Family History

I've never been one for genealogy and digging into family history. Bu there are one of two things that intrigue me from my family's past. My Grandfather (Arthur Pool) was a Methodist missionary in Gambia, and a number of years ago I discovered that through him we have connections with some rather well known Methodists. It was interesting to think that I wasn't the only theologian in the family!

The other character that has always fascinated me was one Mordecai Sherwin. I remember being told a story about him being the first wicketkeeper-batsman, but I'm not too sure how accurate that is. Anyway, by chance, I was asked to lead the funeral for someone who had been a cricket statistician and founder member in fact of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. It turns out Mordecai is quite well-known in such circles.

A publican by trade, he captained Nottinghamshire and played three times for England. Not exactly of an athletic build (5'9" and 17St), as you can see from the photograph, nevertheless he was apparently quite nimble. He also played football for Notts County as a goalkeeper.

It's even said that the name of Sherlock Holmes is partly inspired by Mordecai (Sher-win)!

Statistically he took 611 catches and 225 stumping in 328 First Class games. I've no idea how that compares with his contemporaries, it's just nice to see the data. He was also named Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1891!

That was the weekend that was!

Well we had a very good weekend. I guess we would have to say that we missed not having to plan the All-Age and Carol Services for Christmas and we missed being part of those events, but we also rather enjoyed not having to do all that too.

Instead we travelled to Bedford to share in a wedding and we got to have brunch with some old friends and visit others. The wedding was the third of three sisters, and it was great to be part of that event. Brunch on Sunday was an exciting affair too!

During our eight years in Bedford we talked a lot about what it meant to be a church in the community, about how we could serve the community, about what it meant simply to be church. We were not afraid to ask the questions and think differently about the answers. Yesterday's brunch was some of the fruit of that thinking. About 30-40 people gathered in the loach village hall and talked and ate together. A whole cross-section of people. I met someone who had come for the very first time and I sat and simply asked him questions about is life and listened to his story. There were no songs, no prayers, no preaching.

Having the time to talk, which hopefully leads to building relationships, that in turn create opportunities to share faith, was at the heart of the purpose of the event. there was a bouncy castle for the children and some craft activities for them too. The adults sat and talked.

Okay, so it's easy for the Christians to drift into comfortable small groups around tables, but generally, with a bit of effort, that didn't happen. You have to be intentional about talking with others, but everyone can do it because everyone can listen to someone's story. All you have to do is ask questions and listen carefully enough so you can ask more questions.

So we had a good time. I got to share our vision for the future with some old friends over the course of the weekend and we got to spend time with our daughter. All in all it was good way to spend our first weekend away from full-time leadership.

Popego

Once again Jeff Noble (now possibly famous in Poland!) has stumbled on another life stream application on the internet. Popego looks quite interesting and I've set up an account to see what it's like. 

At first look it's quite a nice application. It grabs feeds just like Swurl, but it has the edge insofar as it doesn't seem to mind that I'm in the UK. Swurl does seem to have some problems, but, having played with Popego, I may now have more of a clue as to what might be happening at Swurl.

In the end the whole idea is to have one place that folks can visit if they want to see what's happening in my world beyond my blog. Not that I'm necessarily sure that anyone wants to do that, but it's a fascinating next step in the development of a life on the web.

I guess there are ways to use this kind of thing to keep in touch with one's wider family who are spread about all over the place.

Anyway, it's on the sidebar if you want to chck it out or you can just follow this link.

A day out with my daughter

Yesterday Ally and I had a day out travelling to Canterbury for a look around and to have a squint at her accommodation for the first year of university. We had a few jobs to do on the way, involving collecting tickets for her expedition to Paris in a couple of weeks time. 

The wonder of the internet is that she was able to book everything online and then collect the tickets using the machines at the station. The only problem was that the machines at St Pancras didn't seem to recognise her Amex card. Still we managed to get the tickets and she now has 12 bits of varying shape and sized ticket and receipt for two people to travel to Paris and back. I wonder if a day will ever come when we can do without paper.

In Canterbury we walked up to where she will be living for the first year. The house looks like it's being renovated at the moment. A considerable amount of building has been taking place nearby on the site of an old warehouse and the drive of the house looks like its been relaid by the developer.

