All those stories

Do you ever do that thing where you imagine what millions of people might be doing at 'this very moment'?

I do...

It's actually become a catchphrase in our house... it comes from a time when we lived in Cardiff, near to a churchyard. Sometimes at lunch, particularly in the spring, we would go for a walk on a quest for the first daffodils, and - being of a somewhat nostalgic nature - I would remark to The Wife that each of those gravestones represented a different life... "All those stories", I said...

"All those stories" has now become a trump card served to me every time I get too involved with a sense of my own mortality... synonymous with 'stop waffling and get on and do something constructive'... it's a (mostly) gentle way of prodding me back in the direction of real life.

Real life was certainly hanging about this morning. I missed The Wife's call to help her with a full nappy... Then we came downstairs to discover that one of the cats had peed out of the litter tray requiring the cleaning of the floor, the replacement of the mat and the removal of a long panel that runs underneath the kitchen cupboards... Then, just as I was doing that, Moo knocked the newly brewed coffeepot from the other kitchen worktop onto the floor... cue 20 mins of madness as we tried to keep her out of the kitchen, the cats (now with coffee-feet) off the lounge rug, clean up a pint of coffee and grounds from wife, baby, floor, walls and skirting and remove the rest of the cupboard paneling to let the place dry...

Then we had breakfast... whilst the cats fought in the back bedroom... (presumably hyper on second-hand coffee)

Then I remembered it was Easter... and, as I topped my boiled egg, thought about the Part-Time Monk who will be starting back on food today following lent spent on beer alone... and (apart from considerably thinner) wondered how he was feeling?

And read my friend Pop's post on Drifting, and wondered how he and his family were... 

And then it occurred to me that somewhere around 2000 years ago... God was raising Jesus from the dead...

That helped to put things into perspective. 

Happy Easter :)

What's in a name?

When I was at university, one of our linguistics lecturers told us a story... that goes something like this.

In the 1920s, insurance agents were called to deal with a number of explosions on an oil platform. When they visited the platform, they noticed an interesting pattern. Rules required barrels on the platform to be painted with labels depending on whether they were 'full' or 'empty'. Workers would then behave differently towards each. They would take great care of barrels that were 'full' - of cold, inert and extremely safe crude oil - not smoking around them, and transporting and stacking them carefully. Those that were 'empty' - empty of oil, but full of highly explosive gasses - they would smoke around and throw around the platform... until they exploded.

Gone with the wind - part 1

I want to share something quite personal, that I alluded to a couple of posts ago, about why it was that I stopped doing 'mission'. But, by way of introduction...

At the moment, I'm living with a mission. No, not the Christian one... yes, all right, that one too... No, my mission is simple. It is to cycle to work and back. Am I getting fit you ask... well, that's a side effect... and thinner too, gradually. But the real motive is more mundane... with an unfettered addition for books threatening to bankrupt the Môme household, The Wife has imposed a rule... I'm not allowed to buy any books unless I can find extra money. 

Goodbye comfortable daily 10 minute train journey... hello daily 6 mile cycle... and then again to get home.

That's how much I need to buy books...