Just chatting

My bunch of flowers

Where has this week gone to? I don't feel like I have done much and yet it has flown by. I seem to have spent much of the time making alterations to our daughter's wedding dress. I thought it was sorted and then she would try it on and something else would need altering but finally it was finished. The next task was to get it dry cleaned - Sheesh!!! One company told us it would take 2-3 weeks to be done, not good with just over a week to go to the wedding, and the cost was eye-watering, fortunately another company told us it would take a week and wasn't quite so eye-wateringly high, it should be ready on Friday, errrr only the day before the wedding. I did get a lovely bunch of flowers though from our daughter for my efforts, so all is good. 

Sunset from the backgarden

Still managed to get to the beach again at the weekend, everyone else ie Ian, our daughter and fiancé, biked it there and I drove the Land Rover, well someone had to and it was supposed to be hot. I did go for a swim in the sea to make up for the lack of exercise on my part, just so I earned the fish and chip lunch we had. One thing I learnt on that trip, though, was relying on technology to get you somewhere when you are the only one in the car is a recipe for disaster. I was trying to follow the route with an iPad but it kept switching off at the wrong times and no traffic lights were on red long enough to check my route, I would have been far better writing all the road names down and following that and it would have saved missing my junction many a time. I have to say that driving around Perth normally is quite easy for a big city, all the road names are signposted before you get to them, which is very very helpful when trying to navigate your way around a city you don't know. 

Typical scenery on our way to our holiday before
Christmas

A pelican that rather obligingly flew back so we could
get a better picture

Ian and I also managed to see a friend that we met when we lived in Denmark (Europe) who just happens to live in Perth - small world. Both of us have come a long way since then and so it was good to chat about life, faith and kids. I know it seems to be a long way to come just for chats but I love to do that and in some ways would rather have a good old chat than go and see all the sights your supposed to see on trips like this. It is the conversations that I remember best and I guess that is why we enjoyed our stay in the youth hostel so much before Christmas - at this point my daughter can say "I told you so, I knew you would enjoy it!" To cap it all, someone we were having a chat with while we were on on holiday got chatting to our daughter's friend and they worked out they both now knew this crazy couple who live in Latvia, how weird is that? Goodness only knows where that will go.

Since the New Year has come and gone, I was pondering on the year ahead, as you do, and wondering what our focus should be. I wanted to know what God thought on the subject, as that to me is more important and straight away a thought came into my mind with surprising speed, I was expecting a long drawn out conversation with God about the year ahead. The thought that came to mind was the scene in the Muppets' Christmas Carol where the ghost of Christmas Present appeared and his first words were "Come on in and know me better man." I knew immediately what God was getting at, my focus was to get to know the God I love even better, simple! Nothing complicated. Just in case I didn't get the message, a friend posted a verse from Ephesians 1 which says 

17 "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." 

Ian jumping the waves at the beach. That's as near as he
gets to a swim

Okay I get the message God!  He is good! I love it when he just makes sure I have got the message. I have also had the song "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine" going around my head, which on the surface sounds a bit maudlin really, but I do have a sense that the world from my perspective is going to look very different in the year ahead, and you know.... I do feel fine, not scared, not worried, in fact I even feel quite curious about it. Thought it was just me but another blogger, Martin Scott, also feels the same way as he is looking to navigate the way through what will be a changing year by closely listening to God, good to know I am not the only one tracking that way.

Wilson inlet, another photo from our holiday before
Christmas

One article I have to mention this week is the news about Neo, remember him? The guy who published the earnings of many of the top earners in Latvia after he hacked into the tax services computer system, due to some very lax security. He has been voted the European  Person of the Year 2010 in Latvia, for "daring to defend democratic and European values in Latvia." Many people supported his actions as he highlighted that, while many workers for state owned organisations were getting pay cuts, those at the top were not suffering in the same way and earning, by Latvian standards, obscene amounts of money. He certainly brought into the light things which some people would rather be hidden.