I do apologise that I haven't posted anything in the last week... but then nobody else has either! Except for Ben, who's been hard at work blogging away and Sarah, who posted just now. Get a grip and write some posts people!
I've had a really quiet week actually. Barely anything has happened, which has been nice really. Ii spent time with lots of lovely people though, which is always a good thing. I love my friends.
I wrote an article for the parish magazine though, which was quite fun. Now I'm waiting for feedback...
Yesterday was exciting though. Many of you will remember me going to the Careforce conference way back in September. I met about 60 other Careforce workers doing stuff like me around the UK. It was an amazing week and I learnt a lot (especially thanks to a brilliant talk on grace, which I have yet to post here). I made an awful lot of new friends there. We were split into groups of about five or six nearby each other so we could meet up and support each other etc. There's nobody else in South Wales though, so was put with four people from Birmingham. I said it then and I'll say it again, my group is a group of five completely unique people. You should be able to find a few photos of us five on facebook if you look under "photos of dave" under my profile pic. Yesterday I got to see them again (except for Fiorella, who didn't get back to us).
I'm getting used to making long train journeys across the country now. The feelings of unpreparedness and worry have subsided and I'm able to find the train I need without asking anybody now. Another trick I've learnt is to take a book with me. I adore reading, but I don't do it all that often because video gaming is an equally easy and more enjoyable hobby. I still adore reading, I just more often choose video gaming when the choice actually comes. Yet despite the fact that I could play on my DS or Micro for a whole train journey, I've found it's a brilliant time to read because I can get most of the way through the book in one day, meaning there's only a little to read afterwards during gaming time, and I'm usually hooked by that point anyway. When I went to the Camp reunion last saturday I took Ben Jeapes' latest novel, 'New World Order'. Yesterday I took Isaac Asimov's masterpiece: 'Foundation'.
I love Asimov's work, but I must admit it's a really weird book. It's a sort of psychological, political sci-fi; and yet as weird (or as boring for some people) as that may sound, it actually works brilliantly. I'm well and truly hooked. My journey lasted around 3 hours in total, allowing for time at Cardiff Central in the middle (a station that I am slowly coming to love, and with a vending machine that I am slowly coming to despise). So that's six hours of reading on the train. Brilliant.
When I eventually got there I was met by Ruby, and we went and found Nathan and Thom. We hung around for a little bit. We ended up just outside a massive shopping centre and in a rather odd place. There's a cathedral in the centre (known as "the Cathedral of the Bull Ring", or "St. Martin's") but the surrounding buildings looked like you'd stepped twenty years into the future. It's a very surreal place. You really have to be there, but have a look at these three photos and see if you can piece to gether the strange place.
We ate at Pizza Hut, laughed and joked a lot. Afterwards we were hanging around again and found that St. Martin's was actually having a 2pm Saturday service, so we went in. It was quite weird being in a large cathedral and yet having an extremely low Anglican service. It was quite good, although the claranet was out of tune for the first song. All the way through the sermon there was a little kid behind me kicking the back of our pew, which was getting really annoying until the point where he turned to his mother and (in the cutest voice you've ever heard) asked "What's Jesus?", at which point the mother began whispering back the gospel for the next five minutes.
Thom and Ruby headed off but Nathan and I hung around for a while longer looking at the shops. Much as I was tempted to buy lots, I decided against it (for reasons that shall shortly be made clear). I did buy the second book in the Foundation series though, which I'm looking forward to reading. I looked in some games shops but they were rubbish. Nathan was looking for a digital camera and found one marked down from £200 to £90, so he bought it. After a while we parted company and I sat down for another 3 hours reading.
It was wonderful to see all four of them again, until the week before the trip I'd forgotten how good it was to spend time with them. A day well spent.
But yesterday marked another special event. It was the first of December! Advent has begun! It's actually been Christmas-time for quite a while now, since I first saw the Coca Cola advert two Thursdays ago, but never mind. I got home yesterday to see Beth's incredible Christmas tree. It looked amazing. I'm guessing my family have got their decorations up by now. I hope Kat's done a good job of filling the lounge with tinsel in our usual style.
The first of December also marks the last day I'm allowed to buy anything before Christmas, in case somebody buys it for me. So I can't do any more shopping for almost a month! Maybe I'll check out the post-Christmas sales in Oxford though...
What else does Christmas-time mean? It means I'm coming home! I get the entire school holiday off, so I'm spending the first week in Cardiff with my family (gaming with my cousins mostly) and then I'm coming back to Abingdon for the New Year's party and the rest of my holiday. I've already begun organising a few parties, so hopefully it'll be an amazing time.
