12 things to do in 2012!

After the moderate success of my ’2011 to-do list’ here are my ’12 things to do in 2012!’

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1) Only buy meat that we know has been looked after properly

2) Regularly bake bread to give away to others

3) Cook pizza in my pizza oven for some kind of public event

4) Grow vegetables successfully

5) Learn to make salami

6) Read something by Charles Dickens

7) Read something from the Bible every day

8) Write a poem a week (or at least do better than 2011 when I only wrote 8!)

9) Hand all my essays in early

10) Do something significant for Lent

11) Learn to play the Grade 5 Jazz Piano pieces

12) Use technology (especially my phone) less

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So they’re my aims for this year, what are yours?!

‘my 2011 to-do list’ final evaluation!

So the time has come to see how I did on my 2011 to-do list!

Write 1 poem per week

I’m afraid I failed miserably at this! I wrote a few poems through the year but probably not even 1 a month – 1/10

Write 1 song per month

I think I did even worse at this, I only wrote 1 song in the whole year and that was for Christmas! – 1/10

Compose some music for someone else

No – 0/10

Bake every recipe from the River Cottage Bread Handbook

I’m not sure I did every single one but I got very close and now own half a dozen other bread books which I have baked lots from. I also went on a day baking course at the School for Artisan Food near Worksop and the mini bakery blueprint course at Love Loaves in Oxford. I think it’s fair to say that I have become a bit obsessed with baking this year! – 10/10

Make a successful Sourdough

I did make a sourdough starter and baked a couple of loaves from it but it died when we moved house. I tend to just bake with fresh yeast now – 8/10

Build a bread oven somewhere

I didn’t build one but I did buy one from Bernito Pizza Ovens in Telford – it’s amazing and I can’t wait to start using it again in the spring! – 7/10

Make at least 1 thing from ever copy of Delicious Magazine

I did this while we subscribed to it but we stopped subscribing in about February! – 4/10

Have people round for dinner parties more often

We’ve definitely done this and we even hosted a big family Christmas which was amazing! – 10/10

Have Cream Tea in Ironbridge with Cath and Tom

We did this a couple of times before we moved to Bristol, lovely place, lovely people! – 10/10

Eat Spaghetti Bolognaise in Bologna

We were planning to visit Bologna while we were travelling round Europe in the summer but we changed our plan and stayed in France for the whole time (which was brilliant) – 0/10

Have a proper conversation in French

Oui, j’ai parle beaucoup de francais quand nous avons voyage en france! – 10/10

Learn more about renewable energy production

I’ve learned a bit, we’ve switched to Ecotricity and we now live near 3 large windmills which Charlie and I visited on a tour of the Avonmouth Docks! – 7/10

Go camping with Charlie

We spent a month camping in France in the summer and we camped at Soul Survivor and Greenbelt – 10/10

Sing with Lucie more often

We sing a lot around the house at the moment but not much elsewhere – 7/10

Blog more regularly

fail – 2/10

Play cricket

fail – 0/10

Finish reading Shantaram

Yes – it is an amazing book, highly recommended! – 10/10

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Overall score – 5.7/10

Over half marks (on my admittedly fairly arbitrary scoring system!

2012 to-do list coming soon!

Christingle song

Not being a fan of some of the Christingle songs that are available I decided to write my own this year!

To the tune of ‘While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks By Night’

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While shepherds watch and angels sing

And wise men journey on

Each part of our Christingle tells

A tale of what God’s done

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He made the world and it was good

He crafted it with care

This orange globe reminds us of

The world that we all share

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And wrapped around the world he made

This ribbon is a sign

That God’s great love for all of us

Surrounds us all the time

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From north, south, east and west

In summer, winter, autumn, spring

These sweets remind us that God fills

The world with all good things

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And into this world that he made

Our God himself was born

To be a light to all the world

On that first Christmas morn

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22/12/11

time

Time is an unsympathetic master
for those enslaved to her sparse granted hours,
to fill them they work faster and yet faster,
squeezing every drop that she allows.

She does not rest, or pause, but marches onwards,
each second taking one more step along
the road which stretches on, it’s miles unnumbered;
for those held in her thrall here they belong.

But time is not as fixed as she would want us
to believe, no there are worlds beyond her reach.
Worlds where bread breathes, seeds stir, children wonder,
a world where listening takes the place of speech.

