditions, for disadvantaged 13-21 year olds, for under 5's and their parents, for young parents, and "Transitions". It's the last of those that I'm involved with.

"Transitions" aims to help 10-14 year olds who are struggling with the transitions that adolescence brings - physical & educational - through a mixture of out-of-school groups, outdoor activities, peer mentoring, one-to-one work, and literacy support. My 2.5 hours a week can't possibly hope to cover all of that, but I join the weekly afternoon after-school session, along with professional leaders Gavin* and Ruth and another student Michelle**. We have about 10 members of the group today, and any hope of structure soon goes out of the window. Youth-work is often mood dependent and this is no exception - the group has an extremely short attention span, and while Gavin is trying to hold order I find myself engaged in a debate about the point of school uniform with Gilbert***.

Ninety minutes of badminton, punchbags and Wii follow, and it's over all too quickly. The leaders convene for a debrief, and then it's time to go home. I'm sure I'll write more about Romsey Mill in future weeks, but in the meantime you can visit http://www.romseymill.org/ if you want to find out a bit more about their work - it's a fantastic place which every town should have.

A brief return home - The Mill is just around the corner from my house - and then I'm back on the bike, to Federation Worship. This is not some bizarre Star Trek cult, but a joint fortnightly service held by the Cambridge Theological Federation, the combination of all the theological colleges in town. Over the course of the next two years I'll benefit from this ecumenical endeavour, which enables me to experience worship led by Methodists, URC-ists, Orthodox-ists, Catholic-ists, and two different flavours of C-of-E-ists. Today, we assembled in The Church of Our Lady and The English Martyrs (that'll be Catholic then..) and were led by Wesley College (err, Methodists I'd guess from the name). The church itself is amazing - ornate but without being distasteful, well lit to highlight the architecture, and fantastic acoustics. Even on songs that weren't familiar the building made us sound loud anyway. And I even listened to the sermon, unlike last time where people were commenting on a sermon that I have no recollection of at all.

And once more I returned home, where I consumed the jacket potato that was in the microwave, just in time for Tasha to return demanding to know what had happened to her dinner. Oops. See you tomorrow.


*Gavin - look you're on t'internet - I promised I'd write about you, even if it is just to stop you whining on about it.
** Names have not been changed to protect privacy. I couldn't be bothered, and they like the attention.
*** Name of group menbers have been changed - don't have much choice about group members. Cool substitute name though!

This is my week - Monday

The day dawned some time after me. Along with a group of about 8 others I've taken up running. Apparently we're aiming to do a 10K run at Easter, which means being at college at 6.30am 3 mornings a week, so that's a 5.40am alarm call, get dressed, get on the bike, cycle 2.5miles to Ridley, and then do the running bit for about 25 minutes. It's actually more speed walking than running now, but I'm sure we'll up the walk:run ratio soon. A swift shower and breakfast at college follows, and all too soon it's time for the working day to begin

On a Monday our Morning Prayer is based in our staircase group, and is 30 minutes of prayer and worship, followed by "Fellowship Hour". Today Jane and Ian shared their testimonies (with some surprising similarities - don't they know about the recent plagarism in Cambridge story?), following which our leader Fred asked us all to submit searching questions which would be asked of each other. Most understood the request and submitted questions such as "what was your most memorable holiday?" or "who do you want to win the American election?". Unfortunately the aforementioned Ian thought it was Question of Sport and submitted classics such as "who scored the winning goal in the 1978 FA Cup Final?". Unfortunately no Lewis Hamilton questions were permitted.

By 10am we were a mile down the road at our Greek class, being amused by our unconventional care worker/performance artist/linguistics teacher Mark, and being led through indefinite articles, prepositions and vocabulary.

In a slight break with tradition our regular double lecture on 'Reading the New Testament' was replaced with an essay workshop. This was the bit many of us haven't been looking forward to - I haven't written an essay since 1985 in my English Literature exam - a grown-up academic essay is quite another beast from anything we did for GCEs. Anyway, just so you know, I've got the next 7 weeks to write 3000 words on 'The Christology of one of the canonical gospels'. After being reassured that as long as we do four basics it's pretty difficult to fail (hand it in, answer the question, don't copy, include a bibliography) I emerged a little less worried about the task.

Back to Ridley at 1pm for a lunch of spaghetti bolognese (some of which I have brought home on my shirt) and a banoffee pie that doesn't go too well with the running regime.

Breath in, breath out. Count to 10, and then onto the next thing, one of an occasional series of book sales - I picked up a few bargains, before moving onto the Lecture Hall at 2pm for double Church History.

I have to confess at this point that although I find Church History quite interesting, and I wanted to learn about the development of Monasticism, Asceticism and the Council of Chalcedon, my eyelids had other intentions at this point. My notes are, ahem, sketchy, at certain points in the lecture.

That takes us up to 4pm, and the end of formalities. After dithering in my study for a while, I find myself being fairly ineffective after such a busy day, so I go home, cycling through the drizzle. A few minutes for a cup of tea and a jam sandwich, and it's time to take Isaac to Cubs.

Later this evening I am honoured to be invited to a meal out with the spouses group - it's one of those rare occasions when the ordinands are welcome on a Monday evening, so there's a small group meeting at an Italian restaurant, proffering Cambridge University cards to attempt to get a mild discount.

After that I intend to collapse into bed, and look forward to Tuesday, a slightly less intense day.

This is my week - Sunday

I've decided that my weekly routine is now well enough established that I can share it with you without sounding too out-of-breath. So for this week I'm going to try to write something every day so you can get a flavour of what I get up to. Probably an over ambitious plan, as I'm going away on Friday, but let's give it a go anyway!

