So much we take for granted - or I have tended to - when we are fit and healthy, or at least averagely so.

After a month or so when sleep has been evasive, when there there was even a week of drug-assisted endeavour (of varied efficacy it must be said) I enjoyed the simple pleasure of waking up refreshed after a reasonable length of natural sleep.  Had it not been for a torrential downpour at about 4 a.m. I suspect it would have been longer and deeper.  I am always amazed at the ability of the human body to cope with temporary sleep deprivation or even quite radical shifts is sleep patterns but longer term this is not sustainable: it is vital to our well-being simply to get our natural rest.  So I am grateful for the simple gift of decent sleep.  May it continue!

How often have I, in public prayers spoken of taken-for-grantedness of the abundance of food we enjoy in this nation, lamented the waste and extravagance and prayed for hungry people in other lands.  After a month when everything I ate tasted of cardboard (or how I imagine cardboard to taste anyway) and when it has taken triumph of intellect over desire to eat enough, or even to eat at all at times, it was a real gift to wake up hungry and want my breakfast; a greater gift to want both porridge and toast.  I am blessed to have well stocked cupboards, to have shops on my doorstep brim full of lovely food, but I am gifted with ability to prepare and eat it... how many people have no choices, no facilities, no extra to enjoy?

Having found yesterday tiring, despite being very good and taking life incredibly easy, it is especially good to feel refreshed, yet there is a sense of apprehension that my energy levels will rapidly evaporate.  How long have I taken it for granted that I will be able race around doing all manner of stuff?  This is not some pious breast-beating, just the discovery of a new way of being, a way that will need some careful negotiation around OPEs.  For someone who is generally a rule-follower, despite being fiercely independent, the requirement to take things easy, not to over-stretch is one I take seriously... even if those around are less convinced... Maybe there is a gift of something or other here?  Perhaps all of us learning something about mutual accountability and trust... but whilst 'simple' those aren't so easy to achieve.

So, today we have two sermonettes, I may sit down during some of the hymns and I have delegated the intercessions... sharing responsibility, being real and being flexible, these are gifts too.

Today at the Gathering Place we had an amazing welcome afternoon tea for new and returning students...

Everyone seemed to have a good time and all I had to do was turn up and chat (which was quite work enough at the moment).

There were students seeking churches, students just happy to meet new people, students bring their friends... and people of all ages from church to give them a great welcome.

We launched oursleves as home-base for Glasgow Uni SCM and encouraged the overseas students to set up their own midweek group using our premises.

A great afternoon all round.

Photos courtesy Ken Fisher (and hope you spot me quicker than I did - this new look is confusing!!) and massive thanks to the Gatherers for a great job jobbed.

So, here's a challenge - find a fairtrade cotton headscarf that is at least 70cm by 70 cm (approx 27" square), the minimum size recommended for 'necessity wearers'.

You can get Fairtrade certified fashion bandannas/head scarves that are 50 cm square.

You can get larger ones that are not.

I have found one supplier, as it happens in Glasgow, who claims hers are but does not dispaly the logo, so are they really?

I could get a fairtrade cotton hijab....!

I have, based on advice received, somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks to resolve this challenge (by which time I will have been supplied with a wig and some head coverings courtesy of the NHS) but it seems a shame that I can't so readily source genuine fairtrade head scarves that are suitable.  Anyone any ideas?

I feel I need to preface this by saying that the NHS is essentially full of great people, but I do feel that over the last few weeks my path specifically has been crossed by many angels - bringers of grace and hope - in the shape of doctors, technicians and nurses.  Today I met the chemotherpay nurse who will oversee my treatments, a lovely young woman who I discovered is a Roman Catholic with a little boy of four.  Combining attention to detail, clinical skill and a friendly personality, she rapidly put me at ease and made the whole process remarkably easy.  Praise God for people like D.

In the treatment area are ranks of coloured lights at ceiling level which change colour from purple to red to orange & yellow to green and so on.  They are evidently meant to be calming.  For me they served as a reminder of the busy thoroughfare that is central Leicester where illuminated poles follow the same colour sequence at the same speed.... weird!

And a fox.  Leaving the hospital to walk home (feeling remarkably like a fraud that I could do this quite happily) I spotted a fox running across my path.  Unabashed, it selected a comfy spot in the flower border, turned round dog-like and settled down to sit in the sun, enjoying the adulation of its audience.  Beautiful and mysterious, the urban fox bringing joy to delight my soul.

Yesterday's Bible Study in Esther centred on the well-known and well-loved verse 'for such a time as this' and followed the idea of being a person in the right place at the right time, specifically to speak out for a persecuted (or oppressed or marginalised) group.  We had some interesting conversations.

But how about the right place for the right person?  Was it for such a time as this that God brought/led/called/sent me to Glasgow?  Not just for what I can do/be but for what I need?  To be a mere 10 minute walk from one of the most advanced cancer hospitals in Europe, to have in my congregation an internationally respected oncologist and at least two retired nurses with experience in caring for people with cancer... Like the Esther story it's not that this is the only way God could have managed this (Mordecai essentially said to Esther that if she don't act something else would come from heaven, i.e. God would find another way), nor is it that somehow God had it all pre-planned, just that somehow this is part of the rightness of fit for this person in this place at this time.  Not sure I quite have the right theological language or framework to work this out, but perhaps I'll stick with Mordecai's provisionality as recorded in scripture, that maybe it was for such a time as this...