oxford

so, for the week of half term, i went home to oxford for the week. i left burton straight after finishing work on the Firday, and got the train home, via Birmingham. while i was waiting on the platform in Birmingham for my train, Maddie walked out right next to me, it turned out that she was coming home for the weekend, so we chatted and caught up as i hadn't seen her for a long time, and then we got the train together, and her dad offered to give me a lift home when i got there which saved me from getting for a bus, and since i had managed to get the earlier train too, i got home about an hour earlier than i had expected all in all. which was good, this gave me time to come home and shower before heading off out to Ruths.

Saturday morning, i woke up bright and early and at about 10, i headed out, and drove the 4 hours 20 minutes to the north east to Stockton where i was staying with my aunt for the night. the drive was alright, but there was a lot of traffic so i had to keep the speed down, and at one point i came to a complete standstill on the A1(M) which kind of sucked, but no matter, i got there in the end. so i hung out with my family for a little while which was nice, i taught my grandad to use his laptop a little more - this time i was teaching him how to send an email to more than one person at a time, and also add new contacts to his address book. he struggled a little to grasp the concept at the beginning, but i think he got there in the end. we were all at my aunts for dinner where we had macaroni cheese, my uncle then lit a fire outside, and as my grandparents went home to sleep, we all went and sat by it. it was very nice. but at 2 am when it was just my cousin and i left outside, and the fire had gone out, we decided that it was time to move inside.
i woke up fairly early on Sunday, my aunt, uncle and cousins were going on holiday that morning, so they were up earlyish to get everything sorted, i left there house at 9.30 / 10 and drove to my grandparents where i was spending the morning, i left their house at about 12.30, at which point i drove to Nunthorpe to pick up Kelsey and Nicole. i was at there house for about an hour while they waiting for their jeans to dry, and finishing getting ready. once we left we drove straight home, and it was hot in the car, but i drove pretty well, and managed to do the entire drive in a little over 3 and a half hours, which was pretty good time in my opinion. we just hung out for a bit once we got home, then in the evening we went up to a pub in my village, to meet up with a few of my friends from church wich was nice.
On monday, we started the day by starting our HP marathon, we then had lunch, and after lunch Nicole, Kelsey and I cycled to a shop to buy some stuff for my mum, which turned out to not be the best idea in the world, it was alright, but it was SO hot, and the cycle was a lot longer than i remebered it being, and i'm not sure how much fun the girls had.... :/ on monday evening, we were up to HP 4, and SI ARRIVED! Cole, Kelsey and i had planned a really fun surprise for him, because he didn't know that Cole was going to be at my house, so we had everything ready and we walked into my room where Cole was waiting to surprise Si, and it turned out that we had got way too excited about the entire thing, and he just didnt get as excited as we had hoped that he would. but no matter.
[Si was very excited to see Cole, but just overwhelmed and not outwardly showing it by screaming or whatever. I was very surprised as they'd all done a good job of covering it up that she was going to be there. I love that Nicole was able to come, so much.]

on tuesday, we started the day kind of slow, and we continued our HP marathon, in the afternoon, we took our first trip into real Oxford, and Kelsey and I went into Christchurch College (which is where parts of Harry Potter are filmed - so things was pretty much amazing for Kelsey (not that it wasn't amazing for me, but i have seen it before, so i think it was slightly more amazing for her this time round)) we then went to a really good ice cream shop in Oxford called G and D's (George and Davis/ Danver) and we sat in there for a while eating our ice creams/ then we wandered around Oxford for a little more and went back home, where we watched Britains Got Talent and finished off our Harry Potter marathon.

Wednesday was rainy. we had a lazy day. we watched Little Miss Sunshine. and we had piano time... that was basically it.

