Out by the river this afternoon

Lazy Sunday Afternoon's

Prospects

Ok so those who know anything about us will know that myself and Joy are the proud parents of 2 children with learning difficulties, we adopted them so in a sense chose to accept them with their difficulties and disabilities.

One of the things we have felt is a part of our ministry is getting the church to accept those who have disabilities, especially learning difficulties/disabilities, as valued and important members of the church community.

In our fellowship we have had a guy coming along for some time who has learning difficulties and it hasn’t always been easy to know how to handle him, its been interesting to see how he seems to have been accepted by some, alongside our own 2 children who are by and large made to feel right at home, although some are still very nervous and frightened of Steven because his behaviour can seem rather strange, I don’t say this to condemn or criticise these people because I am not sure I would have reacted any different towards him if it wasn’t for the fact that we adopted him, although, given time, they seem to have been accepted on the whole.

Anyhow, when we did our building project a couple of years back one of the main objectives of the project was to remove as many of the physical barriers to worship for those with disabilities, improved A/V facilities, better layout & lighting, disabled toilet, generally much more accessible buildings, it has been my hope that our church, and the church at large, would take on the call to reach out to those with disabilities, especially learning difficulties, as they represent one of the largest un-reached communities in this nation, but it requires more than just improved buildings to allow those with learning difficulties to participate in our services, it takes an attitude of acceptance and welcoming.

It is far easier to accommodate someone with physical disabilities because all you have to do is adapt the building, in order to accept those with learning disabilities you need to adapt the people, which can be so much harder! However it is a challenge that the church has to rise to, the Disability Discrimination Act gives us a legal responsibility to ensure that we adapt to the needs of those with disability but it is so difficult to legislate for attitudes of mind, yes we have complied with the physical requirements of the act, as so many companies and organisation have done so, but we also need to comply with the spirit, indeed, we as the church, as those who seek to Love God and Love others, should be streaks ahead, we should be showing the world how to be accepting and welcoming instead of just complying with the law we should go over and above it, find the Gold standard and aim for that, if our faith means anything to us it means that we love other human beings wholeheartedly, regardless of their background and abilities and we accept people who are not like us as if they are our brothers and sisters, this is easier to do with people of other nations and colours but those with learning difficulties frighten the average person on the street, mainly because of ignorance I am not using that word in a critical way, we are all ignorant of something we know nothing about, we don’t know about or have regular contact with people with disability so we are ignorant of them and their needs/ways and this makes us frightened, being honest, even though I am the father of 2 children with disabilities (one of which has quite profound learning disabilities) I too am afraid of some of the adults I have come across, both in my role as driver for Social Services and in my day to day life, in-fact I recall a few months ago a discussion at one of the leadership meetings about the guy who had been coming to church, it was said that people feel uncomfortable around him, he is a pretty big guy, and I had to confess that I am just as nervous as everyone else BUT it is our responsibility to overcome these fears and prejudices and not allow those fears and prejudices to become barriers to them coming to know the God who loves them just as they are.

So, why say this now? well this morning we had a group from Acorn Fellowship joined us for our morning service, they are Causeway Prospects group working with adults with learning difficulties. We have had some involvement with them, at one time I used to drive one of the minibuses for Acorn and we have come across causeway at Grapevine and they ran a session on Worship Academy so we were pretty much familiar with what they do, it was good to see them here this morning and to have a number of the guys from Acorn share with us this morning, several spoke, including Ruth, who runs the Bedford Monday meeting (meets in our premises) and Julie who had the original vision to run this project, which has been running for 18 years now.

After the service myself and Joy were chatting to Julie, we were saying how it would be good to see some of these folk incorporated into local fellowships as well as being a part of the Acorn group, several already go along to one church or another, when one of the guys (Graham) approached Julie and said he would like to come along to our church every week! Well if that’s not God speaking I don’t know what is!

So, next week we are going to pick up Graham and another guy, and bring them to church with us, the idea is that they will start coming every week, they will hopefully come on the church minibus but for the first couple of weeks we will bring them in so that they get familiar with us and people they can relate to and know they can approach us if they have any problems.

It is going to be interesting to see how they get on and how well the fellowship adapts to incorporate them into the fellowship, they could well mess up our nice neat and organised services and cause a bit of disruption but this is a challenge that we will have to rise to, they are just as valuable in the eyes of God as the rest of us and they deserve the time and space to meet with him just as much as we do.

I think that there is going to be a period of adjustment on the fellowship until we get used to having Graham & Andrew around but the challenges they will bring will be exceeded by the blessings that come from following Jesus commands to minister to ‘the least of these people’ so exciting times are in store for the fellowship.

