King for a day!

So today I decided to be king for a day!! I was king David as a guest of a French family. My day went something like this: woke very late, had to wash myself as the servants were all busy. Went downstairs and ate French bread (brioche) with quince jelly and drank orange juice. Watched some French football highlights, drank some champagne and ate nibbles and then it was lunch time. Or I should say dinner! First we ate a salad with foie gras (duck pate) and walnuts, 2nd course was rosbeef and gratin dauphinois (scalloped potatoes). 3rd was cheese platter with bread, 4th was gateau à la bechamel (very yummy desert) and then I was presented with a box of locally made chocolate in the shape of very detailed rooster, hollow with chocolates inside it!! Of course there was fine French wines accompanying it all. After we had eaten although I was feeling sleepy I got into a French car (citroen) and we drove south about 80 mins to the Chateau of Chambord (my new continental residence). This is a huge and very impressive castle where many French kings have lived in past centuries. (construction began in 1519 by King Francis I) We walked right thru the castle visiting many of the rooms, I was most impressed with the double level spiral staircase (which I plan to replicate in my main castle one day). Then back to Toury (where I am a guest of the city) where dinner was awaiting! Soup and bread followed by Tourte (beef mince and vegetables in a pie crust) followed by cheeses and yoghurt and accompanied by red wine. Now I relax and digest-however being king for a day has reminded me of another King who died for His people (thats what Easter is really about) and today is the day we celebrate Him coming alive again-He is no longer dead! Only the Creator of the Universe could possibly have the power to do such a thing-I believe it all-do you? HE sure gives my life meaning when the holidays and chocolates and fun times are over.

Church setup for banquet

Thursday in 3D-craziest day ever? or just a normal day in my job!!

Ok so its 12:42 am Friday morning but I have to write about Thursday before I try to sleep some! I arrived at work normal time--9:32. Queens College are rehearsing as I expect but find the PA isnt working. Troubleshoot that over the phone with PA guy and sort the problem. Put up church closed signs as the school will soon be doing a service and ask a guy to leave who is sitting in the church. As he starts to swear at me, I realise he is drunk and not wanting to do what I ask. I pull my phone out and threaten to call the police-he gets up and moves out of the main church but I still have to coerce him to leave completely. Go to my desk to check emails and messages. A guy arrives to sort some keys for us and make the office door shut properly so talk to him about that and then call Canon to get an engineer out to fix the photocopier which is jamming 3 days after being serviced!! Go back to check on the school and oversee their guests arriving. Am told of a leak in the toilets so arrange the caretaker to sort that out. Plumber has to be called. partway thru school service colleague comes out from office to tell me the key guy needs to see me. Right then church clown guy (name suppressed here!!) walks in the main doors. Colleague sees him at same time as me and says she'll ask the key guy to wait with a knowing laugh that I need to intercept the clown guy and send him on his way. He is in full dressup so I intercept and ask him to leave-I am successful but it takes about 15 mins as I make a phonecall on his behalf and listen to him preach to me. Finally get back to my office to see the key guy. Work at desk for a bit. 11:30 and back into main church where the service is all over. Begin to stack chairs, and move some up from downstairs. We have to move all 430 chairs downstairs and then 190 different chairs back up plus some tables. But we cant move them down until after 2pm as there is an event on downstairs!! by 2pm all chairs are stacked and most of the church is vacuumed. Volunteers arrive but then the lift stops working!! Call the buildings manager who calls the engineer out. So we move all the chairs via the stairs-takes about 4o minutes. Spend all afternoon overseeing volunteers setting various things up and moving things about. The photocopier gets fixed, then the lift gets fixed too--have no idea if the plumber came and fixed the leak!! Finally the guests arrive--the church looks amazing by this stage- very cool lighting and candles everywhere! A live band and the long tables so well laid out. I try to enjoy the night but am very tired. The lift stops working again but manage to jiggle it and get it working. Clean up a large spill of berry coulis on the church carpet!! Sit and drink wine and just watch whats going on, then its all over and have to organise people and things again as we pack up. Have to be stroppy and tell Dimity and Grace they can't vacuum tonite and must go home. Most people leave and then I get a ride home with Rico who is taking Lucy and Kendra (event organisers) home. We are all so amped up we go clubbing on the way home (nah not really but we could have!!). Now its time for sleep as tomorrow we do it all again-well not quite but it will be another long fun day!!

