Like a lot of people I know, I watch Strictly on a Saturday.

Every week Bruce Forsyth winds me up, but he did it big time tonight with his ridiculous 'ay up, ay up' attributed to Blackpool/Lancashire.

What can I say?  How to offend the North West of England and the East Midlands in one fell swoop.

Ay up - with m'duck on the end - is definitely an East Midlands expression.

I have yet to meet a Lancastrian, Mancunian or Cheshire resident who would use that expression.  Ay up?  'Eck as like!

Ah, the south-centric nature of UK-wide broadcasting.  Mutter, mutter, mutter...

This afternoon I have spent a little while starting to ponder the three M&M readings to begin to reflect on them from the perspective of Mary.  I copied out the verses that allude to her (part of the way I think by writing) and was struck by the fact that in each story she ends up by Jesus' feet...

Luke 10:39 'Mary sat at the Lord's feet....'

John 11: 32 '[Mary]... fell at his feet...'

John 12: 3 '[Mary] poured [the oil] on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair...'

I think there's a sermon possibility in there somewhere.

(and no, not one about Mary's foot fetish... that'd get me struck off) (sorry it's still Saturday and I'm still on the "silly settee")

Yesterday's consultation with the plastic surgeon went really, really well.  I liked the fact that I have really only one option for surgery if I choose (as I will) immediate reconstruction.  That made life much easier.  The advantage of a woman surgeon, too, was that she wasn't sweetly coy about the realities of my (self opined) Lara Croft physique... not enough fat/muscle to match the natural form but options for dealing with the implications of that later.

All of which reminded me of this daft joke...

A man walked into the lingerie department at M&S and shyly walked up to the woman at the till and said "I'd like to buy a bra for my wife"

"What type of bra?" the sales assistant asked.

"What type of bra...?  You mean there's more than one type?"

"Look around," she said, gesturing to the sea of bras in every colour, size, shape and fabric imaginable, "there are only four types... Catholic, Salvation Army, Presbyterian and Baptist."

More bewildered than ever the man asked the difference between the for types

The saleswoman responded, "It is all really quite simple...

"The Catholic type supports the masses,

"The Salvation Army type lifts the fallen,

"The Presbyterian type keeps them staunch and upright,

"And the Baptist type makes mountains out of molehills..."

It's Saturday, I'm sitting on the settee, I have to be silly.

A propos of nothing much at all.

I love peacock colours - the vivid, almost electric hues, the blending of green, blue and purple in a way your teacher at primary school might have ciriticised.  I love the way nature defies our sensibilites mixing purple with red or orange in the sky, how pansies happily have yellow and purple or brown with blue.

This week the teal coloured curtains for my living room finally arrived - ordered with 5 day delivery they took over a month but never mind.  Now my window edges are softer and the nights more cosy as I shut out the darkness and rain.

And today I am wearing peacock colours just for the shear heck of it!  Green top, purple skirt, peacock pattern headscarf.  Oh yes, and green finger nails... :-)

At the end of August I spent the morning with Sunday School, part of a new thing we have agreed to do whereby once a quarter (roughly) I will leave with the children rather than preach.  On that day the children were focussing on prayers that said 'thank you,' 'sorry' and 'please.'

As our 'please' prayer we wrote something on a piece of tissue and placed it in the bottom of a polystyrene cup in which we planted a snowdrop bulb.  The leader reminded the children that sometimes it's a long time before we discover the answers to our prayers.

Today when I came in to church, I checked my bulb to see if it needed water, and discovered a tiny, weeny shot peeking through the compost.

The prayer I wrote was for the Chilean miners, and it was indeed some time before they would be rescued - the metaphor and the reality gelled.

What no one knew the day we planted the bulbs was that I had cancer.  I was waiting for my initial appointment (due the next day), assuming it was merely a cyst, and had told no-one.  It all felt very poignant at the time, and very much 'of God.'  As I prepare to meet the plastics team tomorrow, it seems somehow apposite that I saw the little shoot from my bulb.  If I manange to care for it adequately, it should bloom around the time my treatment ends, another metaphor or sign of God's grace (though I promise I won't read anything into it if it doesn't!).