Old enough to know better?

'Good cause' time once more!

2009-03-11T08:23:00.003Z

Dunno if anyone still bothers with this blog. Judging by the amount of posts by my fellow-bloggers on the right, maybe no-one else does.

Anyway, just to point you towards two very good causes for which friends of mine are raising money:

On 21st March, Claire Brine is doing a charity skydive to raise funds for kidney cancer, the disease from which her Dad, Paul, died in 2001.

Similarly, some of my friends from Chelmsford SA are off to Zambia, to the Chikankata Hospital and School run by the Salvation Army, in April, to work alongside Richard and Heidie Bradbury.

Please give what you can!

Say 'cheese'...

2009-02-13T13:58:00.003Z

Meet Hillock, due late August. Scan taken at 12 weeks on Tuesday.

Father-to-be elated, mother-to-be feeling very sick and very tired for the last few weeks, hoping it will pass very soon.

What is it about snow that turns us into kids?

2009-02-02T11:00:00.007Z

I woke up this morning, looked out of the bedroom window, and saw the following:

Then I went to look out the front window and saw this:

So I went back to bed, reset the alarm and phoned in to say I was working from home (in fairness, the boss had advised us all to do just that in the event of bad weather when we spoke on Friday).

So we're both working from home today - me downstairs on the PC, her upstairs on the laptop. But everything within me is desperate to stuff work, head for the field in the first picture and have a snowball fight!

In other news, there is a major blog post on the way... in the next couple of weeks or so. Just wait, it'll be worth it!

Part of the reason we moved...

2008-12-16T13:31:00.003Z

Sorry, I know it's been absolutely ages since I blogged, yet again. In my defence, despite getting the heating sorted in the house the clean-up has taken much longer than expected.

Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to a rest at Christmas, as well as all the festivities.

Anyway, to placate you in the meantime, here's a picture I took last week just a few steps down the road from our house. As the title says, the privilege of witnessing scenes like this on a winter's morning is part of the reason we moved.

Happy Christmas!

The blog is dead, long live... doing nothing?

2008-10-31T14:39:00.002Z

So I updated my blog roll... now I notice that Matt Leeder's teased us with a blog post once more... while Ed, who I only added after he complained last time that he hadn't been added, hasn't blogged anew, and Glyn has done exactly what I said he would do, and not blogged now it's been 'made awesome' to use his words.

In the meantime, I recommend you go, gasp and be amazed by the artistic talent of the youngest (and most talented!) member of the Harries clan, Dan, by clicking here...

However, I wanna know something. While the Meisterwerk from myself is still in the making (the work's nearly finished, about a week or so away now), where the flipping heck has everyone else gone?

To those of you who follow this blog...

2008-10-10T17:13:00.004+01:00

This one is for those of you who follow this blog... well, when I say 'follow', I kinda actually mean read and comment, if only to say, for the umpteenth time, either on this or their own blogs, that I haven't blogged in ages.

I am aware of this. There's no particular reason why apart from the fact that I'm right in the middle of loads and loads of work on my house, so I don't really have time to blog when I'm at home, and when I'm not working, I just can't be bothered (and really don't think you'd be that interested) to tell you what I've been doing that particular time.

So, to summarise, I've made a few changes to my blog roll.

Off go Gary and Matt L, who seem to have stopped blogging (in Matt's case some time ago!), and Rich, who not only stopped blogging but has removed his blog from the interweb, for reasons he didn't quite get round to explaining last time I saw him, on comes Anna, whom I've recently become friends with, if only because we needed someone who actually wanted to help us paint our house and I needed someone to complain to about Swiss-German (the bane of my working life, not that most of you would be particularly interested in that!).

Glyn is nearing the end of his month-long blog-a-thon. Now, I don't wish to be (any more) cynical (than I already am) but I have a feeling once Glyn's finished his month of bloggage and has had his blog re-designed... he'll stop blogging again.

Katie has been blogging sporadically, mostly in an attempt to waste time instead of doing something more useful instead... like helping me paint my house... ;)

John, meanwhile, who's spending the next while in the Faroes, appears to have become Australian. Seriously, John, pack it in.

Matt W continues to keep us updated about his showbiz life, and finally I've added Tim, who I've been planning to add for ages, but who now appears to have gone into a blog hibernation the likes of which would even embarrass me.

So, for those of you who actually want to know what I've been up to, I promise, I promise I will post soon... well, just as soon as we actually have heating and hot water back in the house...

P.S. - In no way doing this 'cos he commented and complained that he hadn't been added to the blog roll, but I've now added Ed. He can consider himself lucky after his behaviour in 1995, frankly... ;)

And it's been ages again...

2008-09-12T13:47:00.002+01:00

Been busy, been to Summer School, been on holiday, been saddened, been back to work, been amused by this video I've added on the right:

Sorry if that doesn't count as a post, but enjoy anyway!

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we biked round Essex...

2008-07-21T22:04:00.004+01:00

As promised, now that our total has frankly obliterated the £600 barrier (including Gift Aid...), here are some pictures with an account of the day:

We set off about 8.50, a frankly ridiculous time to be getting on a bike on a Saturday morning, following a send-off from Graeme, Melissa and the girls, and quickly made our way into the 'péloton' heading back up towards Rayleigh Weir and into Rayleigh itself, skilfully negotiating the main roundabout with ease, if some fear and trepidation on my part, though V was far braver and headed straight up the hill!