Time to crank up the profile of disability issues, I have for a while wanted to see if we could organise and run a disability awareness day for churches in the town, in-fact it was only earlier this week that David G forwarded an e-mail (sent to my work address) from Pete Windmill, asking if I had any further thoughts on the issue of having such a seminar, this is one of the things I had mentioned to Julie, apparently it is every much on her heart to have such an event so I think it is likely to be down to her to organise! I will offer our buildings to host the event, and help where and if I can but that help is likely to be limited at the moment because of my own health issues.

Coffee, Walking and Orchids

Last week I posted a photo of an orchid that I had found at Harold & Odell Country Park, whilst out walking, well I say I ‘found’ in truth we, myself and my wife, were walking round and another couple walking the opposite direction told us of its whereabouts.

Anyhow, the photo that I took is, as far as I am aware, the only evidence that a wild orchid was growing in the country park, I was round there again with one of the pastors from church, he had been in the office this morning and one of our office colleagues (Meryl) who had read about the orchid had told him to ask me where it was! So we set about walking round but also to have another look at/for this orchid.

Major issue!!! When I got to the spot where the orchid stood they had cut the grass and, with it, the orchid, the orchid is no more!! I don’t know enough about orchids, will it come back? Or is it now lost to the world? If there is this one does that not mean there must be others nearby? If there are none nearby how did that one get there?

Anyhow, for now I shall treasure that photo as it is the first, and maybe the only, time that I have ever seen a wild orchid growing in the UK.

Aside from the sad news of the demise of the Wild Orchid in Harold & Odell Country Park, I am having a reasonable, if busy, week, yesterday I meet Chris J, our youth worker, in town for coffee, followed by a rather long and tiring meeting with our family social worker (all families of children with disabilities have to have a social worker appointed if they wish/need to access any social service provision, such as respite care etc) to go through various documents and to see the children.

Today, as previously mentioned, I was out at coffee this morning with David G, one of our pastors, followed by lunch at Joy’s parents.

Tomorrow it’s the turn of the other pastor to take me out to coffee, followed (I think!) by lunch with Chris J and Hannah (his wife) but that really depends on how they get on with packing as they are having a house move this weekend, I say ‘having a house move’ because they are actually going to be away for the weekend, having won a free holiday, so Hannah’s parents and a few others are going to do the actual moving, well at least that was the last I heard but Hannah was getting a bit nervous about that idea and worried that it might all go wrong, so was trying to see if they could move their holiday, I say go for it girl, just go away for the weekend and leave others to sort it, its not very often you will have the chance to sit back and let everyone else do all the work! And its not every day you win a free weekend away.

Then Thursday we, myself and Joy, will have a day out of some sort, as we have made our practice once a week, currently on a Thursday.

And Friday, we have planned to go off for a walk, and probably a drink too I shouldn’t wonder, with Meryl, aforementioned office colleague and very good friend, the idea was to take a walk round HOCP to show her the Wild Orchid, obviously the wild Orchid isn’t there to be seen but I guess I could print a copy of the picture out and put it on the grass where the orchid once was, perhaps make a memorial plaque and have a formal ceremony to mark the spot where Orchids once stood tall and have now been mown to the ground, on the other hand perhaps not J but there is certainly no reason why Meryl cant come out with us, then that’s most of the people I would normally see IN the office that will have seen outside of the office, for coffee, in 1 week!

Talking of the office, I am really not sure that I will have the time to fit that back into my schedule when my period of sick leave ends, so may have to forgo that, do you think that anyone would notice if I just didn’t go back?

So, that’s about how this week is shaping up.

Although there are 2 other things I am mildly excited about, I mentioned Chris & Hannah having a free holiday well the reason is because they have managed to get picked to go and review the setup, Butlins, a bit of a sales thing, give people free holidays in exchange for honest and accurate (they hope positive) reviews of the place, the relevance will be clear in the next few paragraphs.

I have discovered that Tyndale Publishers, Christian book publishers, they are the ones who publish the New Living Translation of the bible, which just happens to be my favourite translation. Well they publish lots of books and they are after book reviewers, basically it works like this, you check out the books they have available, read a brief intro to the book, then decide on which grabs your fancy, you request a copy of it, which is sent out to you free of charge, you read then submit a review, the review has to be posted on your own blog on a book sales site that sells the book in question, e.g. Amazon and, I believe, a copy sent to Tyndale as well, a fair deal to me, I have requested a book and am awaiting its arrival in order that I can read and review it, now to me it will encourage me to read and absorb the info in the book far more, most of what I read I have forgotten about in 10 minutes but I will have to work a bit harder at that, we will have to see how I get on with that as my memory is definitely not helped by the depression but I think it will give me a good focus, they do have a good range of books and I was able to pick one that really fitted where I am at right now so it will be good to see what I get out of the whole experience, it also gives me something a little different to blog about as well. OK so its not like getting a free holiday but its still pretty good, something for nothing.

