Christmas Travails

No pictures this time I am afraid, I seem to have left the crucial bit of wire in York. At present I am at home in Farnborough with the folks. I drove down with David and Tom on Friday. The festive season has been suitably pleasant. The Tokelies were here for Christmas day and provided conversational variety. We also managed to find a Christmas afternoon quiz which was slightly more achievable than the Daily Telegraph version which we normally attempt. Everything fell into place nicely.

Today I commenced my latest literary project, namely War and Peace, which has been languishing on my bookshelf for some time waiting for me to have a chunk of time to read it. An imminent trip to Sherkin Ireland with Tom and Gav provides such time. I am also hoping to do some painting whilst there, as well as furthering our inspired concept of getting Gav to narrate Russian novels to a unique blend of Jazz-Reggae.

As you see, I am rather enjoying my holidays. Prior to driving south I was visited by brother David in York. We went round the York Castle Museum (free for residents, as it turns out) and also went to the Crown Court for a morning where we saw an intriguing case regarding the cultivation of cannabis.

Adieu

Platform 8.5

Apologies for another delay... hmmm. what has been happening. Yestarday I was in Sheffield County Court. I had lunch in a little cafe with a downstairs bit. It was rather cramped and I ended up enjoying my all day breakfast on a table shared with two elderly ladies. I was rather suprised to note that their lunch consisted almost entirely of chips. This frightened me a little, but also amused me. I mean, what do you have to loose from such a diet when you are booked in to expire in the next few years anyway. I thought this whilst reading an article on renewable energy in this week's economist, which interested me greatly. Later on I was threatened by a wayward madman and almost became one when faced with the prosepect of sitting in the court's waiting room for an hour and a half.

Generally things are going well at the moment. I have a fair amount of work. York Evangelical Church is proving an excellent base. We have finally finished watching series 2 of 24.

Not sure why but I keep getting this powerful desire to polish my car. This activity would be entirely pointless as I will be driving it to Grimsby on Thursday and Newcastle on Saturday, both of which will make it dirty. Still I struggle to resist. The picture above was taken in the car-park of B&Q last Saturday. It hardly begins to express the turmoil through which it went going to Bridlington and back last Friday. It is a treacherous route at the best of times and on this occassion this was exacerbated by thick fog and my being stuck behind a cattle lorry from which slurry poured forth everytime a corner was turned.

Intruige

Apologies for another break there.

No luck with pupillages yet, but I have a few more applications to go. Work are shadowing me tommorow to assess my performance, which is rather scary. The less you focus on God the more vulnerable you are to be frightened by worldly trials.

I have nearly finished 'Cancer Ward' by Solzheinitzyn. I reckon it is the best of his books I have read yet. I rather like the following quote, though I am not sure whether or not I agree with it yet:

(dying cancer patient who was a biology lecturer but was hounded into becoming a libararian by soviet purges talks to political exile)

"'Happiness is a mirage' Shulubin was emphatic, straining his strength to the utomost. He had turned quite pale. 'I was happy bringing up my children but they spat on my soul. To preserve this happiness I took books which were full of truth and burnt them in the stove. As for the so-called 'happiness of future generations', its even more of a mirage. Who knows anything about it? Who has spoken with these future generations? Who knows what idols they will worship? Ideas of what happiness is have changed too much through the ages. No one should have the effrontery to try to plan it in advance. When we have enough loaves of white bread to crush them under our heels, when we have enough milk to choke us, we still wont be in the least happy. But if we share things we dont have enough of, we can be happy today! If we care only about "happiness" and about reproducing our speicies we shall merely crowd the earth senselessly and create a terrifying society....You know, I dont feel very well...I'd better go and lie down..."

On a different note I have just come back from a meal with the family of Mark Troughton, who leads York Evangelical church. This was an excellent experience. I had some interesting conversation - its good to be getting to know people a bit. They have thousands of children, all of whom are rather jolly.

See above a photograph of Lewis astride a Transit Van. I was walking back to the Station in Sheffield, having done some cases there, when I saw this white van go past and happened to look in the window. There by chance was Lewis driving. A rather entertaining spectacle. I jumped aboard for a pub lunch and an insight into evolution, about which Lewis has some excellent thoughts.