One Man and His Blog

…is how I summed up what I’d like to do, when I was talking to a friend last week. And now I think it’s becoming a bit of an aim for the next year.

Maybe it’s just knowing that the big 3-0 is creeping up on me, or maybe it’s just that I’m surrounded by lovely friends who are married and settled and starting families or getting mortgages or planning careers or generally doing other stuff I’ve not felt ready for yet. But whatever it is, I’ve just realised recently that being responsible in life is not incompatible with having a bit of a laugh. I know I’ve generally avoided responsibility a lot until now, not because I was trying to be lazy and get out of it, but because I didn’t believe in myself enough to think I was capable of being responsible. But some of the stuff God did with me last week, has made me much more confident in who He has made me and given me the courage to start dreaming big things. The courage to actually make those big things happen, I’m not sure is all there yet, but we’re working on it.

Which brings me nicely on to my birthday, which I have kind of taken as an opportunity to think about what I want to achieve in the next year. There’s a few things on that list, and I think I may have to write them down and keep going back to them. But it feels like it’s time for me to step up and set myself goals that aren’t just easy things I know I can do. One phrase that seems to have cropped up a lot lately at our church is God bringing about "a new season". It seems He’s doing that in my life just as much as He is in our church. It’s kind of exciting and kind of scary and kind of confusing, but most of all it’s just kind of brilliant.

I could continue waffling in this vein, but I’m still unpacking all the stuff in my head, and I don’t intend to dump it all on you, so I’ll stop now. No doubt I shall keep you informed of any further developments, whether you want me to or not.

(As for my actual birthday itself? A nice day, quite quiet but enjoyable, and finished with a lovely curry. Happy days… and thanks for all the birthday greetings you threw my way, they were much appreciated!)

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy bithday dear Stee-eeve,
Happy birthday to me.

Right, now I can go to bed. More later, probably.

Saturday: Got up stupidly early for a Saturday. Packed. Got a lift to Soul Survivor. Set up tents in driving rain. Changed into dry clothes. Traipsed through mud to get water. Traipsed through mud to get to evening meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of evening meeting. Went back to our encampment for hot chocolate. Went for shower to get mud out from between toes. Went to bed.

Sunday: Woke up stupidly early shivering. Put several extra layers on. Got up. Went to seminar about seeing God as a perfect father. Traipsed through mud to get to morning meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of morning meeting. Had lunch. Went to guys-only seminar about sex and relationships and stuff. Went to seminar about the Bible. Had dinner. Traipsed through mud to get to evening meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of evening meeting. Went back to our encampment for hot chocolate. Went to Mr Boogies (cheesy-but-fun disco venue) and danced to Grease, YMCA, S Club 7 etc. Went to bed.

Monday: Woke up stupidly early shivering. Put several extra layers on. Got up. Went to youth leaders’ seminar/get-together and took advantage of free tea and croissants. Went to overflow venue for morning meeting. Found atmosphere a bit bizarre. Had a visit from God, cried a lot and wrote some stuff down. Had lunch. Went to guys-only seminar about rising up as men to take more involvement in standing against injustice etc. Went to seminar about the Bible. Had dinner. Traipsed through mud to get to evening meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of evening meeting. Went back to our encampment for hot chocolate. Played cards. Went to bed while trying not to listen in to my friend in the next tent on the phone to her boyfriend.

Tuesday: Woke up stupidly early shivering. Put several extra layers on. Got up. Skipped morning seminar for shower. Discovered everybody else had had the same idea. Traipsed through mud to get to morning meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of morning meeting. Had lunch. Went to guys-only seminar with question-and-answer type session. Went to seminar about the Bible. Had dinner. Traipsed through mud to get to evening meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of evening meeting. Went back to our encampment for hot chocolate. Went for a walk. Went to bed.

Wednesday: Woke up stupidly early shivering. Put several extra layers on. Got up. Didn’t go to a morning seminar because there weren’t any. Traipsed through mud to get to morning meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of morning meeting. Had lunch. Went for a look round the market place. Ran into a friend of mine, introduced her to my landlord and watched them make arrangements for friend to move into our house in a month’s time. Got a free badge for my trouble. Went to seminar about the Bible. Had dinner. Traipsed through mud to get to evening meeting. Traipsed through mud to get out of evening meeting. Went back to our encampment for hot chocolate. Wandered round the market place buying a few things. Wandered around for ages with my friend looking for where the late night worship venue was. Got very lost. Got directions from a steward. Found late night worship venue was right next to where we’d started from. Worshipped a bit. Walked past one of the cafe venues as they were closing and were invited to take their left over chocolate and fizzy drinks. Took a bottle of Dr Pepper. Thanked the Lord for His provision. Found a traffic cone over a bin in the toilets. Took traffic cone and planted it outside friends’ tent. Went to bed.

