Saturday 30th September is my "legal" fourth anniversary of diagnosis... and I will be putting on a yellow teeshirt to walk 6.5 miles for the charity linked to the hospital that treated me back then.

Despite yellow being a terrible colour for me this photo has not come out too badly!!

There is a day that rises each year now in my personal calendar.  A day that has no tidy numerical descriptor.  It is the day when I notice that the trees on the bank opposite my house are turning from green via red to gold.  It is the day when I silently thank God that I am at the start of another autumn and that 'all is well'.  The subtle change in the light, the faintest hint of a nip in the air, the goldeness of the moment. 

Four years now.  Five times I have watched the leaves turn to gold and tumble to earth as autumn quietly grips the earth. 

Five times means four that I feared I would never see.  Means that a certain red duffle coat will enter its fifth winter.  Means that I am, thus far, in the good part of the not so great statistics.

Today has turned out to be a long day one way and another.  Mostly good and nothing nasty.  A whole raft of stuff to get done on a day that I noticed the trees begin to change.

Because of the way I'm wired, I guess my personal calendar will always have its memorable dates, even if I no longer choose to mention them to others long-tired of it all.  But the turn of the season is precious and beautiful... and as the fifth autumn begins, I quietly rejoice just because I am here to see it.

As I reached the end of a long-ish evening at my laptop and lifted my eyes to the window the sunset with golden glow filled my horizon with fleeting ethereal beauty... blessing are always there to be found if we make or take the time to notice them.

I had a lovely week away visiting places that used to be 'home' in past seasons of my life and am really happy now to be home in the place that for the foreseeable future is home.  I did find myself wondering though, would I, will I, visit those places when those I know no longer live there (or anywhere), and what it is that defines 'home'.

I think the older I get the more my 'wandering Aramean' genes show themselves... I am happy and content to 'bloom where I'm (trans)planted' but with less and less sense of overall rootedness.

I have a suspicion that's why I find some aspects of identity, especially national/patrioitic identity, confusing and bewildering.

Home, so the saying goes, is where the heart is... which in my case is pretty much always where I happen to live, even if bits of it (heart not home) get left behind when I move on.

Now, lest anyone is unsettled by this waffle, I have no more intention of moving from where I am now than of flying to Jupiter... I think it's more a growing realisation that there are places I now visit that will one day be off the 'list' because the home-ness for me is defined not by place but by people.  And within that, not be races or groups but by individuals...

Perhaps this is something of what it means to be 'in the world but not of it'?

*** FORMATTING GONE DOOLALLY ON HERE - APOLOGIES ***

No, not the five minute (or less) slot on the radio, just something that's good to do now and then.

Today I have a 'free Sunday' which, typically would allow a long weekend break before returning to work on Tuesday. In fact I have two 'free Sundays' back to back, which was meant to give me a whole week off after a very busy summer in which to gather my thoughts before the autumn session gets into full swing.

Then came the dates for a training course for a role I am privileged to have been invited to undertake within the BUS, so I felt that ought to over-ride time away and I deferred setting off south to see friends and family until after that takes place on Tuesday.

Then, last week came some very sad, if not unexpected, news that someone with a life-limiting, terminal condition had died. It has always been my policy that pastoral crises and funerals trump pretty much anything, so it was a no-brainer to enure that this was accommodated. Tomorrow we will be saying our farewells to a woman in her forties who travelled a very courageous and gracious journey with an especially cruel degenerative disease. Visiting her was always uplifting - she exemplified so much that is good, gracious and Godly (and she'd laugh if she could read that now).

Those I will be visiting whilst away all bear their own scars of 'life in all its fulness', illness, bereavement, depression, abandonment and more. Each of them has a story that could have generated bitterness and resentment towards some, if not many, others. Each of them continues to live their lives, guided by their own religious or moral 'compass'.

So my nearly-week mostly-off will be a time to relax, to laugh, to eat, to read novels on trains, to learn, to love, to share. Recent events affecting friends and church folk have been a firm reminder of the frailty of life. They have also remidned me of its beauty, tenderness and wonder.

Quiet here for a while as I won't be taking my laptop with me - but will be back soon with more reflections on everyday life.