The Bright Side # 01 Car Wash

Take the car… no, I don’t mean take the car, I mean, well, you know what I mean.
It is great when my car gets dusty and needs a wash.
Yes, you heard me right. It’s great when I have to wash the car!
Always look on the bright side and it will help you get tedious things done with a bit of Joy!
The car is dusty, not dirty, because the weather is dry. Great.
The car is dusty, not clean, because I’ve had the chance to go somewhere in it rather than be stuck in the house. Great.
The car is dusty, but it is still my car. Great!
Look on the bright side, and get that car washed!

Itchy ear

It all started with such good intentions.
The weeds which had been killed last spring and summer have reached that point where they can easily be pulled from the ground and burnt. (strictly speaking they had reached that point a long time ago!)
So I took the matches out and started a little fire in the garden to quickly dispose of the dry stalks from the plants. Things were going well. Not much smoke, no sign of unhappy insects, not even a hint of washing on the nearby lines!
It had happened very suddenly, this plan to burn the weeds. In fact it happened while I was adjusting the ear piece connected wirelessly to my phone. so the music was playing, the smoke was gently floating upwards when I got this terrible feeling that a hairy insect had jumped from the flames and attached itself to my right ear. I will soon get rid of that, says I.
And I did, right into the fire.
But it wasn’t…..
A bug that is. Now, where’s the carphone warehouse/apple/pcworld catalogue?

So Christmas Starts Again

The most annoying thing, well nearly the most, is when commentators declare that unemployment, illness, bereavement, whatever is WORSE because it happens a few weeks before Christmas.
Now they are probably right. At least if you are going through one of the big three and Christmas is a few weeks away, you are probably feeling low. But I don’t think so.
If you are going to lose a job, better to do it before you have wasted a fortune celebrating Christmas to excess.
If you have to experience illness, why not be ill when everyone else is rushing around so you don’t have to.
If you are going to be bereaved, better before Christmas and then you have the first one over already.
No, that doesn’t sound very compassionate, but I am serious about this.
When all else is failing around you, at least you have the real meaning of Christmas to turn to, not the frippery and excess and glitter.
Real? Yes, real, because Jesus was born into a world which was already polluted with economic hardship, sickness and deathly limitations, and he transformed the lot!
I hope you don’t suffer any of the big three this Season. But for those of us who do, thank God for the light of the world who drives away despair and darkness and brings us to a loving God.

November:- Wet, Wild and Wonderful!

I remember a poem from school days which was written by Robert Frost. He managed to turn miserable wet stormy days like today into things of beauty, through the affectionate company of a friend.

When the sunlight this evening 11/11/11 broke through the clouds and created a glow all around, I concurred.

Enjoy the poem!

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise

Robert Frost

Over the back wall at the rectory this scene, blurred through the wet window, was alive with colour.