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Well, not really, but I was on Saturday. For most of the day. The reason was, on Friday night we had the 21 overnighter. Now, I’d love to tell you why it was an overnighter, but the truth is I’m not really sure… we basically spent an hour or so playing games / praying for the ‘JOY’ event that’s happening in a couple of weeks, and then spent a couple of hours playing on the Wii or watching a film (the former for the boys, the latter for the girls) and then we went to sleep. Well, that is to say, some of us went to sleep.

I tried to go to sleep, but I met with limited success. AJ had left the heating on so it was very warm in the barn (it didn’t help that I was in a sleeping bag which was rated down to -9! I guess it will come in useful at the weekend away though – last year I was too cold in the sleeping bag I had), also I was sleeping on an airbed which was not the most comfortable think in the world. So I was pretty tired by the time morning came round!

Still, it was a good night. The kids really seemed to enjoy it anyway, so that was positive.

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping. I bought a couple of new CDs (Seasick Steve’s album, which I’ve wanted to get for a while now, and also ‘Is This It’ by The Strokes which I’ve always seen but never got round to actually buying before. They were on offer in HMV…) I also bought the Black Books box set (three series of comedy brilliance for £12, bargain), and I also bought a new shirt and trousers for work. In the evening we didn’t do much! Anne-Marie came round and stayed for dinner, and we watched some Black Books and Frasier, so it was quite a relaxing evening which I think we needed!

On Sunday we had church in the morning, as per usual – although as per, well, not usual – I was down to lead. Only I didn’t. Unfortunately I only found out about it this week, and due to one thing and another I felt like I couldn’t really lead! So I will have to lead that service some other time. Not really a big issue though. Then, in the evening we went to Sunday@6 and afterwards watched ‘Lark Rise’.

So that’s pretty much our weekend! Not much going on this week, tomorrow evening Anne-Marie and Sarah are coming round and we’re going to watch the last part of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ series 2. Apparently the two final episodes are some of the best TV the BBC put out last year, so I’m quite looking forward to it!

This weekend was pretty much all taken up with the 21 Weekend Away! 21 is the 11-14s youth group at Fordham. On Friday night after work we drove down to Assington Hall (Assington is about half way to Sudbury from Colchester). The evening was mainly spent with setting up camp, then dinner, and then a wide game in a nearby forest.

After that we all came back to camp and went to bed… but not to sleep. Well, not in my case at least. I’m not very used to camping, so I didn’t find it very easy to get to sleep. And then I woke up early in the morning (about 4AM) due to the cold, and couldn’t get back to sleep again. I ended up going for a shower at 5:30AM – much earlier than I’d been hoping for! But I think a lot of other people were up and about, and actually some of us went to the football field and had a game before breakfast (which has got to be some kind of record for me – football before breakfast!)

Afterwards Laura did her talk on Galatians 1, and then we went out for the second part of the wide game in another nearby forest. This involved our team carrying Laura on a stretcher to the minibus… too complicated to explain here, but we really enjoyed it! Afterwards, we came back to the camp and had lunch. Then we all had a “team challenge” set of games, which were really fun. Then, it was my turn to do a teaching session on Galatians. I think it went pretty well, all told, although everyone was pretty tired due to getting no sleep the night before!

Anyway. After that we had some free time before the evening’s entertainment – “Assington’s Got Talent”! Which was great fun, although some of the talent entries were slightly dubious…

We all slept better on Saturday night, I think. I certainly got at least twice the amount of sleep, which I really needed! After breakfast we had our third and final teaching session from AJ, and then we did some archery. I’m useless at archery, I have decided – but I enjoyed trying! Then we had lunch, cleared up and left.

I think that’s pretty much a summary of the weekend away – I’ve probably missed out a few things but they’re the main details! When we got back home we pretty much crashed out. We did go to Sunday@6, though – and afterwards we came back home and got a take-away curry!

Oh, and Top Gear is back for another series. I can’t believe they revealed the identity of “The Stig”… although actually I don’t think he was the real stig. We’ll never know ;)

This weekend was the good kind of busy. On Friday night we went to 21 and I did a talk on Judges 6 (Gideon and the Midianites who say “Ni”). It seemed to go pretty well, despite me inadvertantly calling bits of the Bible boring! I don’t envy whoever has to do the talk on Judges 7 and 8 though – particularly Judges 8, where Gideon seems to drift into apostasy.

Still. On Saturday we went to Colchester Winter Ale Festival, which was put on by Colchester CAMRA. We met up with a few other people including Tom, Dan, Alison, Alex, Elisa, and a couple of people from the uni who I hadn’t met before. It was a great afternoon – we had some good conversations, and it was a really relaxed atmosphere. Phil isn’t really a fan of ale so she tried a few of the ciders (which were very nice), and I had some ales, as well as a cider and a Belgian beer. (Must try and find out where I can buy some Belgian beer locally, by the way – I had a top cherry beer which I can’t quite remember the name of).

Afterwards, we went to the Ashiana curry house. I had a chicken jalfrezi, which was delicious but very hot! And then after that we headed round to Tom’s flat and watched QI followed by Shaun of the Dead. So all in all it was a pretty successful day, must have more like it!

