Female, 47, lovely veins...

Evidently I have 'lovely veins' and I'm afraid this sent me into some strange thoughts on alternative personal ads or chat up lines.

My humour gets no better I'm afraid.

Just in case I didn't have enough to think about, the Scottish legal system decided it would be fun to pick my name out of their hat for jury service availability.  Unlike the English system (as I experienced 20 years ago) you aren't sent a fortnight in which you must be available, you are simply told they need you to be on standby for two years.  English law changed a few years back to remove the 'inelligiblity' of clergy for jury service; in Scotland I am eligible but have the right to be excused.

So, I am now awaiting a medical certificate from my GP to support my request to be excused - and will give them the double whammy that, even if I am fully fit within that time I'm a clergy-woman so am entitled to be excused anyway.

Wonder how many letters they get with two reasons to be excused?!

Thanks A for the new photo for my blog.  I like that it captures my tendency to slight dishevelment, the half-smile and stubborness of my personality.  Not sure how long this one will be up - it will be all change again in a few weeks.  Hopefully I will retain enough self-confidence to keep a photo of me rather than an object or an animal, but only time will tell.

Yesterday I had the gift of a day without responsibility, over and above the nine I'm entitled to, as I prepare myself physcially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually for the coming weeks and months.  It being a glorious morning I walked in to Kelvingrove Park where I ate raspberry ice-cream and drank a full fat latte - maybe the last for a very long time (the drugs may make coffee unapallatable and there are various opinions on the detrimental effects of milk for people with cancer...).  Alas the swings were full of children, and I didn't have the heart to oust them so it was a walk on in to town instead.

I enjoyed the simple pleasures, but I really missed church.  I was passing near our 'mother' church at about ten to eleven and wondered about going in but decided that I couldn't face having to explain who I was or the questions about I wasn't at my own church, so I walked on.

This morning I listened to the podcast of our service on line - slightly odd of course because I got mentioned quite a lot - but at least I felt a sense of connection with my people.  Oops, I forgot, ministers aren't meant to talk of 'my people' or 'my church' because they are "God's" and "Christ's" respectively.  But you know what I mean.

I know that some of our folk use the pod-casts to catch upwith  sermons or services they've missed, and that there occasionally passersby who listen in to find out what we're like.  We also have the option of CD recordings for people who don't 'do' internet and each of these is an important ministry.

I constantly find that a lot of housebound people use 'Songs of Praise' and 'Sunday Half Hour' as means of staying connected with church in a wider sense, and there is clearly a real place in contemporary society for pod-church not as an alternative to real church but as a means of blurring its boundaries.