IKEA virgin

My weekend hadn't been dull and yet Sunday morning came and with it a decision to really lift the weekend to new heights-a trip to IKEA! (Friday night was a great evening spent with 2nd cousins Rob and Lizzie Greenberg and Robs girlfriend Claire. We went to a Thai restuarant and then had great conversation till the early hours back at Rob and Claires flat. Saturday was touch rugby, watching Six Nations rugby and then to an African worship concert to raise money for 1 million Bibles for Ghanas youth. It was an interesting evening as there were only a handful of white people and so the singing and dancing was intense and invigorating!! Most importantly tho we learnt that less than half of the worlds languages have the written Bible. We must make Bible poverty history!!) So Dave Sinclair and I took the train to Stonebridge Park, then an IKEA shuttle bus to IKEA! I had heard much about IKEA and yes it was a large store! We followed the myriads of sheep thru the lines for the IKEA lunch (2.50 GBP) and then commandeered a trolley and proceeded around the well marked out line around the store. It is designed to make you go thru every part of the store in order to get out which sucked for us because we didnt realise there was a 2nd level which was mostly the stuff we wanted so we spent forever looking for stuff on the first level and were dissappointed not to find what we wanted and then found the 2nd level and by then had only 30 mins before we had to leave. We did leave on time to catch the shuttle just and all I had managed to buy was a 99p scented candle!! I'm sure I'll be back sometime but I still miss Wallmart and the Warehouse for those great bargains!

Wings Nite!!

Tonight was wings nite. That meant meeting at the Maple Leaf Pub in Camden Garden with some other wings lovers and eating wings and chatting. Its a Canadian place that specialises in wings, and does hot wings named suicidals. They weren't that hot really tho but still good. An interesting point in the evening came after we had been given food we hadn't ordered but ate anyway and the manager came over and asked us to pay for the food. We argued a little saying the waitress had said it was for our table but he kept insisting he was being nice and we needed to pay for it. Helen (whom had stayed quiet througout) then spoke up and told the man it was his problem as they had made a mistake and he couldn't ask us to pay for it. He said "so are you telling me you are not going to pay for the food you just ate?" Helen replied "Absolutely!!" and at that he said fine and left us alone!! I was quite shocked that this seemingly normal English lass got so feisty, but then she informed me shes not really a normal English lass!! Was quite cool to see some spunk in an English girl!! Well done Helen!!

Beach Volleyball in Brighton!

Today I journeyed to my father's birthplace to find my favourite sport Beach Volleyball. The Yellowave Centre had its 1st birthday and I plan to come back here often to coach and play. Was pretty windy and cold today tho--kinda like Wellington is on the NZ pro tour!

Spring??

Looks like Spring in Wandsworth common!!

Cinque Terre

My weekend in Italy

Friday

Up at 5:45am and off at 6:05am to catch the train! Still dark and rather cold! Around 8am arrive at Stansted Airport and check in. 10:35 and the RyanAir 737 takes off--destination Parma, Italy. 2 hours later we land in Parma and are rushed through customs which consists of one man glancing at our passports--no machine reading them! Juliette met me with one of her colleagues who had a car so could take me into town. Juliette had to go back to work so I explored Parma! I was amazed at the small cobbled streets with high and very old buildings so close together. And there were so many bicycles--these bicycles were like Mums bicycle when I was 8 years old. No gears and very old school style! Even the new bicycles were still this style. So I figured someone must hire them out so I got a map at the information centre and set off. Walked thru a big green area and found some giant teapots!! I approached to photograph them and had a guy come up and begin to speak a lot of Italian to me. He then found someone else to translate for me and I found out he was asking me if I wanted to buy weed!! The teapots must be the location for that!! A bit further on by the river I managed to find the bicycles and for 70 cents had one for an hour. I biked thru a large park and then negotiated some crazy busy streets to find the football stadium. I had asked the rental lady if there were any rules I should know and she said "No, the bikes can go anywhere!" And yes they did go everywhere--sometimes coming at you on the wrong side of the road but often on the footpaths dodging the pedestrians. After an hours exploring I walked back to Juliette's apartment and fell asleep on the couch. After Juliette came home we went out for some wine-here they bring you many snacks for free to eat with your wine! Then home to make lunch for the next day and get some sleep.

