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Cooling down – something I’ve felt like I needed to do a fair bit of the past few days! It’s got warm – and not just warm, but muggy. (Well, it was warm at least, before all the rain we’ve had the past couple of days…)

It was half-term last week, so no 21 for us on Friday night! So we had a night off, and watched some Life on Mars (the Blu-Ray versions of which arrived that day).

Then on Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning, and after lunch went down to Colchester Arts Centre for the beer festival. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon – the perfect day to be sitting outside with a nice glass of ale! After a while Alex joined us, and then a bit later on Tom, Cliff, Dan and Alison came down as well. It was nice to see everyone again – apart from Alex we hadn’t really seen many people in a while so we spent some time catching up!

After that we caught the bus down to Wivenhoe to watch Doctor Who with Anne-Marie and Sarah. I must admit, I quite liked the episode: it was a bit different, kind of quirky, but actually quite moving. It bore all the hallmarks of Richard Curtis! – but not in a bad way. An entertaining 45 minutes worth of entertainment, even if it’s not an instant classic.

So. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and afterwards met up with Sarah and Anne-Marie to go to this year’s Oyster Fair in Castle Park. I have no idea why it’s called an Oyster Fair – it’s basically a medieval fair with lots of people selling, um, medieval things. Or at least, you know, bows and arrows, leather products, hog roasts, that sort of thing. It was a good afternoon anyway, we spent a few hours there just wandering around!

After that we went out to Sunday@6, and then came back home and watched some more Life on Mars. All in all, not a bad weekend really!

So, last weekend was the second of the two May bank holiday weekends. It was a pretty good weekend as they go, it felt like we got a fair bit done!

On Friday evening we had 21 as per usual, but then there was no Ashes to Ashes afterwards 🙁 We did spend an hour chatting to Anne-Marie and Sarah over Skype though, mainly about Doctor Who / Ashes, so it softened the blow a little!

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning, and various jobs that needed to be done. Then in the evening we headed round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s to watch Doctor Who. After the rather unpromising start last week, I have to say it didn’t really improve! A few things didn’t really make sense to me, and it just … well, I don’t know, didn’t grab me. Can’t quite put my finger on it but I tend to agree with A-M on this series of Doctor Who: it just hasn’t grabbed me in the same way that previous years have. I think part of the reason is that it’s actually quite difficult these days to do a Doctor Who story which hasn’t been done before. I really like Matt Smith as the Doctor, and I think there are some episodes which have been well written and executed, but in general I don’t really quite look forward to it in the same way I looked forward to Ashes to Ashes. (Quite possibly because the two have been running on parallel and, frankly, I looked forward to watching Ashes far more than DW).

Speaking of Ashes… I’ve ordered the Blu-Ray versions of both series of Life on Mars. Amazingly, it was cheaper to order the two series separately as Blu-Ray discs rather than order the DVD boxset of series 1 and 2! (The Blu-Ray series were also one £1 more expensive than the DVD versions, which I thought was a pretty good deal. Especially when the likes of Star Trek is still ridiculously expensive to buy on Blu-Ray).

On Sunday we had church in the morning, and then went round to my parents for lunch. My sister was there, and we had a good afternoon chatting and catching up. Afterwards we came back for Sunday@6, and then home to watch ‘High Fidelity’. (A good film, by the way, would definitely recommend it to anyone).

Then on Bank Holiday Monday we went round to Phil and Jenny’s briefly to see them and meet the three-week-old Makaila. She was beautiful, although I don’t think she particularly enjoyed being held by me! Then we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s, as it was A-M’s birthday. We had a nice picnic lunch (inside, because of the weather, but we did get our picnic hamper and mat out so it wasn’t a dead loss!)

In the afternoon we wandered down to Wivenhoe May Fair, which was pretty good although we didn’t spend a huge amount of time there. After that we all came back and watched ‘Einstein & Eddington’ (which I really enjoyed), and then just chatted for a while.

So, there you have it! In a nutshell, that’s what we’ve been up to. Tonight, if the weather is good, I think we’re going to meet Alex and a few other people for chips on Wivenhoe quayside. Which should be fun.

At the moment I’m reading a book called “Transforming Grace” by Jerry Bridges. I’m only a couple of chapters in but I’ve already found it really helpful. I’ll write a proper review of it when I finish it, but I just wanted to mention for now one thing which has struck me.