Thursday was basically an awesome day. we aimed to leave the house for Stratford at about 10. but that just didnt even nearly happen. come 11.30, we were still sat at home, but again, no matter. so we left, and drove the hour or so to Stratford, we got there, parked and made our way into town. we stopped off at the Information desk to pick us some maps and things to help us find our way around. we then decided at this point, that Nicole needed caffine, so we walked up the high street to Costa Coffee where she got her drink of choice - a low fat vanilla latte. we then walked ooff in the direction of Shakespeares birthplace. we saw the outside but the prices to get in were rediculously expensive, so we just took a couple of pictures of the outside and moved onto a gift / souvenir shop which we wandered around in for a while. we then started to make our way towards Anne Hathaways Cottage which was a litlle walk out of the town centre, we had barely made it to the edge of the town when we found something which at first glance looked pretty cool, but upon closer inspection, turned out to be one of the best shops in the entire world. It was a little second hand charity bookshop called "Books Etcetera". it was wonderful. it was such a little shop, but it was just so awesome. they had pretty much every book you could think of plus a pretty dodgy looking copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. so we ended up spending a pretty long time there and in the end i feel like we collectively spent quite a bit of money. but it was worth it in the end. so after the wonderous bookshop, we finally continued on our way to anne hathaway's cottage which was (as a sign indicated) a mile away. fun.
so we took the stroll past houses, over quaint little bridges, across fields, past shops, and finally made our way to the cottage, it was a little pricey to get in, so we wandered around the gift shop for a while and after catching kelsey staring pretty much longingly into the garden i convinced her that she did infact want to go into the garden to see the house, so i paid and we went in. we walked around the garden for a while and sat and looked at the cottage. we didnt go in.. the queue was huge, and it was really hot. and on top of that, it was bound to be really crowded inside and im not sure i could've taken that. so kelsey and i left the cottage, and re-joined si and nicole who were waiting for us outside. we walked back in the direction of town from the cottage, and headed to get some food, before going back to the car to drive home. it seemed to take a long time to choose what to eat, but eventually, we were all back at the car stocked up with food. which was good. as we drove home Si and Kelsey fell asleep, and Cole and i found it quite ammusing to watch Si as his head bobbed slowly up and down on his chest. we arrived home and decided after a little while that we needed pizza. so we drove to the co-op this time and got our selves pizza and Kettle Chips (how healthy are we) and returned home to settle down in front of Britains Got Talent and eat our dinner. which was lovely. i think after this we may've gone and watched a film? but my memory fails me at this time.

Friday. now, if i hadn't been there myself, i would not have believed it, but if possible, friday was an even better day than thursday. it was magical. we started the day kind of slow we got up lazily, and ate a leisurely breakfast follwed by lunch.. we didnt do a great deal in the morning (well, i say we... i popped up the road for an hour or so to visit my friend James who i hadn't seen in a long time and i hung with him for a while with his sister and mum and just had a chat and caught up with them which was lovely) so i returned from that at about 12.30 at which point we ate? i think? or maybe we skipped lunch.. well, i can't remember, either way, after a little while, we went out and park(ed) and ride(ed) into oxford once again. we got off the bus in town and headed straight to HSBC so cole could try and sort out some stuff for her bank with kelsey. si and i stood outside for quite a while. right outside of HSBC bank, there was a guy who was (attemping to) hand out leaflets about the "Socialist Labour" party, but appeared to not be the most charismatic soul int he world, and was somewhat failing to inspire interest in the hearts of those who passed by. as we stood there for about 30 minutes, i think he managed to offload 5 onto passere by, this was after he had given up trying to palm them off to 12 and 13 year olds. so we found this pretty amusing as we stood in the sun outside of the bank listening to some upper-class oxford busking. it was delightful. after this we wandered around town for a bit, and we walked down towards Magdalen Bridge. rather than walking down the busy and not so pretty High Street, we went via the gardens of Christchurch college as it's much prettier. we arrived at the bridge, and rented out our punt. i think that we chose a bad time to go out on the river, there seemed to be way too many people coming back as we were trying to get out, so for the first like 5 / 10 minutes, we just sat there, bobbing int he water as i waited for people to get out of the way before i left. eventually we got on our way, and we spent a delightful hour slowly drifitning round the little loops if the Cherwell river. it was divine. after punting, we wandered back up the high street, in the direction of town, where we encountered yet another beautiful little second hand book shop. we went in for a while, and wandered around before leaving and heading back to town. we had, by this time, about run out of things to do, so we made out way back up to town and headed to The Eagle and Child pub which is where, back in the day, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein used to go to talk and write together. nicole had fun here, and it was nice to see it. we walked back home and got distracted by yet another bookshop. but we made it back to the bus and then to the car... on our way home, we decided that we wanted to buy margarita mix... so we went via the co-op, but it turned out that they didnt sell it. so we gave up and just went home... and went without ou tequila fix for that night.