Thursday: Woke up stupidly early shivering. Put several extra layers on. Got up. Coughed frequently. Packed up tents. Went for one last visit to toilets. Saw state of toilets and decided I could hold it in for a few hours until I got home. Did emotional goodbyes. Got lift home. Unpacked. Saw cough developing into full-on cold. Went to bed.

Friday: Woke up stupidly early with one nostril bunged up and the other one dribbling everywhere. Pottered around the house. Had impromptu jam session with housemate (he played keyboard, I played bongos). Phoned work to arrange something for next week. Went to a barbecue at friends’ house. Probably stayed later than I should have considering the stupid cold. Came home. Went to bed.

Which just about brings us up to speed. Needless to say, God showed up and did some amazing things with our youth group and (as you Anglicans might put it) also with me. I’m still trying to get my head around exactly what’s changed for me this week, but I know something has. In fact, quite a few things seem to have done. When I’ve worked it out a bit more, I’ll let you know.

Good times.

Well, not really.
In a tent of my own.
In a field with lots of other people.

In less than 12 hours I shall be on the way to Soul Survivor. Between now and then I need to get a decent amount of sleep, pack everything I’ll need, and do the washing up.

So I should probably go and do all of those things. See you on the other side…

This Saturday I’ll be heading off to Soul Survivor with a large selection of the youth group from our church, and a large selection of the youth leaders from our church too. I became something of a regular at SS in my late teens, but haven’t been now since 2000, when (at the ripe old age of 21) I felt like a grandad amongst the hoards of 13-year-olds on skateboards. I’m quite looking forward to going back in the guise of a *cough* responsible youth leader; but I’m probably more excited that this will be a great time away getting to know the youth group better, and seeing them (and hopefully helping them) getting to know God better.

So now I have less than five days to make sure I have everything I need and am fully prepared for Saturday morning. In an uncharacteristic display of organisation, I have decided to set myself a different task each day this week to make sure I’m ready. Today’s task was buying the one really essential item for camping that I didn’t already have – a torch.

Mission successfully completed – and then some. A set of three heavy duty, rubber-encased torches (small, medium and large) with Krypton bulbs ("70% brighter than a standard bulb", says the packaging) complete with batteries, which set me back – get this – just £9.97 (I’m not good with the exchange rate, but I think that’s about $20 in both US and Oz bucks). Bargaintastic! How spiritual will I be – not only can I shine the Light in the darkness, but I have a torch for each member of the Trinity! Woohoo!

It’s probably been nearly 18 months now since my mother asked – no, DEMANDED – that I keep the weekend of the 4th and 5th August 2007 free. So I did just that, and Mum set about planning lots of stuff, and yesterday my grandad was treated to a surprise party to mark his 90th birthday.

So yesterday morning, Grandad, Mum, Dad, Tina, Spike and myself headed to church, five of us having spent much of the preceding 24 hours running about setting up all kinds of stuff that the other one was completely unaware of. Having received many hugs and kisses from the ladies at church – something he seems to do every week, even when it’s not a special occasion – the birthday "boy" was invited out the front (I think he was invited anyway, or he might have just taken it upon himself to jump up and share the story; it all happened so quickly it was hard to know) to tell everyone what had happened way back on Sunday the 5th of August 1917. "Well, it got to about 2 in the afternoon, and my mother wasn’t feeling very well… and then I was born, just after 2:00, so I missed my Sunday dinner…" People keep saying my sense of humour is very similar to Grandad’s; I’m starting to see what they mean.

As Mum noted, it’s amazing that Grandad didn’t twig anything was up, considering that some 80 or so people had been invited and countless more knew about it. But it would appear he was oblivious to it all. We persuaded him to come across to the other church building for a cup of tea and some cake, and then the operations really kicked in. I grabbed a couple of my mates and sneaked out the back to start blowing ridiculous amounts of balloons up, while various helpers started to get tables and chairs out. It wasn’t until the arrival of some of Grandad’s relatives who lived too far away to be realistically "just passing" as they claimed, that he started to wonder what was going on. So Mum gave him a copy of the invitation letters she’d sent out, and before you knew it the room was packed with wellwishers from near and far.