ALSO, and this is perhaps even better if I get it! I have applied to be the reviewer for a camera, a Digital SLR camera, they wanted to know what experience I had with cameras and how keen a photographer I was as well as having a couple of sample pictures to see the kind of standard of my photography, currently I use a Fuji Finepix f8000 which is like a ‘hybrid’ camera, its not got changeable lens but its much bigger than a compact, it has a bigger photo sensor and larger lense size so it does do a better quality job than the standard compact but its still basically a compact, so I don’t know whether I stand any chance of getting this opportunity, which would entail me being given a free camera in exchange for an honest and fair review of the product. But I thought it was worth a shot (if you will pardon the pun!) because I do enjoy photography and to have the chance to have some really nice kit is nice.

But that has started me thinking, what about other companies? Are there other organisations and companies who are giving stuff away totally free in return for reviews and commentaries on the products/services?

Certainly if there are such companies about I would love to know how you get to hear about them more often as I would be keen on trying stuff out and more than happy to provide feedback on the product, as long as you accept it will be honest.

So, if you are reading this and you happen to be the decision maker at a company who might be looking for people to try out and review your products, why not get in touch with me. J

A busy day, 2 school fete's

So, today was always going to be a pretty busy day, both Steven’s & Natalie’s schools decided to hold their school summer fetes on the same day, except that neither of them were actually school fetes!

Fortunately the weather has been pretty reasonable otherwise it would have been a bit of a washout all round.

First off we had Steven’s school fun day, from 11am, this was a good and well attended event, they had Boogie Pete from Boogie Bebbies on the CBebbies channel so he managed to get the crowd worked up and dancing with him, Nat enjoyed joining in but Steven was most disgusted at the thought of being in school on a Saturday, as the photo shows! He didn’t want to join in much and spent most of the time trying to escape or sitting on a chair with his back to the activity.

Natalie joined in with the dancing and we chatted with a few other parents.

We had to leave the fun day early to grab some lunch and then get Nat changed for the village fete and school open day, the school is only a very small one (14-ish in a year group) and they always try and get as many kids involved in the fete as possible, by doing some dances, sadly I couldn’t manage to get any video or photo’s of Nat doing her dance as she was about as far from where we were stood as is possible but she did do really well, the whole school always does do a fantastic job at events like this, for a small school, even for a larger school, they have a really dedicated and committed staff who do get the very best out of the kids and they so obviously and clearly breed some really talented kids too.

It is with a slight tinge of sadness that we watched Nat dancing because this is the last time we will see her take part on any such activities at this school, from September she moves on to a school for children with moderate learning difficulties, this is a bitter sweet thing, we are pleased that she has got a place there, especially as we had expected to have to fight to get her in, but we are sad that she will no longer be at the school she currently goes to because it is a fantastic school and we shall miss the staff, parents & kids, it really is a wrench but we do need to consider what is best for Nat and our (and the schools) overwhelming feeling is that now is the right time for her to move into special school.

Nat also enjoyed having her face painted and having a go on the bouncy castle.

We then headed to the local Garden Centre for a drink before heading off home, although by the time we were getting in the car to go home Nat had got over tired and was really stroppy and difficult so we decided to take a bit of a drive round and see if she went to sleep, which she did, we went past the road where Steven’s old school was, this closed down a couple of years ago now, so we decided to take a drive up there to see what was happening to the buildings, which apparently is not a lot! Obviously someone is looking after the playing fields and grounds but there are no signs up to indicate any purpose the buildings are being used for.

Anyhow, that’s about the size of our day, for me very draining! I had a rather emotional and difficult time yesterday and then to have such a draining day today has been rather tough, not least because of being around so many people and having to cope with socialising with people, something I often find difficult and draining these days. busy days are never going to be great whilst I still suffer depression BUT considering all this hasnt been as bad a day as it could have been, especially follwoing on from yesterday.

The finished product.....

Natalie roaring like a tiger after her face was all made up, at her school fete, you can see the full video of the makeup going on:

Macro Photography

I have always enjoyed photography and having got a decent camera for my 40th Birthday (20 Monhts ago!!) I have got into the habit of never bringing it with me as it is a bit bulky so keep missing out on photographic opportunities.
I have realised that photographic opportunities dont jsut turn up you find them in every day things, anyhow whilst out earlier I captured the wild Orchid featured in my previous picture, on my phone's camera, we the had lunch at the cafe and I was thinking about photo apportunities and the fact that I had missed the opprtunity of getting a realy nice shot because I onyl had the camera from my phone.

I have really wanted to get into some Macro Photography but have just not had the opprtunity and yet this opprotunity arrives and I dont have the camera.

