It's 1969 and a six year-old girl stands next to her mother at the till of a supermarket in Northampton.  Money is tight, but children need to be fed. A lady in an orange overall rings up the total, money is counted out, change given, bags are lifted... and two small slabs of fruit cake wrapped in cellophane are handed to the mother.  On the plastic wrapping are printed birthday candles - this company is marking its centenary and giving its customers a slice of cake to mark the occasion.  The kind lady at the till gives two cakes, because she knows this woman has many mouths to feed. Reaching home the cake is admired, opened and shared as a rare treat - bought cake doesn't happen often in this household!

It's 2019 and a fifty-six year-old woman stands at the checkout of a supermarket in Glasgow.  She has enough money to indulge in a few treats as well as the essentials.  A lady in a burgundy fleece scans the items, a card is put in a reader, a PIN tapped in and the shopping trolley zipped up... "don't forget to pick up your tea and biscuit on the way out" the lady says - this company is marking its 150th anniversary, and gives its customers a gift to mark the occasion.  Reaching home the items are photographed and the images shared on social media.  The woman smiles at the retro-packing, recalling when this was normal, and she was a child.  She anticipates a mug of tea and a ginger biscuit - but not yet, there are memories to savour and stories to be told.

Some will say it's a waste, that the company should have given the money to projects serving those who live in poverty.

Some will make cynical snide remarks, pointing out any and every shortcoming of a major retailer

But somewhere there will be a six year-old child, for whom a packet of biscuits and a box of teabags will form a memory that lasts a lifetime.  Somewhere there will be a mother who can sit down and drink a cup of tea and munch a biscuit that she might never have justified buying. 

Once there was a woman criticised for lavish, wreckless extravangance, and a man who said that there would always be poor people (inference: because you'll never actually address poverty, will you) but this is a beautiful thing, a precious moment, and it will not be denied.

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear, what the writer says to the readers.

Just in from voting in an EU election that we didn't expect to have after the 'leave' result back in 2016.

There are a lot of very fed up folk out there. There are a lot of people who have totally lost faith in politics. There are people making predictions based on the weather (my Dad used to be big on that one!) and there are algorithms to assist tactical voting either way.

How anyone votes is their choice - even if anyone eligible chooses to vote at all is their choice.

By Sunday we'll have an idea how the whole EU looks politically, never mind this tiny island.  If praying be your thing, pray for wisdom, compassion and peace.

I almost certainly won't see either, but they are clues to where I'm going to be for the next few days!

Tomorrow I head north to Drumnadrochit (such a great place name) to share with M & T as we bless their marriage in gorgeous surroundings.

A quick flip back on Sunday then off again on Monday to Larbert (not so romantic sounding, alas) to be part of the Board of Ministry meeting peopel ar various stages of their ministry journey and, with others, discerning answers to some specific questions about what that might look like at this time.

Just two of the wonderfully diverse aspects of the nioniostry I am privileged to exercise.

[No blogging then, as either no internet or no time or both]

... it's another glorious morning in Glasgow!

Social media platforms like to remind me what I was posting a year ago, two years ago, anything up to seven years ago when I started using them!

Today I was told that it was exactly a year since my first chaplaincy visit to the Care Home.  It was a very sunny day, and for two figs I'd have called off, because it was only a week since my Mum had died in another care home, and I was still sorting funeral arrangements.  Every time I go to the Care Home, I glance across at the bench where I sat, waiting for my taxi to take me home, and phoning venues for the funeral tea.

I'm glad I did as my Mum would have demanded of me that day, and pulled myself together and got on with it.  Over the year I have probably spoken with around forty folk, some once, some many times.  Sometimes it's hard going, sometimes it's good fun; always it's privileged.

Whilst it wouldn't be my natural vocation - I find endless small talk with strangers incredibly tiring - I seem to be OK at it, and it is certainly valued by the residents and some of the staff. I am grateful someone trusted me enough to give me this opportunity, and pray God can  bless others through it.

A quick skim of social media this morning and assorted friends posting about their children starting GCSES - the Scottish National 5s are well underway but much more spread out.

I suddenly realised that it's forty years since I say my 'O' levels, during a very sunny June in 1979.  I can still recall English Language and Literature, and Maths in the Sports Hall; Physics, Chemistry, History and French in the Main Hall, Tech Drawing in the Tech Drawing room (where else?!) and RE in the Scout Hut!  I can still recall the bemusement of having a 'moderated' answer booklet for my English language paper and the smirking external examiner who read over everyone's shoulders in the Physics exam.  I still recall the topics for French Conversation, the essays I wrote for English (lang and lit), parts of the RE paper (notably my essay on the Last Supper) and some questions from other exams.  I still remember worrying how many marks I'd lose on the English precis because I mis-spelled 'pillage' and the awful sinking feeling when I opened the history paper to discover not a single question that matched what we'd been taught.

I liked exams, and, not wishtanding the disaster in history, generally did really well. I'm not even sorry about the history, it was good to learn early what failure and disappointment look like; in any case, I now have published work on church history, so all's well that ends well, maybe!

Forty years later, it's sobering to look back and realise just how important those exams seemed, indeed were, and how little they actually count for in the end.