It struck me when reading a tweet by Rick Warren (who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life”): “Much prayer=much power. Little prayer=little power. No prayer=no power.” (Thanks to Simon for re-tweeting, by the way).

The first thing I thought of when I read this was of the dangers of ungrace (as Philip Yancey calls it). Essentially the issue is we stop seeing ourselves in relation to God’s grace, and start seeing ourselves as somehow meriting favour. This can work in two ways. The first is, when we’ve done something wrong we think “God could never anything good for me now, I’m too bad.” The second, and probably more subtle, is “Well, I’ve done lots of good things today! God should listen to me.”

Both are flawed. God deals with us in relation to his grace, not in terms of our merit or demerit. If God dealt with us according to what we deserve, we’d be in a pretty poor state!

So, in terms of what Rick Warren actually said, I think it’s true in the sense that, God wishes us to pray regularly and persistently. We are exhorted several times by Jesus himself to pray, and this is echoed in many of the apostolic letters. That said, we must never think that God will listen to us because we’ve “put our hours in”. God deals with us on the basis of grace, not our merit. A good prayer life should flow from a response to the grace that God has already bestowed on us in Christ Jesus.

Well, it’s over. After watching this series pretty much obsessively for the past couple of months, Ashes to Ashes is finally finished. And what an ending. I’m not going to give anything away on this blog, but suffice it to say I was very happy. Some of “our” (read: Anne-Marie’s) theories were even correct! So that was quite satisfying 🙂 Afterwards we just sat around for an hour or so just discussing it, and a lot of things make sense now.

I will say this, though: it’s good to see a programme on TV which actually portrays things spiritual in a positive light. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of the writers of Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes was a Christian. The battle between good and evil as portrayed in a very real way throughout the series, but it always felt like ‘bad’ was never going to win, even if it was present. It was never overwhelming, in contrast to other stories like ‘Lord of the Rings’. I just thought that was interesting anyway 🙂

Well, onto the actual weekend. Phil was away at her sister’s hen day from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, so I had Saturday on my own. I was able to do a bit of shopping and gardening, as well as sitting around in the garden drinking a beer and reading a book! All in all that was a good day. Then I went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s to watch Doctor Who. Anne-Marie wasn’t actually there (she was also away at a wedding), but Sarah and I had a good time watching DW, Clerks and then a couple of episodes of Flight of the Conchords.

I wasn’t too sure about Doctor Who this week – there were a few things about the episode that didn’t really make sense to me, and I don’t think the dialogue was quite as good as it has been in previous episodes. That said, it did grow on me a bit on second viewing, and I’m quite looking forward to watching the conclusion next week. This may well be the best thing Chris Chibnall has written for Nu-Who so far, although to be fair it didn’t have much competition…

Anyway, on Sunday I went to church in the morning. In the afternoon Phil got back, and then we went to church in the evening and played. Then we came back and watched Doctor Who again.

So there you have it, that’s my weekend! A fairly quiet one but very enjoyable.

This weekend was fairly relaxing, as weekends go, although I think we were both pretty tired: obviously needed a break!

On Friday night we had 21 as per usual. I was doing the talk, on Malachi 1. I think it went down well – I’m beginning to get to the stage where I find I don’t need my notes so much. I hardly used them at all on Friday night. I’m hoping that over time it will get to the point where I can do the same thing with a proper sermon, i.e. I’ll just be able to deliver it naturally without appearing to be reading from notes! Public speaking is harder than it looks, you know… but hopefully I’ll get there with practice!

Anyway, after 21 we came back home and watched “Ashes to Ashes” with Anne-Marie and Sarah. I’m on tenterhooks for the last episode now! Interesting how Anne-Marie’s theory about what happened to Sam seemed to be correct. I can’t wait for next week… I want it to be Friday already!