Then I realise that my mobile's camera has a macro photography setting, so thought I woudl at least try and take a picture using it, there was a pot of flowers on the table so I decided to take a picture of a couple of the flowers, I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised at how good a shot it has come up as, I have generally been pretty scathing of the kind of quality of pictures a phone camera can produce, I am not saying that the phone can ever produce the same kind of quality as a real decent camera but I am pleased enough to think that I never have the excuse that I haven't got my camera with me, I now wish I had thought about the macro feature on my phone when we were round near the orchid but hey there we are! We will be back there some time and then I can take a photo of it with the real camera (as long as I remeber to bring it with me)

Orchid in HOCP

We went for a walk round Harrold & Odell Country Park (one of our regular haunts) and a couple comming the other way said to us there was a wild orchid growing, they told us whereabouts it was I have to say I was intrigues as I have NEVER seen a wild orchid growing in the UK so we went to the spot and there, tucked in the long grass was this very small specimin, I dont have a clue how they noticed it, its really not anywhere special and its so small and insignificant, but they did see it and they mentioned it to us so we had the privelege of seeing it as well, sadly I didnt have my real camera with me so had to make do with taking a picture of it on my phone but at least I am able to share it with everyoen who looks at my blog.
I might try bringing the real camera with me next time and seeing if I can get some better pictures of it, as long as it remains intact, wonder whether there are others, there most be I cant see how jsut 1 little orchid could suddenly apear there without there being others around.

FIAT & M/Keynes

I had to take our vehicle (Fiat Ducato wheelchair accessible vehicle the same size as the transit van) to Milton Keynes to have a problem sorted, Milton Keynes is where the nearest FIAT dealer is such a pain in the neck but hey there we go..

The problem has been showing up as a rather loud rumbling noise when driving, they had diagnosed a couple of weeks earlier that it needed a new bearing (drive shaft bearing I think!) so was going back in yesterday for that to be sorted out.

As there was quite a wait they dropped me off in CMK to have a wander round the shops, hence yesterdays photo of the concrete cows that seem to have moved there from the field they always used to be in, although Joy is convinced that they were still in their field on Friday when we went past there so maybe this is a second lot?

Anyhow, had a good look round the shops and had a couple of coffee’s and some lunch there, was seriously tempted to buy myself a new Lamborghini but decided to give it a miss, not sure we could afford it, even though it was only a remote control one, at the moment, still got to pay the electricians somehow.

It was the first time I had been to CMK for many years and I was impressed at how smart the newer sections are, its a lot bigger now and they have loads of decent retailers there, mind you there were crazy numbers of mobile phone shops and I think the main network providers all had 2 shops each in there, not sure what that’s all about they looked pretty empty to me so I guess some of them will end up closing down sooner or later.

Anyhow, had a lovely bowl of chilli with potato wedges for lunch as well so that was good.

I was eventually re-united with the car only to discover that the bearing they had replaced has not sorted the noise out, they say that in doing this they have discovered another problem, I think they said a wheel bearing now! The good thing from my point of view is that I am not having to pay for this work, it’s a Motability vehicle and it has extended warranty anyhow, but its frustrating that it will have to go back in again some time next week, when they will have to strip out exactly the same parts they have already done to get at this new fault, the problem is no one ever keeps parts in these days so they have to order everything in as they need it otherwise they could have just got on and done it whilst the vehicle was in bits without spending too much extra time.

If I were having to pay I think I would be asking some serious questions about whether the work they did today was really necessary or not, but as I am not paying I just cant be bothered to get into that discussion but it certainly doesn’t bode well for FIAT Ducato’s in my book, a 2Yr 7Mnth old vehicle and its had 2 bearings go (if the garage are to be trusted) and an electrical fault, yes that was checked out yesterday as well, I mentioned in an earlier blog, I think, about the car not starting for unexplained reasons, well we had a further incident last week where after filling up with fuel the clock and trip meter re-set themselves for some reason, indicating that the bad earth connection the RAC guy diagnosed and thought he has fixed was still probably there.

So when our vehicle comes up for replacement I think we will try going for something else, probably looking at the VW Transporter based vehicle, also means it could be serviced in Bedford.

Concrete Cows!

so when did they relocate these to the shopping centre? Didnt they realise the trend is to go back to more 'free range'products? ;)??

Facebook User Names

OK so some people might already think I am a bit geeky and if you don’t already think so then you will possibly after this posting!

I picked up on some news last night which has got me mildly (and I do mean only mildly!) excited!

Basically Facebook are going to be introducing proper user names to accounts you know like most other applications do where you can actually direct people to your blog or personal page, profile page, or whatever it happens to be by using user friendly terms, e.g. this blog is written on Blogspot and my user name there is blogmyway (I have been using a variation on a theme across various platforms for a while based around an initial blog called ‘maywayoutnow’ so I use ‘myway’ ‘mywayout’ mywayoutjournal’ etc, so on this blog my address is http://blogmywaynow.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter my address is http://twitter.com/mywaynow and so on it goes! And other places I have used my name in one form or another.

