Piccies of the flood

It’s all gone now but here’s how it did look… thankfully not sewage!! Check out more photos on the Flickr widget on the sidebar if you want to see more. Foxy

Flooding part deux

Have been having real trouble posting photos from Photobox so am going to put some of our house underwater up soon when I’ve worked out how to do it!! Suffice to say that we are now without water in the ground floor… and we’re all out of running water completely! The house is starting to smell of stagnant water which is a pain and the loss adjusters haven’t got to us yet so we can’t really do anything. Anyway the great work of pulling everything up will start soon.

Over the last few days in Tewkesbury we’ve had every news network here, including John Snow, Richard Bacon, GMTV (scum bags for announcing a tide that would hit Tewkesbury when its the lowest tides of the year), Sky and others. I’ve been on ITV and I think BBC (video of me canoing down our road). However, the thing that has really annoyed me is the sensationalisation (if thats a word) of the disaster… yes it’s been bad, yes we’re all without water and some have lost power, but we’re coping. In fact there has been good things come from this – I have spoken, drunk tea, consoled and joked with people in my vicinity that I hadn’t done more than nodded at in previous weeks. We’re all supporting each other and helping each other out. 

Also, when this stuff happens in Bangladesh and Mozambique 1000’s OF PEOPLE DIE. They don’t have insurance, friends with running water, roads to escape on, news programmes offering money to families willing to appear on “The Worst Year of my life” (true story – ITV are doing it later in the year). Lets get some perspective. Rant nearly over. Until the next time. Foxy

Cotswold Gardens flooding video

We are already on You Tube!!

Flooding

Well… as many of you know we are about 3-4ft under water at the moment. Our ground floor is trashed along with most of our town! I’ll post photos and further info in the future. If you want to get in touch then leave me a message here and I’ll get back to you.

Big Brother 8

Heard this quote recently on BB8 and it made me laugh a lot. Still think the show is a stinking pile of dung though.

“Politics is showbiz for ugly people” – Brian

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter… went to see it last night at the lovely (yet far too expensive) Cineworld. I’ve read all the books so far and seen all the films so far. I didn’t really enjoy this book because it was far too long so I thought that the film would be good because they would have to cut it down. But… I got a bit bored. It felt like a film that had to link one story to another. There were some great characters and performances (especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry) but it was hard work to watch because there were lots of things unexplained and left for people to work out. If you hadn’t read the book you’d have struggled even more I would think. Aside from all that I did think it was alright and I’m looking forward to the next book next week. 7.5/10.

 NB: Just wanted to add that there are some fantastic performances from Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, and especially from Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge. That is one frightening teacher. The more I think about it there were lots of good bits – just that the initial material wasn’t great.

One reason to love Gordon Brown

He did this. Good lad. Anyone who claims that the super casinos will bring good things to a community should check out the research done by the Salvation Army and Methodist Church. I was listening to some prat on the radio who was pro the super casinos… his main argument for them wasn’t even the usual clap trap about economic growth blah blah. His main argument is that we should all have freedom of choice. Rich get richer… poor get poorer.  How preachy do I sound. Well it is 20 past 10.

Fairtrade coffee

Now I absolutely believe in Fair Trade. In fact I’m in favour of unfair trade against the West and big multi nationals. Therefore part of my tiny contribution is buying fair trade coffee, tea, bananas and anything else I can.

However, Fair Trade coffee on the whole tastes FOUL. Please can anyone point me in the direction of a decent brand?  If not, I think I’ll give £5 to Tearfund and buy Nescafe.

Fishing

Went last night for the first time this season… caught 4 fish and fell in (kind of deliberately but still got wet). Rained hard.

Loved it.

For those who care – 2.5lb Chub, 3.5lb Tench and 2 little fish. Fished at Pershore.

The Good Shepherd

Long. Complicated. You’ll like it if you can cope with films of nearly 3 hrs (Lord of the Rings aside) that need concentration. Not bad though. 7.5/10. (Writing this before it has finished - will upgrade score if the ending is blinding).

Freddie

It’s all looking good. Freddie on his way.

Holiday Books 2

The other book that I really enjoyed over the summer was “Christianity Rediscovered”. An old classic about a catholic missionary, Vincent Donovan, who was working with the Masai in Tanzania. The book tells of Vincent’s frustration with the model of missionary work taking place in Africa and how in the end he just gave up with the schools/hospital work and went to the Masai with his sole intention being to share the Gospel.

The highlight of the book for me was seeing how Vincent had to strip away all the peripheral baggage that he had attached to the Gospel and how he presented the stories using imagery and analogy that would have related to them.

To be honest, if you are serious about communicating the good news about Jesus more effectively with anyone you should read this book. In fact, every follower of Jesus should read it. 10/10

Holiday Books

Had quite a mix of books with me this summer… took a few good Christian ones and didn’t read half of them. Read my usual diet of crime thrillers which were OK. Here’s the first that I would recommend…

Bono on Bono – I didn’t really know what to expect with this but I have to say that it was excellent. I’m not a massive U2 fan like some but have always liked most of what they’ve done. This book was a really engaging biography. He spoke a lot about his reasons for being involved with the anti-poverty movement especially how his faith compelled him to do it. It’s easy to be cynical about rock stars doing all this stuff but to be honest, they are doing more than most of us so before we start at them…

In talking about the AIDS pandemic Bono really gets going… “It is not a priority for the west: two 9/11s each day, eighteen jumbo jets of fathers, mothers, families falling out of the sky with no tears, letters of condolence, fifty-one gun salutes. Why? Because we don’t place the same value on African life as we put on a European or American life. God will not let us get away with this. We say we can’t get antiretroviral drugs to them, but they can buy Coca Cola in even the tiniest village. It’s all about money and we wouldnt let that kill Irish, British or Americans for it.”

That got me. 8/10

Next book tomorrow