Long post involving a picnic, various socials and a broken PC

Monday the 12th was writers group social and it was held at the Bath Hotel which is technically my local and I do go in it more often than any other. I would guess between once and twice a year, I also vaguely know the owner. Indeed at one time I was on teh edge of their social group. Something I did not cultivate as it is also the social group of the head of my department. The connection is basically we live on the same street but I have lived here longer! The evening was pretty pleasant until 9:00 pm when the band started up in the other room.  That also seemed to be the key for other people coming into the back room where we were, and between the noise from the band and the other conversations I could not follow what was being said so decided to go home. There was a good turn out as well. I would more than there had been for the last few weeks but then we open it up to former members as well as current ones.

Tuesday it was the last Bible Study at Herringthorpe and Roy led it on Peter and the need for change. He got so strong on leadership being about getting inspiration from the Lord and then acting on it, that even his son Steven had to tackle him on it. Roy is struggling with the committee nature of the URC and I am afraid this is coming out. I suspect he needs both to see revelation happening in a meeting, rare but does happen and also to hear why it is done in that way.  Anyway I am well briefed in committees as listening rather than speaking.

Wednesday was a fairly normal day although we did have a tropical rainstorm in the evening just about the time I wanted to go shopping. It was falling in bucket loads and ever so often the wind would pick it up as it splashed onto the roof opposite and create a white line of spray. It was tropical even in the time it lasted and I waited half an hour, walked down in light drizzle and it was fine by the time I walked back from the shops.

Thursday my computer started giving notice that it was going sick. It decided to download the managed service from the network for some reason. As I don’t have the password it could not. I switched it off and it came back okay but the puzzlement of what happened left me feeling insecure with it.

Friday was my day off and it was a writing weekend. As always with a writing weekend I was tired so did not make Broomhall Breakfast. I did however manage to decide that I really should re-write the essay. That sounds like editing but it was largely not. What I had to do was give an account of Cafe Church and how it is part of mission. Surprisingly there are no books solely on Cafe Church. The problem then is that although it has been part of emerging church, it also was for a time part of alt.worship and I suspect is going mainstream evangelical at least in some of its more commercial forms. So it is not something that one can just by a text on the overarching topic and read the relevant chapter.Well earlier in the month I had done some searching on Amazon and found “The Hybrid Church in the City:Third SpaceThinking” which as cafe church is often described as “third space” and hybridity is obvious, part cafe part church, oh and it was by Christopher Baker, well not Johnny Baker but still the same surname. Well it was but not in the way I was thinking. It’s first section is a serious bit of sociological writing on hybridity mainly based on Homi Bhabha theory. It was a lever which allowed me to create a greater depth to my paper, with analysing Cafe church as a deliberate hybridisation and that this meant that there was a change in the discourses in it. However to get that far I actually had to do some serious reading.

Saturday I picked up the hire car for the weekend. I had ordered it from Hertz as Hertz worked out cheaper for two days than did citycar for the day and I had no time worries. I ordered an Corsa as I enjoyed driving that on holiday but instead got a Seat Ibiza Ecomotive which was quite pleasant to drive and hiring for two days meant that I could do a shop at Waitrose with a car which makes life lots easier.

Sunday I took a break from essay reading and went with Herringthorpe for a picnic at Cannon Hall. It was interesting to go, in that the people who went were predominantly from the younger age range of the church. I know what the weather was threatened. My decision on the morning was either had to cancel or to trust God. On setting off I drove Frieda home. Frieda is one of the older people of the congregation and is getting quite frail.  I suspect that really she should be in sheltered housing, a wardened flat would be ideal, but she has a large pre-war semi-detached house with a large well kept garden. The family who keep an eye on her were going to have to do an extra car journey so I volunteered. She is the sort who wonders why I would see her to the door when she has just told Pauline in front of me how she fell over and knocked herself out on her own front door step. She is generous to a fault herself. However I managed to loose the car keys after letting her in. It turned out to be a mistake on my part when I had accidentally dropped them into my bag when I had tried to put something else in it and they had fallen to the bottom. The picnic at Cannon Hall was much like a cross between childhood picnics there and church picnics of my teenage years. So we sat closer to the carpark than in my childhood but still did not go around the house. I went to check what I recall as where we picnicked and the flat stone bridge is still there but the stepping stones have gone (well misplaced, the route of the ford was still clearly there) and the bank access to the river has become overgrown. It was obvious nobody had picnicked there for a long time. There also was a game of rounders. The team I was on won, not due to me, but due to the fact we had the only lefthander on our side and she could hit a ball. Odd because I am almost sure there was another lefthander young enough to play. There is now a little cafe by the carpark but the ice-cream van still serves good ice-cream or appeared to do so from what I saw others eating.

