24 unusual hours.

15:15

Was I really in Birmingham this time yesterday?! I've smiled and laughed and cried and come to some peace in that time. Know what? All this is good.


I described my blog to someone the other day as a catalogue of scrapes I'd gotten myself into. Not to disappoint my fan base, I've already been told I can't get on a flight. Don't worry. I'm under favour so I refreshed THAT status and got them to change the name on my ticket and let me through without a charge. The only two blessings I requested!

Boom! That just happened!

Landed safely and with friend, chilling out with the fan on...

More soon

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3

Finally! My Myers-Briggs 'P' has come into force this morning - particularly the motivated by doing things at the last minute element.

Overnight hotel in Las Palmas now booked.

Someone to meet me at the airport sorted.

Ticket bought for onward flight to العيون

Pick up at Laayoune organised

Suppose I should think about packing. Not before a second coffee though, right?




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Days like these...

Phone call from mini-me checking to see how I'm doing. Got link to a pile of his artwork I'd not seen before



Ran into Tony B who recommended tk maxx for headphones

Bought very reasonably priced Skull Candy that have great volume and quality


Coffee with Vanessa

Bought pile of yoghurts so the yog-hog can pay back her debt to society and the Tull's fridge

Odds and ends of jobs

Tea chez Cook's. Got three cards, 1 each from the kids with Oscar signing his card as 'bum' because there wasn't enough space to write his name!!!

Did a bit of worship at a small group and got spontaneously swamped with prayer and love

Back home to find Kirsty had hung out my washing!

Dog hugs & sleep


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4

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The upside

Bedford - Laayoune


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5

What is this rain and cold?

OK, I'm ready to go!


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Conjecture

I wonder if when Jonah was off to catch his boat, all his mates thought he was getting the one to Nineveh but once they'd waved him off he jumped on a different one?

This is conjecture, of course, but there would have been boat schedules possibly or he would at least have know in advance of leaving that the date was drawing closer.

How inviting and straightforward must that boat to Tarshish have appeared? Maybe bigger and stronger looking than the one going in the opposite direction. How easy, when no one was looking anymore would it have been to sidle from one queue to another and blend in with the travellers and tourists?

I'm not seriously tempted to 'head to Tarshish' but there is an appeal in stopping in the canaries, deciding to stay to see mini-me through uni, deciding to stay in the UK and convince myself and others what I really need is just a little bit more training.

But Saturday it is and Nineveh it will be. I carry something too precious to be sacrificed for comfort and ease. The alternative is that I am sacrificed instead. So be it. I will leave with tears and come back rejoicing with sheaves.

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6

Six days 'til I head to the desert and I'm going to try and chronicle the countdown even though it might not fit the usual bill of 'lighter bites'

Woke this morning feeling sick with emotion and heavy with the weight if impending loss.

The sun is streaming through the window and there's not a cloud in the sky on a day that was forecast for rain. I take some comfort from that.


Jesus set his face resolutely as he faced the cross and I will imitate the master.

Today is my last Sunday at KA, my last Sunday hanging out with the dear Davies', my last Sunday.

This time next week I will be flying from the Canaries to العيون





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My charmed summer

Jumping in the river
Floating downstream
Learning to ride a motorbike
Creating art
Making small children giggle
Eating amazing food
Saying goodbye to family
Fishing
Entertaining
House-sitting
Dog-sitting
Cat-sitting
Kayaking
Friends, friends, friends
Composing
Walking
Swimming
Singing
Laughing
Crying



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Left and down a bit

Back in the Llanelli 'hood for a week. Oddly full of people who I don't know but will probably end up being go-to people in the future.

First off a meeting, totally unrelated to basket weaving, with a formality that made me want to sit in the back row and misbehave.

Grinned like a Cheshire Cat in wshp. The golden fortnight has been extended due to popular demand!




Happy to be back here for a few days. Plenty to look forward to going back to as well.

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Just for fun

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Pop

I just opened a bottle of champagne on the bus to Cambridge!

She's called Sylvia and I offered some of the sweets I had. She then exploded with rapid conversation about her love of the theatre and how she used to go to the old theatre on Ashburnham Road. When she was a small girl a man from a rep company knocked on the door asking for accommodation and they ended up meeting all the girls in the company who they took on the river where they all fell in and her mother ended up having a houseful of actresses knickers hanging out to dry!!!