Sunday has already become a working day for me. Church is not really optional in this game! I am attached to St George's Chesterton, along with 3 other ordinands. During term-time I am expected to attend each Sunday, and to take part in one mid-week activity. As yet, the mid-week bit is not agreed, but the Sunday bit is!

Today I arrived a few minutes early for the 10am Parish Communion service and along with Hannah - another ordinand - was pressed into service immediately as an acolyte. I'm starting to expect to be surprised - this is a small church, and there are plenty of opportunities to play substitute in some role or other. I've already been trained asan acolyte - I get to carry a candle solemnly and processionally and preferably in-sync with my partner. Hannah on the other hand was coming into the role completely fresh, so was having to follow my moves - with my extensive 'follow-me-I've-done-this-once-before' experience. Along with the crucifer (that's a carved cross on a long pole) we lead the choir and clergy down the aisle and up to the communion table. A bit later we accompany the Gospel down the aisle from where it is read, and we also are involved in the process for getting the bread and wine onto and off of the table. Along the way there are turns, bows and pauses - it's a bit like the Red Arrows but at a much slower pace. There were a few confused glances across the width of the church between us two, but I think we did alright.

The position carries some privileges - We get a ringside seat to observe the process of preparing and distributing communion. We also get to wear a cassock (black robe that covers everything) and a surplice (white angel wing type thing covering the shoulders). It also means that people quite quickly identify us as theological students, which leads to some interesting conversations over coffee.

Afterwards, we learnt how to properly cleanse the communion cup and plate - much easier to remember than the earlier choreography.

I return home to find it empty - the family are worshipping at a different church, much closer in style to St Mary's Ferndown, so there's a few minutes to practice my Greek verbs.

A lazy family afternoon ensues - before I have to make a crucial decision - go to 6.30 Choral Evensong (which is optional, but I've never been to one before, and there will be others) or watch Lewis Hamilton's attempt on the Formula 1 title? Mmmm, hard one!

Unsuitable content

I'm still undecided on Windows Vista - it's a bit painful getting to know how to do those things that were intuitive in XP land.

One of the features that causes gnashing of teeth in our household is 'Family Safety' - a system that allows us to limit the websites that can be accessed from our computer. If the software decides that a website may be unsuitable it asks you if you are sure about it before allowing you to see it.

So today I tried to visit a website selling clerical shirts - I don't need any yet, but I thought it would be useful to know how much I'm going to have to spend on shirts next year.

However, Vista's opinion of a site that sells clergy shirts is that it "might contain content that your family may not approve of". I suppose the closest it might get to unsuitable content is a picture of a lady vicar with an unbuttoned collar....

"Take a short holiday Baldrick"

There's a famous scene from Blackadder where Baldrick has been rewarded for his efforts with a break from his toil:

Blackadder: "As a reward, Baldrick, take a short holiday... Did you enjoy it? Right; on your way."
That was a bit like my half term - which started at 8.15 and ended at 9.45 this morning. Cambridge terms are so short that there isn't really a chance for a breather in the middle. And there was me thinking that I'd get a 'reading week'. Not a chance. Should have gone to Bristol apparently.....

Oh well, Christmas soon - with visits to Ferndown, Boston and elsewhere. Roll on Easter. No, there's a mission trip to fit in there. Summer maybe? If I can squeeze anything in alongside a 4 week placement and other career enhancing opportunities.

The downside with this 2 year course is that the holidays aren't really holidays so much as space to fit in the non-timetabled requirements of my course.

I'm just going to check the Gospels to see if there's any evidence of Jesus having a mini-break. I think I know what the answer is going to be.

"I have called you by name, you are mine"

Mark Autherson, a second year ordinand here at Ridley, died yesterday as a result of complications following remission from leukaemia and a successful bone marrow transplant.

Although Mark had not actually spent much time studying due to the impact of his illness, he was well loved by those who knew him. He sounds like quite a character. Someone told me that he made me look sensible.

Each weekday the college gathers for about 30 minutes at 8.15am for Morning Prayer and it was my turn to lead yesterday's service. Shortly before I was due to start I learnt the sad news of Mark's death. The Principal announced the news to everybody, and as I sat at the front of the chapel facing forwards I could see a community looking back at me, waiting for me to lead them in prayer.

Little did I know that when I planned the service and chose an infrequently used prayer the words would be so appropriate on the day that it was used:
"Fear Not, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name; you are mine
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned"(from Isaiah 43)

I feel so privileged to have had the role I had in that service.


It is very quiet at Ridley. It's normally quite quiet, but it's now like when the office air conditioning goes off and you realise how quiet the real quiet that hides underneath the aircon is.

Please pray for the students, the staff, the spouses and families as we grapple with what has just happened, but especially please pray for Mark's wife Sally and their three young children.

Ridley is wounded and limping a little, but Mark is with Jesus now.

4 loaves and no fishes

It's only just struck me what I did earlier.

I was sent out on a mercy mission a few minutes before dinner tonight, to find some crusty bread to go with our meal. I dashed to Sainsburys (other supermarkets are available) and quickly found a student special, 4 small crusty loaves at 18p each. Bargain!

As I approached the checkout I found myself contemplating the adjacent customer. My eyes rose from looking at his conveyor belt full of food, and met his. And he was the Vice Principal of Ridley Hall. I just held up my four loaves and said "this is my weekly shopping".

It was only a couple of hours later, back at home, that I realised that a famous Galilean did this trick a couple of thousand years ago....

Techie is back, techie is good!

Those reading this blog from St Mary's Ferndown will know that I only seemed to be happy with wires in my hands, a situation which has been alien to me for the past two or three months, as I had a short period of role-refugeeism.

I'm happy to report that the position has now been restored to normality - I'm now part of the highly trained Ridley Hall audio-visual team, and the training was put to the test twice on Thursday.