Having finished the essay on Monday, Tuesday saw me back in work and then onto Bible Study Social in the evening. I think this is an end of term event. I remembered my lactase tablets which meant I could eat fairly freely and not worry over whether I was eating too much milk for my system. This is tricky with buffets for although I can do cold meats and salads without a dressing or none creamy, there is often milk in things you don’t expect, such as sausage rolls. It also meant I could eat a small chocolate muffin without worrying though my main dessert was strawberries and raspberries. Afterwards Pauline decided for entertainment that we would have a beetle drive. Now as far as I know Beetle drive was pretty standard non-conformist culture. It has enough skill in it not to be gambling and some people are very good. Tony Burnham if I recall correctly used to win every time. They had just mastered throwing the die quickly. The quicker you can shake it the more goes you have before the shout of Beetle. Well a lot of them had not played before and of course the table with four people on it won, as the others had six.

Wednesday I spent time with Cliff in the church making minor changes to the sound system. Basically fitting a draw to the cabinet which means things no longer are stuffed on top and likely to fall down the back so perhaps loosening the wires. We took out the minidisc player. The technology is obsolete and nobody after Barry left actually got it to work. Then my computer went on strike properly. I spent the afternoon trying to sort it and gave up just before 5:00 pm.

Thursday was not a good day. My computer was in a huff and the technician who would see it went home sick. Eventually I borrowed a computer off Alison the senior departmental secretary and finance guru, which meant that I could handle Margo’s queries about meta-analysis. I also composed an email explaining the situation to my boss who is away until Monday. It is totally frustrating to know that the machinery you need for your job is

Friday was better, I made breakfast which was quiet. I don’t mean nobody came I mean that people who did come were not as talkative as usual and if anything tended to drift off into sleep.Then I got into work and my PC problems had been passed to Dave a colleague who I have known ever since I started in the department. He got the van boys to collect it and bring me my old computer out. This I have not used for two years and was then five years old. so not a modern machine but one I know that is trustworthy. I am running old software on it as it does not have the spec to run more modern stuff but it works. I am wondering if it is worth trying to turn it into a Linux machine when I am in safer waters. It would mean that it was usuable in such emergencies, indeed I would also be able to run SPSS linux and R on it. If this works then I will keep two machines the older always being a Linux. Also on Friday was the works Barbecue. Work only has two departmental dos in a year. The Christmas Party and the Barbecue, therefore I try to go to both. I wonder why sometimes I go but I still feel I ought. Apart from the music, maybe next year I will bight the bullet and put stuff up for people to use, but I presume people are not going to like it, but with some of what was inflicted on me, I cannot see that a few Christian choruses would be too bad.

Saturday morning I spent largely collating stuff for my next supervision, it was amazing how much I had done and how often I had forgotten to keep a record of what had happened. Maybe I will end up having to include these letters as part of my data as sometimes the only record is in these. Then I went down town. Big mistake, town was heaving from the Tramlines Music Festival and they had a continental market as well. Some of the normally busy shops were quiet because it was that difficult to get to them. I think there only were a couple of other customers in Lush when I went there and there did not seem to be any queues in Waterstones but the food part of Marks was still busy.

Today I did not go to church as I needed space to try and sort out what I wanted to do over the summer for thesis, what holiday I had left and what changes I needed to make to the interview schedule. All trivial jobs in themselves but they were not getting done and with them not getting done meant I was not getting on with other things that needed doing. Since then I have slept and talked to my parents and written this letter.