Saturday was another fairly slow start. we didnt really do anything all morning other than hang out which i wasnt really complaining about, it was a really nice morning, even though it wasnt the most eventful in the world. our task for saturday (and we chose to accept it) was to go shopping. so after lunch we droe off to Waitrose to shop, shop, shop! for groceries. it was pretty fun, even though it doesn't sound the most thrilling. after completing our shop, we went to a little local farm so that we could PYO!! thats right, 'tis the season for Pick Your Own strawberries! i was excited, and so were the others so i felt less silly for that. :) it was pretty much the perfect afternoon. i loved it. it was so calm, and relaxed and nice, but at the same time we were doing enough to keep up occupied, and entertained. i was well and truely a fan. on saturday afternoon, my cousin James came to have his eyes tested with my mum, so he stayed for dinner. i was given the responsibility of being in charge of the barbeque. i think i did an alright job. i didnt burn anything, and it all seemed to be edible. so that was good. i was happy with myself. ha. saturday night, was also the night of the Britains Got Talent FINAL!! so we watched it, and it was good. Diversity (a dance act) won. and they were deserved winners in the end.

Sunday was a day of mixed emotions. for me at any rate. although i'm sure that the others would agree with me. it was at the end of such an amazing week, so on the one hand, i was really happy about the week that had just been, but on the other hand, it was weird for me, because after getting to know some of my best frineds ever this year, it was coming to the end of their time in this country, and this was the last time that i saw them before they leave for Texas on the 26th of June. so i was pretty upset truth be told. si left us at like 9 ish as he had to be back in swindon for church that morning. after this, kelsey and I dropped Cole off at the bus station in Oxford for her to catch her rediculously long bus ride home back to the north east. then a little later i dropped Kelsey off at the train station in Oxford and said my final goodbye. not fun. i was not the happiest person in the world as she walked away from me and got on the train. i then picked up my dad, who was getting off a different train, and was back at the station that evening to go back to burton myself. i got off the train and had to get a taxi home due to poor bus timtabling....

and thus concludes the best, and eventually most bittersweet week of my entire life.

i hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as i enjoyed living it.

peace....


x

so i am sat in the office, having not gone to Kickboxing due to the traffic making me like a half hour late, so i called Kay, and in the end we decided that it would be far easier for her to just go alone, than have to wait for me for an age, and then be late for the kids.
so, i walked home from Short Street chapel (via Tesco - i decided that i really needed something to eat, so i popped in and bought myself a salad) while walking, the clods decided that the water was just getting far too heavy for them to cope with, and thoughtt hat i looked a little too dry to be allowed, so i got wet. yay. so after getting back to the office to pick up my bag, not having to be anywhere any time soo, i decided to dry off for a bit before catching the bus home. so i am currently doing this, my jacket is on the radiator, and i am sat listening to some Death Cab For Cutie, listening to the rain against the windows.
today i only had a couple of things, it wasnt too busy, i had Paulet school int he morning, where we started a topic on healthy eating and drinking etc, with the year nines, and then we were in the workshop making tree-planers with the year 10s. we had no more lessons, because the year 11s are now basically finished for the year other than having the joys of exams to look forward to. i then was in Winshill primiary where sue and i had only two kids today, so we just played some games, and played with the k-nex for an hour or so, it was nice, and i really felt like i connected with the two kids that were there.
before i started this year, i had never really done any work with small kids like these guys, but this year i have done quite a bit with primary kids (although these guys are the youngest (year 1 and 2!)) and i have really enjoyed it. like way more thatn i thought that i ever would do.
i feel like i can connect with these kids in a way that i wouldnt've thought was possible fore kids that young.
it's wonderful! :)


i am currently, ill. sad day. whcih is making me sound kind of nasal, and weird, so i'm, not the biggest fan of that, but what can you do.

other than that, my week, thus far, has been good :)

x

Unfinished Business

so, today i was at a youth group, and Rachel Ortiz, one of the leaders, played and sang a song she wrote us. not that she wrote it for us, she wrote it. then happened to be singing it for us.
but anyway, it's called unfinished business. and it just really kind of connected with me.
so here are the lyrics...:


"I'm not so deaf Lord, that I can't hear your voice,
I knew this moment would arrive sooner or later,
I've known for a while you'd come around.
for there's this case of unfinished bussiness,
namely the gift of my heart to you.