Morning Prayer was being led by my study-buddy Phil, and included some projected words and images. I Can Do Visual. Easy. Except when it's the first time you've tried to project from your new laptop and it's Windows Vista and you're not entirely familiar with the projector. So we had a full chapel and 30 seconds to go before the system was up and running with no chance for a dry run. Lots of arrow prayers during that service. "Please God, let it be this key that I press to get the next slide and please let there be some words on the next slide. I'll do anything for you, just let it be the right slide next, please, please, please". And it worked.

College Communion was a different challenge - this being the weekly service where the whole college community comes together. I Didn't Really Do Audio Until Yesterday When I Had A Crash Course! The rota'd guy was unavoidably detained elsewhere, so between me and another novice we had to balance the sound mix for the music group, and not deafen or otherwise distract 100-odd people from the solemnity of the service. Now I know what most of the buttons on a sound desk do, in isolation, but there's always been somebody else to do the difficult bit of mixing it all together to make it all sound crisp. Not on this occasion. It took me forever to work out that I hadn't switched the amplifier on! Things went uphill from there, until we had a major power failure 5 minutes before the service started. We were a picture of controlled but radiant panic for a few minutes, but the problem was solved, and everything went to plan. It even sounded good! And it was also, for me, the best service I've experienced yet at Ridley - excellent music, good teaching, an outstanding testimony, and only one cricket joke that fell flat.

Audio-Visual is all about seeing and hearing. I like the visual stuff, because I can usually see why something isn't working. That's why I do computers and lighting, and haven't really done sound before this week - when you can't hear sound coming through it's a lot harder to find where it's gone. In John 20, where Thomas' refuses to believe that Jesus was indeed risen from the dead he is finally convinced only when he can touch Jesus for real. Jesus response is "Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me".

So what is your response when you are faced with a God you can neither see nor hear?

Please pray for Mark Autherson

I've added a new link to my list of recommended blogs - http://pleasepray4markautherson.blogspot.com

Mark Autherson is a fellow ordinand here at Ridley Hall, except I haven't had chance to meet him yet, as he's seriously ill in hospital suffering from complications following a bone marrow transplant he received in June. Both staff and students here are covering Mark and his wife and young family in prayer and I bring it to your attention here so that you can pray for them too.

His Spirit is with us!

We have just been challenged in a foundation lecture. Good Anglicans amongst you will be familiar with the statement and response that follows:

Leader: "The Lord is here"
The People: "His Spirit is with us"

But what happens in your church when that second line comes along Sunday by Sunday? Do you shout it out, as if you mean it, or is it mumbled, as if you're rather embarrassed about it all? Does the rousing shout of the congregation cause the roof timbers to shift, or are the bats able to carry on sleeping undisturbed? Is it in bold, 40 point font? Do You Mean It? Or is it in pale grey ink, 8 point?

Even here at Ridley (where chapel worship is rousing and sometimes thunderous, and responses are usually quite loud) we sheepishly whispered our response on this occasion, and embarrassed ourselves. It doesn't matter that we weren't mid-service and therefore not expecting a bit of standard liturgy to be thrown at us - we weren't convicting. We won't be able to write 'be convicting here' in the margins of our sermon notes.

Leader: "Lift up your hearts"
The People: "We lift them to the Lord, but we'd rather he didn't know about it"


(with thanks to Paul Weston, whose thunder it is that I am stealing)

Tired boy

I'm not sure what happened to the last 7 days - it's that long since I last posted anything, although I thought it was about 3.

Since then I've done loads! There's been more forms to fill out, chapel, opportunities to take advantage of, chapel, 2 library briefings, chapel, chapel briefings, chapel, placement briefings, chapel, foundation lectures, chapel, a pastoral/academic interview, chapel, a puddings evening, and church. Oh, and Thursday evening chapel, and Greek twice as frequently as chapel!! My feet seem to have hardly touched the ground (apart from the day when my bike brakes were fading fast and my feet had to touch the ground....). We, the first years, have had a pretty packed programme, with barely a space to make a quick cuppa before we were due to be elsewhere, to the extent that when we did actually legitimately have 35 minutes free this morning we felt sure that we should be somewhere else being talked at.

It should all start to ease off in a couple of days when the lecture timetable kicks in, as the general pattern of my day becomes lectures in the morning and study in the afternoon. I'm going to try to keep my academic work at college as much as possible, as I lose 3 hours doing tea-and-childrens-bedtime, and 9pm isn't a good time to be doing difficult thinking type stuff. Watch this space to find out if I achieve that. There's a danger of getting involved with too many things and filling your time up beyond your capacity to cope. I've only got 2 years here and there is a lot to squeeze in, not only in terms of formal timetabled stuff, but also missions, placements and family time. On paper I have a lot of holiday in those 2 years, in practice we're already starting to think about plans for next summer, so that we do actually manage to get some family time together.

Related to that we had a foundation lecture on so called 'Life and Service' today - this is the 'Vicar School' part of Ridley, as opposed to the theological side. During this it was pointed out that a college full of ordinands is by definition full of people who have been selected for their leadership potential, and therefore there are an awful lot of Chiefs and very few Indians. Two possible results of this are huge conflicts, or total withdrawal from community life. We have to aim somewhere between the two - get involved, but don't try to run everything. I'm trying to get that balance right. How much do I get involved in, and how much is too much? Yesterday saw my first 7pm return home for a very long time, and that wasn't a good start for my college-family balance.

It was Isaac's birthday today - it was good to be able to share my concerns over his settling-down with my staircase friends yesterday and to have them pray for him and us, and so nice today that everybody wanted to know how his birthday was actually going. He's happy - he's got a new bike, and a party planned for the weekend.