Marshalls had been placed along the route, ostensibly to show you the way, obviously, but also to provide encouragement and, later in the day, tell you just how much of this absurdly-long ride you'd got left. The first one, in Rayleigh, was incredibly enthusiastic when we passed her. Whether she remained so later in the day or whether the Red Bull had worn off I cannot tell you.

So, we soon settled into a pattern, V setting the pace and me behind, winding through some of the towns and out into the Essex countryside. Thankfully the weather was great: a bit of sun but not too hot, and no wind to speak of. After about 20 or so miles we had our first minor altercation, when my front wheel clipped V's back wheel as we headed round a corner, and I failed to stick to my aim of avoiding falling off. Battle scars to prove it in the attached photo...

A few miles later and we picked up what I guess was the cycling equivalent of a casual jogger in the middle of a marathon, with some bloke cycling back from work in Danbury to Maldon. We chatted as we rode the 4 and a half miles into Maldon town centre before he departed and after 31 miles we stopped off for lunch, randomly some morris dancing and some much-needed treatment for my very poorly knee...

In fact I actually felt a bit sorry for the poor St. John ambulance folk: I was their first casualty of the day and all I wanted was just a wipe to clean up the graze and my tears, but they had to fill out an A3 sheet detailing exactly what treatment they'd given me just so I couldn't then go back and sue them!

After fuelling up on fruit and chocolate, we started the homeward leg of the journey, by which point the early sun had gone into hiding to be replaced by a bit of a breeze and grey skies. Thankfully though, there was no rain, and the sun later came back out to such an extent that I got sunburnt arms and V sunburnt hands (as she was wearing her ever-protective fluorescent jacket!).

I got a little bit ahead of myself when we got back to the Rettendon turnpike, remembering it had only taken us about 30 minutes on the way out before realising, 30 minutes later when we still weren't back at Little Havens, that we weren't going back exactly the same way we'd come out. Curses.

After what seemed like an interminable climb back up the many hills of Leigh-on-Sea and the outskirts of Southend (no, I never knew there were many either) and nearly getting lost with about a mile to go as we got confused by the lack of signage to take us around, instead of through, the local golf course, we eventually pulled back into Daws Heath Road, thinking we were home and dry...

Unfortunately, neither of us had realised that there was still a bit of uphill to go. Now, at this point it's probably worth acknowledging that this was hardly the Tour de France, and we weren't exactly scaling the Pyrenees, but after 59 miles, knowing you'd only got about one mile left to go, to find out that was uphill, albeit a fairly minor climb, is pretty disheartening!

But eventually we turned back into Little Havens and crossed the start/finish line, in a total cycling time of 6 hours and 6 minutes.

Although I might have made this sound harder than it was, I think I can speak for both of us (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if not!) that we really enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the beautiful countryside and were more than willing to suffer sore knees and behinds to raise some money for what is a very worthwhile cause.

Many, many, many thanks to all those of you who sponsored us for the ride - give yourselves a very big pat on the back!

If you're reading this and haven't done so, you can still get to the sponsorship page by clicking 'donate' on the widget on the right. The page will be there for a little while longer.

To placate the restless readers...

2008-07-08T16:25:00.003+01:00

OK, so I know it's been a while yet again, and for that, well, really, I'm not going to apologise. I said a while ago I hadn't had much to say, and the same applies here, so I've not said much. At least I'm consistent.

But, because someone has yet again complained about my lack of bloggage, here I am. Why other people don't get this grief I don't know.

Anyway, just to let you know that I am unavailable for late bookings for weddings and bar mitzvahs this Saturday.

Go on, click on that last one, you know it makes sense.

Tell you what, if the money goes past £600 I'll put pictures on after we've done the bike ride so you can all have a laugh at the state of me. Who says I never give you anything?

Can't win...

2008-06-11T16:49:00.003+01:00

OK so again I haven't posted in a while. Is it 'cos my rock'n'roll lifestyle demands I fill my days with things to such an extent I have no time to write anything?

No, of course not. I just can't think of much that I think you'd be interested in (whoever you might actually be).

The thing of greatest interest to myself and dare I say my good lady wife is that we've had more work done on the house. But given the fearful mocking I got last time I mentioned something like this I decided to steer clear.

We've now got rid of all the nasty old windows on the house and replaced them with double glazing. And put in a set of doors in the lounge.

Oh. Wow.

I figure I can't win. If I don't blog, I get moaned at. If I do blog this, I'll get moaned at for being boring.

Can't win.

Widgety goodness...

2008-04-18T13:02:00.004+01:00

The more astute among you will notice on the right I've inserted a widget for my justgiving.com page to sponsor me for the 60-mile bike ride V and I are doing in July to raise money for Little Havens Children's Hospice.

To go straight to the page on justgiving.com click here.

To find out more about Little Havens Children's Hospice click here.

Thanks!

A year ago today...

2008-03-31T01:12:00.005+01:00

OK, so welcome back. I've been on holiday for a week and couldn't be bothered with blogging, frankly. Not done too much, a bit here and there and mostly slept. Wonderful.

But now I'm heading back to work I can't get to sleep. In any case, it struck me recently that it was coming up to a year since we went to China, and also that I'd never actually got round to blogging our journal from then, so now it's up on a separate blog (yes Glyn, all for you).

The link is here and should be on the right-hand side too so do enjoy...

Fame at last...

2008-03-11T14:07:00.002Z

I had a mail from a Canadian friend of mine the other day, informing me that my outstanding contribution to her country had now been formalised by there being a road named after me.