On Saturday we did some shopping in the morning, and in the afternoon we headed round to the church hall round the corner from us (St James the Less, the Catholic church) and met A-M and Sarah there. There was an event going on in aid of the A-Z Childrens Charity, with music and cake (two of my favourite things). After that we headed over to Wivenhoe to watch Doctor Who. This week’s episode did seem to divide people – I really liked it, in fact all four of us did, but apparently some people disagreed. The next two episodes will be interesting though – a two-parter written by Chris Chibnall. (Chibnall gave us the travesty that is the last episode of Torchwood series one. But he also wrote the first episode of series two, which I recall quite enjoying. So let’s hope it’s an upward trend…)

On Sunday we didn’t go to church in the morning! It was our week off so we enjoyed a lie-in. We did go round to Mike and Liz Neville’s for lunch though, with another couple from church, and had a very enjoyable afternoon there. Afterwards we went to Sunday@6, and then back home again and watched last week’s “Outnumbered”, which was very funny.

So there you have it! And Alex, now you know why we weren’t in for your call yesterday :p

Well, the general election results are in (which you will already know about if you’re in England and haven’t had your head buried under a rock). It’s going to be a Conservative / Lib Dem coalition government (a “ConDem” government, if you will, which will make this country a ConDemNation…)

I think this is a good thing. In fact, personally speaking it’s the best possible outcome for me – of the possibilities that we had, realistically speaking. I didn’t want Labour to win, I didn’t want the Conservatives to win (although not as much as I didn’t want labour to win), and realistically speaking the Lib Dems were never going to win. A coalition government between the tories and the Lib Dems will hopefully yield something positive – their pledge looks good, so we’ll see what happens.

Either way, though, the next few years aren’t going to be easy – apparently we have the highest unemployment rate since 1994, and the economy is still spiralling out of control. The words “poisoned chalice” were used, which I think is probably accurate. Still, on the bright side, maybe good things – such as electoral reform – will come out of it.

Anyway. Totally changing the subject… I forgot to mention: we watched “Up” the other night, on Blu-Ray. It was a really nice film, I can see why everyone I know who’s seen it has had nothing but positive things to say about it. A while back we watched “Revolutionary Road”, which was a pretty depressing kind of film. Well, “Up” started out with a similar plot line to that film – except that it was far more uplifting! It was, in fact, the polar opposite. Very moving story, beautifully told, directed, and generally well worth watching.

… that pretty much describes our Friday night: at 21, we were studying Haggai. Laura dressed up as Haggai, in something which was meant to look a bit like sackcloth, and did the talk in character. I think the kids really enjoyed it! – and there were less of them this week, so it wasn’t quite as manic.

Afterwards we came back home and watched – that’s right – Ashes to Ashes! Sarah came round as she had just had dinner with her work colleagues in town. So, the three of us watched Ashes together. What an episode! [SPOILER WARNING] I still don’t really have a clue how it’s all going to end. I really don’t know. I still like the purgatory theory, with Keats being the Devil or something like that… but beyond that… ?! How the whole Ray and Shaz “Life on Mars” music thing fits in, and them seeing stars, I don’t know. Either way the next episode is shaping up to be good.

Late on Saturday Anne-Marie and Sarah came round as they had just been somewhat let down by a letting agency / tenant / landlord / some combination thereof. After judicious application of the internet, maltesers, and pink lemonade I think they were feeling better and went off to look at another house round the corner. We then headed off into town to do some shopping. In the evening we went round to A-M and Sarah’s house to watch Doctor Who, followed by a few episodes of “I, Claudius”.

I thought this week’s Doctor Who was excellent – probably the best of the current series so far (better even than the weeping angels). It was funny, a bit silly, but at the same time had a good story – even if it didn’t quite stand up to close scrutiny it was good. Just what Doctor Who should be like, in my opinion.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went our separate ways for lunch: Phil had a ladies lunch at Fordham with Laura, Jen and Tash, and I went over to AJ’s with James and we had pizza and watched “Platoon”. I’d never seen Platoon before – it was good! Quite harrowing, but worth watching. And John C. McGinley a/k/a Dr. Cox from Scrubs was in it! He was really different but quite recognisable. Strange seeing him in something else.

Anyway, after all that we went to Sunday@6, and then came back home and watched “Mallrats”. So that was pretty much our day 🙂

I had to get the bus into work today. The car developed a bit of a shake since it was serviced a couple of weeks ago, so I had it looked at. Apparently the driver side drive shaft needs replacing – it had seized up completely! So bizarre. To coin a phrase, “Cars do the darndest things”. I have been wondering about maybe replacing the car – although Saabs are generally good quality and last for a long time, they’re not immune to things wearing out – it’s a ten year old car and I drive it a lot (250 miles per week, give or take a bit). I did look into the cost of leasing, but that would be £3000 per year, and you’d still have to pay insurance on top of that!

