Today I spent six hours volunteering at The Show, Scotland, a big fundraiser for Breast Cancer Care . It was physically demanding and I was on my feet for almost the whole time. From helping to set out  the tables via selling goody bags to hosting three tables, it was varied and fun.

After the fashion show itself one of the models shared her story... Symptomatically diagnosed at 47 and recalling standing on a street in Glasgow where I had stood minutes after my own diagnosis, her story had a resonance was surprisingly strong. But equally strong was the dissonance: like me, she large tumour - actually hers was larger than mine - but the sting in the tale was that, unlike me, her cancer had already metastasized. 

I have always known that I was lucky, that weeks or maybe months later, and my story would have been very different,  it was in the dissonance I felt that very acutely.

In  both the similarities and in the differences I find connections, am reminded how fragile and precious life is, and give thanks.

Tonight, as I travel first class, feast on delicious food and consume as much tea as I desire, I am humbled and uplifted in pretty much equal measure.

PS typing on a snazzy phone even with intelligent predictive text my propensity to typos is not so easily dealt with have

Tomorrow I begin a week's annual leave, and am really looking forward to a change of pace and a change of surroundings.

My leave begins with a six hour volunteering stint with Breast Cancer Care, Scotland, as I am working behind the scenes at their annual fund-raising event called The Show.  Male and female models, of all shapes and sizes, and each having had a breast cancer diagnosis, will be 'strutting their stuff' on the cat-walk.  I think this will be quite demanding physically, but it is good to give back to this charity, and I can sit down for a few hours afterwards!

Next is the utter self-indulgence of a first class train ride to London, where I will stay overnight at a minister-friend's manse before heading back to St Pancras to travel cheapy-creepy class on the Eurostar to Paris with three of my 'chemo buddies' as we celebrate life and enjoy a new place.

Whilst in Paris, I will meet up with our BMS link misisonary, who has arranged for me to visit the projects she works with.  I am excited to see her 'in context', to see the projects, and finally to meet her rather wonderful dog!

Back to London and another overnight with my minister friend before the final treat of a first class train ride back to Glasgow and normality.

I am ashamed to admit that, apart from two days in July, this is the first annual leave I've taken for over a year.  Small wonder that I am tired then.

All of this is by way of saying, I won't be around in Blogland for a week or more, but it doesn't mean I've disappeared for good.  I will be back, refreshed and relaxed (I hope) in just over a week from now, maybe with new stories to share.

Six years ago, I could never have imagined I'd see this day, and now here it is.  I stopped counting the friends I have made and lost along the way, especially as most of them had better initial prognoses than mine.  But I haven't forgotten them, and as I enjoy the next few days, I will take a few moments to pause, reflect and give thanks.

Jesus said, consider the lilies of the field, they do not labour, neither do they spin...

Jesus said, consider the birds of the air, they do not sow, neither do they store up in barns...

Live each day as it comes, make the most of it, be grateful for it... if I have learned nothing else, I have learned this.

Oh, and if any potential burglars happen to read this, be advised the clepto-kitties are on guard and are not to be messed with!

I stumbled across this when looking for something else (which I'll be using tomorrow at church).  This little book of folk tales is refreshing - it explores the same (or similar) themes to many more familiar stories but the novelty brings the ideas afresh, and gives some pause for thought.  Not taxing but gently thought provoking.

Language is complicated and fluid, meanings of words change over time.  Meaning is determined in context, and contexts are not always that easy to define.  Back in the days when I was an engineer, many reports and conversations would begin with the call to 'define your terms'.  What do you mean by 'x' and is it the same thing that I mean by it?

This morning I am mulling over some ideas for the sermon, and have become very aware of the contextual nature of so many of the words and concepts to which I might refer.  Not that this isn't always the case, but somehow it feels more so today, possibly because of some of what I am mulling, and my own, inevitable, interpretation of words and phrases which may, or may not, accord with those of others.

I have some ideas for the sermon - not the ones I had when I began the series, it has to be admitted - but I am not yet sure how best to explore and express them.  Even so, words are the comparatively easy part - the real challenge is how I translate my words into deeds.

A number of conversations in the last week or so have given me lots to contemplate (and I'm grateful for that) and part of the challenge lies, I think, in the definition of terms and neither projecting my aspirations into statements nor deluding myself that things are other than they are, or appear to others to be.

So, whilst I don't really like not having any words written down yet, I am allowing the ideas to swirl around a while longer, trusting that what emerges might be whatever it is God would have me express.

Yesterday was more than a bit crazy.  Another experiment in ways to travel from Glasgow to Northants in a day to visit my Mum.  Not one I plan to repeat - it meant leaving home at 4 a.m. yesterday and not being back until 1 a.m. today.  It meant two taxis, one coach, four planned trains, one unplanned train, two tube rides and two flights (which was the real experiment).

I flew with a budget price airline that, in the past anyway, has attracted a lot of negative publicity.  The service felt quite bargain basement, it has to be said, but it did exactly what it said on the tin.  Boarded on time, took off on time, landed a few minutes early either end.  Hassle free.  Well done Ryan Air (even if your recorded landing announcement complete with literally blowing your own trumpet is really annoying!)

Arriving at St Pancras, and realising that due to a slip on my part, I had booked a train much later than intended, I approached the customer service staff and asked if I could please alter my ticket.  A surly reply came, "no".  But it has printed on it that I can, I replied.  Well you'll have to get a new ticket - the machine's over there.  Eventually I gave in , went to National Rail and was met by a friendly, helpful young woman who offered me alternatives - an upgrade at a ludicrous price and two (still dear but affordable) new tickets.

Returning from Wellingborough, the train stopped at Bedford and a series of announcements, every couple of minutes informed us that there was "an incident" at Harpenden, which morphed into "a fatality" and then "a person struck by a train" before the one announcing the service was now cancelled and we could get a train in 40 minutes time to begin a complex alternative route to get to London (Euston rather than St Pancras)... a quick check online and that would have taken around 3 hours and I'd have missed my flight.  So I spoke to customer services again.  Really helpful this time.  No information available but recommending that I stayed put as they were fairly sure something would be sorted sooner than the suggested route.  And it was.  And I made in plenty of time for my flight (Standsted is pretty quiet in the evenings, even when going through security meant being behind a large group all of whose bags were sent down the ''reject" shoot!)

Finally the 23:30 coach from Edinburgh airport to Glasgow arrived and as the driver opened the door his face told all - a face like pot/thump/fizz/thunder (depending where you went to school!), he snatched my ticket, then bellowed at the remaining passengers to hurry up.  I couldn't help but notice a sign on the side of the coach saying "Edinburgh Airport welcomes the world"... oh dear.  Welcome to Edinburgh/Scotland/Britain.

All of this left me with a lot to think about.  About prejudice and preconceptions.  About attitudes as well as actions.  About the reality that people who face the public can be tired and tetchy, and who knows what might be going on in their own lives.  It made me ponder my own outward presentation, and propensity to defensiveness and spikeyness when I am tired or feel (rightly or wrongly) I am being criticised.

And I was especially reminded of the beauty, frailty and vulnerability of life.  Yesterday in Harpenden someone lost their life, a family and friends were left bereft, a train driver was traumatised, bystanders witnessed something horrendous, and across the rail network lives were disrupted, some of them in ways that may have been equally tragic.

I'm not sure this really says anything much, it's probably just the ramblings of a sleep deprived mind, but life in all its fullness played out yesterday, and gave me much food for thought along the way.