Not before time, it has to be said...

Can any (either) of my readership lay claim to such a proud boast?

Probably not. Let's be honest, it's not everyday you get a road named after you in a place you've never been (or even heard of)...

Happy birthday to blog...

2008-02-28T10:37:00.003Z

So today's the first birthday of my blog... and what an exciting year's it's been in blogging terms, with literally... erm... about 35 posts. Wow.

Keep reading though for further adventures. Hmm.

The gift that kept on giving...

2008-02-26T13:32:00.002Z

...as some of you may know, yesterday was my birthday. So V and I had booked the day off and were looking forward to a relaxing day, heading up to Flatford and Dedham to take in the sights of Constable Country, but yesterday morning when I came down into the kitchen I noticed, with my incredible powers of perception, that something was wrong... there was water all over the floor.

We'd put the washing machine on overnight and it had decided that this would be an opportune moment to break, covering the floor with water. Not entirely sure what went wrong, suffice to say that when I tripped the switch and the machine whirred into life again, it just continued to spit water out of its left-hand side.

So instead of having a nice relaxing start to my birthday, a lot of the morning was spent cleaning up my kitchen floor. Man alive, I know how to live...

Eventually we did get out and drove to Flatford and Dedham etc, and in the evening we had Cell Group round at ours and everything and it was all good.

And when people came to Cell I realised my day could have been a lot worse... As I write, the person who did have a worse day than mine hasn't blogged about it and I don't want to spoil the story too much but when they do I'll link to it...

My unfortunate doppelgänger...

2008-02-16T18:19:00.007Z

Apologies for the lack of bloggage... again... but basically I haven't had much to say and, well, I can't be bothered. But then today something happened...

Following on from Katie's recent post about lookalikes I've, erm, managed to come up with one of my own. Or rather I didn't, but just as we got home today and were about to get out of the car, V pointed out to me that the light was casting a shadow across the rearview mirror onto my face in an unfortunate way...

...leaving me looking like Hitler. Hmm.

Meet Megg and Mogg...

2008-01-23T13:55:00.000Z

OK, so here are the new arrivals. This is Megg, a 6-year-old tortoiseshell, and below (actually, that's assuming Blogger has displayed them correctly) is Mogg, Megg's 5-year-old daughter.

We adopted them from a cat sanctuary at the weekend and they're lovely... albeit very very very timid. Megg has only emerged from under her bed this morning for the first time since arriving at ours on Sunday, while Mogg has got a bit more adventurous and will now let you stroke her and feed her from hand... and then probably go and hide again.

They were called Tootsie and Splodge but, well, y'know, we just didn't consider ourselves Tootsie and Splodge people, so Megg and Mogg it is.

Photos aren't, I'll admit, the greatest, but that was the closest I was able to get to them at the time (and I haven't quite figured out the light settings on my new phone yet either). Hopefully we'll have some more pics of them soon when they've settled in a bit more and won't go and hide when you look at them...

It's been ages. Again...

2007-12-28T16:53:00.000Z

Sorry, just a very brief one. Know this doesn't count as a post as such but just wanted to wish every and anyone who reads this a very Happy New Year!

Not exactly a New Year's resolution as such but I'll try to blog more often in 2008!

Looks like I can avoid it no longer...

2007-11-30T13:27:00.000Z

...but Christmas is nearly upon us. I feel I've done pretty well to ignore its commercial existence and hold out until now, but it's now dawned on me, bah humbug, that there's not much time left.

Now at this point I want to make something fairly clear - I love Christmas. Me and the wife celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary this year, just two days before Christmas, we loved the idea of getting all our friends, as well as family, together around then and getting married and then having a Christmas dinner with both our families the day before Christmas, so did just that.

What I don't like is when shops start putting up their decorations in August. It just annoys me. It's got nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with commercialism. I realise this is no astounding new insight for anyone but it just annoys me.

But the other day V told me she wanted to get out the CDs of carols to listen to. So while she's off Christmas shopping today with her Dad and I'm out at work she's got my iPod with the carols CDs on them, 'cos she loves them so much.

So here we go then, the mad rush finally commences!

So hang me for treason...

2007-11-22T10:41:00.000Z

...but I'm kinda glad England lost last night and don't now qualify for Euro 2008. Glad because, amongst other things, it'll mean (or at least should mean) that we're spared all the jingoism, flag-waving, so-called patriotism that we get EVERY FLIPPING TIME the football team qualifies for a tournament.

I'm also glad because hopefully, surely now the FA will have to look at the whole set-up, top to bottom, and actually do something to earn the unfeasibly large amounts of cash they receive. The whole thing about imposing quotas on foreign players is a smokescreen, just put up so there's another scapegoat for failure to qualify. Hopefully people will see past it.

You need to question why such immoral amounts of money are being paid for and to English/British players first before you start looking at the foreign imports. If someone becomes a millionaire aged 20/21, by and large on the basis of the fortune of their nationality, hardly too surprising if they lose motivation.

Heard a few interesting theories. We've got a plumber working at our house today and one of his suggestions was to pay players a basic wage, say £10k a week (it's outrageous but just go with me for now). For a striker, you say you only get to keep that money if you score. Go 3-4 games without a goal and I take 25% of your salary back. For a 'keeper, it's based on clean sheets. Concede goals, you lose money.

Of course, as with a quota system, it's pie in the sky and most probably illegal.