Mainly Easter Weekend

Last week was pretty okay as a Holy week. I got to the Maundy Thursday evening service. I am deciding that David Legge is a straight Zwinglian. Possibly even on factual side of that. It shows itself in the form of the communion services which is not always the case with those of Zwinglian persuasion. Interesting question: is the congregation Zwinglian in their eucharistic theology. There are signs that that might be the case although that is not what I would expect with an ex-Presbyterian (I am more used to them tending towards Lutheranism).

Oh I have also found the "quick" method to get my writing juices flowing at least slowly. The answer seems to be to hand write my ideas for the first day. I will write very little but by the second day my word speed is about up to passable on the computer. Don't know why it works but it beats trying to write on a computer for two days before the ideas start coming. I know I should try and write 500 words a day even if it is sociological nonsense but I never do. I always write up until my deadline and then break, read, observe and interview, realise it is almost the deadline time again and start the intense writing. Mind you by the end of this academic year I will have written 90,000 words approximately with another 60,000 to be written before I start "writing" up.

Sunday was hectic. With being on placement with a congregation I really should be at their worship on Easter Sunday. This is after all the high day in the Churches calendar and there is no sign at my placement congregation that it thinks we should not keep the basic Christian calendar despite being ex-Presbyterian. Query: Both the ex-Presbyterians I have known have communion on Easter Sunday, however I have known Congregational churches choose to have a celebration service instead, which would be a method of lowering the fuss on that day. Why are ex-Presbyterians into communion on Easter Sunday. I would say amongst ex-Congregational churches of my experience it was more common to have communion on Maundy Thursday than Easter Sunday. The Chaplaincy at St Andrews did not have communion at its main service on Easter Sunday the one year I was up for Easter. So where does the tradition come from?

Anyway I got home after the service, having left slightly earlier than I usually do but people were leaving pretty quickly, dropped the car off at the parking space about 1:00 p.m. having come back via the Ecclesall Road due to road works on my usual stretch and the fast route likely to be blocked with traffic, was tempted to go via Nether Padley (about the same distance but on slower roads). Went to the toilet, grabbed a glass of water and emergency food supply and changed my shoes before setting off to the station. Fortunately when I got to the station Marks and Spencers was open so I got a sandwich and a packet of crisps. I then went to the till but with normal Sheffield politeness the man sent me to get a drink as the food cost £2:38 without the drink or £2:00 with the drink. I picked up my pre-booked ticket and caught the train half an hour earlier (around 14:10) than I planned so had to phone my parents to say this. I also learnt there was no 13:40 train. I had booked the later train as just too many things could have gone wrong, a service over run, getting lost on the way home as I was on an unfamilliar routte, having to fill the car with petrol and so on. They conveyed it onto my sister. For those catching trains to and from Sheffield, from the Manchester end catch the one about twenty minutes past the hour at Manchester (25 minutes at Stockport) and from Sheffield the 10 minutes past the hour train. The reason being these are run by transpeninne who genuinely seem to want to make a go of the route. The trains are normally three carriages or more long, so not as crowded as the other ones, run on time, more of them and actually give the cheaper advance tickets. What is there not to like.

I therefore got to Stockport at around 3:00 p.m. and Mum and Dad had just pulled up at the Station, I simply dumped my bag in the back and we set off for my sisters for Dad's 80th Birthday celebrations. The meal was great. Unlike Christmas when there is always enought to feed most of the neighbour hood as well as ourselves this time things worked out almost exactly right. It was helped by the fact that Cathy knew which of the two desserts most people were going to choose. I got Sam and Hannah Easter presents. The irony being that the biggest hit was the t-shirt I got for £4 from a closing down sale (albeit one that has been going on for at least three years, somehow I don't quite believe it).

The last couple of days I have been spending with my parents. At least the time I have been awake I have been spending with my parents but I seemed to want to go to sleep at the drop of the hat. Dad got 14 birthday cards and a basket of house plants from the church for his birthday. The house plants have been passed onto my Mum who will no doubt tend them when she has the time. Still I'd like to find someone who could do some redesigning of the garden. The idea of my Mum balancing on narrow beds in order to tend the top of their garden is not good even if she is the most agile eighty year old I know, often beating me at getting down to something on the floor.

Oh anyone want to read about Chaos then James Gleick's book "Chaos: Making a New Science" ) is an easy read. Its left me itching to get at the mathematics of it to see if I can actually get my head around it. Hope you have a good Easter week