Anyhow, until now Facebook itself has only used totally arbitrary profile ID no’s and very difficult to identify long addresses to identify users, making it near on impossible to just say to someone ‘this is my Facebook address’ well this is all set to change Saturday Morning, midnight EDT (well 1 minute past to be precise!) which is 5am in the UK, they will be releasing the user names facility and they will be dealt with on a first come first served basis so if your name is John Smith you will have to be very much on the ball to get the user name john.smith. your The other thing to watch is that you will only get one shot at it! They will only allocate 1 user name per user and this will be with you for the whole time you have your account, the only way of changing it is by setting up a new account. So you don’t want to be lumbered with anything that you might regret in a few months time! This might of course cause problems for women, who change their names when they get married etc, but we will have to see whether they come up with a way of getting round this.

I am keen to get a user name as it will be useful but am torn as to whether to go for david.cavanagh or get one based on the ‘mywaynow’ theme! Could go either way and it may depend on what is available when I get round to it, and NO I have no intention of getting up at 5am to get one! Although do understand that there are people who are cancelling nights out and setting alarms etc just to get the user name they really WANT!

I have a feeling that there could be a few tears Friday Night/Saturday morning as I suspect that the Facebook server will just get overwhelmed by the number of requests just after the service opens and will just crash!

Anyhow, you can read more about it here: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=90316352130

And if you are really geeky you can watch a countdown time and see the exact time in your local time zone here: http://www.facebook.com/username/

But if you want my advice, don’t stay up late or cancel previous engagements or set your alarm for a silly time as it will all end in tears if the server crashes and if you are really keen on getting a decent user name based on your name you could always change your name to ‘oglibonus ingunolus’ I bet that user name wont go too quickly!

10/06/2009

10/06/2009

10/06/2009

08/06/2009

Took this picture at the weekend.

Pretty Pink

So as you will know, if you read my blog post last weekend, Nat loves pink, she is most definitely a girly girl and loves all things girly and pinkie, so when we were looking at paint colours for the living room it was no surprise to me that she wanted some samples of pink paint, I did concede to buy one sample, on the grounds that her bedroom needs some TLC anyhow, especially now that she has a nice girly lampshade and bedside lamp, her walls need a coat of paint to match in as well as needing new curtains etc, looks like her whole room will get a makeover, with the help of our friends, Hanny & CJ, who have offered to help, see Hanny’s response to my blog post last week.

So this morning, after we had gone out for a good old cooked breakfast, Stevey is out with carers so there are just the 3 of us at home, we got back and Nat wanted to do some painting so, with my help and supervision, she painted her bedroom wall with the sample, not quite what she expected to be doing but she really enjoyed it, although it has to be said that she didn’t do a nice neat square as you normally do when doing a sample.

See attached photo, not a brilliant picture due to the way the light was shining in her room but it gives the idea, the colour is ‘Pretty Pink’ form a Dulux range.

Anyhow, as those of you who know me at all well will know, I have quite a ‘thing’ about paint and avoid it wherever possible, I especially hate getting it on my hands etc and supervising Nat doing the paint was probably worse than doing it myself! Made worse by the fact that everything within me wants to cry out and scream and run away but knowing that I cant because I don’t want my paint phobia to rub off on or impact her at all, this is only about the second time I have EVER been with Nat when she does painting and she really enjoyed it, I have to confess enjoyment is not a word I would use to describe how I felt about it but I survived and live to tell the tale.

Over the summer we have a lot of decorating to do, having left it all until after the electrics were done, the whole house needs some attention, joys mum has offered to help with some of it whilst we are away in the summer and Hanny & CJ have offered to help with Nat’s room but that will still leave a fair bit left to do, I guess it is as good a time as any for me to tackle my paint phobia but it will be tackling it head on and I am not sure that I can cope with it, we will have to wait and see.

Now her room is locked and out of bounds so that neither of the kids go in and get paint all over themselves, I guess we are going to have to be very careful about how we programme in decorating of her bedroom, indeed how we manage to get the whole house done will be ‘interesting’ with the complications that our unique family add to the equation.

Blessed and Highly FLAVOURED

The title was NOT a typo! Its my attempt at humour!

This post is of a Christian theology nature those of you who are not Christians might not get your head round it so might prefer not to read.

Ok so a few weeks back I was at a conference, Church Leadership conference and to be honest I should NOT have been there, I was not really well enough to be at work never mind at the conference, but that’s in the past I went and I freaked and hit a real low as a result of going.

