It was lovely to have two days off at the start of the week (all bar a two hour meeting on Tuesday afternoon) but it has the inevitable impact of playing catch-up thereafter... fitting a week's work in to the remaining days in a role where the deliverables dates cannot slide!  In a way, this just puts me in a place more similar to the volunteer people who have to fit in their churchy stuff on top of their 'real' work, so I'm not complaining, just observing.

All of which means that today, when the sun is shining, I need to be disiclpined enough to sit at my desk and do the jobs that have not yet been done this week!

Being in the 'final countdown' now to my sabbatical brings with it a strange mixture of wind-down (nothing new to pick up for a while, no sermon series to prepare, a break from meetings etc.) and potential overload, as I still have to finalise sabbatical plans (chasing other busy people) and ensure all the literal and metaphorical tidying up is done by the end of June.  Stir in a week of holiday, a friend's daughter's wedding, a few pre-existing and new appointments in my diary, a cup-cake-bake, the Glasgow West End Festival, the Sunday School end of year celebration (being skillfully put together by them :-) ) and you have a recipe for a busy few weeks.

May be blog-lite for a couple of weeks as I try to get stuff done by Wednesday ready for the craziness of wedding near Chorley on Friday, preach in Glasogw on Sunday, fly out from Manchester at 5 a.m. Monday to psend a week in Maderia!!  But then it probably wouldn't be me if it wasn't a little bit crazy.