The other idea I like is one put forward, I think, by Danny Baker years ago. It was simply this: players get paid, in cash (obviously deduct all their taxes etc, not talking that kind of cash payment!) after each match. But here's the catch: they have to go on the pitch and collect their wages in front of their paymasters - the fans. Would be interesting to see how many of them had the brass neck to go and pick up £100k per week for being average when 50,000 pairs of eyes are trained on them...

The one where Andy gets on his soapbox...

2007-11-09T12:22:00.000Z

So I get in to work this morning to be confronted by a couple of articles cut out from a recent copy of 'The Guardian' on my desk. I've managed to find the on-line version of one but not the other. And that's a shame, as the second kind of complements the first.

They're both about languages, one about translating, the other about their teaching. The first one is something which makes me smile but simultaneously reassures me that, as a translator, I'll likely have work for a reasonable amount of time. It's from Wednesday's edition, is written by Jon Henley (click link for original, mine's a summary) and goes like this:

Babel Fish, the online translation site, has nearly caused a diplomatic row after a group of Israeli journalists decided to use it to address some questions to officials at the Dutch foreign ministry, rather than get the work done professionally by translators.

If any of you have ever used Babel Fish you'll know just how spectacularly bad it can be. Indeed online translation machines like this are so bad one was used to form the basis of a game played on Radio 1 where a song lyric would be put, in English, into one of these things, translated through at least one foreign language before being put back into English. The results were almost always completely incomprehensible and bore no relation to the original song.

I also know (and have told some of you the story) of one company who used one of these sites to translate all their promotional material into French and German, then wondered why they'd not heard anything from any of the people they sent the stuff to, in French- and German-speaking countries.

So the upshot of this first article is that I can sleep a little easier knowing I might be in work for a little while to come. But the second article (which I can't find online), by Marcel Berlins, discusses the poor quality of language teaching in schools, the government's 2003 decision to abandon compulsory language teaching in secondary schools, and the fact that all this comes at a time when the world is becoming more and more open to communication and with it learning foreign languages, while the UK is by and large burying its head in the sand and resolutely sticking to its arrogant belief that the rest of the world speaks English so why bother learning another language.

Great for me, professionally, but sad. I now do a little bit of tutoring to an AS level student of French and I was stunned to see the gaps in knowledge of certain things (not her fault, a fault of the teaching she's had), fairly basic, and the errors in the materials she's been given to study French. But I was equally amazed at the fact that at the same time as she has those gaps in knowledge about France and quirky bits of culture specific to France (in this case the 'départements') she is expected to debate all the kinds of issues I remember having to discuss in my GCSE English Oral Exam (euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality etc). Surely to learn a language it's of benefit to know a bit about the country before being expected to discuss its social issues in depth?

OK, rant over...

12/11/07 - UPDATE: I've now found the second article on-line. It's here, the fourth paragraph being the start of the relevant bit.

Enjoy the silence...

2007-10-30T15:22:00.000Z

...sorry I've been a bit quiet recently. I'm just thinking a lot and as such haven't really got anything I want to write about.

In the meantime just enjoy the fact I've shut up for once.

Apologies if this doesn't constitute a blog but it's about the best I can muster at present.

RIP little man...

2007-10-17T13:33:00.001+01:00

...just a quick one as I still feel a bit numb about it all.

Our belovèd cat, Bob, was killed yesterday after being run over.

He was absolutely beautiful and very friendly and a real character and we both miss him terribly.

I actually feel really very sad writing this, but at the same time feel a bit of a fraud. After all, he was just a cat, wasn't he?

Well, those of you who had the good fortune to have met him and the even luckier ones of you who'd spent just a little time with him would have know that he was much more to us than "just a cat".

So, Bob, RIP little man. Sleep peacefully.

Whatever you did for the least of these...

2007-10-10T22:55:00.000+01:00

...I'm pretty sure most (both?) of you who read this will know how that particular Biblical reference ends. Tonight I had a weird experience. To make some sense of it I need to go back a few days.

Like many others (Kirsty, Liz, Matt, to name but three of those who've blogged a bit about it) I was at The Main Event this past weekend. One of the things that struck me was when the speaker in the Youth Venue, Paul Flavel (or was it a young Alan Hansen?) quoted the above Bible verse (a quick bit of research tells me it's from Matthew 25:40).

It didn't really strike me at the time but it came back to me this evening. See, about 6.55 tonight there was a knock on the door. So I went to open it as you would, to be confronted by a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, in slippers, seriously out of breath, and sporting the after-effects of a nasty cut on her nose.

Before I could say anything like ask who she was and what the heck she thought she was doing darkening my (already very dark) doorstep at that time she asked if I could call her a cab. This threw me a little and immediately I started wondering if this was some elaborate plan to burgle me (you'd be amazed the speed with which my mind runs to this kind of conclusion) by distracting me for long enough for someone to sneak in through the unlocked back door and make away with all my worldly goods... without my noticing of course. Anyway, she asked me to call a cab so I said I didn't know any numbers of cab firms and could she provide me with any. She was clearly distressed (apart from the obvious shortage of breath) and went rifling through her bag and mumbling some phone numbers, two of which she said were her daughter's home phone number, both of which were wrong, and eventually we managed to get a cab firm number from her mobile.

So I called for the cab, all the while suspicious as to this lady's motives, and when he said he'd be there in 15 minutes I decided to invite her in. She'd already requested a glass of water to take some medication and I asked if I could get her anything else so she and I had a cup of tea.