I've confessed you as my King,
I'm glad my life is not my own but Yours truely,
Though I'm increasingly aware
That this is not the state of affairs any longer.

'Cos I dream, and I hope, and i still nurture these dreams of my own,
how can this be, when it was so sincerely
I gave you my life, made you my King, surrendered everything.
Well I'm thinking there's always gonna be
A case of unfinished business,
namely the gift of my heart to you


But this i know, will all persuasion,
That there will come a time when we will be one
And I will perfectly follow your steps whatever dance you call
And all my songs will echo those you sing for me
And I'm thinking that one day there will be
No more unfinished business
Only the completed gift of my heart to you"


x

so, i have realised that i only ever seem to blog on the days that are particually good or bad. and i shouldnt do this, i should blog from time to time on the more mundane days. just for a change.

and way, today started not the best. i forgot my wallet. entirely my fault i know, but i didnt have enough change in my pocket to get all the way to work, and i only realised this when i was getting onto the bus. so i paid the £2.20 i had, and could get from Etwall to Stretton, i then got off and walked the next 50 minutes to work in the rain. this sucked. i mean i am a great lover of the rain, but not so much today. it was cold and miserable. about half way through my work, the memeory card in my phone decided to die, so there wasn't even any music for me to listen to to endure the walk. so i arrived at the office wet and miserable, i then planned for a club, only to find out as i finished, it was cancelled. i then did some dull paper work. then had lunch, i then went to an afterschool club, and this was kinda fun.

i then went back to rachel and dan's house.
i ate.
i cleaned.
i read stories.
i built a sofa.
i listened to music.
i talked.
we then had bible study on Matthew 10. which is all about god sending out his Disciples into the world to go to begin to preach his message to the people.
a couple of bits stuck out to me while i was reading...

1. Matthew 10:19-20 " When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking—it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." this really made me think, sometimes i am so quick to want to know all the right things to say at the right times, way before the moment arrives, but i need to relax more, step back from a situation, and think, God has this in control, he knows what to say, and he will say it through me when the time is right.

2. Matthew 10:34 "Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword." sometimes, i think people (and i do include myself in this from time to time) are very quick to judge Jesus and God as overly 'lovey - dovey' and not really as a powerful force to be reaconed with. but in fact, he is. ha. and i think that from time to time i need to remember that.

that is all..

byee!

my day.

so, today was a mixed day for me. it started off bad, and it looked like it was only going to get worse and worse, and for a while, it did, but it picked up towards the end. sorry to ruin the end of the story straight there. but meh.

