Bucklers Hard - Day 5: Breaking up is hard to do

Now we are used to having Brody in the bedroom, we got a reasonably good night's sleep.  Today, though, I was the one up early, and walking him round the overflow car park in the light drizzle.  What an unusual Saturday morning it turned out to be. We breakfasted in our private room again and enjoyed a very big breakfast.  Both of us opting for even more than usual.  By the time the breakfast rooms were open I had already packed half the car, so after breakfast there was not much left to pack.  We had soon checked out of the lovely hotel and were on our way in the wrong direction, towards Burley to visit a fudge shop. 

Burley is a tiny village and has lots of strange shops, some selling witchcraft paraphernalia.  We found the fudge shop eventually, and outside was a lady offering free samples.  It turned out she was originally from Laindon.

Driving around the new forest this Saturday was more challenging than usual as there was at least one, probably more, cycling events.  I am a walker, a cyclist and a driver and believe we can all share the road, but each has their responsibilities, for cyclists today the responsibilities that were lacking are:

1. Stick to your own side of the carriageway: driving down a narrow lane and being faced with four cyclists coming towards you (two on each side of the road) is a bit frightening, where was I supposed to go?  They missed me, I'd stopped.
2. If you have a child with you, do not cycle off into the distance and leave him to cope.  It is grossly unfair and if he makes a mistake you are not there to help.
3. Riding two or three abreast is now, I believe, recommended, but it is not a good idea to start overtaking each other while cars are trying to pass you.  The 'shape-shifting' serpent that this presents to the driver is very difficult to assess and react to, and I can't possibly give adequate space when you pull out a fraction of a second after I start my manoeuvre.
4. Learn how to look behind you without wobbling the bike and changing direction.

There were lots of cyclists, most of them rode respectfully and sensibly, just the ones above made driving unnecessarily fraught, and will have left some other drivers cursing them and demanding they be licensed.

Then we moved on a little and pulled off the road to take a walk in the New Forest.

We had walked for about 20 minutes when Brody found a bog and jumped in.  He sank in the mud, as he lifted one paw, the rest of him was sucked down a little.  He finally found a footing and hauled himself out, our chocolate Labrador now blacker than a black Labrador from his feet up to halfway up his rib cage.  Oh, the smell - we kept away from him as he shook and shook himself, but the mud stayed stuck. We allowed him back in the car - what could we do?  - and started our journey home.  At fleet services, we asked Google for a pub nearby for lunch.  In the list was the Fox and Hounds.  Any pub is likely to be better than a Motorway services, and this one turned out to be well worth the slight diversion.  Plus, we had a fly by from the Red Arrows as we were sitting by the canal waiting for our food.  A superb meal, in great surroundings.  I did wonder about getting Brody to swim in the canal - to wash the mud off, but he was almost dry now, and I didn't want the smell to come back.
Then it was back on the Motorway and following Google Maps advice we went north rather than south around the M25.  A slow journey for a lot of the time.
Eventually, we arrived home, and bathed Brody ready for his operation on Monday.
A lovely holiday, the New Forest is great and Bucklers Hard is very special.

8 mile more

So after the last blog I decided to try some cycling.  I again managed 8 miles in about 45 minutes.  This time, more than last, I really knew I'd done it.  Oh well, keep going - puff, puff.

Almost like starting again ...

That seems to be the theme of the day.

I was preaching Sunday morning and as I listened to myself, I was not at all happy with the balance. Here's roughly what I said. Too much concentration on the problem and too little discussion of how to avoid it.  Warner added a prayer at the end, which worked well.   However, God did manage to speak to some people through it.  I got some helpful feedback, but also just some "well done"s, which I'm never that sure about. I MUST remember to respond to those with some sort of question ...
I haven't reacted like that to the structure and content of one of my sermons since the very early days.

That was the first 'starting again'.

After lunch, a bottle of Bishop's Finger and the Hungarian Grand Prix (perhaps Mark Webbers best race?), I decided to go for a cycle.  I only managed the shortest of my courses and had a very sore knee at the end.  I was also feeling quite tired.

That was the second 'starting again'

In the evening, we took Brody and some sandwiches and went to Matching Tye for a 1.5-hour walk through the very dry countryside. Most of the time we were walking across or around fields of grain, clearly ready for the harvest.  If there's any appreciable rain now, it will all be flattened and rot. The walk officially started at the Village Hall, but we started from and returned to The Fox Inn.  They have a very large garden, so it was easy to fit Brody in.

