Just home after a lovely lunch with some of the people who were there at the start of my cancer journey five years ago, and who have travelled with me ever since.

Loving the surprise gift of a '5' balloon which encapsulates perfectly what it was all about.

I have ideas for a more reflective post to follow but for now I am content to savour the moment in gratitude for, and to, all who have, in any way, shared this experience.

In a while I'll be making a peer support call to someone going through treatment, and later I will pause to remember the absent friends who journeys were shorter.  Those both seem fitting.

Surely I am a very blessed person.

Mission accomplished... I finished my blanket on Monday and posted it off on Tuesday so it will have reached its interim destination in Hampshire yesterday ready to be "sent with love" to its final recipient in the near future.

I had a lot of fun knitting it, and it carries some poignant memories too - since I began knitting it I've said 'farewell' to the person whose receipt of such a blanket inspired me to knit it, and witnessed a lot of other sadness close at hand.

But this is not a sad project, it is a joyful one, celebrating life in all its fullness, delighting in diversity, making a 'Persian carpet' (many times over), having fun designing 'squares', discovering 'magic' wool and much more.

My target date for completion was Sunday 23rd August, I easily met that and there is just the outside chance that it may reach it's final destination by then, but it really doesn't matter.

The post office teller asked me what the value of the blanket was... so I said £20, roughly the cost of the materials.  But that's just a number, it can never capture the significance of the project, the love worked into each square, the memories it evokes and the hope, I trust, it might inspire.

Really chuffed with the end result, not perfect by any means, but 'sent with love' and gratitude.

It's been a busy week so far, and very diverse in what's been involved, but overall it feels pretty satisfactory.  Nothing exciting, just regular ministerial stuff...

Lots of administrative stuff completed.

Service for Sunday just about there.

Meetings attended.

Pastoral visits completed.

Some planning and preparing achieved.

More of the same tomorrow... and that feels satisfactory.

I've just completed a first draft of this week's sermon... I think it's broadly OK, maybe a bit waffly in places but generally says what I'm trying to say.  After seven weeks of writing ten minute reflections it's a bit odd writing a full sized sermon... I hope I don't send everyone off to the land of nod!

Now to start on the assorted prayers that are needed.

The sun is shining, the weather is really lovely which can only mean one thing - yes, the schools here have gone back; in fact ours have been back a week, even as elsewhere in Scotland others continue to drift back over the next week or so.  Then the rest of the UK will join in.

It also means back to 'normal' at church.  This morning I've taken a couple of hours to sort and shift the "detritus" from seven weeks of creative activities in worship and underneath it all there was, afterall, still a desk, still a floor and still some chairs!!

Sitting down to choose four hymns, confirm two Bible readings, identify an "All Together" theme and start mulling a full-length sermon has had a pleasing sense of freshness.  I think that's quite important really... that sense of newness that I used to experience each September (very occasionally the last few days of August) when I returned to school after the summer break.  The new, pristine exercise books (aka jotters in these parts) waiting to be filled up with new endeavours.  The slight pinch of new shoes  on feet that had been in sandals for ages, and a feeling-too-tight collar after a summer of tee-shirts.  The sense of anticipation, nervousness, excitement and apprehension.  And perhaps above all, the return to routine, to a sustainable pattern of work, rest and play.

I've had a great summer, and am refreshed and renewed for what the autumn will bring and, indeed, is already bringing.  That makes me glad.  So, I guess I'd better get down to it! :-)