Saturday

Caught the train at 7:50am for the 2 hour trip to the coast. The trains are big and old--not like the English trains. We went thru farmland and then hills and along a nice river--through a gorge and then I fell asleep. We got off the train in Riomaggiore which is the first of 5 towns in the Cinque Terre. We then walked along the Via dell'Amore which is an amazing path high above the sea on the cliffs. This took us to Manarola which is a very cute little town with a lovely little harbour with lots of small boats. We walked on around the coast for another hour to the 3rd town Corniglia. Here we got on the train to carry on north. The trains run all the way up the coast mostly in tunnels but occasionally pop out right on the edge of the cliff. We took the train to the 5th town Monterosso. This one has a large beach which wasn't that clean but we found some large rocks to sit on and eat lunch right beside the sea. Then we walked back to the 4th town Veranozza. This 1 1/2 hour walk was up a lot of very steep steps and then along the cliff top and then a steep descent down into Veranozza. We walked thru a lot of terraces where grapes, olives, citrus trees and other things are grown. There were water pipes everywhere! Then we stumbled upon 2 fat cats sitting on the side of the track with a lot of cat food and a cat tent! there was a sign saying to please feed these homeless cats with the food provided. They didnt move--just sat there- I guess they were too fat to move. After that we began to notice fat cats in all the towns--lots of them! From Corniglia we took the train back to Manarola where we got Italian icecream and ate it by the harbour. This was probably the cutest of the little towns. It had very steep streets and pathways between teh buildings which we explored. We stayed here a long time taking photos and waiting for sunset. Just before sunset we walked back towards Riomaggiore where on the cliffpath there is a bar/cafe. Here we bought hot chocolates--they were so thick it was like drinking a pudding-sooo good!! watched the sunset and then walked back to Riomaggiore. Explored this town and decided on a restuarant (Pizzeria Da Ciro) for dinner. Juliette had pizza and I had Parma Calzone. Unfortunately it was a little burnt and the restuarant owner tried to tell me that was normal. After dinner we had to wait about 40 minutes for the train and the temp had dropped to 8 deg but it felt like about 2!! It had got up to 16 during the afternoon and in the sun we had got quite hot hiking. We jumped around trying to keep warm and then fell asleep on the 2 hour train journey back to Parma.

Sunday

Today we slept in and then walked around Parma. Went inside the cathedral which is huge and has very high ceilings with paintings all over them. Very impressive old building. It was very cold and the sun was trying to shine through! Had lunch in a nice cafe--I had crepes with Parma chese and Parma ham! mmmm! Then all too soon had to go to the airport and fly back to London. Was a great weekend, soo nice to breathe the fresh sea air and smell the salt and the sea. Gratia Juliette!!

English Football

Today I played my 2nd real game of English Football. Its not a very high division but its FA football all the same. Last week (we won 2-0) I played my preferred right wing position and in the 2nd half felt like I was starting to get into the game. My last competitive match was at the end of September 2006 on a near perfect pitch on a beautiful sunny day at Jubilee Park in Richmond, NZ. This week I played as a centre midfielder which is not a position I am that familiar with! I had a pretty high work rate for the whole game but again my 2nd half felt better and I got a lot more hungry in challenging for the ball. Everyone seemed real happy with my performance and all commented on my work rate and that I must be tired! We drew 2-2 but should have won but for some dubious refereeing. He struggled to control the game, made some bad decisions and then it spiralled downhill. Some of our players got frustrated and he just yellow carded anyone that talked back. He also pulled them up for swearing which they often get away with in this league. So i think 4 yellow cards were issued to our team and there was much heated shouting and arguing. It damaged the match really. This team doesn't train and I think next season I will want to find a team that does train and play in a higher league. I am soon to switch to beach volleyball on Saturdays I hope--can't wait!!

100% PURE NZ

My daily commute takes me through Victoria Station. Down at the platform on the Victoria underground line I now see 2 large advertising screens playing video footage of New Zealand. For me its a little slice of home in a big dirty grey city. Ahhhhh!!! Click on the title above to see why Kiwis are sooo proud of our country and why I love it soo much!

OBAMA '08

Well the race is really hotting up! I am loving the contest and interest created by this years US election and it is seemingly getting more Americans interested in voting. To summarize some of my opinions I would say:

1. All the Republican candidates are what you would expect a Hollywood depiction of the American President to look like--not real but good actors and I would seriously hope none of them become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

2. The more Hillary Clinton speaks the less she convinces me she could rule the nation let alone deal with foreign affairs (not to mention the gender issues she would face trying to be taken seriously in places such as the Middle East where females are under complete subjugation)

3. The more Bill Clinton speaks the more he makes himself and his wife look desperate to be back in power. He also seems to make her look weak and unable to be the leader she needs to be.

