Fasting Friday Failure Followed-up

Last Thursday week I failed to remember that on Friday we were going to a quiz night. The quiz night was to raise funds for new floodlights for our ailing local football club, to see old friends and enjoy ourselves.  Had I remembered, on the Thursday I would have fasted, but I was certainly NOT going to fast on Friday and drink in the evening - that's a sure fire way to get drunk on almost no alcohol at all, and I hate being drunk.  So come Friday I had failed.
Thinking about how I would fit two days fasting into a very short week left me puzzled and unwilling to even try.  I needn't have worried.
 
Andy, Jess and Leo have suffered a bug that was almost certainly Norovirus.  By Sunday, I was starting to think I had caught it.  So much so I was close to not preaching!  Some prayer later and I managed it (it was an eventful one, including some technology failures), but by Sunday evening I was struggling again - beginning to feel very cold.  I stayed at home Monday and tried to get warm with little success, it was a miserable day until about 4pm when the fever broke and I recovered.  On Tuesday I went to work as usual, the late Tuesday evening the 'second half' of the illness hit me.  By Wednesday mid-morning my insides were empty, along with my energy reserves, I didn't eat again until Thursday lunchtime, but I didn't do anything except sleep, read and watch TV, nothing close to activity at all.
On Thursday I missed an important (to me) funeral that I had a day's holiday to attend, and in the evening the Agape feast at Christ Church.  Today I have managed to exercise the dog and take part in the walk of witness, but that was it - the limit of my abilities, so I missed the service following the walk, and I am missing our innovative service for Good Friday - Eastingle - as I write.  My daughter, jokingly, said God would smite me if I missed any more important festivals, I replied, less jokingly, that I thought He already had.
So I have managed two days without food (very nearly) this week, even if I haven't managed anything else.

If you're wondering how we did at the quiz night - we cane 7th of 10.  On one round, we scored as full 10/10, but didn't play our joker.  The round was words that sound the same and are spelt differently, the clue was 'provoke' and 'understanding'.

The answer: incite and insight - my only unique contribution to the round.

And yes, I did provide unique input to other rounds, but we didn't get a perfect score on any of them.

We won!

Last night, we attended a quiz night at church. The quiz night was in aid of the Atrium fund (we still have some loans to pay off for the atrium). There were 5 tables of eight or more people each. One of the table was filled with the winners of previous quiz nights. On our table we had a good mix of people, so that all of us could play our part, and there was not too much discussion because there was not too much overlap in our knowledge. By the third round we had a 2 point lead over the table with the previous winners on (Jokers excluded). On the last two rounds we managed to increase our lead, although somewhere along the line we had dropped half a point as compared to our closest competitors.

I surprised myself, and should learn that my instincts are better than my thought processes. We could have scored at least one more point if I had paid attention to them. I surprised my self also, that I began to feel distinctly competitive, although there really wasn't anything at stake, not even pride. We were not expected to win after all, and the prizes would not even set you up for tomorrows lunch. OK, so pride, in some form, is all that could have been at stake...

The 5 Amaryllises that have survived from last year, look like they are about to produce 4 flowers. I'm hoping that one of them will be red: