Setting some objectives

Since moving to the country 2 years ago, there are some things I have learned to do that I didn't expect to have learned to do...

Things such as:

• Chopping logs. My first attempt was admittedly feeble as the axe flopped down onto the wood with not so much as a dent or a splinter. With practice, however, I'm now able to throw myself into the whole thing, bringing a satisfying thud and crack as the wood splits in two, and my feet stay in tact. I've discovered it's best not to wear flip-flops when chopping wood for the fire - just to be on the safe side. I've also come to realise there's something very pleasing about burning wood on your hearth that you've chopped yourself. Grunt.
• Duck husbandry. These last two years I have successfully bred 3 batches of ducks, by putting eggs under a broody chicken. I now have a nifty little system in place that gives me 5 fresh ducks eggs every morning, and one chicken egg too. The ducks (7 of them - one male and one not yet laying) seem happy with their lot, and roam around in the day, and bring themselves to bed at night. I know all about moulting seasons, looking after ducklings, feeding, and laying. I am a duck nerd.
• Catching and holding chickens, and how to tell if they're 'in lay'. This is something I never thought I'd learn how to do... but give me a chicken and I'll happily catch it, turn it upside down, and know exactly where on its bottom to press my fingers to see if its a layer or not. There - what an enviable skill.
• Making crabapple / damson jam. Had never done this until a year ago. But a tree in our garden produced a bumper harvest of crabapples and what else can you do but jam'em? Very nice jam, by the way. Ditto for the damsons - have 4 trees of them in the garden.
• Making wine. I started making 7 gallons of elderflower wine in Spring last year (2007). The wine is ready, a bit cloudy, but rather pungent too. 10 percent alcohol. It's still sitting in the garage, waiting to be bottled, but promises to make good Christmas presents this year!
• Growing onions. Until moving to the country, I'd only ever grown tomatoes and runner beans. This year I have a veg patch and have an assortment of herbs, plus rocket, lettuce, beans, courgette, spinach....and onions. The onions are artistically plaited and hanging by the back door. The children hate onions with a passion, so wife and I are getting through them rather slowly.
• Teaching traditional Christmas carols in 4-parts. This was great fun - leading a choir (all friends and neighbours). We gathered around my piano every Thursday evening in Advent last year and learnt many fine carols such as 'O Holy Night' (my favourite by far). I conducted the choir and arranged people into Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB). Sounded superb. We then performed to the neighbourhood, going door-to-door with children and lanterns, on Christmas Eve. Fabulous.
• Learning some Polish. I can now count to about 100, introduce myself, ask 'where are you from?', 'where is....?' and 'excuse me, how wonderful, I am a very handsome and clever teacher, this is my pretty wife, see you later'...and 'I don't understand Polish'. I also know a Polish tongue-twister (very handy & impressive).
• Playing poker. Always a bit of a mystery to me, this game. But I've got the hang of it.. have developed the perfect 'poker face' and have much enjoyed the fellowship and easy chat/cigars/whiskey when played with male friends. We never play for much more than £5 a game. Though one game, we traded in manual labour for each other's gardens. That was quite an incentive. I still lost.

Things I want to learn to do over the next year or so....

• Learn to kayak. In fact - I've got to do this pretty fast, three of us (2 friends and I) will be heading to Ross on Wye to kayak down the river for a weekend, stopping off on a river bank to wild camp (ie without toilet blocks) at night. Two days of kayaking and a bit of white-water should be quite a plunge in at the deep end. Hopefully not literally.
• Play the violin. First lesson will be tomorrow evening (Tuesdays). Am learning with a friend, in an adult ed evening class. Have bought a violin, but there must be something wrong with it, as it makes this horrible screeching sound whenever I play it. Will have to get it checked out.
• Smoke a pipe. Actually, I've started this fairly recently, and am enjoying it of an evening once a week or so, outside, with a beer. It has brought some surprisingly positive and nostalgic remarks, even from my wife. Completely different if I was to smoke a cigarette, which illicits only sour or pitying looks. Anyhow, I really want to learn to smoke it properly, in a dignified fashion, without it fizzling out every 20 seconds.
• Shoot game for food (wood pigeons, rabbits, pheasant) and skin them / prepare them to eat. I'm coming round to the idea that if you're going to eat animals, you have to be prepared to kill them. And game-shooting means they're completely free-range/happy/healthy up to the end. I like the idea.
• Take up dancing with my wife. I've heard there is Irish or ballroom dancing in the village hall nearby, of an evening. I plan to investigate this and book us on.
• Learn basic Spanish. I hate the thought of going to a country and not knowing any of the language. Spanish is a real must....much more accessible than Polish. And means I can go to Mexico and the like, should I fancy that. I intend to do an 'early morning' adult education class. We'll see....
• Learn Morse Code and teach it to my children. Something more than S-O-S. Why not? I might be stuck in a cave somewhere and need to tap my message to fellow Morsemen across a few stalagmites. Or need to send a secret message by tapping with my pen on my knee, while held hostage somewhere... (OK so I've been watching too much Prison Break).

So what have you been learning over the last year or so?....and hope to learn over the next year or so? To get a 'meme' going, I hereby tag fellow bloggers Eric, Joanna, John, Jackie, and Erin .

Struck by St Augustine

I've never really given St Augustine much thought. I don't think I've ever consciously read any of his writings, though am familiar with the fact that he wrote 'the Confessions', and had a devout praying Mum (St Monica). My only knowledge of him really is that he lead a fairly hedonistic life in his youth, put it about a bit, pretty selfish...you know. Not major saint-material. Probably pretty tame, however, when it comes to today's (im-)moral standards. All was not lost though... He then had his conversion to Christ and all things changed - he loved God, gave his life to Him, and the rest is history. He became a saint.

This evening I was having my quiet time of prayer. The children were asleep upstairs, the wife out swimming with a friend. I picked up the Office of Readings for some meditation material and read the excerpt for today - Wednesday of week 8 in ordinary time. It was from St Augustine's 'confessions' (book 10 if you're interested) and quite unexpectedly it completely blew me away.

I'll type it out below in a second, but just to explain why it impacted me so. St Augustine opens his heart in a kind of 'open letter' to God. He talks about coming to know God's love. That it was God who 'broke through' his deafness and, it seems, knocked him off his stool with the knowledge that He was there - the One he'd been unconsciously searching for all his life. It brought to mind my own 'conversion' to the Lord many years ago. I was 17 years old, a typical moody, restless reluctant dragged-to-Church Catholic teenager. I knew of God, but didn't know Him. I knew He was there...but not really there. He was vague. Deep down, I sought Him...but in all sorts of strange ways, outside of myself. I drifted into the dark and dangerous world of the occult, mixed with some dodgy people, became a Goth and everything went (literally) black. Though I only realise this in retrospect, my heart was longing for Truth - desperate to know the One who knew me and was drawing me to Himself. Through my desire to be open to so many of the other 'voices' shouting at me from all directions - I became deaf to His voice. I drank from many polluted cups, eager to live the 'spiritual life' and getting knocked and battered about in every direction but the right one. I had many dark experiences - some quite diabolical, and all the time my life was moving further and further away from the true Life I so desired. In a nut shell - I wasn't walking in the right direction, and was in a bit of a mess, spiritually. Had the story ended there, it would be miserable indeed!

Alas - God got His way. For some strange reason, He showed Himself to me. In His great mercy He loved me, and I loved Him back. I tasted Him....and since then have not stopped yearning for His presence.

It's good to think of these things and recall what has been, and consider what might have been. Now at the age of 35, living a fulfilled life with 4 kids, a happy marriage, a good home, wonderful friends, satisfying job...and 7 ducks (!)....for many people this would be enough (maybe the ducks would be too much for some, admittedly). But - as St Augustine famously said "Our hearts, O God, are restless until they find their home in You". My hunger for Him is still strong, my thrist is unqenched. I desire Him and desire to desire Him even more. I know - and have known Love. And I know that only this is the Love that truly satisfies. And I want to know more of it. I want to love Him more, so that I can know Him more. And I want to know Him more, so that I can love Him more.

How I came to know this Love at the tender age of 17 is for another post....maybe. But I reproduce here what I read today, and thank God for fanning again those firey embers in my heart, and for the witness of this saint of God who perhaps prayed for me today.

From the Confessions of St Augustine:

"Late did I love you. Beauty ever old and ever new! Late did I love you. You were within me, yet I went out of myself and sought you there, and in my ugliness rushed headlong amid the beauty you had made. You were with me, and I was not with you. Things that would not exist if they did not exist in you kept me far from you. You called and cried out and broke through my deafness. You blazed out radiantly and put my blindness to flight. You breathed upon me and I drew breath and now yearn for you. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

When I shall cleave to you with my whole being, I shall feel no pain or toil, and my life will be truly alive, filled wholly with you. "

Lord, have mercy

I've been struggling with what to write concerning the awful things that have been happening in our own so-called 'civilised' country concerning the human fertilisation and embryology bills that have been passed by our Government in the last few days.

Instead, I was moved to read what a fellow Catholic blogger - Joanna Bogle has so excellently and eloquently posted on her own blog. So, in concurrence with all she wrote, I hope Joanna doesn't mind if I reproduce her post here....

In the valley of the shadow of death...

...The words of the Psalmist came into my head today as I read the headlines. The psalmist promises that, with the Lord as our shepherd, we need not fear...Today our country walked into the valley of the shadow of death. Parliament has voted that a family does not consist of a mother and father who transmit life to their children. It banned any statement that a family needs a father, and agreed that two lesbians who want a child can decide to have one using artificial means.

It rejected calls to tighten up the abortion law even after hearing the descriptions of how children are dismembered as small perfectly-formed babies at 22 weeks. It passed legislation which treats a human person as something that can be used for a utilitarian purpose.If some one, in whatever civilisation replaces ours, writes about these days, those who passed this legislation will be treated with savagery.

The evil that will result from what Parliament has now permitted is clear enough even at this stage - but it will generate more evil, and terrible things will be done.No civilisation has ever survived, let alone prospered, when it failed to understand that human beings are at the heart of it all, that human existence has a value. Nor can any civilisation work that is based on a lie: and everyone knows that it is a lie to pretend that human life is not generated through the union of a man and a woman, and that this creates a family.

Today the sun shone, and the London evening paper had headlines about whether the latest Royal wedding should have been featured in "Hello!" magazine, and the BBC ran a football match as its main story. And the nation which once helped to take the Christian Gospel to distant lands, and stood against neighbouring tyranny in the face of terrible odds, and produced some of the world's most glorious literature, closed its face to its own future...
(Posted by Joanna)

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I've got many posts still brewing in my mind, but haven't had the time to get them onto the blogosphere. So meanwhile, I thought I'd post this - sent from an American friend of a friend. Some of these people I've never heard of (either because I'm English, or just thick). Alas, for the benefit of my friends and readers from the other side of the pond...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.......

DR. PHIL: The problem we ha ve here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH:We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on ou r side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER-CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and wil l remain against it.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth?' That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing t he road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time , the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. His new platform is much more stable and will never http://uk.f861.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=cra...#@&&^(C%25 .......reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

Birthday Bug Blues

Yesterday was my 35th birthday. I had lots of things planned. The night before, I started making an enormous chicken tikka masala, using real, healthy ingredients like chopped coriander and grated root ginger. We were planning a birthday dinner party and expecting 10 friends in the evening. The morning was to be spent eating pain-au-chocolat and croissants with my doting family, my wonderful wife having decorated the kitchen with streamers and balloons, and a table laid out full of presents and cards. (I do like birthdays. Especially mine).

We were then going to spend the morning having fun times in the garden, planting seedlings that have been growing in the greenhouse, then off to a local country pub for lunch and a pint or two. Then back home to finish the curry, make poppadoms, naan bread, lime pickle, open the beers and wine, and have a very jolly time with the friends. I was looking forward to it immensely. You know where this is going...

Wednesday evening, as I was chopping garlic, I began to feel a bit queasy, but hurriedly dismissed it as too many herbs and spices. I should've known. Three of our four young children had been ill for the past couple of weeks with a nasty vomiting / diarrhoea bug, turning our house into a bomb-site of tissues, bowls and disinfectant. One child throwing up is hard enough - but three is a possibility for great sanctification (I'm not sure that was achieved). Mummy and Daddy were pretty whacked...and our 3-month old, though in the clear so far(!) was pretty miserable with a cold, and not wanting to feed much at night because of it. (No he didn't sleep either.) Thank GOD my wife hadn't come down with the bug - now that would be a disaster!

Anyway, I soon realised that my increasing nausea wasn't caused by the aroma of coriander, and spent the whole of that night tossing and turning in bed with a fever. The following day (happy birthday) was spent heaving into a toilet. At about 3 in the afternoon, I shivered my way downstairs into the festive kitchen, all cheerfully arranged with banners and things dangling from the ceiling lights. I forced myself to eat half a chocolate croissant 'to celebrate', but an hour later, wished I hadn't. We cancelled the party. The chicken tikka masala is in the freezer. And the rest of the day was spent in bed, watching the Waltons on DVD.

Today, a little better. Still in bed, still watching the Waltons. (It's actually pretty good, especially when you have a high temperature). I reckon by now everyone's forgotten about my birthday.

:o(

Party's been re-arranged for next week. I shall have to remind them what it's all about. I mean if Her Majesty can have two birthdays, and she's a Protestant, why can't I?!

Farm street beauty

I was booked to interpret for a Deaf priest at a Deaconate ordination last week. (Yes I am a sign language interpreter).

The ordination was at Farm Street Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, London. A Jesuit place - but don't let that put you off.

What a church! Amazing. I was immediately awestruck upon entering this magnificient house of God. Built in the early 19th century, before man's clever mechanical devices and internet-based architecture-software packages and screwfix catalogues, the church stands like a cathedral hidden away down a fairly residential ordinary road not far from Bond Street. (I say ordinary - in the upper-middle class, too much money to spend on our 1.2 children & room for a pony, kind of ordinary).