And I’d definitely recommend anyone to try going to an ale festival, it was a really nice atmosphere in there and there were lots of nice beers / ciders / wines to try.

Sunday – I’ve gone on long enough so I’ll just say we went to church in the morning, had our next door neighbour round for tea in the afternoon, and then watched Lark Rise in the evening.

Oh, and this morning it took nearly two hours to get into work. TWO HOURS! For a 45 minute journey. I wish people would drive more carefully on the A12, we’ve had loads of delays due to accidents recently. Still, I’d rather it happened in the morning than in the evening!

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, it’s been a bit busy! This weekend was no exception. On Friday we had the 21 Christmas Party, which went well. Then on Saturday Phil was playing at a wedding at midday, so I met up with Chris I and his friend Eleanor in town for lunch, and then they came back for a cup of tea. Afterwards, Laura came round for a cup of tea, so we did lots of tea drinking that afternoon :-)

In the evening, a work colleague of mine was playing in a band at the Cambridge Arms, so we went up there to hear them. Their set was great, the only bad thing about it was that it was too short!

On Sunday morning, I got confirmed. Yes, that’s right – I’d already been baptised, so I decided to go for the full set. Joking aside, I felt like it was a good thing for me to be doing – particularly thinking about potentially going into ministry in the future. It was a really good service, I think everyone enjoyed it (except for the kids – unfortunately it was quite long!).

After the service we went to the Anchor at Nayland for lunch with my parents and Phil’s parents. The food was delicious (as it always is there, or at least has been when we’ve got in the past!).

Afterwards we headed out to Eight Ash Green for the Lessons & Carols service.

And because it’s Tuesday, I’ll include Monday night… last night we went to the All Saints Club (basically Sunday School at Fordham) Leader’s Meal. Great food and great company, what more can I say?

So, this is just a quick precis of the weekend:

- 21 on Friday night, followed by “The IT Crowd” (again, very good this week)
- Down to Phil’s parents on Saturday, had good time
- Back to Fordham on Sunday morning for the Advent service
- Rest of the day spent not doing very much

There was something I was going to blog about here, but I’ve forgotten what it was. Doh!

Well, last weekend was pretty busy once again! (It must be that time of year again, you know, the time of year that we’re really busy. That’s about three quarters of the year!)

Anyway. On Friday evening we went to 21. I did the talk on “The Church” which seemed to go pretty well. On Saturday, my parents came round for a brief lunch and then I headed down to London with them to see my sister. She had had an operation the day before, for breast cancer, so we went to the hospital to visit her. She seemed to be in pretty good shape considering (and is apparently now vastly improved). We came back late afternoon, and Mum and Dad stayed round for dinner before heading back home.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning, and then came back for lunch. In the afternoon we both headed off to Fordham. I spent the time preparing for the youth service, while Phil went off to hear a beautiful Bach Cantata (I was really annoyed I had to miss it, but there you go). But I think the youth service went really well though – the music was good (despite a few minor confused moments!).

Anyway, that’s about all for now. Someday I hope to write something on this blog which ISN’T about what I did for the weekend, that’d be a revelation, huh? ;-)

We’ve been incredibly busy the past few days, and it’s not set to slacken off for a while. On Friday night we helped out at 21. I was leading and AJ did the talk. It seemed to go pretty well, although I wasn’t sure whether any of the kids were listening in our discussion group. C’est la vie, I think the best you can do with youth work is hope and pray that something goes in despite everything!

On Saturday Phil was out most of the day visiting her sister in Reading, so I did the weekly shop in the morning and then spent most of the afternoon preparing for the Moore Course next week. In the evening, we went out to a home group meal to celebrate our home group leader getting married, so that was rather nice.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then Phil’s parents came round for lunch so that was rather nice. In the evening I went out to a music practice for the youth service at Fordham next week! So that’s our weekend in a nutshell.

I may not be posting up so much over the next couple of weeks though, here are some edited highlights of what’s coming up for me:

• Pub quiz tonight with work colleagues
• Music practice tomorrow night for youth service
• Doing a talk at 21 this Friday on “The Church”
• Going down to London on Saturday to visit my sister (she has an operation on Friday to remove a cancerous growth)
• Youth service on Sunday!
• Confirmation preparation class a week today (I will be getting confirmed on 14th December – more on that some other time!)
• Church re-ordering committee meeting next Tuesday
• Moore Course meeting next Wednesday
• Home group on Thursday evenings

Some of those things are optional and, in fact, I think I may duck out of a few. But I still don’t quite understand how I managed to end up so darned busy? As I’ve said before (in this very post) – “C’est la vie!”

I had a rather nice weekend, although unfortunately Phil was away at a hen weekend (I should point out that Phil being away had nothing to do with me having a nice weekend!)

On Friday night I went to Rollerworld and Quasar with 21. I didn’t actually skate, but I think all the kids did and really enjoyed it. After what happened in May (i.e. breaking my tooth while ice skating) I’m rather wary about doing anything like that, so I was quite glad just to sit it out and watch from the sides! Afterwards we had a round of Quasar, which was quite good fun. Although I am absolutely terrible at it – I would fire off about ten shots at someone without hitting them, and they’d turn round and shoot one at me and hit me!

