20th December - 5 days to go.

It's over a week since I last posted.

My parents came to stay at the weekend. It was fun and busy. We went to my cousin's baptism which was a great evening.

I have been sorting out my apartment to rent out which I could do without being busy with at this time of year.

We went to the family carol service at church which was lively and had beautiful nativity images posted on the big screen.

Today I am supposed to be baking this beautiful prune & brandy cake that I found a recipe for but so far haven't done it (just soaked the prunes in brandy). I have to go to the shop for baking powder & it's so misty and damp outside. Need to wrap presents too...hopefully lots in tissue paper as that's easier.

The pic is of a Chester street with Christmas lights.

It's cold today

and I'm trying to stay by the wood stove but it's hard as I have stuff to do.

This afternoon I am going to have a quick trip to the shops as later I'm at a school fair selling my wares! Should be good, it's always a fun evening at this school in Stratford.

Christmas

We have a fab little wooden tree with hand-painted baubles and fairy lights, it's so cute! It was a wedding present to us and we love it, such a good idea!
The other decorations aren't down from the loft yet and as we are both out for the next 3 nights I'm not sure when we will get to that.

A fabulous weekend

We went to a party on Friday night! 12 of us met in Chester and had a meal and a dance - it was great fun. Mike and I didn't get to bed til 4am which was unbelievably late for us. On Saturday we had a gorgeous breakfast at the hotel and then set off to see his brother which was really good as I don't know them very well yet.Afterwards we did a little shopping in Chester. The Christmas lights were beautiful against the black & white tudor buildings.
At night we met up with the other 10 friends again and had mulled wine together, a take-away and played games. We headed home at 10pm and got back at 1am (another late one for us!)
On Sunday we went to church and then unexpectedly had a friend to lunch who was visiting church so that was fun.

Finally managed to get a pic onto my blog. Seemed to fail every time I tried before. This was taken when we looked round the cottages at Ardpatrick on the way to the little deserted beach - except for the sheep and a seal who popped his head out of the water next to us one day!

At the beach we sunbathed, sat in the rain, watched the Islay ferry go past, paddled and collected mussels for supper, saw hermit crabs in the water and ate strawberries.

Running around today...

Last night I completed my tax return work - so relieved!!! Today I have to leg it to the Post Office and do house things and some letters and phone calls. Also sort my money ( very chaotic) and then I have to pack as we are going away for the weekend up north for a dinner dance which will be loads of fun I hope. We stay at the hotel afterwards. Tomorrow we will all walk and shop and then we are going to a friend's house (who organised us to go to the dance tonight) and have mulled wine and a take away and some games before a late trip back home.

Friday morning - yeah!

We read Micah 6 this morning before breakfast. " What goes the Lord require of you?" and then it goes on to list what He DOES require...but how good are we at doing those things? here's the list - Act justly
Love mercy
Walk humbly with your God.

I'd like to think I'm "just" in the big things but do I sometimes try to get my fair share of things?
Loving mercy - is that God's mercy to me, to everyone, to the nations? And how much do I really think about that? Every day, once a week, every hour?? Or does it mean we have to love BEING merciful to others - does that include when driving?! Seriously I am probably at my least compassionate then.

Walking humbly with God. Do we even consider that we are walking with God...or do we walk and hope He will graciously follow us? And if we are walking with God could we really describe it as walking humbly? It's difficult to be humble these days, we are a materialistic society, we love success (yes, we may attribute all of that to God) we often pat ourselves, and each other, on the back (esteeming our brother etc) so where is the humility in all this? It's far removed from those humble beginnings in a stable. I have to think about that one today.

Well time to put the kettle on...

Tea Break

Just stopped for a cuppa & toast.

Great news - my cousin's daughter has asked to be baptised!! She is 16 and her boyfriend is also thinking about baptism which is great news too. Our family is celebrating!

Hopefully my mum and dad will come down to witness the baptism and we can all spend time together and also they will get to stay with us and see all that we have done here at home too.

19 days until Christmas

It's 6th December - I can't believe it!!

We haven't started writing our cards yet. I'm still doing my tax return (yuk) and keep feeling I must finish it first.

Last night I made these great potato wedges (thanks Auntie Rosie!) They are so easy and quick and like you get in Frankie & Benny's. Here's the recipe....
....cut potatoes into wedges ( at least one medium potato per person, depending how hungry you are!) dip into a bowl of cold water and then dry on a clean tea towel. Put a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper into a bowl and mix the wedges into this. Place on a baking tray at 190 for 30/45 mins. Serve with sour cream...yummy!

Tonight we go to church to have a go at some carols that we are going to present at the Rest Home next week.

Every so often I'm stopping for a cup of Lady Grey (I guess Earl Grey's sister or wife!?) and trying to do some internet Christmas shopping.

I read Job chapter 8 this morning - Bildad's speech to Job. He says if you think your life was so great yesterday just you wait to see what God has in store for you - it's so much better!

Back to tax.....!!

Back again!

It's only a month since I started this and already I'm slow at updating!

Well, what's been happening. I've been to scotland for 3 weeks to do some work which was good. Mike came to visit me there which was good and we got to visit the church in Edinburgh and catch up with our friends there. We also heard a great speaker (Tony) talking about how we categorise sin and we have a sliding scale of what sin is acceptable and we can even laugh about (eg speeding) and what sins we think are totally unacceptable BUT God sees this differently and says that if we have sinned on one point we are guilty of them all. It made me think about how condemnatory I can be and how much I can lack compassion.

We've received and seen quite a lot of people's wedding pics of us so that has been fun!

Abi and I went out to dinner together in Glasgow - we had a moroccan meal in L'Argent on St Vincent Street. The mint tea at the end was good and reminded us of our trip to Istanbul.

On Friday I travelled back home via Gretna Green and it was great to be back. We have only been married 6 weeks and I have been away for 3 of them! No more trips for a while we hope (apart from at Christmas and we're together then)