Creative Things

 

Hello everyone. I hope that you are all ok and looking forward to Christmas - if we haven't missed it already. I mean, we could have. I saw my first Christmas TV Ad this week. We have booked the work Christmas Do for the volunteers; we are selling tickets for the Christmas Raffle. They are not going that well at the moment because the first prizes that have come in are 10 free gos on the Plymouth toboggan run and £100 worth of paintballing tickets. These are good prizes - maybe not so much if you have a mobility scooter to get to B&Ms or need a minibus driver to help you onto the bus to Par Market. Still, the prizes usually buck up as we get closer to Christmas. 

We usually have a 'do' in our building in December to say thank you to the volunteers (and their families - "they also serve who let their partners out to drive regularly"). It tends to be a big quiz. Last year we used different rooms in the building for different quiz rounds. We used the TV screens for movie questions in some rooms; another room was dressed up as a crime scene with police tape and the outline of a body on the floor. I can't take any credit for these ideas - the young people come up with them. Creative, aren't they? It works very well until they want to ask questions about the current "popular music" chart. This year we are looking at using one room to show a collection of old photos of the staff and volunteers when they were young, and people can guess who they are. I was going to submit this photo of me, but everyone says that it's best not to because everyone will recognise it as me immediately. I have no idea why. 

Yesterday was Messy Church. We were doing David again. Chapter Two - The Goliath One. My table made catapults. (See above) I'm sorry it is such a rubbish photo. When crafts had finished, I got a bit distracted chatting, and when I came back to our table, it had all been cleared away. Basically, we used a catapult-shaped branch and different elastics and bits of felt to put together catapults. (Which worked really well.) We used pom-poms for people to fire, and no aggressive twelve-foot giants were harmed in the making of the David story. I am, as I usually say, always impressed by the levels of creativity that are around.

This morning I was on coffee serving. How does that place survive without me? Let's just gloss over the possibility that I may be doing more harm than good. There are not enough bad words in the English language to explain how much I hate the dishwasher in the church kitchen. And it hates me. It won't work for me. It's supposed to take 40 minutes to warm up. Actually, you could get through ten Wesley sermons before it decides it might possibly think about being ready to do a bit of washing. Anyway, this morning I was quietly swearing at the dishwasher when I heard a voice behind me, which I recognised as the new minister saying those words that you never want to hear.

"Hello. My name is Jonathan. I don't think I have met you before" 

Oh no. This is then followed by

"I believe you and your husband lead the Welcome Team."

*mumbles "Er. I suppose so."

"And I suppose that is something you have a heart for?"

The honest answer to that is. I don't know. Do I? I'm painfully shy, and I struggle to talk to new people. I'm also quite self-absorbed given half the chance, and welcomers need to be quite thoughtful, I think. I just wanted to be useful, really. But instead, I just said.

"Oh yes. Completely." Good Grief. 

In better news. I ditched the book about the locked door mystery. I began to hope that more people got murdered just to pep it up a bit, which I don't think is a good sign. With a massive pivot, I have been reading Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. I expect lots of you have read lots of things by her before, but this is my first Pilcher, and blimey, she's really readable. I would put money on a happy ending, but I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing. 

Anyway, I'm liking it a lot, and it is doing me the world of good. Even though it is borderline Christmassy. I think the clue is in the title.

Anyway, I'm off now. Just a little note to say it would have been my brother's birthday yesterday. It's a bit weird sometimes being the only one left from my birth family. HOH and I were having a good chat about him this evening. He lived a colourful life - probably a bit too colourful but I think about him often, and I think lots of things and people would be better if he were still around, and it's nice to say so.