So I still think the car’s worth keeping around for a while longer. I’ve had it 18 months now and only had two things go wrong, which is not bad for a ten year old car!

This reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon. The usual gang discover that the boss has died sometime on Thursday afternoon. Wally’s reaction? “Three day weekend!”

Well, this time the three day weekend was due to a bank holiday. No-one has died (no-one who I know, anyway). It was a nice one, too!

On Friday evening we helped out at 21. It was busy this week – quite a few of the year sixes have joined us, so there were about 15-20 youngsters – and they were pretty lively! Still, I hope they will settle down over time. Afterwards, Anne-Marie came round to watch Ashes to Ashes with us. It really is compelling viewing – I wasn’t into Ashes to start off with, but it’s really got me hooked! I’m really looking forward to the end of the series… I hope it’s a satisfying conclusion though. We’ve come up with some interesting theories (well, to be honest, I think Anne-Marie has done most of the work in that respect…) so we’ll have to see how right or wrong we are.

On Saturday it was Evie’s first birthday party. Evie is Phil’s god-daughter, her Mum Jo lives just round the corner from us. Anyway, it was a really nice time, I’ve never seen so many babies in one place! But I think all had a nice time, and the sun shone so that was also good!

After that we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s house to watch Doctor Who. I thought this week’s conclusion was really good – probably one of the best of the “Nu Who” episodes. Definitely the best of this series so far. I’ll have to see how it stands to repeat viewing though, as a few people I know didn’t like it so much. After that we watched the final episode of ‘Blackpool’, which was really good. The whole series was very clever – really well put together: the drama, the music and the lighter moments all seemed to blend seamlessly. Probably one of the best things the BBC have done in recent years. (I think it was BBC…) The twist at the end isn’t really a ‘twist’ in the Hitchcock sense, but the way the characters change leaves the series with a much different conclusion to the one you might have expected. Good stuff.

Anyway, on Sunday we went to church in the morning, then didn’t do much in the afternoon, and then went to Sunday@6. After that we came back home and watched the original ‘Pink Panther’ film which I hadn’t seen in ages. I’d forgotten just how funny it was, some classic moments in there!

On Bank Holiday Monday we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s once more. We had lunch at the Horse and Groom (which was very nice, and reasonably priced), and then came back to ours to watch various things including: two episodes of “I, Claudius” (can’t believe Brian Blessed is in it!), and “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (which Sarah hadn’t seen before).

All in all, it was a very nice, relaxing weekend! And a four day week to boot, what more could you want? 🙂

Is it just me, or has the world gone a bit election mad? I’m getting fed up of the election to be honest. Part of the issue is that I genuinely can’t decide who to vote for. Not that my vote would make much difference: I live in a fairly safe lib dem constituency, so whichever way I vote it’s not likely to make much difference. That said, even if my vote did make a difference, I just don’t think I could decide.

The primary consideration I have when voting at the moment is “it can’t be labour”: one illegal, immoral war which well over 50% of the country were against would have been enough, and then there’s the small matter of the financial crisis (have we really done away with boom and bust Mr. Brown? Have we?). And then there’s ID cards, and so on. But apart from that, I’m pretty open.

That said, two things are annoying me about the way people are talking about the election. Firstly: what the heck is wrong with the Conservatives? Everyone I know seems to hold them up as being the joke party, i.e. “I’d never vote for them in a million years” kind of thing. Why? I just can’t see the reasons myself. Sure, OK, there was Margaret Thatcher. So what? It just seems that to look back at the past and say “I’m not voting for this party because of what happened in the 80s” is disingenious to say the least.

Especially given that someone who knew a lot more about politics than I did once explained to me how a lot of the issues of that era, i.e. the recession, were caused by factors either outside the government’s control, or would have happened even with a labour government. But I’ll come back to this in a minute.

The second thing that annoys me is people trumpeting the lib dems as the saviours of democracy. Now, I do agree with some of the Lib Dems’ policies… but they’re far from perfect. As far as I can tell, a lot of people are voting for them simply because “they’re not labour or the conservatives”. Which is probably a bit cynical on my part, but still.