It was such a surreal experience but throughout it all I couldn't help but go over the words of the above verse. Because, when everything within me was screaming that I should not be letting this potential (albeit very wheezy) axe-murdering villain into my house, there I was drinking tea with her.

She told me that she'd been at the hospital just down the road but the cab she'd ordered for there had never turned up so she'd started walking up the hill and that was why she was so out of breath. She said she'd been at the hospital for an asthma appointment but hadn't got her inhaler with her. She told me she suffered wih MS and had had a stroke recently which affected her hands and various other things, which had led to her falling and suffering the pretty nasty cut on her nose. I've no idea if any or all of these were true but I couldn't help but go over and over and over the words of this verse.

So, for 20 of the most surreal minutes of my entire life, this evening I invited a stranger into my house and had tea with her while we waited for the cab to arrive. I'm still not entirely sure the whole thing didn't happen in some sort of dream...

...but it just felt like the right thing to do. I had absolutely nothing to gain, my fear and insecurity about strangers and dark nights (even wheezy old ladies with poor memory wearing fluffy slippers) was screaming to me that I had everything to lose, but I did it. I'm not after any kind of plaudits, congratulations, anything. I just thought you might be interested to know... both of you.

Weird, huh?

The twilight zone of the freelance translator...

2007-09-27T18:28:00.000+01:00

So, last night was my first venture into the world of Continuous Professional Development when I attended a seminar relating to my chosen profession - for those of you who don't know and are still even remotely interested, it's translation.

I went up to London with my colleague, Anne, and we attended a seminar which sounded interesting and should have been useful, blah, blah, blah...

...but it was rubbish. The guy who did the presentation wasn't exactly the human dynamo, the way the presentation was, erm, presented, was pretty dull... but the main thing that struck me was, well, just how odd some freelancers are!

I'd been warned a bit about this before but I'd forgotten. Now, I'm all for individual expressions of fashion and taste (with my hair I'm in no position not to be) but there were some, shall we say, interesting outfits!

Anne said she thought it had a lot to do with the fact that a lot of these people... well... they just don't get out much, don't have much in the way of human interaction!.

And this is what causes another thing: man can they talk!!! I guess it's the splendid isolation of spending so much time on your own that does it.

And to think I aspired to 'go freelance' in the long term...

This was my second night out in London the trot (I know, crazy aren't I?!). On Tuesday I had the privilege of going to the new Arsenal stadium with Graeme to watch us beat the Barcodes 2-0 in the Carling Cup. It's an awesome stadium, check it out here:

Oh, and I've removed a few blogs as they don't seem to post any more...

My name is Andy and I am a spiritual nomad.

2007-09-20T19:42:00.000+01:00

There. I've said it. I'm spiritually nomadic and have been for a few months. And I don't really like it, it's just that we've not really settled into a new church since moving.

It's weird, When we left Enfield we settled into a new church in Harlow really quickly, and I guess one of the reasons this whole thing is now on my mind is 'cos we're going back there on Sunday for the dedication of a baby of a friend of mine, then on to see my folks like we used to on a Sunday when we were at Enfield.

None of the churches we've been to here in Chelmsford have felt quite right. There are a couple more to try but if I'm totally honest I'm a little apprehensive about that. Not because I don't know what to expect... it's because at at least one of them I do know what I expect. Does that make any sense? Probably not. Ah well.

You see, I miss my mates. At Enfield SA, though I had lots of lovely family, I was never blessed with a lot of friends my age, the whole time I was growing up there. And as I grew up and V and I met, grew and changed spiritually it became pretty obvious to both of us that we needed to be elsewhere. But here in Chelmsford we're blessed with loads of friends, many of whom we've got to know through the cell group from Chelmsford SA we've been going to for about a year. But due to holidays and other things we've hardly seen them since the middle of August.

I guess we didn't realise how blessed we were to find Harefield so soon and thought it would be easy when we moved. But it hasn't. And it's rubbish. One of the best things about church at its best is its fellowship, and having not settled at a church we've yet to experience the fellowship we might have done if we had settled. And we haven't seen our friends from cell due to holidays etc. and I'm missing them and feeling, well, spiritually unsettled.

Now, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how Enfield is or was or how I, perhaps wrongly, expect Chelmsford to be. I just know that as far as the former was concerned it wasn't what we needed spiritually and I guess I'm a bit scared that the latter won't be either, but as loads of my friends are there I desperately want it to be...

So there you go. No fireplace, no pictures, no nothing.

The wind knocked right out of my sails...

2007-08-27T11:37:00.000+01:00

...y'see, I had all these ideas for a blog post. As I lay in bed yesterday I was thinking it was about time I wrote something new, updated you all on the fascinating developments with my fireplace, told you what a lovely time we had on Saturday with my brother, sister-in-law and niece going to see Thomas the Tank Engine and friends at Chappell/Wakes Colne, and even time I wrote something serious but then I got up and started doing stuff, then when I browsed the logs later I looked at Glyn’s latest post, forgot what I wanted to say and decided not to say much for now, firstly because I'd advise you to check out his blog/vlog/vblog or whatever he wants to call it, and secondly 'cos I then forgot what it was I wanted to say. It was something deep and meaningful though, that much I remember...

But because I can't remember everything I did want to say I'll distill it down to this:

Thank you, Rich, Nicola and Bethany for a lovely day on Saturday. We love spending time with you but probably don't tell you enough.