Talking of birthdays, we've got an amazing coincidence on my staircase. We're a group of 13, and 2 share a birthday on Jan 29th, and 2 on May 3rd. I'm one of the latter, and next year myself and Christina will be 21 and 40 years old on the same day. Lots of tea will be drunk on that day I'm sure. Maybe even a packet of chocolate Hob-Nobs will be opened in celebration.

From the ordinand's study

My study, which I share with Phil, is high above almost anything else in Ridley Hall, except the roof. In fact it's so High up here that we have to pause on the landing before the final ascent to don ornate robes and set the incense burning. We get extra marks for chanting....

From the base camp underneath the main entrance arch we go through a door, past something called a vacuum cleaner, up some stairs, past the young and not so young people in hoodies and baseball caps (the Centre for Youth Ministry), up another flight of stairs, then push on to the top via another long flight of stairs. A total of 55 stairs. I'll get fit doing that several times a day.

This is called 'A' Staircase. I'm pretty certain it's THE staircase to end all staircases.

But it's worth the effort. I'm told this is the best view in the college, and from my seat I can see (left to right) the lawn, the E and F 'staircases' and the chapel. The lawn is sacred - not sure how we're going to keep Isaac off that until we're allowed on it in the summer term.

Stu-dent!!!!

It's all go today! Pens and paper poised, I've taken on far too much information and forgotten much of it already. I've just about understood how to book my daily lunch via a complex system of coloured index cards and paper clips. I have advised a fellow novice on where to buy a bike, cycled the wrong way up one way streets and have endured/enjoyed an hour of Greek, during which we did not recite the Greek Alphabet once.

So repeat after me - Alpha, Beta, Gamma.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking at rather expensive jackets in a shop. I was reminded in no uncertain terms that those jackets wouldn't go with anything I owned and Why Do You Think You Need A Jacket Anyway You Aren't A Jacket Sort Of Person. So I let it lie quietly for a couple of weeks. Before I know it, Suitable Jackets are being procured on A Well Known Internet Auction Site, and the vicarofdidley now has a choice of two jackets, both of which are very Cambridgey and one of which debuted at Greek this afternoon. I feel like a real student now, cycling along with one button done up.

And finally, an absence of promotion for a product which won't be receiving publicity on this blog. I received a spam e-mail asking me to promote a product for - (cough) - male enhancement. The deal offered was that if I wrote a favourable review on the Vicar of Didley's blog I would receive a free trial of the product. My moral dilemma lasted for approximately one micro-second. Funds aren't that tight yet.....

21 years and 1 day on

It's 21 years and a day since I first started college at Brighton, and now I'm back, albeit in Cambridge. Last time I'd just finished my A-levels and changed tack from Pharmacy to Electronics on the basis of my results. This time I have been intending to do the course for 4 or 5 years, rather than 4 or 5 weeks.

And finally it's all about to happen. I've collected my keys to the college today, found out what a High Tea is, lost a parachute game, and met more than a few people.

I've already got a feeling for what the first day in a new parish must be like - I can only remember about 10% of the people by the time I get home!

I know that the next few weeks are going to be a blur. My timetable for the next couple of weeks includes a lot of foundation courses, and it looks like there will be a few decisions to be made about exactly which modules I want to study. Last time I just followed the timetable and was meant to turn up to everything. This time the advice is "Don't try to do everything".

Tasha and I have spent the last 18 weeks in close proximity since I left work at the end of May, and it will be nice for both of us to have something else to do with our time, although the calendar for this week already seems so full that I'm not sure if we'll actually see much of each other at all - by the time we are both back home together after college/childrens activities/SpiceGirls/somethingelse we could be lucky to get any sense out of each other. Especially as I'll be thinking in Greek.....

Are we nearly there yet?

It's Thursday today, Friday is 'our' last quiet day of normality together before life is never quite the same again, my sister is visiting on Saturday, and college starts on Sunday.

That's a bit of an odd day to start term, until I remind you that this is a Theological College, then it starts to make a bit of sense. One major difference between theological colleges and regular colleges is that they are a community in the real sense of the word - families have a part to play as well as me. Sunday kicks off with an informal meeting of students and families (a bouncy castle on the college quadrangle - whatever next?), followed by 'High Tea' and a short All-Age Worship, which means there will be a few people trying to make a good impression whilst trying to work out the rules for how long you let your toddler explore the chapel before rugby tackling him.

So Sunday is fairly laid back. But then it really gets busy. I received the calendar for the Michaelmas Term today (that's not churchy language, it's Cambridge speak for 'Autumn') and needed to read it through about three times before I'd worked out what events I am required to take part in (as opposed to those I would like to take part in, or those that Tasha won't let me out for). After that I went through it with an orange highlighter pen to make it perfectly clear, and concluded that it would have been easier to mark those things I'm not doing! Either that or start off with an orange piece of paper.
And that doesn't include lectures. The timetable is yet to come.

The important thing is that I take a calendar and diary along on Monday (no pen?), and try to keep up with everything that will be thrown at me. As long as I turn up to everything IN CAPITAL LETTERS I'll be fine. That's only 11 things in the first week, along with 2 Greek sessions per day. The returning students tell me it'll be Christmas before my feet touch the ground again....

Cows, Optional Traffic Lights and Buses

You might be surprised to hear that I haven't started college yet. I'd dearly love to, but term doesn't start until Sunday (28th Sept). And apparently when it starts it's intense. So in another week's time I might be moaning that instead of being underloaded I'm distinctly overloaded.

I'm on target to finish my reading list. Just the last half of John's Gospel (reading it through in one sitting didn't quite work out today), one chapter of 'How to read the Bible' and 2 chapters of Greek left. Tasha starts her digital photography course tomorrow, so I'll probably manage all that in the morning.