From there we walked back into the city. Canterbury looks like a city in change. Lots of new development work and renovation going on, although I guess that will all be slowing down at this time of credit crunching recession (are we allowed to use the 'r' word yet?).

From Canterbury it was back to London and St Pancras to wait for Anne so that we could all travel hone together. She was delayed a little, so that meant Ally and I had time to explore the new station. I remember the days when I was a student and would inevitably arrive at St P's station just in time to miss the train home to Nottingham. This meant a two hour wait for the next train and the station was somewhat rundown and with very little to do but find a bench and try to get comfortable for an hour or so.

Now, St Pancras is a bustling international terminal with lots of shops and cafes in which you can lose yourself for an hour quite easily. We usually end up in the coffee shop upstairs. Yesterday Ally took her nice new MacBook with her and discovered St Pancras wi-fi. It's the best sort of wi-fi, it's free!

Things are going to be very different for Ally as a student compared to the 70's when Anne and I were at university, and, I suspect, it will be very different for us as parents of an undergraduate too!

Plumbing

Today was a plumbing day. I don't mind plumbing, but it can be quite stressful. The object today was to add some long needed control to the heating system in the manse. I've talked to various folk about it before, and I hope the deacons don't mind, but the impending increases in gas prices has been a strong encouragement to get this done.

It's been over 20 years since I was actively involved in heating system control. it was part of my job as a research scientist with British Gas to know my way around a wiring diagram and more. So today's task, whilst not straightforward, was familiar ground to a certain degree.

It was actually Anne's idea to get cracking and do the job, so I enlisted her help as we set out to shop for the component parts for the job.

We went to Screwfix for most bits, Plumb Center for one part and Focus Do it All for some 6 amp cable. We needed a 28mm 2-port zone valve for the hot water circuit and Plumb Center was the easiest place to go for this. It's 28mm because the system in gravity fed. This means that there is no pump for the hot water part of the heating system. The radiators are pumped and the boiler is an uncomplicated bit of machinery.

The other parts we needed were a cylinder thermostat and a room thermostat. We chose a simple cylinder stat, but, because of the problems with running wires around the house, we went for a remote control room stat. This uses an RF signal to transmit information between the thermostat and the boiler controls. Very posh.

The first job we tackled was draining the system down ready to do the bit of plumbing to install the zone valve. A zone valve simply controls where the water from the boiler goes. In our case the pump acts as a valve on the heating circuit so all we needed was a valve on the hot water side of things.

Whilst the system was draining down, we set to work installing the new programmer and the cylinder and room stats. I have to confess that the wiring was a little more of a challenge on this system than I imagined, but eventually we got it all working. And in truth, had I paid more attention to the wiring diagrams in the zone valve pack, I'd have got in working much sooner than I did.

So we now have the ability to set different programmes for the week and weekend, or we can switch to different programmes for each day. We have a very flash room stat that we can programme and move around the house to find the best position in which to use it.

The big plus is that the hot water no longer has to be heated to the same temperature as the boiler. I don't know how much that was costing us, but it will be interesting to see how much less gas we use this winter compared to previous years.

All in all a successful day and the stress has turned to delight as we tested the new controls and checked for leaks. Doing this sort of job just takes a little time and knowledge of how heating controls are meant to work. You also need to know how to empty and refill a system too and some basic plumbing skills. Actually the job is more about wiring than it is about plumbing. Permanent lives, switched lives, auxiliary switches etc, are all simple things if you know what you are doing. 

 Total cost was about £200 for all the controls, but that includes £40 for the remote room stat and £70 for the 28mm zone valve. I'm hoping that we'll knock that off the gas bill pretty quickly. I'm guessing, but I think on hot water cycles alone the boiler will now be off for 60-80% of the timed cycle. I think we'll get better heating output too when the hot water circuit shuts down and all the boiler output goes into the radiator circuit.

And to think , some people might have been tempted to suggest that I'd wasted my time at British Gas.

Results Day

Today the A-Level results were published. Ally managed to achieve the grades she needed for her first choice University, Canterbury. Once again her languages were strong with A's in both French and Spanish. Mind you a B in Art wasn't bad either.

Now all we have to do is prepare to watch her set off to college.

The joy of cats

You may recall my post about our evening catching a mouse and releasing it into the wild. Sadly this is a regular part of our lives given that we live with two cats. Most of our rescues have been successful, I'll gloss over the time I rescued one small rodent from the clutches of our cats only to inadvertently, and rather carelessly in my opinion, squash the poor thing in the process of carrying it out into the wild!