And so as not to disappoint all those of you desperate to know how the house is looking, here's the latest picture of the fireplace...

Totally addicted to Face(book)...

2007-08-15T18:30:00.000+01:00

Hi there.

Well, we had a great week at Summer School but are wrecked still. Also, as the title suggests, I've got a new addiction: Facebook. Seriously, it's ridiculously addictive and I blame it for my not blogging. Well, that and Glyn. Not sure why it's Glyn's fault. But it just is...

And as I've been bugged/pestered/persuaded to blog again I thought I'd update you with a picture or two...

We're having our fireplace stripped back to its original state, having cleared off the, frankly, nasty mantelpiece we had on there before. This is how it looks at present (well, the first picture is after he stripped back the wall, the second is the later one, with the hearth bricks replaced):

Hello? (Hello, hello, hello) Anybody out there? (there, there, there...)

2007-07-18T14:16:00.000+01:00

It seems few of my chums are still actually blogging. Shame...

Anyway, just to update you (don't pretend you're not dying to know...) I've been spending lots of time driving. Most of the weekend, in fact, it seemed like I spent behind the wheel.

But in any case, yeah, that was it. We had a staff meeting for our divisional Summer School which has given me plenty to think about (and do!) before the even itself starts two weeks from Sunday.

And today I've just had my annual review at work. Been here for three years now so it seems logical to have a review, I guess. I hate them, probably 'cos from my first proper job I used to dread them as the boss and I didn't see eye-to-eye so they never went well.

But here they've always gone well even though I approach them with the same fear and dread. Silly, really...

Lacking inspiration...

2007-07-11T16:19:00.001+01:00

As is seemingly the case with lots of other people on my blog roll I'm really lacking inspiration for a post.

So, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that doesn't really apply here, allow me to point you towards a couple of interesting posts:

Rich has blogged about some of the work he's been doing and ideas he has in the pipelines. I would love to have creative ideas like this. Rich is one of the guys I've had the privilege of working with at Summer School and look forward to doing so again.

Kirsty is hosting a discussion about performance/worship. As ever it's nothing if not thought-provoking.

And although Glyn hasn't posted anything in a couple of weeks it's his birthday today so go and wish him happy birthday.

"For greater love hath no man than this, that he should promote other people's blogs" (this may have been adapted from somewhere, can't quite put my finger on where though).

Update:

Not at all spurred on by the fact she got mock 'umpy with me in her comment I should also point you towards Liz's blog where she's telling the world about the miracle of creation!

A murderer in our midst

2007-07-03T13:50:00.000+01:00

So we're now settling into the house, enjoying the vista, sometimes even occasionally with sun but we've discovered a slight new problem: our cat's a murderous assassin.

Where we used to live was on a new development so the amount of local wildlife was negligible. Now, however, with a garden backing onto fields and the catflap installed (to the relief of myself and the cat as he'd started to take exception to being kept inside after the move and was scratching and biting the jiggery out of my limbs), what we assumed to be a sweet, innocent, cute-looking moggy has turned into a predatory monster.

Don't get me wrong, he's still capable of being enormously cute, in fact most of the time he is enormously cute, but on Friday night he started to show us what we've not seen for the past year he's been with us.

Those of you of a squeamish or vegetarian nature (like V, not that she reads this), you might want to turn away now. Those of you still reading, don't say you haven't been warned.

We'd decided to keep him (Bob, the cat, obviously) inside until such time as his new ID tags arrived and I had a chance to fit the catflap. This opportunity duly presented itself on Friday night so in it went, and out he went... but within 30 seconds he'd returned, complete with half-dead bird in his mouth. To cut a long story short he then proceeded to play with it until it was dead, then eat some of it and leave the rest for us. This was followed over the course of the next 24 hours by a fully-dead bird, couple of fieldmice and a vole, the last of which he actually brought upstairs to show us just what a good hunter he is.

As we'd not previously experienced this it all came as a bit of a shock, but I guess it's just in his nature and, having previously tried (and failed) to reason with him about not climbing on the sofa when he was wet and dirty, I decided not to waste my energy on it this time.

Problem is I now find myself in a bit of a quandry. Having defended cats when Chell blogged about it, I'm now facing up to the fact I live with a murderer. I feel so tortured... still, could be worse, I could have been that half-dead bird in his jaws...

Sometimes you go to write something and then decide to check it first.

2007-06-25T15:16:00.000+01:00

We've finally moved house. FINALLY! So we now live in a little village on the outskirts of Chelmsford, wake up to a beautiful countryside view, etc etc etc blah blah blah but for the most part, since moving in last Wednesday we've just enjoyed the wonderful vista... in the rain.

On the whole the move itself went fine, but particular highlights included:

having to do half the journey from Harlow to Chelmsford with the car windows wide open as the cat was a bit poorly on the way (poor thing, he wasn't best pleased at being put in his basket then into the car and showed it).
trying to get the sofa into the lounge. And failing. Instead, making do with putting the sofa upstairs in a spare bedroom, scuffing paintwork and plaster on the way, and vowing to get this rectified asap.
erm, that's it. Only two points. I'd make a rubbish officer.

But now we're settling in nicely but are still up to our ears in boxes etc.

So the title of this post. Do you ever get that, when you're just about to write or say something then you think "I'd better just check exactly what this means" and actually do check it?

Just had that. Was gonna call this post 'Like Flynn' (as in the phrase 'In like Flynn') but then checked it out. Google it for yourself if you can be bothered then realise why I scrapped it.