Anyhow, whilst there one of the speakers who I would say is a preaching Pavarotti, said some stuff that I find hard to get my head around, I actually wasn’t at the second of his session, which is just as well with how fragile I am/was, but at that session he trotted out one of the things I have heard some Christian speakers say a few times before, effectively what he was saying is that as Christians our security is in God and that our state and position is that we are, as children of the living God, Blessed and highly favoured, and yes there is truth in that, it is our position as Christ carriers but he went on to say that our response to being asked how we are should be to declare that ‘truth’ my problem with that is that although its true its not real!

If anyone asks at the moment how our car is I could say ‘it runs really well, the air-conditioning is working great, especially in this heat, it has fantastic suspension, its got fairly low mileage for the type and age of vehicle, its pretty new and it’s a great vehicle that suits our purposes well but if I wanted to be real about it I would say well there is an awful noise coming from the steering rack because one of the bearings is worn and needs replacing! Its actually not a pleasure to drive at the moment because its so noisy. All of the above are true but the answer to the question how is it is simply the last one is the. OH I could always just say, well it’s a FIAT what do you expect? J

Yes I am blessed yes I am highly favoured but the truth is that when someone asks how I am, genuinely asking rather than just as a greeting, they are not interested in my spiritual state and my eternal destination they are interested in me, in how David is doing and feeling right here right now, and the truth is that, as a guy who is suffering from severe depression, I am not feeling blessed and highly favoured I am often feeling pretty low and finding life tough!

Similarly, if all people want to hear is ‘I am wonderfully well and Blessed and Highly favoured’ then they actually don’t need to ask as they know that’s the theological state, indeed I would rather they don’t ask because they are clearly NOT interested in the real me the me that has to deal with real life and face issues and struggles in the here and now that, to be honest, sometimes bring me to breaking point.

I don’t want to have a ‘relationship’ built simply on making declarations of our spiritual state in the heavenlys without actually getting to know the daily struggles and issues that we each face, I am not interested in such a superficial relationship that we are afraid to admit who we are and how we are feeling! How can I pray for you effectively, how can I support you effectively if the only response you have to my genuine interest in how your feeling is to trot out some well worn cliché?

Lets get real with each other, lets admit that actually as Christians we are not immune from the problems and difficulties the rest of the world face, we can still be made redundant, we can still have financial problems, suffer from sickness, have car accidents, get cancer, suffer bereavement, have financial problems, have marriage problems, and dare I say, yes Christians can and do suffer depression.

So if you ask me how I am don’t be surprised at getting an honest and real answer because that’s who I am! Although I have to confess that very often I will gloss over the question and not answer it too fully or honestly simply because I am not prepared to discuss it with people who are only interested in the superficial, usually for me, at the moment, the answer to that question requires more than a passing single sentence response, it requires a desire on your part to understand depression and understand me, it requires the ability on your part to empathise with where I am and want to support.

So, how am I? well actually, its been a really good week this week, I am generally feeling so much better than I have been for ages BUT I am not able to say at the moment that I am better, Depression is not one of those conditions that you can say your better or have been healed from after just a week or so of feeling good, there are ups and downs, this might just be another good period before the next down or it might be real and significant improvement in my condition, helped significantly by the medication that I am on.

Now I have lit the touch paper, ME taking anti depressants! Yes and I have been taking them for a couple of years now! yet another big taboo in the Christian world, but why? After all I also take medication for Asthma, no one ever considers that to be wrong, I have asthma I take medication to help make it better, I have depression I take medication to help make that better too.

Elections

To some this is probably a boring subject but I just felt I wanted to discuss it and air some views, outside of the arena of politically charged individuals, I am merely a ME with an opinion on these things and no particular political bias or axe to grind in any direction or for any party.

Yesterday it was election day, we voted in Borough Council Elections and the European Elections, we were in a very unusual situation here in that the local County Council was abolished a couple of months ago in favour of 2 new unitary authorities, Bedford Borough covering where I live and Central Bedfordshire covering the remainder of the county so these elections were for a totally new set of counsellors to cover the new authority.

The old County Council was always Conservative but the borough has been pretty much always hung (a council with no party in overall control, no party had a majority of councillors on the council) well following the election we are in the same situation in that there is no party who has overall control, we are once again having a hung council! Why is this an issue? Well some say its not an issue but the problem is that what happens is very little, no one can do anything without the cooperation of other parties and they keep bickering and falling out with each other so very little gets done and now we are in the situation where this weak and ineffective combination is responsible for the whole of council services not just the services historically held by the borough. At least it does mean that they stand less chance of doing anything to hurt the borough but they probably wont do anything useful and helpful either! I don’t know now whether they whole of the council will come up for election every 4 years as the old county used to be or 25% standing down by rotation every year, my guess is that they will all serve 4 years and come up for election en mass, simply because there always used to be up to 4 candidates representing most of the wards in the town centre, meaning that one came up for election each year. But now there is no ward with more than 2 representatives.