What a firecracker!


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Honey-crusted spectacles

Now I may be viewing this place through rose-tinted croissants but this bakery on Wendover Drive is no ordinary bread & bun joint.
Reco-ed by local gourmets and foodie folks, Tim & Greta, I stumbled out of my house-sitting pad for a 10:30 breakfast.


I chose a few things from the cooked breakfast menu and sat outside in the sun. Mushrooms; generous, cooked to perfection, bacon; crispy but not burnt, hash browns; standard but good, sausage; average but no complaints. They could do with visiting Lingers Butchers but all in all a good breakfast with medium-strong coffee.
The Honey Crust Bakery is a full on Italian deli too and sells a modest range of cakes including the Bedfordshire speciality - chocolate toothpaste.

I shall return

One of two

First short, 'Between Heaven & Earth' was a German film based in Ivory Coast about two men trying to escape poverty by stowing away in the freezing hold of an aeroplane to Germany.


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Pictures new

Moved into a fab house this morning for a fortnight's cat-sitting. The place is dripping with creativity.


Spent the afternoon having a long overdue heart to heart with Lainey, reading, journaling, listening to music and starting to write a song together. Even wrote a quick prelude on the piano. A prelude to someone with musical talent I shall call it!

Now I'm at a shoeing of two films as part of the Bedford Film Festival.


A couple of world cinema things that sound sufficiently pretentious to catch my eye ;)

'Searching for Sugarman' & 'Between Heaven and Earth'







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30 years of jumping

In rivers.

I remember jumping in the brook and swimming alongside the water rats as a kid and I'm happy to say I never grew out of it.

Today I was back in again, more conscious of Weil's disease, drowning in the reeds and getting caught up in currents but no less gung-ho.


Bacon and egg butties, home-made hummus with crudités and nectarines. Not too shabby.

Annoyingly forgot to take my waterproof case for the phone so I could take pictures in the water...

Next time



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This is why...

...Elaine is a rock star;

I am sitting in her garden in one of her sun dresses drinking fresh coffee. I have been ordered not to move until breakfast is served. Last night I slept in her bed while she insisted on sleeping on the floor, watched a movie she paid to download and ate one of my favourite meals ever - pasta pesto with Eton Mess for dessert. My other favourite dinner is on the menu for later this weekend - bangers & mash.


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Discovery

Bircher (pronounced birker) muesli has just come into my line of view in the last 36 hours but I am already a convert. The inspired recipe of Swiss Dr Bircher.

I had a pot of it at EAT, the lunch place a bit like prêt à manger. It had mango sauce on top and was bloomin' lush. I looked up a recipe straight away and made it once I arrived at my folks.

If you don't know what it is, think of cold porridge with loads of really good yoghurt, fruit and seeds mixed in. It's like that but tastes 100 times better than it sounds.

And of course there's a great Anne story to go with it! Anne's father was operated on by Dr Bircher himself in Switzerland. He had to be brought down a mountain on a sledge (not even a skiing accident, just a bizarre set of circumstances designed to make for good reading) in order for Muesli-man to save his life.

So go ahead and soak yourself some oats in milk and honey overnight then stir in as many crazy nuts, seeds, fruit and yoghurt and think of the doc.


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Space/time continuum

In which I discover that a place can be both 2 hours away and 8.5 hours away at the same time.

Actually it's too dull to recall how my first bus arrived 45 minutes late making me miss my connection resulting in me having to wait an extra two hours to return in time for my bus that then ran an hour late making what would be a two hour car journey, an eight and a half hour marathon on public transport. No-one wants to hear that.

So instead, here's a picture of gorillas in Norwich;



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Animal Farm

As well as Monty the lurcher (permanent), Maggie the Italian Greyhound (leaving tonight after a week), Milly the spaniel (regular guest), other little shaggy labradoodle who came for a week & Foxy the Greyhound (arriving this evening for a week) two cats arrived to temporarily join the ranks today.




These two beauties were found dumped outside the Cats Protection charity shop this morning. The black and white one is a very soft long-haired kitten that I have named Malone. Thankfully we have someone coming this evening to see them and probably/hopefully take them.




Kirsty said it all earlier; "It's turning into more of an animal sanctuary than a home. Just how I like it"


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