I slept well Sunday night!

Jewish Roots of our Faith / 8 Mile

 Jewish Roots of our Faith
In January 2008 Michael Cohen visited Christ Church to talk about the Jewish roots of our faith.  Here's my review of what happened last time.  Michael made a return visit yesterday.  Again he provided teaching from the point of view of a Messianic Jew, one who had found his faith and his roots after growing up in a secular background.  My notes on this one are not so good, I am in the precess of ending my caffeine addiction (on medical advice, but that's another story).  As a result my concentration is not what it should be and I missed a number of key links.  I have however asked for the recordings so that I can study them properly when my brain chemistry has recovered.  The attendance at this event was rather sparse.  I don't think it received the publicity it should have done. 
Michael was our preacher a Christ Church this morning and spoke to us from John 14:23-29, but mainly verse 27. He started with a question "How full of peace is your heart today?" and went on to talk about 'shalom' and its meaning of completeness.  Later there was a reference to Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  It is only one of two places where Paul says he is convinced of something. The sermon will be here soon.

8 Mile
My quest to get fitter and perhaps cycle to work took a small step froward this afternoon.  I investigated the back roads of Stock, to determine if there is a way around Stock Hill.   There is.  Small Gains Lane, Well Lane and Common Road which brings you back onto the B1007 (Stock Road).  Today at the end of Well Lane I returned home via Mill Road and a 'freewheel' down stock hill, where I kept up with the traffic.  It's a nice cycle, although there was a slight danger of decapitation in Small Gains Lane as there were workmen replacing cables and one was alarmingly low!  The distance was 8 miles exactly (according to google) and so the longest yet.  My time was about 44 minutes easily inside the maximum of one hour for the whole journey.  More importantly my recovery time was about the same as the cycle time, so I would need another 45 minutes before I started work (and probably another shower!).

At Christ Church / Exercise

At Christ Church
I preached at the 08:00 service.  The topic was Colossians 3:12-14, which is titles "Rules for Holy Living" in my Bible.  You can read the text here.  I had struggled with the preparation, but was reasonably pleased with the result, especially as it was delivered after being woken by noisy children at 4am.  When does that end?
We have the new projector in place after some delays caused by the snowy weather.  Warner had prepared some video to show it off.  This was shown at the end of the service and delayed the congregation leaving by about 5 minutes.  There were two baptisms this morning.  We haven't had two for a very long time.  Both were boys and both very well-behaved.  The church was packed. Liz lead and Jane preached.  The service went very well from my perspective.  Prayers were led by Andy and Sue, who also used the projector, and demonstrated that the laptop is at the end of its capabilities.  It took 10 minutes to get the PowerPoint loaded into Impress (openoffice.org), but once loaded it worked fine.

Exercise
After a year of setbacks and poor weather, today was bright and sunny.  I decide to try out the bicycle.  To find out if it had survived being neglected for over a year.  I'm happy to report that it was fine.  My 'short route', the one I always start the summer cycling with if I've had a break, is 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometres) according to google.  It took about half an hour, although I forgot to set the stop watch, so I only have a very approximate time.

I'm thinking about cycling to work, that is 8.8 miles, more than twice my starting distance, and then there's coming home too.

On yer Bike ...

As one of our more 'colourful' politicians used to say to the unemployed.
I was up earlier than expected this morning, so decided to cycle to church. This is the bikes first outing since the injury. I have normally managed 6 or 7 trips by now. It is only 2 miles each way, and there's plenty of time to rest in the service, as I wasn't doing anything. I was tired when I got back, and expect to have a little stiffness tomorrow. This shows me how much of my fitness I have lost, and there wasn't much to start with!

Christ Church had a new service leader for the first time, and he did very well, and said he enjoyed it. Being a fifth Sunday the youth band played - they are better than they realise, even though I make a point of telling them. Our preacher was also not one of the regulars, and she did a good job of making us thing about the situation between Mary and Jesus on her return to the temple to find Him. What was Jesus thinking when he stayed behind? What was Mary thinking when she returned, and when she found him? Right now I am more in tune with Mary, as we have learnt that Karen and her young people must spend the night in Cairo.


The illusive grandfather has made an appearance. Here he is in a picture with two others, who I don't know, standing behind them. This is the only picture of him we have found.
George Fisher was apparently 56 when he died, although I have to say he looks older to me.

Below is grandmother Annie Fisher, with my Aunt Phyllis (20) and my uncle Philip (16):