Anyhow, that’s my say and view on the council election, I hadn’t intended to say any of that! But hey at least I avoided wading in on the issue of the Mayor! Hey lets shut up whilst we can! Its an issue I will just keep shut on.

European Elections, I have a problem with these, I am not wishing to discuss the whole issue of whether we should be in Europe or out of it or what Europe should be and what our role in it should be! That’s for others to discuss and there are plenty out there with an opinion!

I am also not so concerned about the physical size of the ballot paper used or even the number of parties represented, although I was amused that there were several ‘fringe’ parties who stood for the same thing, who will have actually split the vote of their likely supporters significantly thereby reducing the chances of getting some (or as many) of their candidates voted in but there we go that’s for them to deal with not me!

However my issue is simply the whole method of election. In principle the idea of proportional representation sounds good! It is something that is often being suggested as what should happen with the UK parliament and I have to say that I used to believe this was the right thing! On the face of it to say lets take the total vote of the population and decide on the numbers of representatives from any one party based on the percentage of votes makes some sense.

e.g. if the vote is split as follows:

Conservative 35%

Labour 35%

Lib Dem 20%

Greens 5%

Others 5%

To say that the makeup of the house of commons should represent those percentages makes some sense! My issue with the whole thing, other than the fact that we would rarely have a government with overall control, and that’s not good, as stated above on the borough council situation but can be seen so clearly when you look at some of our European counterparts who face this situation regularly, they end up having the government so fragile that it breaks down all too regularly, no one seems to be able to run an effective government.

But the other issue with proportional representation and probably my biggest problem with it is that you are not voting for a person but a party! I am not a party kind of guy, I have no loyalties towards any of the parties and to be honest have voted for all the main parties and some of the not so mainstream parties at different times largely because I do tend to vote for individuals, yes I am interested in what the parties policies and manifesto is but I am more interested in the person, take one look at the mess our parliament is in right now, isn’t it so important at the moment to look at the actions of individuals rather than sticking to party loyalty.

How much do we need to ensure that the candidates we are voting for have integrity and are wanting to go into this for the right reasons etc, now we can never know for certain but it is possible to make judgements based on what we see and hear of the candidates, I am not prepared to vote for someone just because they wear the right colour rosette if I don’t feel that they have the right character and integrity or I am unhappy with their own stance on any particular issue.

So yes proportional representation does enable the government to represent the way the country has voted in terms of what party they voted for but it does depersonalise the whole process and you end up having to vote simply for the party or the prime minister you want rather than the actual candidate who you feel can do the best job in your area and I guess it really depends on your own stance on politics which will dictate whether you agree with me or not!

I would like to add that I am not an expert in these issues and don't really get involved in political discussion just wanted to air my own views and thoughts. So that’s my boring post on the elections over and done with!

Car Problem

For the past few weeks we have been having problems with the car, well I call it a car but it’s a Fiat Ducato, which is the Fiat equivalent to the Transit, it’s a wheelchair accessible adapted vehicle.

The problem is that it has been making rather strange noises when driving, I was pretty convinced it was a drive/transmission related issue rather than engine as it only happens when actually moving, it started a couple of weeks ago and has got gradually worse, yesterday I finally got round to contacting the fiat dealer to get it booked in to be looked at.

One of my BIG bugbears with the vehicle has always been that, before we signed the contract for this particular vehicle I specifically went to the local fiat dealer, in Bedford, to make sure that they were able to service commercial vehicles, they said yes! But by the time we had the vehicle delivered they had stopped doing Fiats altogether! Leaving us with the option of going to either Milton Keynes or Northampton. A minimum of 22 miles.

We tried the dealers at both locations for servicing but weren’t happy with either, for a number of reasons, but this time round when we needed to get this problem looked at I discovered that there is yet another dealer, also in Milton Keynes, who can service the vehicle now, so I have opted to take it there, I took it to them today for them to look at and they have diagnosed the problem and booked it in for 2 weeks time to be sorted, hopefully.

Anyhow, so far this new dealer seems to be much better, their whole communication and customer service skills seems streaks above the others and they have been making the right noises throughout, obviously time will tell but at last, half way through our 5 year contract, we seem to have found a dealer who we can rely on and trust to look after us.

So the biggest problem I had today was finding my way to the dealer! This should not have been a problem as I have sat nav and that is normally totally reliable, the thing is that sat nav is only as good as the idiot who programmes it and because I transposed 2 digits it took me to the wrong place, the actual postcode was MK6 4AG but I entered it as MK4 6AG leaving me at completely the wrong end of the city! Then not having a clue where to go as I hadn’t realised what the problem was! Perhaps I need to learn from this and make sure that I take a written note of addresses with me just in case there is a problem, however I wont have a problem finding the fiat dealer again as I have set it as a favourite on my sat nav, I am a fan of such technology and always feel that the problems encountered are due to human error more often than actual problems with the technology itself and this problem illustrates that clearly, it also illustrates that I am only human and fallible.