Hopefully I’ll get hooked up to t’interweb at home soon and stop being such a Luddite, then I can post more often. You can hardly wait. Go on, admit it...

Even more so than usual...

2007-06-11T15:53:00.000+01:00

We're out of the loop at the moment: we're no longer at our old address, but don't move into our new house until the middle of next week. If you desperately, urgently need to get in touch with either of us, e-mail or call/text us on our mobiles. If you haven't got the numbers, try asking someone who you think will!

Blooming typical:

2007-06-06T09:29:00.000+01:00

Post rant about the delays in the legal process: 2.54pm...

...then exchange contracts: 4.20pm.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

2007-06-05T14:54:00.000+01:00

Time for a bit of a rant: it's on the subject, still, of buying and selling houses, so sorry if this will bore you but I'm just completely stumped by the whole thing. According to my understanding (and this is where the title comes in) of these matters, gleaned over the past few weeks of frustration and delays, there appears to be absolutely no legally-enforceable deadline by which point you have to have exchanged contracts for buying/selling a house.

In the case of our current move this means that basically any one party in the chain (and there are about 4 or 5 in ours, I think) can slow things down without anyone else involved being able to do anything about it.

In short: we agreed to sell our house to our buyers at the end of January. We had an offer accepted by our vendors at the start of March. We then did all the stuff required of us, in terms of mortgage paperwork and other legal paperwork, before going on holiday at the end of March. We came back mid-April to be faced with loads of stuff to do but expected this so it wasn't too much bother. We duly filled out all the necessary forms and returned them as quickly as possible, chasing up people as and when necessary so as not to delay the whole thing further.

So why, over two months later, are we (those of us actually buying and selling, and ultimately occupying, the houses) sitting here waiting for the exchange to go through?

Why is there no statutory time limit for all this stuff to have been completed? Why can one party legally delay things without any of the rest of us being able to stop them doing it? It's just complete and utter madness.

Our buyers are first-timers, i.e. they've got no property to sell and are buying a nearly-new property, so the legal paperwork took them next to no time, but through no fault of their (or our) own they've had to wait 4 and a half months to move house. We and our vendors have pushed and cajoled our legal representatives and done all the paperwork as quickly as possible but are still sat waiting.

IT'S ENORMOUSLY FRUSTRATING AND STRESSFUL!!!!!!!

So book my face!!!

2007-05-31T10:56:00.000+01:00

Yes, like so many others I've now signed up for Facebook though I'm still not quite sure why...

...but it seems like fun.

In other news the move stuff is still dragging on, hence my silence on here (i.e. haven't got much time to blog and not much else to actually talk about and it's pretty dull if you're not involved in it) but when I move I'll hopefully re-discover some energy and enthusiasm and tha'.

I think, therefore I tag...

2007-05-29T09:59:00.000+01:00

Having been tagged by Liz, here you go:

My tag: "Of or pertaining to the Aztecs or their language." from "The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" (sorry but I'm at work, waddya expect?).

OK, the rules:
Grab the book closest to you.
Turn to page 161.
Print the 5th complete sentence on your blog.
Tag 5 others.

So, I tag Martin, Chell, John, Matt W and Katie.

Oh, and I see Big Brother starts again tomorrow. Might leave the TV at ours when we move house and then go and collect it sometime in July to try and escape the gibberish.

Gah! The stress!

2007-05-18T13:44:00.000+01:00

Blimey, I'm getting really stressed out with all this house malarkey... and this is before we even get as far as packing up (though we've started that bit) and moving.

Found out today our buyers are getting very frustrated at the whole thing taking so long to complete. V and then I told our estate agents we're equally frustrated at it all taking so long and added that we're doing nothing to hold it up. The estate agent then said he's made a few calls and checked a few things out and it seems there are delays further up the chain.

The basic thing is this: we need your prayers that the whole thing doesn't go belly-up now. We've been waiting for this to happen for about 7 months now (put our house on the market at the end of October) and are soo close (mimes holding fingers really close together) it'd be disastrous for it all to fall apart now.

So even though it may not be a big deal to you, we'd really appreciate it if you could pray for a swift resolution.

Ta

Just quickly...

2007-05-08T14:03:00.000+01:00

...changes are afoot here, now I've got my new laptop. Will actually get round to adding some pictures and all that but for now what I wanted to do was to alert you to the fact that my sister-in-law, Nicola Hill, is doing the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research UK on 20th May.

If you can spare a couple of quid, please go here and do the necessary:

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/nicolaeh

Will put a link on the side too. Hope you enjoyed ROOTS if you went, and if not that you just enjoyed your Bank Holiday (assuming you're in the UK, that is).

Nothing witty or clever to say...

2007-04-27T14:05:00.000+01:00

...so no change there then. Just to say I'm still here but haven't had time to write anything of substance this week. I'm hampered by a few things:

1) Lack of anything interesting to write about
I've spent most of my evenings this week working in one way or another. Mostly doing stuff for an OU course I'm finishing. And you guessed it, I'm taking it right to the wire - the final deadline for the assessment is next Monday.

2) Lack of internet at home
Makes the main part of 1) difficult too, as it means I end up staying on at work a little longer to do my research. My boss is cool with that so it's not a problem as far as that's concerned, but it means I'm getting home a little later and then can't go on t'internet at home to update you on my thrilling and action-packed existence. No, really.

