Sunday Addendum

Been to church this morning.
I should explain that when I left Leukaemia CARE Alex bought my car by paying off the remaining finance, relieving me of the monthly expenditure and in exchange he also gave me his knackered old fiat Punto. On Christmas eve the fiat gave its last gasp and came to a shuddering halt as I drove home from visiting Hannah in Wolverhampton. The Fiat (an acronym for Fix It Again Tomorrow according to Dave, the mechanic on our road who has already made a pretty penny out of it fixing it several times) was got shot of last weekend for a grand sum of £160; the Mighty Dave taking it off our hands for whatever market value we could get from the scrap dealers. So, ever since Xmas I've done a great deal more walking, tying neatly into the grand-lose-weight-master-plan.

So today as I walked to church I called mum for a short, a mere 20 minute, conversation. We talked about her friend Gisela in Wuppertal who is recovering from a hip operation and about Nan who actually outlived the batteries in her pace-maker and had to have new ones fitted a coouple of weeks ago. I hope she had duracell fitted because she's still firing on all cylinders, god love her. Then the service was one of those where everything seemed to tie into the same theme. At the start Rob welcomed a family who had brought their sickly baby with them. Only a few months old and waiting for a big operation but cheerful and bright-eyed as you like. During communion Rob left the front to give her a special blessing, cradled in her mum's arms at the back of the church and displayed the courageous and simple generosity I think all the church members love him for. Then the reading. It was 1 Corinthians 12:


12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.


 21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.


Then at the end of the service Rob announced that half way through a lady called Sheila had been taken ill, looked after by the sidespeople and sent off to hospital without any fuss. So just out of instinct he changed the end of the service to say a little prayer of support and thanks for the lovely Sheila which I'm sure she'd appreciate.

26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

As I walked home I walked past 12 people including two police officers and a cyclist. I didn't look at my feet cause usually I try to look people in the eye and give them recognition instead of walking towards and past them as strangers. Today, unusually old and young looked back. No one avoided looking over, and I even got four smiles from complete strangers who for that fraction of a second were not strangers any more.

Last night We watched a Kevin McCloud programme called Slumming It about the slums of Mumbai and about how those people have a community spirit that most westerners would kill for. Today, for an hour and twenty minutes the world seemed very friendly; all one body as it were.

I love Sundays.

Sunday

It's a sunday and Al has gone to Nathan and Laura's to watch Aston Villa vrs Chelsea, so I've got a bit of peace and quiet.
Yesterday was Valentine's day. Sarah and John and Hannah and Rick as well as Phil and Ruth all came to ours to have food and a bit of a drink and we had a great night. Me Han and Sarah lived at Griffin in the 1st year, above Al and the rest of the boys, and in the block alongside us was Phil who even then was with Ruth - they're married with a baby and Ruth did our wedding photos, bloody good job Ruth, best wedding photographer ever! Since then we've all been friends. Sarah and John get hitched in May but we're not smug married's, we're just a bunch of friends of didn't feel bothered enough about Valentine's day to get all smoochy unnecessarily. Who said romance is dead?!
I cooked the puddings. I spent 4 hours making chocolate fudge, chocolate covered cherries infused with brandy and choc chip scones and Al made 2 types of lasagne... Mmm yummy! The guests arrived hungry as we'd instructed and it was a fun night, we had a real giggle and a catch up which is my favourite kind of night. Then as we're all boring and grown ups the Han/Sarah partnerships got back off to Wolverhampton in the car and Phil and Ruth headed back home to baby George, Ruth was driving too, so we even got to bed at a fairly un-scandalous time of 12.30 - so why do I still feel tired???
I suppose the main answer is Leukaemia CARE. Busy busy busy. Can't think. mind fogs up when I try and think ahead. All I can see it the A4 page that is my to do list plus the 300 emails and the database generated list to things to action by the end of this month. It's difficult not to get a bit defeatist. But every time I think it's not possible to do more something happens and we find a way; every task compleated is a small victory - even if usually it's replaced by 3 more.
The snow of course did its damndest to get in the way. I had to work from home twice because Birmingham roads were so slippery and snowy that I couldn't get onto the motorway to get to work. Still it was very pretty and was a good excuse to stay out of the way of the gym, something which I don't seem to need much help with recently, actually.
The play is going well. Went with Graham to the council on tuesday to go through ideas around publicity. Not going to get too involved with that as my reason for being there is the acting and nothing else. Still though, survived it and that's the main thing.
Next week is Nathan's birthday, week after is Leukaemia CARE's proms concert, maybe one day we'll even finish the wallpapering! In the mean time I try to go to church at least every other week and it's nice. I hear the bands being read out and look out for the excited couples, meet the newbies and keep in touch with old friends Jess and Graham, Mike and Jean. Jean's expecting baby number two, congrats! I like going to church. It is boring occasionally but it's strange little idiosyncracies make me smile and it makes me feel at peace in the middle of a hectic world. Rob's sermons always, but always, make me want to bottle them and take them with me. He always looks at things with such wisdom and serenity. There's so much to get het up about but he is always there taking things in his stride. The church I go to, St Nics, is consequently a calming, non-judgemental and welcoming place. I think and I'm pretty lucky to have found such a church as from personal experience I know they're not all like that.
So that's my life at the mo. I'd better get off and do the ironing. Plus I need to put the heating on again because my fingers are like ice. See you!