Pip, our larger cat and brother to Jade, my study partner, is going through a hunting phase at the moment. To be precise he's going through a catching phase. He's always gone hunting, I just think he's surprising himself and actually catching the things as well. He certainly looks surprised when he arrives back with his prize.

Normally these gifts are left near the back door for us to find at our earliest convenience, but if the door is open he makes sure we get the opportunity to play by bringing the traumatised creature into the hall. Of course the hall presents the said animal with the largest number of directions from which to choose as potential escape routes, clearly designed to increase our enjoyment of the chase. Or not. 

This evenings offering was somewhat worse for wear and was easily caught using my upturned biscuit tin technique, honed during one particularly long night spent squeezed between a wardrobe and a wall.

This all rather nullifies my argument for not having a dog. I've always argued that dogs require more care and you have clean up after them. Small boys may be fascinated by the idea of carrying a plastic bag of doggy waste around with them, but I am profoundly not interested in so doing.

On the other hand, chasing mice and occasionally having to deal with the still warm stomach contents of a cat who ate to fast is similarly distasteful.

In the end I guess it true, you're either a cat person or a dog person, and I'm a cat person. So I'll just have to put up with the occasional mouse hunt and clear up for the sake of the pleasure of the company of two very fine felines.

Cleaning the closet

As we continued to sort through our accumulated paraphernalia, today was the charity shop run. Knowing we were going gave a little impetus to having a quick rummage through the wardrobe. 

I really should be able to fit all my clothes in the one wardrobe and chest of drawers, but I can't.  Due mainly I suspect to being unwilling to get rid of certain items. Things I might wear again one day. However, "one day" is rather unlikely to come around any time soon. 

I also have this habit of taking old clothes and declaring them "work clothes" as in clothes to wear when doing jobs around the house. This pile of old clothes grows and I suddenly realise that I have more "old jeans" than new ones. 

So, having sent some stuff to the tip and some to the charity shop, tomorrow may be a day to have a sort through the work clothes and narrow that pile. I may also get rid of the original packing boxes for my camera that are in the bottom of the wardrobe!

A Little Decluttering

There is something quite satisfying about going to the household recycling centre with a boot-load of stuff that you should have dumped years ago. Today was such a day. 

Anne and I, mostly Anne, attacked the fourth bedroom in our home. It's where we keep a lot of things that don't have a proper home. There are paperback books and maps and photographs and more books and toys from Ally's younger years.

Some things brought back many memories and being ruthless about what to keep gets harder as the junk pile grows. There's a picture I've had since I was 17, cassette tapes of radio shows from the early eighties, and a thousand unsorted photographs and slides. I also found a bag of things I made for doing talks at school assemblies. 

I envy those folk who don't seem to accumulate anything at all. How they do it I just don't know. Perhaps one day I'll work it out and we won't have to have days like today. On the other hand there's a sense of a life lived as you sort through things you don't really need but somehow they inform your life and jog your memory.

And, by the way, we recycled as much as we could.

Of mice and men

We love our cats. Normally they are sociable and very little trouble except when hungry. One of them spends most of the day following the sun around the house, the other follows me around the house in the hope of biscuits.

But cats are hunters.

Now if they just went out, hunted and came home, it would be fine. It's not a pleasant sight watching a cat play with it's prey, but it's what they do. Sometimes of course they like to bring their trophies home for inspection. Again not pleasant, but bearable. It's when they bring the live stuff home for you to play with that we get a little upset. It's not too bad if you catch them near the door because you can keep them out of the house, but every so often we get a live mouse dropped on the hall floor.

"Look what I've brought you," declares our proud feline, "Ahhhhh," is the typical human response. This of course throws the aforesaid moggy. He can't understand why we don't want his prize catch hiding behind the crockery cabinet. He also can't understand why we aren't fast enough to catch the thing as it runs between our feet and into the safety of the darkest corner of the dining room.

We have a quite elaborate method for catching and releasing these small creatures, although I did squash one by accident one day. I had it cornered in a big box which I picked up to take outside. Unfortunately the delicate little animal got trapped just where I grabbed the box and it's short life was brought abruptly to and early end.

Tonight we had the full team out. 