Grandad is president of the local branch of the Royal British Legion, and their members had actually offered to provide all the food and drink when they’d heard of Mum’s plans for a surprise party. They did an amazing job. There were countless salads, sausage rolls, snacks and quiches (well, there were a lot of Christians there, so we had to have lots of quiche really) and, as Spike will tell you, some cheese which had been the centre of all sorts of concern over the course of the weekend. They also provided a fine selection of beverages (along with Spike’s "everything-but-the-kitchen-cleaner" punch, which used up various strange bottles of alcoholic liquid Mum and Dad had knocking around in the cupboard since goodness knows when), and one of Mum’s cousins made a spectacular cake iced in the green, gold and black of Grandad’s beloved Northampton Saints Rugby Club, for whom he had played in his younger days. Grandad seemed touched by it all, and was delighted to have so many friends and relatives there to wish him well. He spent the whole party flitting from table to table, making it hard for us to track him down when he was needed for cake-cutting or that sort of thing. He made a little speech, which was as touching and as funny as we’d expected, and got a little emotional remembering Nanna, which was also to be expected. After the frivolities had died down, and people had started to head off home, we tidied up and packed up, and I found myself bursting all the balloons I had been blowing up just four hours earlier. It’s safe to say we were all pretty much knackered.

Of course Grandad has his faults like all of us, but to me he’s truly inspirational and this weekend has made me realise just how much I value him. I don’t know if I’ll live to his age, but I just hope that as I grow older I’ll have more of his energy, enthusiasm and kindness. And more of his sense of humour, too.

This time last week I bought a shirt. It’s quite a nice shirt, and kind of smart-casual (our office has a fairly relaxed dress code, and I could easily wear it to work as long as I didn’t have a meeting or anything). The shirt is a size L, and fits me perfectly, very comfortable; a good buy.

Today I decided I wanted a new smart shirt (for reasons that I intend to explain to you in the next few days). Not having much time to spare, I spent my lunch break popping to the same shop I bought my previous nice shirt from, and saw something I quite liked in a size L. I had no time to try it on properly in the fitting rooms, so I just slipped it over what I was wearing. It was too small. Now, I figured that there was an extra layer involved, and taking that into account thought an XL should fit with no problems, so I bought the XL without trying it on. Can you guess where this is leading?

What I don’t get is, how can I have a shirt that fits me with room to spare, and a shirt which is apparently a size larger but which I can’t actually do up the buttons on, which have come from the same shop, with labels stating that all the measurements of the shirt I can fit into are smaller than the ones of the shirt I can’t fit into?!

And then people wonder why I don’t like clothes shopping…

So there I am, walking to the train station after work tonight, when something unexpected happens. I’m about to pop into Sainsbury’s for a couple of things, and dip my hand in my pocket to check I don’t need to visit the cashpoints first. As I’m passing the cashpoints, a gap in the traffic opens up and a thin fella runs across from the other side of the road. He’s probably in his 40s, shaved head, heavily tattooed. He nips in front of me, runs up to the cashpoint and snatches the card coming out of the slot from under the nose of its owner.

The next three seconds seem to last for minutes. The only way the thief can make his getaway is by running towards me; I’m the nearest person to him; if I don’t stop him, he’ll be away. My gut reaction is to let him go and not risk getting caught up in all of this – what if he’s armed? But immediately the rest of my body is rebelling against my gut, preparing to block his path and try to grab him. The adrenaline is rushing, and I’m cacking my pants, wondering what’s going to happen next.

What happens next takes me by surprise. The man at the cashpoint turns around and shouts "hey!" or "oi!" or something similarly attention grabbing. A couple of feet away from me, the thief stops, spins round to face his victim, and adopts a pose like a boxer squaring up to his opponent, fists raised, legs apart with knees slightly bent for balance. I’m wondering what I should do, and I suspect the other bloke at the cashpoint alongside the victim is thinking the same. And then the victim laughs as he recognises his mate who’s just stitched him up, and I breathe a large sigh of relief and walk into Sainsbury’s unharmed, but with maybe a couple more grey hairs than I had this morning.