3) Loads of other things to do first when I do actually get round to finishing my studying and get the internet sorted
After we've moved (hopefully in a few weeks' time), I'm hoping I'll have the time to do some stuff: write up the journal from China (yes, Glyn, I'm aware you just can't wait for this but you'll have to), post it on here with some video and some pictures and maybe even have something approaching a life.

But I'll probably be reminded of other things I've got to do first in the new house.

So until such time, talk amongst yourselves and be entertained by the list of blogs I like reading, down the right-hand side of the page.

The feast of champions:

2007-04-20T13:53:00.000+01:00

One brie, bacon and cranberry baguette.

One packet Marmite-flavoured crisps.

One Cadbury's Dairy Milk.

One bottle of Coke.

SCORE!

And for those who are interested, the China photos are in the process of being uploaded. Problem being that at the rate they're uploading you'll have to wait until just after the 2012 Olympics to actually view them.

So, erm, yeah, I'm back then...

2007-04-18T09:10:00.000+01:00

Got approximately a thousand photos to sort through, a journal to finish, loads of video to edit, then I'll get round to putting it online. But for now, just know this:

China's flippin' awesome.

Thank you.

Leaving on a jet plane...

2007-03-29T13:12:00.000+01:00

...but do have some idea of when I hope to be back again.

Anyway, today's my last day at work for nearly three weeks as me and the wife are off on holiday to China. Tomorrow we fly to Hong Kong then we head into China and make our way up to Beijing via lots of cool places like a Giant Panda Reserve, the Terracotta Army, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and, erm, lots of other equally-cool-but-currently-unmemorable places too.

I hope (but don't expect) that at some point on our travels I may be able to upload some photos, but don't hold your breath.

With any amount of luck you lovely people reading this will be able to click on the links which should have appeared above for the various attractions, but if not, just google them along with Wikipedia to see what I'm on about.

And then go "oooh" and "aahhhh" and "mwkfkjhs". Actually, scrap that last one, unless you're being sick.

A hierarchy of bloggers

2007-03-22T09:22:00.000Z

Wow, who'd have thought it? OK, so after some comments about people being shifted up and down the list I've re-arranged the list of bloggers into alphabetical order. I realise the following may bug some people's sense of pedantry but "My bestest friend ever in the world" is above Martin as she's called Liz.

If anyone has a problem I suggest you take it up with the ombudsman...

More blogs added

2007-03-20T09:24:00.000Z

At the request/suggestion(/harrassment) of those who will remain nameless I have added some new names to my list of friends who blog. You'll see on the list my wife, Verity, Liz Hall, Kirsty Caffull and Katie Allen have all been added to this esteemed company.

Now, I must confess I don't really know Katie that well but she was kind enough to leave a comment on my blog so I thought the favour was worth returning and extending.

Right, on with some work...

I don't follow trends, I set 'em...

2007-03-19T17:22:00.000Z

I see the wife's started blogging now...

http://ifievergetroundtoit.blogspot.com/

Curses, already her post is better than my two efforts.

I did threaten to stop after 6 weeks. I may make it less than that. For the record though, I also had a rubbish commute today, just going the other way, out of London.

Oh the excitement.

And if anyone can help me to add video to the side in Google blogger (can't find it in the help section and it is needed - I wish to treat you all to a fine exhibition of dance) I really would be so grateful. I might even mention your name... as long as it's not Glyn who does it, I couldn't bear to be shown up for a techno idiot by him...

Booked it, packed it...

2007-03-06T14:00:00.000Z

OK, just a quick one as I've got plenty of work to be getting on with.

It's been a good few days, some prayers have been answered and just generally things have been good:

1) We finally had an offer accepted on a house we like! It's a lovely place in Little Waltham, just outside Chelmsford.

2) We got our car back! OK, not a massive big deal in the overall grand scheme of things, but our car's beeen in the garage for three months so it's cool to get it back.

3) We're getting really close to going on holiday! I was at the embassy yesterday in London lodging the documents for our visas to go to China at the end of the month.

It's a trip that's been a long while in the planning, saving, and finally actually getting round to booking. Must confess I'm quite nervous about going too (can't really explain why) so if you could spare a few seconds to pray for our safety I know I'd feel reassured!

Thanks to all who have commented. I'll get round to updating the list of other blogs in the next fews days hopefully.

And if someone could tell me how, on Google blogger, I can add a link to some youtube video for the side bar, well that'd be just grand.

Be seeing you...

2007-02-28T13:29:00.000Z

So, here it is then, my very first blog post... erm... hmm... (scratches head) dunno what to write about.

Right, this is kind of the point of why I've held off blogging for so very long: I've always thought I just didn't/don't have that much to say. And the first time I go to post I'm proved right.

OK, so anyway. I'm Andy, I've just turned 30 (as you can figure out from the title of the blog) and I guess what the title asks is something that's always puzzled me. As a kid growing up and getting told off I always heard that I was "old enough to know better". At no point did anyone tell me I'd become old enough, or at what age I would become old enough (which I wondered when I heard it said to other people) but it seems I just achieved it.

I think that's rubbish. Turning 30 for me would, you might think, be definitive proof that I am old enough to know better but I'm not sure. I guess what I'm going to write here (if it even lasts the 6 weeks I suggest above) relates to that. Sounds absolutely riveting doesn't it? No? Thought not.

Anyway, pop back at some point soon and I may have something to write about. In the meantime check out the cool blogs which will hopefully have appeared somewhere else on the page...