The choice is ours: to rush after time’s thrills,
or choose to seek the place where time stands still…

Community

Like a hundred separate branches in one fire
A hundred varied voices in one choir
A hundred hidden heartbeats in one crowd
A hundred thousand raindrops in one cloud
A hundred starlings swooping in one flock
A hundred unique cogs joined in one clock
So too, though we are many, we are one
Though we are different, here we all belong

Home

If “home is where the heart is” as they say
Then my heart lies in pieces, scattered round
Like driftwood on a thousand different bays,
Not lost or dead but waiting to be found.
“it’s where you hang your hat” the saying goes
But my hat does not live on just one stand;
It rests on chairs and doors and piles of clothes,
Or sometimes simply stays right where it lands.
To call a house a home robs both those words
Of dignity, for they are not the same
For ‘home’ cannot be caged up like a bird
Contained within it’s finite woven frame
No, ‘home’ is like a song to those who hear it
Unseen, unheld, but felt when you are near it.

Jesus the baker

I’ve just been reading John 21 where Jesus meets his disciples on the beach after the resurrection, I love this passage because Jesus could have just gone down to the beach and met them but He didn’t just do that.  They’d been out fishing all night and would have been starving so Jesus cooks them breakfast!

8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. 9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

I have read this passage many times and have often thought how frustrating Jesus would have been to work with (bear with me on this one!), The disciples had been out fishing all night and hadn’t caught anything then Jesus rocks up in the morning and tells them how to catch some fish.  They then finally get this catch aboard and get to shore and Jesus is there frying up some fish that he has already caught –  it must have been infuriating!

Anyway the reason it caught my eye today was that along with the fish Jesus was baking some bread!  Bread has always been a staple food and Jesus ate it and used it as illustration lots of times but this passage suggests that he was a pretty capable home baker as well which I find very satisfying!

So there we go, Jesus of Nazareth – carpenter, storyteller, teacher, messiah and baker.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of my new wood-fired oven

Our family mission statement

At Spring Harvest one of the prayer activities in PrayerHouse was to come up with a personal mission statement.  Lucie and I did this together and came up with a family mission statement which is below.   The past few months have been very odd.  Since we moved out of our house in Wellington in February we have been moving around from place to place and every time we settle into a routine somewhere we move on.  God has been using this time to draw us closer together as a family and reassess our values and priorities.  This ‘mission statement’ doesn’t describe how we are at the moment but how we want to be…

my 2011 ‘to-do’ list – update!

So we’re over 5 months into 2011 now and it feels like a good time to see how I’m doing on my 2011 to-do list (original post here).  I’ve scored each one out of 10 but please bear in mind that this is purely an arbitrary figure based on how well I’ve done or plan to do and has mostly come off the top of my head!

Write 1 poem per week

Went well for the first 3 weeks then failed miserably! have probably written about half a dozen this year so far. 2.5/10

Write 1 song per month

Failed spectacularly! 0/10

Bake every recipe from the River Cottage Bread Handbook

Doing pretty well on this one, have made several from each section of the book and regularly try new ones, definitely on course to get this done! 10/10

Make a successful Sourdough

I did make one from scratch and got a couple of nice loaves from it before I killed it when we moved house!  When I did a course at the School of Artisan Food in Worksop I was able to take away some of their sourdough and have managed to keep it going and bake with it regularly. 9/10 

Build a bread oven somewhere

Ok this is a bit of a cheat, I haven’t actually built one but the lovely people at All Saints were very generous when we left and with our leaving gift we were able to buy a brilliant pizza oven from Bernito Pizza Ovens who are based in Telford.  8/10

Make at least 1 thing from ever copy of Delicious Magazine

We cancelled our subscription to Delicious earlier this year but I did cook something from every magazine while we were recieving it! 8/10

Have people round for dinner parties more often

Hard to quantify ‘more often’ but it feels like we’ve had people round quite a bit considering we haven’t had a house since February! Definitely plan to do this lots when we move to Bristol.  7/10

Have Cream Tea in Ironbridge with Cath and Tom

We’ve been to Ironbridge with Cath and Tom a couple of times, can’t remember if we had cream tea or not but it seems pretty likely! 9/10

Eat Spaghetti Bolognaise in Bologna

Haven’t done this and out summer travel plans have changed a bit since we wrote this list so we’re not going to be going to Bologna after all.  Hope to do this sometime in the future though.  0/10

Have a proper conversation in French

Have had a few practice conversations in French with Lucie which is quite fun!  This Sunday we leave for 6 weeks in France so there should be ample opportunities while we’re there.  5/10

Learn more about renewable energy production

Haven’t done a huge amount of research on this but I have been reading Local Sustainable Homes from the Transition network which has quite a lot of information on this area. 7/10

Go camping with Charlie

Not yet but we will be camping in France and also at Greenbelt and Soul Survivor later in the year.  3/10

Sing with Lucie more often

Again this is hard to quantify but we have sung together a bit (or absolutely loads if you count singing ‘Bob the builder’ and ‘Thomas and his friends’!) 6/10

Blog more regularly

nope, rubbish! 1/10

Play cricket

No but I have been listening to Test Match Special this week! 1/10

Finish reading Shantaram

Yes, brilliant book, highly recommended! 10/10

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Overall score – 5.4/10

Pretty good seeing as we are only 5 months into the year!

