Things Too Wonderful

Would you believe that my seven year old daughter had never seen a hedgehog before!  Squirrels we have in abundance.  Mice - too many!  Bats and foxes are common: she watches them from her bedroom window, but for some reason we had been woefully short on hedgehogs… until tonight.

I was washing up when I first saw him, waddling across the lawn as if out for a Sunday stroll.  Of course I shouted the kids straight away, and my son was first on the scene to give this strange creature a cursory glance before he said “Great, Mum” and returned to his computer game.  My daughter - the wildlife enthusiast, who has desperately wanted to see a ‘real’ hedgehog ever since she saw one in a picture book - was slower in coming down from her bedroom and arrived just as he disappeared under a thick holly bush. Continue Reading »

My young daughter had her first experience of The Deep End this weekend.

Not that she hasn’t been swimming before: but the pool we regularly go to is one depth all the way across, so she can stand up.  This weekend she opted to join in my son’s ‘Stupid O’Clock’ (7am) Triathlon training in a different pool.  She set off quite happily doing a slightly wonky front crawl, but stopped abruptly halfway across and when the coach walked back to see what the problem was, she informed him in no uncertain terms: “That end’s deep.  I don’t go deep.” Continue Reading »

Last time I blogged I told you about the meeting we went to where my husband, Steve, was picked out of the crowd and prayed for for healing.  We really believed that God had done something amazing in his life.  After all, it wasn’t like he had responded to a general word, he was picked out and told exactly what was wrong.

 I would love more than anything to be able to blog today and say that he is completely healed.  The reality is that he appears no better.  He has had a rough week, spent a lot of time in bed, is in just as much pain and feels just as exhausted.  Do I understand what is going on?  Not a clue.  Last week I really believed that God had done a miracle.  It hurts when hopes hit the ground - especially when they fell from such a height.  Of course we are desperately disappointed.  Who wouldn’t be?  I have spent the week (as it has become increasingly apparent that a miracle hasn’t occurred yet) working through my disappointment at the same time as answering all the excited friends and people who were at the meeting and want to hear the testimony, and instead I have had to explain that he is not healed yet.  By the end of the week I just stopped answering the phone. 

It’s been a tough week. Continue Reading »

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times this last couple of years: “You’re coping really well”.

I appreciate the encouragement but actually I’m fed up of ‘coping’. 

I want to live again, without this constant feeling of having to battle all the time with the consequences of ill health in the family, the financial difficulties that has brought, the pressures of trying to hold it all together and the many other things which just seem to come one after the other.  I know that there are lots of people reading this who feel exactly the same, although your actual situation might be different.  ‘When is all this going to come to an end? Continue Reading »

My son was in an inter-school cross country race yesterday.  He’s been training for it for ages and building up his stamina and perseverance and he was really excited.  With eight year old enthusiasm he planned his tactics all the way there in the car and prayed that the rain - which has been falling for weeks - would hold off. 

He made a reasonable start - although he was three rows back at the starting line - and was steadily moving through the field when: disaster!  A small hill and an enormous patch of mud, churned into a quagmire by a hundred little feet from the race before, and one by one, the thirty or so boys in front of my son went flying and he had no way of avoiding it: flat on his Continue Reading »

Some time ago, an English lady, tired of the rain of England, went to look for a house to buy in Switzerland. She finally found the house of her dreams, had her offer accepted, and returned to England to pack her belongings. While packing her bathroom, she suddenly realised that she didn’t remember seeing a bathroom in her new house. So she wrote to the Swiss estate agent asking for the whereabouts of the WC. The Swiss agent - his English being none too good - passed the letter on to the local priest for translation. Being unfamiliar with English abbreviations, the only meaning he could think of for WC was Wesleyan Chapel.

The English lady received the following reply:

‘My Dear Madam,

I take great pleasure in informing you that the WC is situated nine miles from the house in the centre of a beautiful grove of pine trees surrounded by lovely grounds.

It is capable of holding 229 people, and is open on Sundays and Thursdays only. As there are a great number of people expected during the summer months, I suggest you come early, although there is usually only standing room. This is an unfortunate situation, especially if you are in the habit of going regularly. Continue Reading »