It’s possibly not a wise idea to be talking about this on my blog considering that it’s available to anyone to read, but I don’t think anyone from work reads this blog. If you’re my boss, please discontinue reading this now. Thanks 😉
Right, so, what did I get up to this weekend? Well, on Friday evening after work I headed straight down to St Mark’s College, Audley End. The Chelmsford Diocese were having an ordinands weekend for people who are considering ordination in the Church of England… which includes me. I don’t want to go into the whole background now of why I was at this weekend or what the purpose of it was, but suffice it to say it was an opportunity to meet some other people in my situation and get to know and experience some of the things we would be doing at the Bishop’s Advisory Panel (BAP).
Anyway, I managed to get lost on the way to Audley End! The road I was following (the A130 out of Chelmsford) somehow disappeared after a roundabout, so I was left a bit stumped. I picked the wrong road to follow and ended up in a place called Rayne! Anyway, after hooking up my mobile phone to GPS and Google Maps, it was able to navigate me all the way there without any problems. Yay for GPS! That was the first time I’d really had to use it and it seemed to work pretty well. I had a slightly different experience on the way back but we’ll get to that…
I won’t really go into details about what went on during the weekend but it involved a lot of services (morning prayer, night prayer, the Eucharist a couple of times), sessions on what was contained in a BAP, a group presentation, and some free time. Suffice it to say it was quite a full couple of days and I was glad when the time came to be leaving! – not because I hadn’t enjoyed myself but I was just really tired.
It was a really useful weekend though, and although I can’t really recommend it in a general sense (it’s only really going to be relevant to you if you’re considering training for ordination in the Chelmsford Diocese) – it was definitely worth going on!
Anyway, I mentioned the way back. I set up sat nav on my phone from the off on the way back, and it worked for a few minutes, but then after I got onto the B1054 (or something like that) – and it had said “stay on this road for 14 miles” – it lost the data connection. I have a feeling Vodafone might have been having problems in Essex because apparently someone else has been having issues with getting a 3G signal near Basildon today. But still, it’s annoying to have that kind of thing happen – if I was using a purpose-built GPS that kind of thing wouldn’t happen because all the map data is stored on the unit. You can buy sat nav software for Android which I would consider doing if I used it more often. Anyway, long story short, I got back home without problems, and my data connection seems to be working now (turning the phone off and on again seemed to help…).
Right, that’s pretty much it for now! The only other thing to mention is that today’s Project 365 image was taken at lunchtime today – someone had made a fire, and that’s a picture of the ashes. I think it turned out quite well, I like the colours! It’s a bit random to have a completely unrelated picture on my post about Audley End, but never mind…
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