Making a few tweaks to the blog in the next few days.

I love change.

Day 16 – About 25 miles south of Fort Bragg we stopped for breakfast in a little diner called “Queenies” and ate very well. Came to pay… realised I had AGAIN left my wallet somewhere. We drove back to the previous motel and collected the wallet which is now superglued to my leg. The day was really one LONG drive along the coast, which was very scenic. Can’t really complain when the Pacific Ocean is on your right all the time. The cliff roads got a bit hairy though… we got to Novato (commuter town just north of San Francisco) and found a mexican restaurant for dinner. Just a warning to others… don’t order anything with “Super” or especially “Macho” before the main description…

Day 17 – We left Novato early to get to Point Reyes National Park which is just north of San Francisco. When we arrived it became clear that we really needed 3 days here rather than 4 hours so we got cracking. We drove out to the lighthouse on the ocean and watched Peregine Falcons, Vultures and Hawks hunting as well as getting blown over by the wind! We then headed to the north of the park and saw several huge Elk (Moose) feeding in the wild… really stunning. We had to miss out so much stuff which was a shame. After lunch we began the drive south (which took AGES). It was fun watching hundreds of people stuck in traffic going the other way though! Driving back over the Golden Gate Bridge was awesome, especially with no fog this time. Driving through San Francisco took ages as did the drive to Santa Cruz. Saw another bad accident involving a motorbike… saw plenty of others driving like lunatics on cliff roads. This drive was awesome – the views were stunning. Loads of surfers and kite surfers at every beach. We got to Santa Cruz, checked in and headed straight down to the lighthouse to watch the sunset. There were loads of crazy surfers catching waves right by huge rocks so it was cool watching them risk their lives… lots of sea lions, seals and other wildlife as well. Then we headed to the famous boardwalk and funfair. Found loads of cool old school arcade games… sadly hunger overtook us and we found a great pasta place a bit nearer our motel. Half way through the meal the staff all launched into a medley singing and dancing performance in the middle of the restaurant… a really great night out!

Day 18 – Short drive down the coast to Monterey to the world famous aquarium…

Not my biggest, but still a cracking fish and a half decent photo.4lb 4oz.

Out on the Bristol Avon tomorrow… REALLY looking forward to it.

Also, heard of some Barbel coming out of the Lower Severn at last so a quick trip up there next week is in order!

Last Saturday I went to a church conference at Woodlands Christian Centre in Bristol with Mark Stibbe (once vicar of St Andrews, Chorleywood and now leader of The Father’s House Trust).

Had a fantastic day – not only with the main sessions which were excellent, but Mark gave those of us who are training for Anglican ministry an hour or so for a Q and A. I just wanted to share some of the main insights that he gave in response to  my question “How do we thrive and survive in full time Christian leadership”.

He split his answer into 4 bits – looking after ourselves physically, relationally, spiritually and intellectually

Physically

He placed an emphasis on the importance of regular hard exercise as it gives our body the chance to reset itself and let out tensions and frustrations.

Intellectually

For many, when our minds are not stimulated, our whole body begins to atrophy. Our ministry stagnates and we live off our past experiences and knowledge. It doesn’t just have to be learning about theology, but just simply stretching our minds into new areas of interest. I’m guessing that Suduko doesn’t count though…

Spiritually

Mark pointed to Moses as our example for this… he went outside the camp and stayed in the Tent of Meeting where he met with God. When he came out his face shone and the people watched in awe. We need to have our place of encounter with God EVERY DAY. It should be the most important thing that we do.

Relationally

We need to recognise that we cannot do this alone – we need a “prayer shield” of people who are committed to praying for us and praying with us regularly. We need to spend time with people who will inspire us, hold us accountable for our behaviour etc, who will both encourage and offer constructive criticism. We need to laugh a lot with those we spend time with…

Challenging but helpful stuff to think through… feel free to add other suggestions to it as well

We moved down to Bristol exactly six months ago (can’t believe it’s been that long already) to start training for vicardom. I thought it would be good for me to do a bit of a health check – just to see how institutionalised I’ve become.

I think I’m doing pretty well…

The most important thing I’ve learnt so far is this: If I don’t cultivate healthy habits here at college then I definitely won’t when I’m let loose on the church again.

- If I simply spend all my time with Christians (or trainee vicars) then I’ll become more and more distant from the real world. When I leave college, I’ll continue the same.

- If I don’t commit to a local church here then perhaps I might be detached from the next one I work at.

- If I fail to deal with the issues and struggles that I have here (where I have more space and time) then they will still be on my back when I move on

Other crucial skills that I have learnt:

- I am a useful at table football

- I am rubbish at table tennis

- Brunch is the best meal of the day

- In a seminar you should always contribute the one thing you read early on and that will get you off the hook

- The West Wing is genius

- As is Lost

Who said going to Vicar Factory was a waste of time

With a stop light, green means ‘go’ and yellow means ’slow down’. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means ‘go’, green means ‘whoa, slow down’, and red means ‘where the heck did you get that banana?’

Mitch Hedburg

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant.

Scott Adams

England losing – Cricket, Football and probably Rugby.

Wolves totally blowing promotion at the moment

Man Utd running away with the Premiership

The next thing will be West Brom staying up

At least I’m going fishing tomorrow…

When people throw their cigarettes out of their car

We had a great time away in Florida… great resort, great weather, just great great great really!

Anyway… brief highlights included our convertible car – only a Chrysler Sebing but still the first one I’ve ever driven and it made me look like a middle aged man going through a crisis. The picture below is identical to the one we had, including the colour. There is a photo of me looking like a right loser sat in it. That won’t be appearing here!

To be honest, I did spend too much time in the car driving over bridges in the Keys – thankfully I had a cap on to protect my bald spot.

I did a bit of diving, and saw some great sights, including a massive Grouper (large tasty fish), lots of lobsters and a big Green Moray Eel. Got out fishing as well and even caught some fish which makes a change for me!  

We visited the Turtle Hospital and met loads of the turtles (not personally as they are well viscious), ate out a lot and I did some jogging in preparation for the half marathon next month. Jogging in 30degrees and 70% humidity is not fun, even early mornings were baking hot. I did a 90min run which felt worse than a full 13miler but at least I got some training in.

I’ll put some piccies on Flikr sometime soon… got to edit out the dodgy ones of us first.

Next Thursday we’re going to be going HOME!!!!!!!! Builders are nearly finished, decorators are in painting and putting up our very expensive wallpaper (not my choice but hey I’m not the expert!). Cleaners come in next Weds to sort it out and then we get back in.

All we need now is the insurance to agree some final payments and the whole flooding thing might be finally over…

Not that I think anyone is reading this but I’m working on it… was inspired today by a friend who has a great blog – Steve Clarke - who had heard of my previous attempts at blogging which were shocking to say the least. However, when this one gets going… it probably won’t be much better!

Having had a week of not sleeping I thought that this would be a good time to add something to this blog which is very much under development. Not being the most computer savvy person it will probably take me a while to get used to it…

Hi folks… here I start with my blog. My contribution to narcissistic bloggers. Lots of thinking out loud and pointless comment. C