We met yet more students yesterday, at the SpiceGirls pre-term 'barbecue' which was at Ridley Hall. Isaac disappeared into a clump of trees and spent a couple of hours rebuilding a tree-house, whilst we got on with meeting people, or re-meeting them! I met my 'staircase steward' and got acquainted with my study. I should explain that every student has a study (shared with somebody else, for whom it may also be a home/bedroom) and these studies are on staircases. The staircases are used as a convenient way to lump us together for prayer and study groups. There are 8 staircases, A through to H, and I'm part of staircase C. Which explains why my room is on staircase A!

And what a room it is! Ridley Hall has so many students this year that they're really pushed for accommodation, so they're having to use rooms that they don't usually use. Staircase A doesn't actually have any bedrooms on it, but the Lecture Hall, Library, Centre for Youth Ministry, and a couple of tutor's rooms. My study is up several flights of stairs, past the North Pole and a bit higher. It's worth it for the view though, and being near the Library I'm not likely to have too much noise from the neighbours. And in a cupboard there's another flight of stairs which appears to go out onto the roof, but that way is padlocked, and I'm not going to risk being kicked out by breaking that!

I don't officially have access until next weekend, and maybe by then there will be a desk and chair in there!

It seemed to take forever to get across Cambridge from our house by bike - even when trying to take the 'quiet' route there's a couple of major roads to cross, which was a bit of a nightmare trying to navigate a route for the first time with an 8 year old trying to go in random directions. So I still had no idea how long it would take me to get to college, which is why I had a little reconnaissance mission this evening.

Quiet route there - 18 minutes. On the way I ambled left and right through the back streets of southern Cambridge, cycled through a herd of cows (yes, this is in a city!), crossed a few streams, could have picked a few pots of brambles (as indeed people were doing yesterday in the middle of a cycle lane!!). Nice, but a bit slow, and I have to keep weaving around pedestrians where we share paths.

Direct route back - 12 minutes. Via the Cambridge Ring Road (which is somewhat less than it sounds!). This way I discovered that diesel still smells, traffic lights appear to be optional for many cyclists, and that I can travel faster than a double decker bus. Horrible, but very useful if I'm running late!

So, nearly there. Things start on Sunday, with a High Tea followed by a short service. Then Monday it's paper and pens time.

Cyclical

Sometimes these entries will have a reflective spiritual air to them, sometimes they won't - I don't want every entry to be like a sermon else I won't have anything left for real sermons. Today's entry is most definitely not spiritual - I'm going to talk about bikes, and possibly have a bit of a rant by the time I get to the end.

I spent quite a lot of time yesterday looking up cycle routes - I didn't actually go anywhere near my bike, but was stuck firmly to the laptop, on www.camcycle.org.uk, the website of the Cambridge Cycling Campaign. I was interested in finding out the best way to get to college without getting squished, and I spent hours on there finding the best combination of fastest/slowest/shortest. It's easily the best website I've found for giving directions - all the car orientated ones (TheAA, multimap, streetmap etc) have a tendency to express their directions in ways that a driver wouldn't (have you ever told somebody to drive 47 yards, blend straight left ahead and turn into the A14?). This one is straightforward and I can mail in suggestions for improvements where I don't agree with it! However, it's no use to you if you're not a cyclist in Cambridge.

What does amaze me is just how many people in Cambridge do cycle, and how good the provision is for cyclists. The people who run that website would like it to be even better, and they do a good job of pointing out where councils/builders/developers could be a bit more thoughtful (e.g. painting a cycle lane that's actually narrower than a set of handlebars!).

I'm already using the bike as my primary option, and I haven't put any diesel in the car for over 3 weeks. At this rate it's going to be about 2 months between tanking up. OK, so Cambridge is flat, but Ferndown (where we came from) is pretty flat too. The fact that your town has one or two slight rises is no excuse for not cycling.

One area where it's particularly noticeable - schools. At our primary school most parents seem to walk or cycle with their children - there are few cars outside the school gates (and little parking for them anyway!). I haven't seen a Pointless Chelsea Tractor at a school since we left The Beautiful South. At the secondary school I haven't seen a parental car at all! All seem to walk, bike or bus in.

Oh, and Cambridge thinks it's congested. Let me tell you that if I took a wrong turn in Ferndown between 8 and 9am it could take me 15 minutes to get through a set of traffic lights. Mostly because dear little Johnny was being ferried to school half a mile from his house when he could walk it in less time. In Cambridge they think its congested if they have to wait more for more than two changes of the lights, and they're threatening a congestion charge. Of course I'm sure that this would then fund future improvements to cycle routes.....

So my message to you, dear readers, is "don't be so flipping lazy". Walk or bike if you can.

Meet the teacher

Poor Isaac. We met with Ridley students last night, and two of my lecturers were there too. It took him a while to work it out, but eventually he asked "are you Daddy's teacher then?". Isaac couldn't cope with the fact that Daddy was not only spending social time with his teachers, but actually getting on quite well and laughing and joking with them at the same time. Apparently you are not meant to like your teachers and are to run home as swiftly as possible at the end of school to minimise the contact time. I'll make a note of that.

In another conversation I put my foot in it - spent a good 20 minutes talking to somebody before asking him if the bank work he had just mentioned was a summer job and how he managed to mix it with his college commitments. At which point his wife stepped in, pointing out that she was the ordinand, not he. Suddenly much of the preceding 20 minutes made sense. Must remember that I have to adjust back to a world where ladies are the norm rather than the exception.....and then help them in their campaign to get clerical shirts that aren't just men's shirts in pink and yellow!

Back to school – part 1

(written offline, Wednesday 3rd Sept)

Tuesday 2nd September dawned miserable and rainy. Not quite as perfect a start to the new school year as you would hope, given that nobody in this house is going to school in the car these days.