4. The more Obama speaks the more you see something special. This might just be the time that come 2016 both American citizens and many others around the world could be saying we wish he could stay on for a 3rd term.

So if you are a US citizen then do the research and see why you shouldn't vote Obama!!

Online at home again!

Yep today I finally got internet hooked up. Nothing is simple in this country! Business systems seem to be the cause of most of the problems. I tried to pay my phone bill online but no thats not possible, not only could I not pay it from my bank account online but I also couldn't pay it on the phone networks website even tho it said I could. Customer Services assured me it wouldnt work and she didnt know why it said online that I could! In fact paying for things seems to always be a hassle. So many places won't take card unless you spend over 5 GBP and some places just dont take card at all. They are still very reliant on cash and cheques are still widely in use it seems. On Friday our boiler quit working meaning no heat in the house and no hot water either! The earliest an engineer can get here to fix it is Tuesday!! You would think they have after hours call outs esp. in Winter but no. So we are all rugged up in our freezing cold house and will have to find somewhere for a shower before Tuesday! Went to a soccer game today with a local club. I could get a game with them next week. They don't train however so I may keep hunting for a club that trains. I would love to get involved with a semi-pro club as it seems that most others dont take training very seriously at this stage in the season. Have found a beach volleyball venue in Brighton and they want coaches so have asked me to come down and see them. They are even hosting the World Under 21 Champs in September. Meanwhile back in NZ, Anna improved again on the NZ Pro Tour with a 17th and 3 13th placings. Check her out here!

Hannah and I

Hannah and Andy

Hannah's wedding day!

Saturday was a crisp blue sky day! Rather more like a Nelson winters day than an English one! As I sat in the train on my 70 minute journey from Clapham Junction to Reading there wasn't a cloud in the sky. At Reading I changed trains and went on to Pangbourne. Here i followed Hannah's great directions and found the church a short walk from the small station. I was really in the country now! I was plenty early but a few others were there already so I sat and waited as I knew no one other than Hannah! I introduced myself to Andy--her fiance as he was greeting guests as they arrived. At about 1pm the minister began the service and shortly after Hannah entered the church. She had 3 bridesmaids each of them accompanied by a flower girl. The service had the traditional Church of England bits but also was unique to Hannah and Andy and had some great songs with a band from the Putleys church. It was a really nice old country church and a great setting for a great wedding! After the ceremony I met Hannah's parents and her Dad arranged some of their friends to look after me for the afternoon and give me a ride to the dance reception. They had a family reception in the afternoon and then we all arrived at around 7:30. The people that took me introduced me to a few others and then I met Hannah's sister and some of Andy family. His family are from Newcastle and have brilliant accents! We had a great time dancing and eating and drinking. Met some really nice people and had a great time. Most of all was so good to be celebrating Hannah and Andy's commitment to each other--Andy is a really nice guy and I'm sure they will be a great couple! Getting home was a challenge as I missed the last direct train from Reading to Clapham so took a train into Paddington but by the time I got there(12:40am) the tube was closed so had to take the bus to Trafalger Square and then another bus to Clapham Junction and then walk 30 mins home! Even tho its December 29 it wasn't freezing outside at 2am!

Lost?

Ok so I've had the week off and after Christmas not much to do so I got the Lost Series 3 DVD's out and have just finished watching all 23 episodes! Finally we have got some answers and much developments but it is still wide open in season 4 for where they may take us! There was a glimpse tho that they will be rescued from the island. Another brilliant season tho and can't wait for more!

Merry Christmas!!

Ok so its been a while since I wrote on here! A lot has happened in that time! I am now living in south London and working for All Souls Church in central London. All Souls Church is a well known church of which John Stott was rector for many years. Christianity Explored has also come from All Souls. I am the church coordinator meaning I handle all the day to day management of the church--bookings, events and heaps of other things that crop up! It is very interesting and varied with lots of challenges along the way. I have a great flat in London with 3 Christian flatmates. Its a big warm house with large rooms which is kinda unusual for London!

I play touch rugby every Saturday and have been running a bit too. Hoping to join a soccer club in the new year. If anyone is over this way you are welcome to come and stay!!

It's been amazing to see God lead me this year from NZ to Indiana and now to London. Thank you to all of those praying for me and writing emails to me. I will try to write more on this blog next year! God bless you all over Christmas.

Me with my beautiful friend, Molly.