RIP Sean

Last week Sean fell, drunk, from the 10th floor of a block of flats. Before being excluded from school he was in Bryony's form. He was 15, in care, and tagged. The local 'High Town Crew' as the bunch of hoodies he was a part of, have been out in force this week. Not, like they usually do, spaying their tag on any available wall for the council to remove later, but on the fence in the park. They have covered it with their own messages to Sean, pinned pictures and writing to it, laid flowers at the foot of the fence where they used to sit getting drunk / stoned most evenings.

Last week at Spring Harvest, the girls from our church, all 15, met boys - as they do at that age! Bryony got friendly with Dan, and his mate who wasn't a christian. The boy got very drunk one night, so Bry took him outside and walked him round and round the chalets helping him to sober up and telling him Jesus loves him.

I wonder if Sean ever heard that, and if he remembered it before he fell. I hope so.

I'm back!!

Well, it's been a long time - over a month in fact, since I last posted anything on my blog. I just kept finding other things to do and running out of time. Been working, got my penultimate block of assignments in on time for my Methodist studies, been to Spring Harvest, Zoe's passed her driving test and got a car of her own, so now I don't have to drive her around, just move her car off the drive every morning so I can go to work.
Sue's been off work all week with a trapped nerve in her neck - a combination of cutting trees in our garden, being jumped on by my godsons (4 year old twins) and uncomfortable Butlin's beds. But she's looking better now so should be back to work next week.
It's great to be out in the garden now the weather has improved, lying on the grass watching the squirrels, birds, butterflies, cats all enjoying the sunshine. Now we've pruned so many of the trees there's loads more sun getting into the garden and the blossom is coming out on the fruit trees. I'm so glad we moved, despite the stress it caused last summer. Still, I should be more chilled at Summer school this year!
Anyway, I've got a bottle of chilled organic cider waiting for me, so I'd best go drink it before it gets warm.

Death and dying

Good weekend at Ditchingham. Finished 2 assignments and watched the lunar eclipse. Despite the theme of 'death & dying' came home feeling peaceful and calm. There was a letter waiting for me to tell me that a friend from when I was younger has just died of Hodgkinsons. She was my age. Haven't seen her since her wedding, but still felt sad about it. Made the weekend's conversations a bit more real somehow.

Queues in Asda

I'm sitting upstairs on the net! No, it's not fixed, I've brought the other one up from the basement. Got fed up of feling like a Larry going downstairs on my ownsome.
Was very surprised to find a queue in Asda this morning. You don't expect to find other sad people there at 3.45 AM. Still, it was good without the screaming kids and bulging trollies.
Started the reading for the weekend today. It's all about death and dying - cheery stuff for a Thursday afternoon. But then you never know when it's going to happen to you or those you know. One of the kids that left us to move up to the juniors in September lost his Mum at the weekend - at the age of 7. And Dad isn't a key figure in his life. So he's living with his Aunty at the moment, and he's not the most able of kids and has limited understanding. And I guess you never know when you're going to have to deal with these sort of situations with the people you meet in day to day life, especially in the ministry.

A lazy weekend?

Just looked at the timetable for this weekend - a residential at Ditchingham - and realised that all the Saturday sessions are on the Old Testament, which I'm not taking! So I'm only doing meal times and coffee breaks from the look of it. But I plan to take my 2 Faith & Worship assignments with me and work on them if the powers that be say it's OK.
Not going to St. Albans for several weeks now, I'm really looking forward to catching up with the rest of my group and see how they've been getting on with Helgar. It'll be good to catch up with my other friends that I only see at weekends away too. I've met some really decent people through this course and hope that I will make some lasting friendships with some of them as we go our separate ways in time.
It's my Church Council tonight, but it's open to anyone for a change, so Sue's going to come - her suggestion, not mine - to see what it's all about. It could put her off church for life! Then we are running a Lent course next Wednesday for 4 weeks which I plan to go to. It would be good if Sue wanted to come to those too. She's coming to Spring Harvest with us and has even been to church a couple of times without me which I'm really pleased about and is making friends with people there too. Mind you it's hard not to at our church - they won't let you!

Izzy

Not sure what date it is today, isn't that bad. I think it's 25th but I know it's Sunday. I'm hoping to see Izzy this afternoon. She is a 6 month old Doberman who I first met when she was only 3 weeks old and totally fell in love with her. I saw her again at 6 weeks and at 8 weeks just before she moved to her new owners. But they are moving house so she's staying with the woman, Sue (another one) who bred her, so they are coming to visit later.
Just got in from church - excellent sermon, going to write the service up for my worship portfolio. So better go and jot down some notes before I forget the details.

Stupid computers

I'm sitting in the basement writing this as the pc upstairs still hasn't got any internet - although we have got rid of a virus that had infected 371 files so maybe that's got something to do with it's inability to connect to the www even though the stats say that everything is running at full strength. But then I know very little about these things so stand no chance of sorting it out. We even spent over an hour on the phone to Sky last night trying to sort it out but to no avail. Tempting to uninstall it and then install it again from scratch but you never know what these things are wrapped up in that might stop working if I try that, so probably best I leave it. Still, it's not too cold in here. And now I have to work on my assignment before going to church Council tonight. Oh, and eat too.