I can't wait.
I've had a really quiet week actually. Barely anything has happened, which has been nice really. Ii spent time with lots of lovely people though, which is always a good thing. I love my friends.
I wrote an article for the parish magazine though, which was quite fun. Now I'm waiting for feedback...
Yesterday was exciting though. Many of you will remember me going to the Careforce conference way back in September. I met about 60 other Careforce workers doing stuff like me around the UK. It was an amazing week and I learnt a lot (especially thanks to a brilliant talk on grace, which I have yet to post here). I made an awful lot of new friends there. We were split into groups of about five or six nearby each other so we could meet up and support each other etc. There's nobody else in South Wales though, so was put with four people from Birmingham. I said it then and I'll say it again, my group is a group of five completely unique people. You should be able to find a few photos of us five on facebook if you look under "photos of dave" under my profile pic. Yesterday I got to see them again (except for Fiorella, who didn't get back to us).
I'm getting used to making long train journeys across the country now. The feelings of unpreparedness and worry have subsided and I'm able to find the train I need without asking anybody now. Another trick I've learnt is to take a book with me. I adore reading, but I don't do it all that often because video gaming is an equally easy and more enjoyable hobby. I still adore reading, I just more often choose video gaming when the choice actually comes. Yet despite the fact that I could play on my DS or Micro for a whole train journey, I've found it's a brilliant time to read because I can get most of the way through the book in one day, meaning there's only a little to read afterwards during gaming time, and I'm usually hooked by that point anyway. When I went to the Camp reunion last saturday I took Ben Jeapes' latest novel, 'New World Order'. Yesterday I took Isaac Asimov's masterpiece: 'Foundation'.
I love Asimov's work, but I must admit it's a really weird book. It's a sort of psychological, political sci-fi; and yet as weird (or as boring for some people) as that may sound, it actually works brilliantly. I'm well and truly hooked. My journey lasted around 3 hours in total, allowing for time at Cardiff Central in the middle (a station that I am slowly coming to love, and with a vending machine that I am slowly coming to despise). So that's six hours of reading on the train. Brilliant.
When I eventually got there I was met by Ruby, and we went and found Nathan and Thom. We hung around for a little bit. We ended up just outside a massive shopping centre and in a rather odd place. There's a cathedral in the centre (known as "the Cathedral of the Bull Ring", or "St. Martin's") but the surrounding buildings looked like you'd stepped twenty years into the future. It's a very surreal place. You really have to be there, but have a look at these three photos and see if you can piece to gether the strange place.
We ate at Pizza Hut, laughed and joked a lot. Afterwards we were hanging around again and found that St. Martin's was actually having a 2pm Saturday service, so we went in. It was quite weird being in a large cathedral and yet having an extremely low Anglican service. It was quite good, although the claranet was out of tune for the first song. All the way through the sermon there was a little kid behind me kicking the back of our pew, which was getting really annoying until the point where he turned to his mother and (in the cutest voice you've ever heard) asked "What's Jesus?", at which point the mother began whispering back the gospel for the next five minutes.
Thom and Ruby headed off but Nathan and I hung around for a while longer looking at the shops. Much as I was tempted to buy lots, I decided against it (for reasons that shall shortly be made clear). I did buy the second book in the Foundation series though, which I'm looking forward to reading. I looked in some games shops but they were rubbish. Nathan was looking for a digital camera and found one marked down from £200 to £90, so he bought it. After a while we parted company and I sat down for another 3 hours reading.
It was wonderful to see all four of them again, until the week before the trip I'd forgotten how good it was to spend time with them. A day well spent.
But yesterday marked another special event. It was the first of December! Advent has begun! It's actually been Christmas-time for quite a while now, since I first saw the Coca Cola advert two Thursdays ago, but never mind. I got home yesterday to see Beth's incredible Christmas tree. It looked amazing. I'm guessing my family have got their decorations up by now. I hope Kat's done a good job of filling the lounge with tinsel in our usual style.
The first of December also marks the last day I'm allowed to buy anything before Christmas, in case somebody buys it for me. So I can't do any more shopping for almost a month! Maybe I'll check out the post-Christmas sales in Oxford though...
What else does Christmas-time mean? It means I'm coming home! I get the entire school holiday off, so I'm spending the first week in Cardiff with my family (gaming with my cousins mostly) and then I'm coming back to Abingdon for the New Year's party and the rest of my holiday. I've already begun organising a few parties, so hopefully it'll be an amazing time.
I can't wait.
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