so, i woke up at a soul destroying 4.32 am when a text came through, and my body decided that this was definately time to get up. so after reading the text which said "ok" i was so infuriated by the nerve of someone, to not only text me at 4.32 am, but to text me witha ONE WORD TEXT. i mean seriously. what is that!? when i decided to check the 'details' section of the message, only to find that the text had been sent to me at the reasonable time of 11.36 pm some 5 hours previously. at this point the anger did not subside, it was merely transfered onto the general expance of cyber-space where the text must have been floating for 5 hours before deciding to make it's way onto my phone. by the time 5.48 rolled around, and i had been staring at me ceiling, watching the sun slowly creep through my window for over an hour, i decided to abandon the futile attempts at sleep, and just get up. bad move. i started my day by standing on an upturned plug. ouch. seriously, it was an effort not to shout very loud, which i am sure my hosts would not have appreciated. so shattered and with a crippled foot, i stumbled to the bathroom to wash and attempt to wake myself up with some cold water. i opened the door of the bathroom, to find that someone had left the window open the previous night, the room was freezing, and the bath was partially filled with rain water. lovely. so i washed, now adding cold and wet to my list of things to complain about. i walked back to my room and got dressed. this is when i discovered that both my belt and one of my pairs of glasses were broken. this was not looking like it was going to be my day. i fixed the belt, and with the help of a mini-screwdriver i found in one of the kitchen draws, i managed to fix the arm back onto my glasses too. (i had managed not to lose the screw, which would've been disasterous) by this time, the time was aproaching 6.30, so i returned to my room, and decided to make use of the time i had to put the pile of freshly cleaned clothes i had neatly folded the previous night, away. my next act was to knock an almost full glass of water straight on top of the aforementioned clothes, and soak the top 4 items. i put these on radiators, and put the rest of my clothes away. i then settled down to read for a little while, which i thought would be a seemingly risk - free activity. it turned out i was thankfully right. at 7.00 my alarm went off. a mere 2 hours and 28 minutes after i had woken up. at 7.40 i left my house to get the 8.00 bus. i arrived at the bus stop at aproximately 7.47 (yes, that was approximately) i was early, but i had got bored of being in the house, and i decided that standing in the fresh air for an extra ten minutes would be nice. it was at this point that it started to rain. at 8.24 when i was thoroughly wet through, and my bus had still decided not to turn up, i was really starting to get mad and was thinking of ways i could contact the bus service and shout at someone just to vent some emotion. a further 10 minutes later, the bus turned up. i walked on to the bus ready to be gracious and willingly accept the drivers humble appologies for being so late. they didnt come. i got over that, and was cheery enough while buying my ticket. i sat on the bus. it was boring. i got off the bus and mercifully the rain had stopped. running a full half hour late for work at this point, i started off on my walk (which was now a jog) to the other side of burton where i was due to be in school. this walk generally takes me 40 minutes on a good day. i succeeded in arriving at the school, exausted 16 minutes later. i wanted to die. i do two lessons in this school. normally, one in the classroom, and the next in a woodwork workshop. today, being my unlucky day, i just watched the same dvd twice over. i then went to the office. i next had a club at a primary school, where i teach 4 kids. sounds easy? it's not. one kid is 6 and is already in his 3rd school he started the lesson by telling me that he wanted to stab me. he then threw pens and cups across the room and shouted. he then found a foam mallet, and proceeded to hit everything in sight, including me, with it. i confiscated it. and he DID NOT like this. not one bit. he shouted. eventually we calmed him down, and managed to get him to act out being "dead" to be put into the recovery possition by his peers. next, i was back at the office briefly, while i waited to be picked up for kickboxing. it was at this point of the day, that things started picking up. i went to kickboxing, which was good. the exercise made me feel much better, and i got to punch and kick pads that small children were holding. it was good fun. after this club finished at 4.30 , i walked back to town to catch the bus. i wandered round the shops for a bit, and went to the stop to get the 5.08. however, when i got to the bus stop, i was struck with a sudden urge to walk. so i did. i had no where to be, so i walked from burton centre, to Stretton, a little village i used to live in, and i walked out the other side of this, and as far as i could before i hit the main road. having walked for just over an hour and a half, i caught the 6.43 bus home. i got off the bus in the village before mine at 7.03 and walked home from there listening to music. i really found this walk helped me a lot, i have been in the mood for some "me" tme for a while, and what with work, and living with two small kids, i only really get this late at night, when i am too tired to think, so i used the time i was walking today to think, and pray and listen to worship music and reflect on life. it was wonderfull. so i got home at 7.39 and was exausted, but this time in a good way. i ate dinner (home made pizza!!) and showered. and thus concludes my day.
it may have started pretty pants, but i think it really finished well.
i enjoyed it at any rate.

that is all
(2 post in like 3 days... i know. dont be too shocked)

x

life. and the joys acompanying it.