The old instrument maker

Many years ago, in the back streets of Venice, hidden amongst the canals and the alleyways, there was a small workshop. In this workshop, surrounded by tools and wood and dust there lived an old instrument maker. He was very talented and made a whole range of instruments. There were cellos and violins, clarinets and trombones, all intricately designed and beautifully made. The thing that really made these instruments special though, was the magic that he breathed into them when they were finished. The magic which brought these instruments to life.

As soon as the instruments realised that they were alive, however, they started to admire themselves.
“Look at my beautifully carved neck” cried the viola
“And see my wonderfully polished tubes” said the trumpet, “see how they shine like the midday sun!”

Before long people gathered to marvel at these amazing instruments. They were captivated by their beauty and their charming behaviour. They became renowned throughout the world as the most astonishing instruments ever made. There were books written about them and the best artists of the day produced fine paintings capturing their every curve in exquisite detail.

But back in his workshop the old instrument maker’s heart was breaking, for he hadn’t poured all of his love and care and skill into these instruments just so that they would be admired. Rather he had created them so that they in turn would create beautiful music. So the old instrument maker came up with a plan.

He sent out his son, a talented musician, to gather together all of his instruments so that he could explain his original purposes to them. Eventually they were all gathered together in the old workshop and, once the chatter had ceased and the complaints about the dust and dirt had died down, the old instrument maker began to speak.

“I created every one of you, I poured my heart and soul into your design. I know every detail of every single one of you. From the etchings on your back, violin my friend, to the small nick inside your bell that you try so hard to hide young oboe. I am proud of you and delight in you but I am also disappointed in you. For I did not create you to be admired, or to boast and argue about your unique designs. I created you for a far greater purpose, to be played, to enable other people to create glorious music. I will not force this upon you, but I wanted you to know this. If you are willing my son is a talented musician and is able to truly bring you to life.”

The instruments gathered together to discuss this but very soon they began to complain.
“Let other people touch us? no thanks”
“Have someone put their grubby fingers all over my beautiful strings? I don’t think so”
“We are perfect already, why would we want to change anything?”
On and on it went, until suddenly a small voice called out; “I’ll do it”.

It was a little penny whistle who had been quietly standing at the back. He was not intricately designed, he was a bit chipped and rough around the edges, and none of the others had even noticed that he was there. As the little penny whistle stepped forward the old instrument maker looked at him with such love and compassion that the little penny whistle began to cry. His tears stained the wood and made him look even more messy. The little penny whistle went up the the old instrument maker’s son and the son picked him up, put him to his lips and began to play.

He began quietly, testing the range of the little penny whistle but before long the melody began to soar. As the old instrument maker’s son played on people outside stopped to listen to the little penny whistle. In that moment, as the son’s breath flowed through it’s body, the little penny whistle was more perfect, more complete, more beautiful and more truly alive than the other instruments could ever dream of being.

The bible as Sonnet

At Spring Harvest this year the daily themes were the bible as Sonnet, Symphony, Screenplay and Streetmap,i wasn’t sure I could write a symphony in 5 days so I thought I’d have a go at a sonnet instead!

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At God’s command the universe was born;
A symphony of colour, light and sound.
Then life in all its myriad different forms
Sprang up, and in God’s image man was crowned.
But freedom and temptation left love spurned,
As God’s call went unheeded by his own.
From time to time the faithful would return
Then fall again, some other to enthrone.
But God did not give up or turn His face,
Despite the countless tears He must have cried.
Instead He stepped into this messed up place
Where Jesus lived, and laughed, and loved, and died.
So now he calls us children, His beloved
with love’s great riches ours to be discovered

quotes from “Life’s Big Questions”

I’m helping run a ‘Life’s big questions’ course at Church, it’s great fun and really refreshing talking about the gospel with people who haven’t been going to Church all their lives!  there were some great quotes tonight and I wanted to write them down here before I forget them!

“I asked myself ‘Why did God wait until I was 40 to speak to me, why couldn’t he have done it when I was 20 then I could have done things so much better’, However I realised that it wasn’t until I was 40 that I started to listen to him!”

Talking about Jesus’ resurrected body and the fact that the disciples didn’t recognise him:
“Maybe he was just more relaxed? People often look completely different when they’re not stressed.  I’ve not read the whole bible -I’ve only got as far as Luke – but it seems like the last week was pretty stressful!”

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I think sometimes we overcomplicate things and try to explain them too precisely, maybe we just need to enjoy the story and focus on following Jesus and being more like Him.