Isaac’s school is a five minute walk just around the corner - not even worth getting in the car for - when it rains the closest you can park to the school is our house!

Beth will be cycling – except for the first few days I’ll be going with her until she’s confident that she knows the way there and back. I of course have to pedal a strategic distance away from her, and hang back an unembarassing few yards from the school gate at the end of the day.

By 9.15 on that first day there were two parents back at home wondering what to do next. You see, I left work 14 weeks ago, and since then I’ve either been busy fixing and decorating a house or getting ready to move out of it or unloading it this end, and Tasha has been working and doing similar preparatory work. Now that we’ve got all that done there’s a slight “what do we do now” atmosphere until I start college.

We drank a bit of tea, and Tasha wore one of those horrible ‘I hope my babies are alright at school’ expressions for the following 6 hours.

So I made a proper start on my reading list. The boundaries of it are a bit fuzzy – i.e. ‘make sure you are familiar with the broad outline of the whole Bible, and the main contents of the New Testament’. But the specifics are that I have to:
· Read a 900 page novelisation of the Bible (‘The Book of God’ by Walter Wangerin – a brilliant way of effectively skim reading the whole thing). I've been attacking this at 30 pages a day for the last fortnight and I'm halfway through already.
· Read “How to read the Bible for all its worth” – another book teaching me to do what it says on the can. However, having made a start on this it’s not just a case of reading 13 chapters and filing the book away. For the first time in my life I’m actually looking up all the references and making notes as I go along, so it’s a slow old process. Especially when one of those references is the whole book of 1 Corinthians, 15 chapters itself. That put me behind a little on my planned progress for the first session...
· Read each gospel in a single sitting. I hope that means 4 sittings!
· Make my way through six chapters of ‘Learn New Testament Greek’. Even with the accompanying CD this is a tricky matter. I’m a scientist, not a linguist and I really could do with more than a disembodied voice to help me through those early chapters. I’m hoping that the promised pre-term starter course materialises. The only slight advantage I might have is that electronics and maths uses most of the Greek alphabet in equations. I’ve never put them together in words and sentences though peeps.

So having planned all that out on a piece of paper, I now have a feeling that it might just be possible to wade my way through all that in the next 26 days before college starts (notice that I’m counting in days not weeks or months now!). I’m not sure how those people who will be working right until a few days before starting college will find time to do this.

At the end of the school day both new students returned home, and both had had a good day. In a surprising turn of events Beth had made 5 friends and Isaac none yet (although he had talked to a lot of people in class he hadn’t found anybody to play with at break times). We were expecting it to be the other way round. By the following day he had made two friends - Matthew and Raven (yes, that's his real name!) and had been to Sainsburys to buy a class cactus which is called Johnny Depp.

And in other news, the shed doors arrived several days after the shed and our broadband modem appeared today (but isn't yet activated).

Meet the Spice Girls

(written offline, Thursday 28th Aug)

I met the Spice Girls today. OK, so it wasn’t those Spice Girls. It was Becca Spice and Jane Spice and I now seem to be married to Tasha Spice.

The spouses group from Ridley Hall is called ‘SPICE’, and we went along to a family morning out at the Milton Maize Maze just north of Cambridge (highly recommended especially if you have young children). There I met a current student. To spare his blushes I shall only refer to him as Mr C. Mr C, who has just finished his first year and is about to start his second and final year. We had a good chat about the course content, the necessity and usefulness of the Greek lessons, and workload in general. At one point he stopped me and asked whether I was doing the Diploma or the Degree course. I should explain that if you are over 30, you are only sponsored by the church for 2 years. Also if you already have a degree you don’t need to get another one. Mr C, like me, seems to fall into both of these categories. However, unlike me, Mr C didn’t read the college literature and application forms properly and upon arrival found himself doing the accelerated degree in those 2 years. I’m working on the basis that one degree is enough, even if it is in Electronics Engineering. If I really enjoy the academic side I can always do more study at a later date and turn it into a degree. Won’t make a jot of difference to the colour of my dog collar or my salary though, and this way I might just get a bit of free time to do some punting in Cambridge.

p.s. Isaac overheard us talking about the Spice Girls and now wants to know when he's going to meet them. I think we have our wires crossed.

Just popping out for a quick spin dear...

(written offline, Saturday 22nd Aug)

I was closer to those of you in Ferndown than you realise yesterday. As in I was back. Already. And it wasn’t because of a passport problem at the Cambridge border post.

We moved in on Thursday 14th, and by Monday 18th we had got to that point where the pile of boxes-to-be-unpacked was smaller than the pile of dirty washing – which was basically 7 days worth of clothes for a family of four. Something would have to be done. So we popped the first load into the washing machine. This is the washing machine that was already in the Cambridge house. The one left behind by the landlord and subsequently used by all tenants since. I knew things weren’t going to be good when a shriek up the stairs informed me that whilst the machine was filling up with water and it was making the right sort of noises, it certainly wasn’t going round and round like a good washing machine should. And it wasn’t draining at all. To cut quite a long story short I spent much of that day investigating, cleaning solidly clogged-and-limescaled filters and U-bends, restoring rubber belts to the right location, and getting quite frustrated. Not the landlord’s problem you see, as the property is officially ‘unfurnished’. If anything goes wrong with non-structural things the landlord has no obligation to fix them (that will also work in my favour as a landlord!). And his line was ‘you can fix it or dump it’. So by Monday night everybody was happy. I’d fixed the machine, Tasha’s washing was going round, and the spin cycle sounded like we had a jet engine in the kitchen.

