Toddler sees snow for first time

Thinking yesterday about childhood and innocence reminded me of an old family video Catherine made in 2001, showing our daughter Anna (then 2 yrs 4 months) seeing snow for the first time in her life. Having located it, I spent a merry time faffing about trying to port it to my laptop via a memory stick. When it wouldn't play, I suspected an obsolete format, and tried VLC and various other worthy applications recommended by fellow twitterers. In the end, in desperation, I manually set up an Ethernet network with an old hub from the loft, banged in a few RJ45s and ported it directly to my desktop. Result: Magic! Here, for the first time in 8 years, Anna’s first sight of snow from 2001.


(No blog entry yesterday because I was doing one for CBTI’s Sense Making Faith on Faith and Imagination)

This be the Verse 2

Philip Larkins (in)famous “This be the verse” (They f*ck you up, your mum and dad...) has long been highly regarded in counselling circles. It’s a lot of fun, and every time I've heard it quoted, it’s met by by knowing looks of recognition, wherever folks gather for encounters like Dr Evil’s legendary Father/Son family therapy session with Carrie Fisher:

Now, in the week of the poet’s death, John Halton has posted a response from a newspaper cutting by Adrian Mitchell:

They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Kudos to John for the poem. Two impressions from yesterday — Anna waving goodbye before my annual Xmas trek, & one of the sights of Newport Pagnell, more Philip Larkin than Adrian Mitchell...

Banks, Bandaids and Badinage

UK Satirical magazine Private Eye provides its own narrative of our recent financial plague month, with cartoons:

The root of all this isn’t some quantum of greed beyond the rest of us, but something we all do given half a chance:




Funnymoney is ultimately, er, funnymoney:





The result has been, depending on your point of view, a Massive Bank Nationalisation to make Lenin blush, or an act of (compulsory) mass investment beyond Mrs Thatcher’s wildest nightmares. Same difference?



Meanwhile the Wilson family has been fiddling while Rome burns in our own sweet ways. Catherine made Anna a Deep Chocolate and Fresh Raspberry cake for her birthday yesterday, whilst Stewart and Nick have made an creditcrunchable escapist movie — Jim & Jam’s Bicurious Adventures:

It’s called a Belgian Dip

Could the computer grab a weeks holiday? the family wondered. Could it ’eck, as it does the holiday snaps; but in principle it’s been a week away from all emails and the like. What’s the nearest country we’ve never stayed? We all bundled off to Belgium, sadly without Stephanie who couldn’t get cover for her job. So after a few days in the land of Poirot and Tintin (as wells as beer, waffles, chocolate and chips — but confusingly, not chocolate chips?), we’re all suitably refreshed; and so’s the compmuter. And its back to the blog...

Stable cold and bare

Sunday evening with Anna at a Barn Nativity at Chicheley near Newport Pagnell. It was hosted by Home Farm, with refreshments afterwards in the Chester Arms. Huge turn-out, very cold and clear (as it's supposed to be), and a truly memorable retelling of the Christmas story with traditional carols.










I was reminded of Evelyn Underhill's words, which went on last year’s Christmas Card, and tie together life, discipleship, wrangles among Christians, and the mystery of the incarnation:

Human nature is like a stable inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice; animals which take up a lot of room and which I suppose most of us are feeding on the quiet. And it is there between them, pushing them out, that Christ must be born and in their very manger he must be laid

Congratulations to all involved, especially Pam Fielding (Licensed Lay Minister, soon starting ordination training), who organised and led the service, with help from friends in Chicheley, Sherington, Astwood, Hardmead & North Crawley.

Going bananas round London

At lunch Anna tells us with great conviction that Nick “is 75% made of Bananas” This surprising assertion is probably something to do with the amount of genetic material Nicholas and a banana have in common — a slightly different proposition. meanwhile...

Stephanie’s back from Uni, with an illustration project she did with her left hand (to see what happened) based on family days out in London. Resolve to be amazed by yet another distinctive Stephanie illustration style:

Half Term Friends, Fish and Noodles

Just for the family record, on the day Catherine started work for six weeks (fundraising on behalf of Shelter), we all goofed off to London taking Jo, Anna’s godmother, and son Sam. Wagamama is still a good thing. So were the rather strange people down the South Bank.

New cause of the day, by way of the London Aquarium, is a Dutch charity that campaigns against Shark finning — a revolting, cruel practice that demeans everyone involved, and all for a bowl of greasy soup — not the sort they have in Wagamama.