In 2007 I walked Hadrian's Wall with my good friend Jean.  We had a great time, an undoubtedly enjoyed passing through Sycamore Gap, as well as visiting various other famous landmarks.  I was really sad today to read the news that someone has cut down the sycamore - why? And even more sad that it was someone so young.

Anyway, here's what I wrote on this blog all those years ago... I was a lot more erudite back then!

My teeny tiny laptop was an emergency purchase to see me through my house move - I never meant it to become my 'go to' working at home/church laptop.

Today a slightly bigger laptop with a lot more memory arrived, and I have spent almost half a day setting it up.  Which is good, because it's done, but never feels like the best use of my time. At the moment it will be my all-purpose laptop!

Once everything eventually settles down all will be well - I have a laptop for each hat I wear, different makes, models and operating systems but for now I will live with the feeling of time not being put to best use as I faff around doing what feels like a million updates on a laptop that was, allegedly, built yesterday...

Oh, the photo is the one I am using for wallpaper on my windows machines!

I am curious... is it a 'thing ' that churches founded in the 1880s wrote a fifty year jubilee 'souvenir' book with a mucky brown/grey-ish cover, and then a centenary booklet with a pale blue cover?

If 'history is a set of stories we tell about ourselves' then congregational histories tell a lot about how local churches see themselves - I could not describe either of these little booklets as exciting, but they do tell a story, an important story, about how this church sees itself.  They help me to create a timeline (I am minister number 16 since 1882, compared to minister number 10 since 1883 at my previous church) and to begin both to see patterns and to uncover precious gems amidst the mundane accounts of Baptist blokes and buildings!!! 

Moving medical records between devolved nations never used to be a problem in the days before everything was digitised... when I moved to Scotland, my GP in England simply sent over my notes and that was that.  Simple.  Now, neither system (or it seems devolved NHS organisation) speaks to the other in a timely fashion, and it seems they are equally annoying in this regard.

The strange plus of apparently landing from outer space, is that I was able to book my Covid booster, which I received yesterday, and have been offered breast screening (15 months after the last time) and bowel screening (3 months after the last time) so I am happy to accept each of those.  I am assuming that my new GP has taken some notice of things I stated on my registration form... such as left arm only for vaccines (the vaccinator knew this yesterday) and that I don't need cerivcal screening as I no longer have the necessary anatomy! My flu vaccination is booked for a couple of weeks time.

I've been very well served over the years by NHS Scotland, and have to say in all honesty, it's very much so far, so good with NHS England.

Cheshire is a vey rural county - small towns and villages (except in those parts of the county that used to be Lancashire!) so a 'traditional' harvest thanksgiving still has a place, espeically in Victorian buildings.  Mostly non-preishable good to be given to the food bank or Salvation Army, and also an envelope collection for Operation Agri, who are the 'charity of the month' for this church.

Yesterday afternoon I helped to decorate the church. I love the handmade signage - and apparently there may be a handmade giant sunflower to arrive this morning.

Today is my last Sunday of 'observing' before I preach my way through October with some 'images of God'.  Just between us, it has been good to have a few weeks off from leading worship - the last two or three years have been decidedly crazy one way and another.