The real issue here is this: politics is complicated. really complicated. Can you imagine what it takes to run a country? There are thousands of different things going on, and a government is responsible for all of them. To be honest, I don’t think labour have done a bad job over the past thirteen years. Yes, they did do some terrible things (Iraq War, finance crisis, ID Cards, police state etc), but as a country we’re still here, and I honestly think it’s debatable whether we would genuinely have been better off under another administration.

I don’t think this country needs another government. I feel this country needs accountability. If the people had a way of actually forcing the government to be accountable – while the government were still in power – that would actually make this country truly democratic. The current system is basically only a democracy once every four or five years – and the first past the post system means that even that is mockery!

Which is why I feel like saying “the tories are evil”, or “the lib dems are our saviours” is … well, ridiculous. It’s simply not true. Without a crystal ball you can’t see who would be best. I don’t know, you don’t know, no-one does. The factors are too complicated for even the most brilliant mind to understand it all. These quizzes that ask you to answer questions to be able to choose your political party – for the same reason, I find them bizarre. “What do you think is the best thing for the financial crisis? Increase spending now, etc.”… I don’t know! I’m a programmer for goodness’ sake, not an economist. This is why we have a government, so they can consult people who understand this stuff and make the best decisions. I’m not qualified to do it.

So, to bring this rambling mess to some sort of point, this is what I’m trying to say:

I don’t think any one political party is the “best” option. Because I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to really know that information. The days of people believing in a political party such as labour or conservative because they represent their outlook on life are gone.

So I honestly believe the best option for this country is:

1. A hung parliament. A coalition government will be forced to work together for the good of the country. At the moment I feel too much that politicians work for the good of the party. Would ID cards have survived with a coalition government? Perhaps, but I think it would have had a much tougher ride. Would the Iraq war have happened under a coalition government? Again, I think that’s even more doubtful.
2. Electoral reform. We need to be able, as a democracy, to ensure that our government is accountable. This can’t be done at present to any meaningful degree. This needs to change.

Just a few thoughts, it’s getting late so they may not make very much sense 😉

Yep, this weekend was indeed a weekend of firsts. To an extent. I shall start with Friday lunchtime: I bought my first ice-cream of this year from an ice-cream van! It was such a beautiful day, it felt right.

Then, I came back home to find that Matthew, Ellie and Samuel had arrived. It was the first time they had been up to Colchester with Samuel, and they were staying with us for the weekend. We had a nice dinner with them before hading out to 21. When we came back we watched “Ashes to Ashes”, which didn’t disappoint. My favourite bit was the graffiti – “Gene Hearts Sam”! The creators of the show do seem to like putting in these little things for the fans, even if it’s not important.

Anyway. On Saturday we did a few bits and pieces – popped over to the recycling centre in Colchester to get rid of all the cardboard packaging the PA system had come in, and then went up into town for a few bits and pieces. After a small lunch we headed over to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s for a BBQ. They had laid on a veritable feast! There were potato wedges (had to mention those first, as they had been requested ;), salmon, marinated chicken breasts and wings, kebabs – both with and without meat – and generally enough food to feed a small army.

So that went down a treat, the grown-ups loved the food and I think little Samuel enjoyed the company! After that we headed back to our house for Doctor Who, which was a good episode this week. I think everyone enjoyed it, despite the annoying Graham Norton trailer over a tense moment at the end. And then we just sat around and chatted for a while. All in all it was a great day, let’s hope there are plenty more like it!

Then on Sunday morning Matthew and Ellie said their goodbyes before church. After that we went to Fordham, then had lunch, didn’t do much in the afternoon, and then went to Sunday@6. I was leading music, and unfortunately it ended up that I was the only person singing! I can’t really play and sing at the same time very well. But nonetheless it seemed to go well, a few people said thanks afterwards so it can’t have been that bad.

After that we came back home, crashed out and watched “Monsters Inc” on Blu-Ray. It was the first High-Def film we’ve seen which I think was better in HD than it was in SD. (Although the previous films had their moments, the detail on Monsters Inc was pretty impressive). I’d quite like to get Star Trek (the new film, not the original series) on Blu-Ray but I’m going to wait until it comes down to a more reasonable price!

Right, I think that’s a decent summary of the weekend. Oh, and if Anne-Marie or Sarah are reading this, *waves*. That wasn’t a technical post was it? 😉