Today I bought some, according to the label:

Free Range

Egg Noodles

So I have a mental image of egg noodles that are allowed to 'roam free during the hours of daylight,' and of farmers chasing them round the fields of a spaghetti farm in order to catch them for the supermarket.

I guess

Free Range Egg

Noodles

Wouldn't look do good on the packaging... and it wouldn't be as much fun.

You can see the Spghettit harvest here; before my time of course!

Last night I watched a fascinating programme on BBC 4 on the topic of Justice: Fairness and the Big Society which began by asking whether Wayne Rooney should be paid more than a care worker, moved on to look at social mobility, hedged around university fees and ended up conceding asking just what is meant by the term 'big society'.  Some interesting viewpoints (and a few stereotypes) and a very skilled facilitator.

Should market forces determine pay?  Should everyone have the same opportunities?  What is an acceptable gap between the highest and lowest pay?  How should further education be funded?  Who benefits (most) from university education?  Where does charitable and voluntary work fit in the grand scheme of things?

If you didn't see it, and before it disappears from iPlayer, it's worth a look... as is, I suspect the rest of the programmes on this theme.

Nothing much happening in my world this weekend... I need to tidy and clean my flat before I go to be redesigned but otherwise there is a strange emptiness and aimlessness caused by the need to avoid nasty bugs.  I am perseversing with IBRA's two weeks on suffering even if it annoys more than it edifies!  I have finally got round to setting up RSS feeds on the blogs I follow, so if your daily stats go down it's partly because I'm no longer visiting 'on spec.'  Should have done it yonks ago, but never mind.  Otherwise it is mostly a time of waiting and trying not to worry.  So, very quiet... highlights likely to include a trip to the recycling centre one day in the week!

On a more upbeat note I have successfully eaten cheese, proof I'm now 'off' the mounttain and I am sleeping better, if not brilliantly.  Hurray!

Yesterday's Bible reading focussed on Paul's "thorn in the flesh" postulated as some kind of physiological problem.  This was linked by the commentator to participation in the suffeirng of Christ.  This makes it sound like redemptive suffering and therefore somehow 'good'.  Which gives me a bit of a problem because seeing suffering or sickness as good is contrary to common sense and even anything found on the Bible.  I am also not quite sure what is redeemed by the physical suffering of a child in Africa or an elderly person in a care home.

Paul said his thorn in the flesh was 'to keep him humble' (an attribute that isn't always self-evident it has to be said) but the same surely cannot be said of the person with Alzheimers or the child with severe learning difficulties nor yet her parents.  Yes, in some of these cases they can 'grow' as people, can learn new values, can discover new definitions of worth or beauty... but it is only ever 'can' not 'will': their suffering is not de facto redeeming anything.  And sometimes the opposite is true - such suffering can be utterly destructive.

I'm not quite sure how we are to understand 'participation on the suffering of Christ' but I'm convinved that it should not in any way be equated with disability or disease.

Of course, I read these Bible notes through the eyes of a person living with disease, and that skews my vision; whilst I do hope I am growing in some ways through this experience, I don't see any 'redemption' going on!

A week on from my pre-op visit to the hospital and just about over my cold/infection I have been starting my preparations to enter the 'forest' on 2nd Feb.  As it gets closer I am relieved to say that it is looking a little less dense and dark but every now and then a grey cloud passes overhead.

One of the lighter moments of the visit was that not one but all of the nurses I saw warned me that the food is bad in that hospital, one even saying 'beware the Irish stew.'  I was advised to bring in non-perishable snack food and to get my visitors to bring in sandwiches!

So, yesterday I filled up a plastic tub with my survival kit...

• a small jar of marmite - surely they will provide edible bread!
• small packs of Fairtrade cashews, brazil nuts and fruit.
• small cartons of apple juice (not risking citrus just yet)
• bottle of elderflower cordial (the only non-citrus dilutable I like) (too big for the box but anyway...)

Obviously I will also be taking a pack of wet wipes, some puzzle books, a novel, a notebook and pens, my trusty Bible (as distinct from a non-trusty one) and my MP3 players.

I wonder what emergency rations/supplies you'd take into the 'forest'?