Aaaaanyway, that was a fun evening. On Saturday we had a guy round from British Gas to service the boiler. Although he did manage to service the boiler OK, it seems like we’re actually going to need to get a new boiler installed in the fairly near future. That’s an expense we could live without, but I guess these things have to be done. It will actually save us a fair bit of money in the long run (our boiler is currently very inefficient) so it will be worth having. Annoying about the timing, but there you go! Such are the perils of owning your own house.

In the afternoon I did a bit of shopping in town, and then in the evening I went to Pizza Express for Sarah’s birthday. There were quite a few people there – I didn’t actually know a lot of them, but there were one or two of Jon’s old work colleagues and Sarah’s friends who I’d met before so that was good.

On Sunday morning I went to church, and then stuck around for the student lunch afterwards. There were quite a few students there in the end – around 35, I think. I helped out with a few bits and pieces like clearing up, but mostly I was just there to eat the food and talk to the students! I hope we have a few come back to the church, they seemed like a nice bunch.

After I got home, I decided to get the decks out as I’d been listening to a few of my old mixes and felt rather nostalgic. They haven’t seen the light of day since we moved house, so I was a little rusty, but I really enjoyed it! Digging through some of my old tunes, great fun. What I need to do now is retrieve the rest of my old records from my parents’ house, quite when that will be I don’t know.

Right, I think I’ve rambled on for long enough now… that’s pretty much it!

We had a quieter weekend this time round! On Friday evening were at ‘21′, where I was doing the talk (on Grace). It seemed to go pretty well, Grace is a very big subject but I hope that the kids understand it a bit better now :-)

On Saturday we did the usual shopping in the morning, and then spent the afternoon in the garden. I mowed the lawn, which hopefully will be the last time we have to mow it this year! In the evening we met up with Anne-Marie and Sarah and went for dinner at Sloppy Joe’s. Although it was very busy we managed to find a table and had a nice dinner, and then afterwards we went to see “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about the film because I didn’t know much about it other than the fact that Simon Pegg was in it. It was very good – reminded me a bit of “The Devil Wears Prada”… but much funnier! There were some absolutely brilliant moments in it, although it has to be said – it wasn’t as sharp as Shaun and Hot Fuzz. In other words, it was more like “Run, Fatboy, Run” than the Simon Pegg / Edgar Wright style films. Still it was a very entertaining watch and definitely worth seeing / buying if you’re a fan of Simon Pegg :-)

Anyway. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went round to Simon and Lara’s for lunch. We were meeting up with a few other people to discuss the student work at Fordham over the next academic year, and it all seemed quite positive. In the evening we went to the service at Eight Ash Green, and then came back and watched “James May’s Big Ideas” on alternative energy.

I’ve been watching the news over the past few months and it does seem that we’re quite close to a breakthrough in alternative energy. I reckon in 10-20 years, 50% or more of our energy will come from renewable sources. We’re certainly closer to a viable renewable energy source than we are to Artificial Intelligence or flying cars!

Aaaaanyway. I think that’s just about it from me!

I’m getting slack with updating this blog! I do apologise… NOT!! Bwahahahaha.

Ahem. Anyway. the weekend, then… on Friday evening we helped out at 21 again. We were leading this week… it went pretty well for me – it was the first time I’ve ever played my guitar for a group of people! I only did one song but I think it went OK.

On Saturday, I picked up Jon B and we went down to The Great Lodge Experience at Great Bardfield for Andy B’s stag do. We had a look round the grounds and the vineyards, and the proprieter (Alan) explained to us the wine making process there. Then we tasted some of the wine, and had a ploughman’s lunch. All in all, it was a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours! The wine was really good – I didn’t buy any bottles afterwards (mainly due to lack of funds…) but will see if I can find some soon.

Afterwards we went back to Southend to see Andy B’s new house (well, bungalow). We went to the pub for a bit, then came back (getting an Indian takeaway on the way), and in the evening played a “Pub Quiz” game. Unfortunately I had to leave fairly early as I was making my way back to Colchester that night, but it was a really good day. I liked all of Andy’s friends (me and Jon being the only people there from Essex Uni apart from Andy) – although the conversation did get incredibly dodgy at times! (Even dodgier than the CU…)

On Sunday we went to Fordham in the morning, where Mike preached a very good sermon about contentment. It did rather make me feel quite guilty — I don’t think I’m very good at being contented! There’s always something that needs doing, or stuff you need to get. Doing up the bathroom, replacing the car, getting a new boiler… sometimes I think we just need to sit back and relax a bit! All of those things are or will be necessary, but we could relax a bit in the meantime.

Aaaaanyway. On Sunday afternoon we didn’t do very much (unfortunately Phil had to work), which was followed by not doing very much on Sunday evening. So now you know!

I’ve been off work today with a cold – I had it over the weekend, but I felt awful this morning. Seems to be going now though so hopefully I’ll be back in at work tomorrow. Right, that’s all from me for now!