Anyhow, you are probably wondering now what the problem was, it turns out to be a bearing that’s wearing out so they have had to order the part in and, as I said, have booked it in for the problem to be rectified in a fortnight, one good thing for us is that we don’t have to pay for the problem with the vehicle as it is a motability vehicle and the costs are covered under the contract hire scheme.

A busy weekend

Saturday morning, in our house, started way too early, did you know its daylight at 5.30 this time of year? Well I have know that for some time but could have done without having confirmation of it this weekend!

So yes it could have been worse, if Steven had a seizures (or seizures) as bad as he did Saturday morning, if he had one that bad whilst we were away that would have been so much more difficult and stressful altogether.

Yes Steven had several Fits Saturday morning, the first, rather short one at 5.30, followed a few minutes later by another one, this went on for a total of 25 minutes, including having been administered Bucal midazolam after 5 minutes, so we had to call the ambulance 10 minutes into the seizure, he had just about stopped by them time they arrived.

So Joy went with him to A&E whilst I stayed back and got myself and Nat organised, it was the In-laws to the rescue again, I rang them and arranged to drop Nat round there, which I did about 8.30, about the same time as Steven had another fit in A&E, this one also went over the 5 minute mark so they ended up administering some medication to stop the fit.

Anyhow, after dropping Nat off I joined Joy & Steven at the hospital.

Because of the second fit and the second dose of medication he had to stay in for ‘observation’ so was sent, after a long delay, up to the children’s ward, they couldn’t take him straight away as they were allegedly short staffed!

Granted once we got onto the ward there were very few nurses on duty BUT it also has to be said there were also next to no patients there either! So we are a little puzzled why they had such a problems, especially as we are the ones who do most of the observing.

Anyhow, Steven did pick up during the morning and we got out just before 3pm, not before I enjoyed the delights of the restaurant a couple of times.

So we headed off home, I dropped Joy & Steven off then went and picked Nat up, she had a great time having been out with Grandma and Arnie and then at the kite festival with Grandma & Grandpa.

Anyhow, it was time to fulfil my commitment to her, the Friday evening I had promised to take her shopping for a new lampshade, the old one had gone with the light fitting over the re-wiring works, she had remembered this promise when I got her up in the morning and was a little upset about not being able to do that, although she was more upset and concerned about Steven it has to be said! So anyhow, I took her to Homebase and we bought a new lampshade and matching bedside lamp, Disney Princess set, along with the Disney princess picture that Hanny pants and CJ had bought her for her birthday we now have a theme going on in her room, just need to get some new curtains and bedding to match and paint the walls, they need a coat of paint anyhow, pink to fit in, pink is her favourite colour anyhow! In-fact I did look at sample colours for decorating the living rooms and Nat insisted that we pick up a sample of some pink paint! I guess she has her room in mind.

So having done this we were pretty shattered.

Sunday morning started normally enough, we got up and went to church, Nat spent quite a bit of the time with Richard & Ursula, her adopted grandparents!!! After the service we hung about a fair bit then went to head off home, only to find the car wouldn’t start!!! So we unloaded again back into the church, we had some church keys with us so at least we could stay there and lock up afterwards, it was way too hot for staying in the car for too long.

I call the RAC and was really impressed with the service, the guy was with us inside of half an hour from calling them, it took about half an hour to get the car going and then we were on our way, it was a problem with earthing on the engine apparently! Whatever that means.

So that was the weekend pretty well interrupted, Sunday afternoon was good though went out and had a good time with the kids. I have to say the kids have been really good this weekend.

OK so today was good, the kids packed off to school, we then meet a friend for lunch, this is a friend who we have got to know through Facebook, this is now the third person who we have meet in real life following initial contact only via Facebook! Any children reading this don't try it yourself, we only do so after very careful assessment of the risks and knowing the person on line for a fair bit before meeting them also we always meet in a public and neutral venue for first meeting, well almost true when I meet my good friend Graham he came to the office to pick me up! But hey I wouldn’t do that with everyone.

So we meet this lady today, I wont name her here I shall refer to her as Tilly, she is someone who I have got to know through a support group on Facebook, and is a fantastic young woman, she has overcome so much to be the person she is today and I admire her so much, she lives not too far from where we live so we arranged, myself and Joy, to meet up with her today, I think we shall be seeing more of each other in the future.

Tilly, you know who you really are, you’re a great friend and we both consider it a privilege to have you as our friend, hope everything works out for you and hope to see you again soon.

Anyhow, that’s enough from me for now, will write more some time soon.