Anne, Ally and I went into action with our biscuit tin, torches and wooden laminate floor sections. We build a simple rectangle to contain the mouse or shrew-the most common invaders-and try to negotiate a surrender by getting it to run into the tin which then gets flipped upright and the lid attached in a single swift motion. It's then across the road and a civilised release back into the wild. 

Unfortunately most of these small visitors appear not to speak a great deal of English and the gentle intonation of, "We're only trying to help, we're not going to hurt you," falls on unappreciative ears.

This evening's captive was a plucky little fellow, who evaded us several times, even scaling the wooden barricade at one point in a vain attempt to escape. But we are too seasoned at this procedure to be outwitted by a simple mouse (no disrespect to Reepicheep). After several attempts to corral the little chap and one worrying injury moment for Renee's distant cousin, we finally got him into the tin and out into the wild.

As I released him into the undergrowth on the far side of the road from the house, I had the distinct impression that he looked back at me with gratitude in his eyes. Either that or he was just checking so that he could tell the tale to his friends of the odd looking cat that walked upright and his strange journey in a dark box the likes of which he hopes he never sees again.

Happy Birthday Dear!

Today my wife, Anne, is 50. It's okay, she isn't overly concerned about her age. Although she may be now that I've published it on the internet–perhaps I should have thought about that before I began this post! Anyway, this means both of us are now eligible for Saga holidays (I was 50 last October). Just over three weeks ago we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. 

It just doesn't seem possible that we've known each other for over 30 years but we have. We have come a long way since we sat next to each other in the biology lab. at UWIST dissecting earthworms. 

Over our 28 years of being married we've lived in 7 homes in 5 locations. When I went back to college to study theology, Anne continued to work, and when I told her about two struggling churches in Newark that had no money and no vision and wanted some help, she took on the challenge with me. She has always fitted her career in around serving the church as we've moved up and down the country.

Being a "minister's wife" cannot be an easy title to bear. There have been times when the expectations placed on her, simply because she is my wife, have been quite unreasonable. 

But we're still going and we're still committed to serving God together.

So, happy birthday to Anne, now 110010 or 32 in hex.

Handling disappointments

So there we sat, looking at the screen.

The previous day we'd all been to Canterbury because Ally had a University interview. This was the course she really wanted to get on and it is heavily oversubscribed. Last year there were 9 applicants for every place. A lot of people faced disappointments.

Things had gone well and now, the day after, Ally and I sat looking at her computer monitor, open on the web-page for UCAS, the university admissions service. "Your UCAS form has been updated" was the message. This was it. Had Canterbury turned her down or offered her a place? Ally didn't want to look.

So we talked about disappointment. About the fact that 90% of applicants were going to be disappointed, and she could be amongst them. We talked about the fact that she already has an offer from another college. We talked about how we would feel, and how we would deal with the sadness of not getting in.

What a waste of time! They've offered her a place for September. 

Disappointment is never very pleasant and we would have dealt with it and moved on, but as I sit here writing this blog, I have to say that I am so very thankful to God that he has opened this particular door for my daughter. Having been dragged around the country as we've sought to follow God's leading in our lives, she has had to face losing friends and finding new ones. Moving school, and a few other things along the way. All part of the package that goes with being the child of the manse.

So it's another proud Dad moment to have been there when she found out that she'd got a place at her first choice university, now all she has to do is get those A-level grades. That and think about ordering herself a shiny new Macbook to take with her. 

Another "Proud Dad" moment

Here's Ally talking to Kevin MaCloud, the presenter of Grand Designs about her photographs.

She was asked to submit some of her work to be used in a new Estate Agents in the town. Six of her photographs were chosen.

Apparently they were well admired.

Here's a picture of the display.

My study partner

What's cooler than a box of crayons?

If you're a "Blogger.com" user, you will recognise the question in the title of this post. I haven't investigated, but I guess it's got something to do with customising one's blog or the like. Anyway I was trying to think about what my answer would be to the question, and here's one possibility:

• Being asked my opinion by my teenage daughter.
• Listening to my teenage daughter talk about her desire to serve God and change the world.
• Watching as she gets involved in studying the Bible for herself.
• Listening to her talk about how things could be made better in church for her peer group, in a positive way.
• Talking to her about preparing a talk for the Junior CU at her school.

Maybe having a teenage daughter isn't as bad as it sometimes looks.