I was fairly stressed as I ascended the outside steps. I was supposed to be there at 10.30am ready to start interpreting at 11, when the Bishop was to commence the ordination Mass. I needed to be sitting in the sanctuary, hidden behind a pillar, in view of the Deaf priest, my client, who would be sitting opposite me, on the other side. I would also need some minutes to familiarise myself with the order of service, the names of the candidates, and the litany of Saints. Vital preparation time for a sign language interpreter, let me tell you.

I left home well in time to have arrived by 10.15. Loads of time. No stress. I hate to be late.

However, at 10.50am (ten mins before kick-off) I was still sitting (or rather standing up) in the over-packed train crammed full of disgruntled football supporters and crying fed-up children, miles away from central London. The train was going nowhere, my fellow passengers had been tutting and sighing for over45 minutes, and the guard was apologising every 10. I was beginning to sweat profusely, and had worn out all charitable peaceful thoughts and was now offering prayers of desperation and impatience. Finally, the blasted train gets moving....but backwards. All the way back to Wimbledon Park where we had to get out and get a tube. I arrived finally at the magnificient Farm Street church at 11.30...and had to 'sneak' on to the sanctuary in full gaze of 50 priests, one Archbishop and an African Congregation. Whoops. Just in time for the litany of Saints.

The rest of the service went by without a hitch - except when one of the candidates started addressing the congregation in Swahili. (I don't understand Swahili, so was unable to interpert at this point) with me having to remind myself to use Catholic signs, rather than the Protestant ones I am used to using (there are more Deaf protestants it seems, than catholics).

Anyway, when it came to an end, I afforded myself a few minutes to wander around the church. Here was a temple that reaches towards Heaven. A place which causes you to look up and with awe. Isn't that what a church should be? A place that speaks of the majesty of God, rather than these Ikea-style modern monstrosities that pass off as Catholic churches today but draw more attention to man than to the Most High.

poor dentist

I had taken a day off work today to have my first crown done. Only to receive a call at 9.00 this morning to say that my dentist has gone home sick and my appointment will have to be re-scheduled for 3 weeks time. Very annoyed, as I had brushed my teeth especially hard after breakfast this morning, and even flossed.

No doubt the impoverished dentist had found out that I had opted for the NHS version, meaning she'd lose out by about £300 for my refusal to have it done privately. Probably thought it would be better to go home sick. Shouldn't be so cynical.

Anyway, I'm off to have a biscuit. Then some sweets.

A trip to the dentist to ruin your smile

I've just come back from the dentist. And trying to think of a way of making a lot of money quickly. Do they still send children up chimneys?

I hadn't been to the dentist for over a year. The last time I went was for an emergency root canal while I was holidaying at the ITI in Gaming, Austria. I had terrible toothache, and rushed off to the local Austrian dentist who performed a root canal without anaesthetic. Uber schmertz. But a great consolation was that it was free, thanks be to an E111 card for englishmen abroad.

I realised I needed to go back to my local dentist last week as there's been a big gaping hole in my tooth where a filling fell out and half a tooth cracked off. This happened about three months ago...so finally managed to haul myself off there to have it all checked out this morning.

I've been told I need a crown on that tooth...costing £495. Also...hurrah...another tooth is needing a root canal - and to get to the root of that matter will cost me another £500. and a crown on top of that = £495 again. Meaning a total of £1500 !! What are these crowns made of? Her Majesty's jewels??

I was reluctantly told I could have the crowns done on the NHS...BUT..the poor dentists only get paid about £50 an hour for this work, she sobbed... and it would not be as 'good a job' as having it done privately. Of course not. And those poor dentists, scrimping and saving to earn a crust. I was almost in tears and ready to hand her a generous tip and tell her to crown them all...

Extremely unimpressed, I asked what the difference would be between a £160 NHS treatment and £500 private one. Do I get a cup of tea thrown in? A free toothbrush? Preferential treatment? "If you get it done on the NHS, we send the mould off in an envolope in the post, and it can easily get damaged" she explained. "pay for it to be done privately, and we send it by courier". Oh, I see. So for £340 extra, I get my mould gift -wrapped and hand delivered on a silver tray. I wondered whether I could hand-deliver it myself for cheaper?
"Can it at least be put in a padded envelope?" I asked. " well..." said the kindly nurse who probably wouldn't be paid any extra anyway, NHS or private "we do put it in a box and send it that way". So, to crown it all, I'm definitely going for the NHS option.

The root canal cannot be NHS'ed, for some reason (dentists very poor etc, living close to the poverty line no doubt). So either I co-incide terrible tooth pain with another holiday in Austria, or I find another way round it. What a shambles is the British NHS dental service.

Anyone got any ideas? Don't suggest piece of string tied to a door handle...