so, it is a sunday afternoon, and it's nice weather, but the internet connection doesn't reach outside in this house due to thick walls, so i am sat in my room, enjoying the small amount of sunshine that can get in through the window. it's quite nice. this weekend, has so far, been pretty dull truth be told, so i decided that the time was right to write another blog entry. i dont really have anything specific to write about, so i figure that i will just write until i get bored, run out of things to say, or anything even vaguely exciting comes along to distract me, and draw my attention elsewhere. but for now, i am commited to writing at least something (which i suppose i have already achieved up to this point). today is the 2nd of May, which is fun. i like May. however, this year it seems to have crept up on me a little quicker than i thought that it would, which is crazy. i mean i expect that it has come at pretty much the same pace it always has for thousands of years, but maybe due to a lack of concentration, or a poor judgment of time, this year the month of May has arrived before i felt that i was ready for it. however, as surprising as the existence of May at present is, it is also a good thing, as i said. i like May. the weather is getting nice. exams have not quite arrived yet, and there are two bank holidays and a half term, so the amount of work that i am required to do is less than normal. not that i don't like work, but i do also enjoy time off. listening to music on shuffle is always an experience that i find very enjoyable at times. every now and again it bugs me, and i get sick of bad song after bad song coming up through my speakers, and it makes me wonder why i even bother having this much music on my computer, but other times, such as today, the shuffle button makes me happy to be alive... let me quote to you my "recently played"....:
1. Marching Bands of Manhatten - Death Cab For Cutie
2. All Time Lows - Hellogoodbye
3. White Spiders - John Ralston
4. Amazing, Because It Is - The Almost
5. Time to Pretend - MGMT
6. Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy
7. Graduation Day - Head Automatica
8. Human - The Killers
9. Be Less Rude - Frightened Rabbit
10. My Stupid Mouth - John Mayer
11. Jodi - The Dodos
12. A Little Bit of You in Everything - The Rentals.
bliss? yes, i think so.
it's times like this that the people who decided that music players in general needed to have a "random" button really start to make their money in my opinion. as uneventful as this day is being, this music is just really making me feel better. my day today has consisted of, going to church. reading Redeeming Love. Watching Wall.E. and now writing this blog. so, i think that we can all agree, that more exciting sundays have happened. but no matter, not every day can be fascinating, and days like this, in which i actually have some time to myself, and time to think, seem to come few and far between recently, so i suppose that i should really stop, and try to use them whilst they're around rather than get bored.
(Add "Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles" to the list above that just came on. it's like iTunes knows what i want to listen to before i even do.)
So recently, i have become more aware of my age that i ever have been before in my life. which may sound really bizare coming from someone who is still in their "teens", but even as i have grown up, i still seem to think of myself as a bit of a child. and that isn't something that i want to lose, i love that playful, easy going side of life, and i wouldn't ever want to lose it, as i think that it would make life far more monotonous, and dull. but when i start 3 new youth groups in one week and the young people guess my age, i would never've expected people to estimate me at being 23, 24 or 27! so that was quite a shock for me, and i never think of myself as even close to these ages. but the fact of the matter is, that next year i will be moving firmly away from my teenage years, in the the scary world of being in my 20's! a brief story now... when i was on the bus on wednesday, there was a young boy, maybe about 3 or 4 sat with him mum. this boy seemed to find something about me oddly facinating and kept staring at me, i didnt have a problem with this, i actually find it quite amusing, but the boys mother obviously thought that her son was being quite rude and told the boy to "stop staring at that man". now at first this struck me as odd, as i had thought the boy was staring at me, and it took a while before i realied that the "man" about which the woman was talking was in fact me! i found this quite funny at first, but then it got me to think, that actually, even though i see myself as quite young and maybe immature, i apparently give off the impression of maturity. im not really sure where i am going with this, i just found it quite fun.
This weekend includes one of the bank holidays in May! (yay) which is tomorrow. as exciting as this may, or may not sound, it promises to be yet another uneventful day. i have nothing planned and i will no doubt just do some work and tidy my desk, which has currently undertaken the roll of "dumping ground" for all the stuff that i didnt want to be on my floor because i kept treading on it. after monday, i enter a shortened week of four days work. which i dont think is going to be particually challenging or altered from the regular course of events. on Staurday (9th May) Burton Yout For Christ are putting on a fundraising event. we are doing a Comedy Night! so arrangements for that are due to be going on all week, as tickets are sold, and we video the children we work with as the say jokes, and say nice things about us and the work that we do. it should be an aweosme event.. unfortunately however... i will not be there. this saturday, i get the great pleasure of going to ALTON TOWERS! oh the joys of being a youth worker. i will be going there to "work for YFC" although what i will actually be going when i am there, as of yet, remains a mystery. so i look forward to doing that, whatever it involves, im sure it will be good. but it basically boils down to the fact that i will be getting a all expences paid trip to alton towers. which i am definately not complaining about. the 10th of May (Sunday) is going to be an early start for me, (which after what i expect will be a very late finish on saturday, could be an interesting one) the reason for the early start is that one of the youth cells at my church are doing a car wash for the church congregation on the morning whilst the service is on, so, as the only male leader on the team, i have basically been given the responsibility of heading this up and being in charch of organisation, so i basically have to be there before all the kids get there. so i wish myself good luck with that. after that exhausting weekend, i then have just one more week of work before half term! when i am going home for a week, and kelsey (then si and jess for a day or two) are joining me in oxford for a bit. which should be good.

well, this is far longer that i thought it would be.
which is not a bad thing..

ciao.
x