Help or hindrance?  Holly Cat trying to stow away in one of my suitcases!  Did two lots of packing yesterday (all bar the shouting) and still have drawers and cupboards full of clothes... when did we get so wealthy?  (That said, some of the clothes I have had over thirty years!!  And I can still get in to them, she says, smugly!))

Looking forward to some 'down time'but know I will REALLY miss all my Gatherers.

It was lovely to have two days off at the start of the week (all bar a two hour meeting on Tuesday afternoon) but it has the inevitable impact of playing catch-up thereafter... fitting a week's work in to the remaining days in a role where the deliverables dates cannot slide!  In a way, this just puts me in a place more similar to the volunteer people who have to fit in their churchy stuff on top of their 'real' work, so I'm not complaining, just observing.

All of which means that today, when the sun is shining, I need to be disiclpined enough to sit at my desk and do the jobs that have not yet been done this week!

Being in the 'final countdown' now to my sabbatical brings with it a strange mixture of wind-down (nothing new to pick up for a while, no sermon series to prepare, a break from meetings etc.) and potential overload, as I still have to finalise sabbatical plans (chasing other busy people) and ensure all the literal and metaphorical tidying up is done by the end of June.  Stir in a week of holiday, a friend's daughter's wedding, a few pre-existing and new appointments in my diary, a cup-cake-bake, the Glasgow West End Festival, the Sunday School end of year celebration (being skillfully put together by them :-) ) and you have a recipe for a busy few weeks.

May be blog-lite for a couple of weeks as I try to get stuff done by Wednesday ready for the craziness of wedding near Chorley on Friday, preach in Glasogw on Sunday, fly out from Manchester at 5 a.m. Monday to psend a week in Maderia!!  But then it probably wouldn't be me if it wasn't a little bit crazy.

Yesterday evening I went to see The Great Gatsby at one of the cinemas in town.  Because of the timing, it was the 3D version (with audio description of you wanted it).

I am not a great fan of this departure into 3D films - there seems to be an over-emphasis on a few special effects and a sense more of a slightly out of focus decoupage than seeing something three-dimensional.  Floating one image in front of another (superimposing in the 2D version I assume) adds little or nothing to the story and has the feel of someone who has just learned how to do animations in PowerPoint... 'ooh look I can make this image do that'.

I have not yet read the book, but I am hoping when I do for something with more depth than I observed in the film. I was left wondering whether some of the acting was bad, or whether I was missing the point that it was meant to be bad.

This must have been a big budget film, the scale and complexity of scenes must have been very demanding to achieve, and the cast must have been huge.  I'm just not so sure it was all that great.

Of course, given the subject(s) it explored maybe that is actually the subtlest measure of its success... a triumph of style over content, outer bling disguising inner poverty, the impossible, unattainable dream that ends in mediocrity and disappointment.  If such an impression was deliberately engineered it would be very clever indeed; I suspect it was not.

Nonetheless, a relaxing and pleasant evening's entertainment on a sunny spring/summer evening

I was amused and impressed today when I read of several councils finding legitimate and legal means of getting around the so-called 'bedroom tax' by redefining rooms as 'box rooms' (if they are very small and/or clearly used for that purpose) and/or non-specific (e.g. if they happen to be ground (lower) floor of a two storey dwelling).  It seems pretty reasonable to me, not least as what often passes for a third bedroom in private properties is barely big enough to contain a cot, let alone a bed.

I am certainly not advocating tax-evasion or tax-avoidance, but I do think there is something unjust about penalising people for liviing on the houses that are available to them just because they happen to be technically under-occupied... The cost of moving to smaller properties, even assuming they exist and are available should not be underestimated, to say nothing of the stress such moves, especially if unchosen, could create.

But then maybe I would say that as a rent-free under-occupier of a wonderful three-bedroomed property...

Came across a reference to this short story by Rudyard Kipling when I was doing some sermon research today.  Linguistically very dated, but some interesting ideas even if a bit twee in places.  Vaguely useful as background reading on the context of the letter to Galatia.