Snow weeks stories

Right news this week. Weather stopped play or meant I spent more time at home than I would have otherwise. At the start of the week I was going to be out Monday evening, Wednesday morning, Wednesday evening and Thursday evening. I went to none of the events, they were all cancelled. Actually only Monday evening and Thursday evening due to the weather. Wednesday morning due to the people I was going to interview being hassled with events and Wednesday evening house-group was cancelled due to the father of the leader being seriously ill in Huddersfield. I think I started Thursday evening being cancelled. I was watching cars skid up Hounsfield road (or rather slide down it) and saw that more snow was forecast so in a hired car if I went out for an elders training and then got into difficulties there would be rather a lot of explaining to do. So I wrote sending apologies for the meeting and within an hour it was cancelled.

Have I told people about David and Mike Yaconelli's book Dangerous Wonder. Well David happened to ask me before Christmas what I thought of when I thought of father-son relationships, brainstorming for that evenings service basically and my mind went immediately to a story in that book. Well I brought it to church the next week as David wanted to use the story, when I picked it up I thought, "hum David might end up reading this" so I mentioned that he might like to read it. David looked at me askance, I think expecting it to be a serious doctrinal tome and as dull as ditch water apart from the story. He makes no bones about not being the greatest reader among ministers, actually he makes too much of a fuss, he is still reads new books, and his office is full of books but I think the idea of extra reading was not very attractive to him. I came back after Christmas to David saying "So you want your book back or may I finish reading it", the following time I saw him he said "May I have it another week so I can finish it" and "I recommend we have a copy for the church library". This week he is saying "I will return your book next week, WHEN my copy has come." Yes I do read books that to people like David would be as dull as ditch water, but I know the difference between a book that is likely to be like that and something that is an easy read even if it has spiritual depth to it and I think that book has. I also happened to think that it had a message David needed to hear.

Oh picking up the cooking rice from last week. It worked, I have four portions of rice in my freezer and have eaten one, which takes two minutes in the microwave to reheat. Now just so other people don't get in a mess may I point out that cooked rice if cooled slowly or kept for more than 24 hours in a fridge can cause food poisoning I both knew this before I started and was warned, but as Cathy also warned me I thought I better put this up. I personally first cooled by running cold water through it, then put in the fridge for an hour to get rid of any remaining heat before I froze it. I think there is less chance of me getting food poisoning from it than if I ate a rice salad from the supermarket. This weeks experiment has been spicy sweet potato and butternut squash soup. I bought a ready prepared packet of sweet potato and butternut squash. Two reasons, it gave me about the quantity I wanted and a butternut squash would be too much and I find preparing butternut squash difficult with its hard skin. I then also bought a potato which I chopped up fine. I then put these in the slow cooker with about 700ml (1 pint) of vegetable stock and added ginger, cardamom pods, black pepper and I think ground coriander but all I was really doing was testing for spices that smelt warm. I know chilli would have done but did not want it. The result was pleasant though I think I will go a bit lighter on the ginger next time and I still have a box in the freezer to eat some time. I ate it with garlic dough balls. I bought them this time but I think I am going to try and make those so I can make them with wholemeal flour rather than strong plain or at least a wholemeal/strong plain mix.

On thursday in work I managed to get in for 8:00 am. Actually with very little difficulty, that I admit was partly because I was worrying over the course I was giving that day and how prepared I was. However six months ago even with that level of worry I would have struggled to get in like that. This is the second time in a fortnight I have been in work extra early. This time admittedly I was exhausted by 3:00 pm and came home and went into a deep sleep.

Actually think I have made another little breakthrough with migraine. That is to try and discipline myself that whenever I get home the one thing I must do is stop. That may be as simple as sitting in a chair for quarter of an hour or if I am feeling over wrought I will actually go to bed. That is not really to sleep but to shut out the world for a while, while I get me bearings again. The only thing is I am not the sort of person who likes to do that, so the discipline is hard for me to keep. At present I am managing it, but I wonder for how long. My soul seems to need time to catch up with my body.

A nice touch today at church. Iona the girl who is adopted, put up on the prayer board "Please pray for my little sister". Iona's Mum Fiona has been cleared to adopt another girl and Iona is delighted.