The peace lasted until Friday - 4 loads later. We could see limescale and various other deposits appearing on our load of white bedding as it went merrily round. Then it stopped going round. Then it started smoking. Then Tasha started shouting and I quite quickly switched it off. I suppose if it had actually caught fire it could have put itself out, but I didn’t want to find out.
At this point we’d had enough. It was going to the tip. But what were our options for a new machine. £200 for a new one, but when? Or half a tank of diesel (which is not yet £200) and a guaranteed replacement later the same day? I took the former option, and jumped in the car to Ferndown, to collect the machine which we had left there!

After one service station lunch, two cans of Red Bull, the M25 on August Bank Holiday Friday, a spiritual conversation and a plate of Bolognese with a former neighbour*, I was back in Cambridge nine hours after setting out.

And the load of white bedding? Had been safely rinsed and had dried in the sunshine, and was back on the bed ready for the tired driver upon his return.

What lengths do you go to to keep peace in your house? And what lengths did Jesus go to to keep peace in his world?

*'Dogs Without Collars' – if you want to know why you’ve been banned from Canford School I have the answer!

P.S. I wrote this a few days ago but only just posted it. In the meantime I’ve discovered that the lawnmower (left on a similar basis to the washing machine) is unsafe to use. Guess what? There’s a perfectly good one in a shed in Ferndown.

Back online....

I've been seemingly silent since August 20th. This is not due to a lack of wanting to write, but we've been waiting for our broadband to be installed. That fiinally happened today.

Internet cafes are OK, but you have to pay nearly the same per hour as I'll be paying Virgin per month. We had lunch at Starbucks the other day before we discovered their WiFi wasn't free, and when I tried the local McDonalds their WiFi was down. However, on the upside I've discovered Starbucks do sell a lovely frappi-mokka-choppa-cinno coffee with a caramel topping - the first time I've ever had a coffee that didn't need any extra sugar in it. And probably the last time I'll be able to afford it for a couple of years.

Incidentally I think I got better technical support from the McDonalds front-of-house staff than I ever got from the IT helpdesk at work.....

So later on today I'll be posting a couple of articles I wrote in the quiet period.

Thanks!

Thank you to all of you who have sent us 'New Home' cards and gifts - we're really touched by your care and support for us from afar.

In my house there are many boxes

Sorry to misquote Jesus in the title, but it’s true – you can check John 14:2 for what he actually said.

The current count is 114 boxes empty and flattened and 7 awaiting unpacking (94.2% complete). The fact that we’ve got so much done only 6 days after arriving here is largely due to Tasha’s parents Colin and Chris coming over for the weekend and helping us out. Yet as fast as we unpack them we seem to buy more! As I’ve mentioned in previous missives the storage space in this house is somewhat less than what we are used to, and especially in the kitchen where the apparent cupboard space to actual usable space ratio is somewhat low. So, after one round of unloading, some things went back into boxes until there was somewhere to store them. This entailed visits to Argos and a Swedish Furniture Emporium, and a whole lot more cardboard.

On the garage front, Martin Howard will testify that a couple of days before we left the Ferndown garage looked a lot emptier than it did six weeks previously. We decided that we would work out what to do with the remainder when we could see the extent of the problem. And the answer is - a new shed. I’ve got quite familiar with the Cambridge Yellow Pages, and my brand new built-to-order 10’x6’ shed with double doors (enough for 4 bikes, camping gear and 10 crates of Christmas decorations) will be arriving next week.

Also, there are nearly three large boxes full of things where a lack of storage space has meant that we’ll be saying goodbye to some more items. Our loss is Freecycle.co.uk’s gain.
The upshot of all this is that one room of the house is almost completely inaccessible as it’s full of flattened or yet-to-be-unpacked boxes. But everything else is looking good.

Things are looking good on the lettings front too – Colin and Chris helped us out on the decorating of 62 Fitzpain Road after it was empty, and it seems a well presented empty house lets a whole lot quicker than a full one. We’ve had 3 offers this week and are now proceeding with one of them.

So once more, and hopefully for the last time, how much stuff did Jesus actually carry round with him? I think a pair of sandals and a robe took considerably less space than the 2500 cubic feet we’ve just carted halfway across the country.

Time to go

There's no turning back now. In less than 9 hours time the removal men will be here. It's too late for me to call them to tell them not to come. So I guess we'll be off then. 2 days of packing and loading, trying to make sure that the rabbits are in the car, not the lorry, and that I don't end up taking a load of paint that is the wrong colour for the new house.

Beth and Isaac are being sent off to friends to keep us sane - they've struggled this last week with me taking things down in their rooms. Despite our promises of shiny new bedrooms it must be disturbing to see 'my space' being disassembled, your favourite posters disappearing, and even your bed being given away!

I'll be offline for a few days now - only partly because 'find a new broadband supplier' never made it onto my 'to do' list. Might be finding an internet cafe in Cambridge to deliver my next update.

See you soon!

So what have you been doing today?

In our last full week in Ferndown there's an interesting blend of panic and resignation to the fact that the removal men arrive in less than 8 days.

Today was a perfect example. Tasha took Isaac out for the day, in one of those 'last time we get a chance to spend time with friends' opportunities. I stayed at home to do some jobs (which are now starting to turn into 'preparing for move' jobs rather than 'rent the house out' jobs), and Beth stayed with me too.

Her objective was to sort out her wardrobe and iron her clothes. By the time Mum returned a few hours later she had managed to sew badges on her Guide camp blanket (my fault for showing her how to) and made a modest start on the wardrobe.

I, when quizzed on what I had done, could list that I had taken down two lights and replaced them with ceiling roses, tried to find the source of an elusive leak in the bathroom (and created a re-tiling job for tomorrow in the process), filled holes in plaster, shredded two large boxes of old paperwork, touched up paint in three random locations, and sorted out the top-up card for Beth's phone.

And that made me wonder what exactly I have done since I left work at the end of May. Without wishing to bore you, but to make me feel better, since I don't feel like I've had a day off in the last 10 weeks here's the headlines:
Week 1/2 - Holiday in Venice (ok, that's several days off, but they're the last ones I can remember!)
Week 3 - got my car MOT'd, had the boiler serviced, stripped the garage door and replaced the lock even after the garage lock bloke said they didn't do locks like that any more, spent 2 days in Cambridge finding a house, had a meal with our home group, sorted out the sheds
Week 4 - painted the garage door (2 coats, both sides), had the drive done (made lots of tea for them!), varnished the back door (2 coats, one side only)
Week 5 - visited the Diocesan Director of Ordinands in Salisbury, had 4 removal companies round to give quotes, hired a tower scaffold, painted the outside of the house ( 1 coat), replaced the TV aerial.
Week 6 - realised we hadn't asked anybody to rent out the house. Appointed 3 different agents to do so. Repaired garage wall where leaking drainpipe had washed away mortar completely from a single skin wall. Replaced leaking drainpipe with completely new guttering system. Asked 3 roofing contractors for a price for roof repairs. Led an afternoon Bible/prayer session
Week 7 - Took a shed down, levelled the patio under it, waited for rain to stop so I could repaint said shed. Took a broken pane of glass out of other shed - rain started. Started to repair leaking waste pipe in kitchen sink only to find I didn't have the right parts. Tried to give blood. Finally got to repaint plural sheds, after several days of forecast rain failed to materialise. Held farewell parties for Isaac, Beth and us. Stopped being a youth-leader.
Week 8 - started this blog. Course, Chessington, Funeral
Week 9 - 3 days in Cambridge/IKEA Edmonton, 2 days trying to remember who I am.
Week 10 - Appointed another lettings agent. Received e-mail from Dicoese reminding me that if I don't submit a budget form I won't get any money on Sept 1st! When have I got time to fill out forms??

I'm so pleased I left work when I did - I haven't got time to go to work - I'm too busy working.

Flatpack life

A few weeks ago I gave a sermon in which I discussed the simple life that Jesus led - free of the burdens of possessions he just wandered around Israel as and when he needed to. I showed a picture of my garage which was packed full of stuff, and then talked about how I needed to get rid of most of it, as I won't have as much storage space in Cambridge. That part of the project has been dealt with - and much of what remains will remain in the loft in Ferndown.

Earlier this week I seemed to spend most of a day in IKEA, as we looked for new bedroom furniture for Beth - in a bizarre twist of irony her new room is in the roof and her loft bed won't fit. We returned to Cambridge with a car full of brown flatpack boxes and a mattress strapped to the roof, several hundred pounds poorer. I only had to stop twice on the way back to resecure the mattress, which was trying to take off.

We then spent the rest of the day armed only with a screwdriver, hammer and allen key putting it all together. Come midnight everything was assembled, and the hallway was a distinct fire hazard, full of cardboard packaging, although by the next morning this was already recycled!

So, simplifying my life by buying more stuff and creating more rubbish......

Thinly Applied

This moving business is hard work! We've spent the last 3 days 'taking possession' of our Cambridge house. Presumably at the end of it all we'll need to be exorcised from it?

The taking possession bit is relatively quick and easy - collect the keys from the agency, go, open the front door, open all the other windows and doors to let the fresh air in, having been closed up for several months. Discover that the patio door just won't open. Check the inventory.

When I was a bit younger and I was renting student houses the inventory was a lot easier - a list of the furniture, cutlery etc, and a stern warning not to break anything. Five minutes to check it through. No longer is it so easy. Our inventory, for an unfurnished house ran to 22 sides of A4. Half a page just to deal with the front door - for example: brass door handle, tarnished, scratched; 5 lever lock with key hole cover, scratched, surrounding woodwork repainted in slightly different shade of paint.

22 pages of mind numbing tediousness that we had to pore our way through. A recurring theme was 'paint thinly applied' - looks OK, but when you examine it close up there's hints of the coat below showing through. But with nearly 40 doors and windows in the house I wouldn't blame the painter for wanting to get the job finished. I wonder how many people's faith is like that - on the surface it's all shiny and glossy, but when you look a bit closer there's underlying stuff showing through that hasn't been dealt with.

And with that it was teatime. We discovered our local chippy.

The countdown to Cambridge starts

It's suddenly all becoming very real. Our move to a new life in Cambridge is now less than three weeks away. This process of becoming a vicar that started about 4 years ago is about to step up a gear into actually starting my training.

I finished work at the end of May (actually, I was offered generous terms by my employer to seek alternative leisure opportunities!), and since then I've been busy getting our house ready to rent out. This week was a bit of a nightmare though.

On Sunday we kind of officially 'left' St Mary's Ferndown. We'd had our leaving party, we were prayed for, we received our leaving gifts, but we'll still be turning up for the next 3 Sundays until we move.

Part of my severance package included training, so I took a course in Advanced Microsoft Word. This meant Monday and Tuesday in Manchester, which just happened to be the same 2 days that were the end of the school year - and the last days at those schools - for both Beth and Isaac, and Tasha's last days at work. So not significant days at all.

Wednesday was a long planned day at Chessington World of Adventures (which is tiny!), and Thursday was my Nana's funeral.

So between 0515 on Monday and 0015 on Friday I reckon I did about 1000 miles, 'led' my first family funeral, read my first eulogy, did my first preach at my family, and consumed 4 cans of Red Bull.

Friday and Saturday by comparison were relatively leisurely - I painted 2 sheds, took Beth to Guide Camp and received impromptu visitors.

17 days and counting until the men with boxes arrive.