The twilight zone of the freelance translator...

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.

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.