Update

Well, I suppose it is time for another update. It has been another full couple of weeks since I last blogged. Last weekend was the wedding celebration of Will, a member of the Wood Green congregation, and staff of the LMC (Metanoia Books), and Yvonne, his Chinese wife. Will is 65 or so and has never been married, and has been a well-loved part of Wood Green for the last three decades. It was clear that everyone was delighted to be celebrating with him....a joy to be there.

I suppose the bigger news for me personally is that I have been dating my friend David now for about three weeks. We have been hanging out as friends regularly for the last ten or eleven months, but despite repeated coaxing from him I had resisted the idea of us dating. I finally decided I had nothing to lose by (to use a British expression) giving it a go. I have decided to press forward in spite of my reservations about the 12 years age difference between us, the complication of a cross-continental relationship, and my own phobias about dating and see where this goes. Theres a part of me that would like to be able to see down the road and see what the long-term prospects of this relationship are, but I know I need to relax and take it one step at a time. I do believe this is where God calls me to be right now.

David is a mental health researcher whose passion to help people with mental health issues stems from his own experience as someone who was first diagnosed with mental health issues sixteen years ago, and who has learned a lot of coping strategies and ways of reframing the way he thinks about things. I met him at Wood Green almost a year ago, as we were just reminiscing today, at the LMCs annual Leaf Party--that is, property cleanup/preparation for winter party.

He is a patient, gentle person with a good sense of humour and we talk about anything and everything. We both tend to analyze things quite a bit, which I realize can be both a good and a bad thing. But I feel really comfortable with him and we genuinely enjoy spending time together. So I continue to commit our relationship to a lot of prayer asking for continued discernment as we move forward.

May you be blessed as we enter this Advent season!

Quiet Sunday

Hello again,

I have been less diligent lately in keeping my blog updated. This is due to my becoming more involved socially with various other groups in the area in which I live. Ill report briefly on the events of the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago now, I joined a Bible study group at the church in Chase Cross that I attend. There were five of us there, all in the late twenties/early thirties demographic. Like the church, I found them a very friendly bunch...they meet every other week, so Ill be going again this Tuesday.

Wednesdays are choir night. I carpool with two of the other choristers, Joy and Connie to the church in Elm Park where we rehearse.

On Monday of this past week, Elaine from Chase Cross Baptist invited Jess and I to come to her house for dinner while her son Mike was visiting fro the Philipines. We suspected her of trying to set him up with one of us...he intimated as much to us. We had a laugh.

On Tuesday, I joined Lyn, Jess, and Jen in going to the theatre to see Made in Dagenham. It is a film about the women machinists campaign at Ford in Dagenham to achieve equal pay with their male counterparts in the late 1960s.

On Thursday, I took up Joys offer (from choir) to come and use her electric piano to practice on. I have been asked to play at a wedding for a friend from the Mennonite church this coming Saturday, and I need to get my chops back in shape again after a long sabbatical from playing more than the odd hymn. I have also been stealing moments on the pianos at Richard Alibon when I find them free before school or at lunch for the same reason.

Friday I met two Newfie teachers who recently arrived here at the TimePlan social, a bowling event. Bowling didn't actually get started until 9:40, so I didn't bother, but I had a nice time with Ashley and Jen.

On Saturday, David and I went to the Lord Mayors Show in central London. It is a 600-plus year old parade that happens once a year, encompassing everything fro a show of the military(Marines, the Navy, arching bands, even tanks from WWII), some commercial enterprises (a fleet of plumber trucks), The Red Cross, the Blue Cross, church groups, representations of the different guilds that used to operate in England--one of which, farmers, had a combine represented in the parade--and lots of officials in carriages, on horses, and on foot.

Today I went to Chase Cross in the morning and opted to stay home this afternoon rather than fight the throngs of Londoners trying to get on the few remaining tube lines that are still open today.

Social life aside, school is going well. My housemate Jen, who had been out of a long-term job since the end of October, has a new job (a reception--like kindergarten--class which she likes--as of January, which they are preparing her for by easing her in two days a week for the rest of this term. They are also giving her some supply work, so she is feeling much better about her prospects here.

Ciao!

Visit to the Netherlands

A full week has elapsed since I returned from my trip to the Netherlands to visit friends I knew from Nigeria and had last seen almost 22 years ago. I had a wonderful time, and it is only because I have been busy with other things that I have not gotten around to updating this blog before now.

I arrived at Schipol airport around 6 pm on Tuesday, the 26th of October, where I was

m

et by Djurre and Alis son and his girlfriend. We took the train back to Hoogeveen, about a two-hour trip from the airport, and Ali and Djurre were waiting for us when we got there. Over a delicious meal of soup and scones, we did some catching up...what each of our family members are up to now, etc. After looking at some photo albums, we went to bed, with plans to go into Meppel (a neighbouring town) the next day and look at Nigeria slides that night.

Their house is quite large by English standards, and my room was in the attic at the top of a set of stairs that were very nearly a ladder, they were so narrow. They have a lovely garden in the backyard, and a wall with a door into the neighbours backyard, which they frequently leave open.

The next day, we made the promised trip into Meppel, which, like many European cities and towns, is car-free in the centre. We visited an art gallery and saw the varied works of a talented artist named Jo Alting. In the afternoon, Ali took

m

e to see the toy library where she works. For 25 euros, you join this lending library of puzzles, games, outdoor play toys and musical instruents. Their focus is on toys for children with disabilities, e.g. blind or autistic. It was very interesting to see, and very labour-intensive for the volunteers who work there--they have recently stopped keeping 1000-piece puzzles in stock because the labour to count them all each time a puzzle was returned was too much.

Ali and I in Meppel

That night, we had the most wonderful time looking at their old slides of our time in Nigeria, some of which Djurre and Ali had not looked at in decades, if ever. They told funny anecdotes about some of the experiences they had, and some of the people we knew there. It felt like coming home in many respects.

The next morning, we went to the community garden where Djurre has a plot of land. Despite thievery by mice and various other critters, he found two pails worth of produce to bring home. After a relaxed lunch and quiet tie at the house, we went out for a walk...somewhere not too far from Hoogeveen, though I couldnt tell you where. We ended up at a very quaint teashop, lovely spot.

a kerosene la

m

p inviting us towards the tea shop on a walk

Then we headed home to celebrate Siebe Jan having passed his driving test that morning. He had already failed once and what with the cost involved--they had already spent about 2000 (almost 3000 CAD) euros on driving lessons and tests--was very uptight that he not fail again. So we celebrated the pass (his examiner told him he drove perfectly, high praise) with Dutch sausages, chips/fries, and several delicious salads made by Daniel.

Djurre and Ali with two of their three sons

On Friday, we drove north into Friesland to visit several Mennonite (or more specifically Menno Simons) sites. We went to Witmarsum first, where he was born and grew up. Outside Witmarsum there is a scuplture of an open church building in various colours to represent the diversity of the Mennonite church today, that was conceived by Alis brother, who is a conceptual designer. Then we went to Pingjum, his fathers hometown where he was appointed chaplain in 1524, where we went inside one of the secret churches that existed around 1600, shortly after Si

m

ons death.

Djurre outside of one of the hidden churches, homes with secret meeting rooms in the back during the 17th century

We carried on to Zurich, where I stood on the dike looking out over the Wadden Sea on a very chilly (read windy) day. We had a lovely lunch in the town of Harlingen nearby, another town set on a canal system before heading back to their place to get ready to fly back to London. Their sons kindly took

m

e to the airport again for

m

y 930 pm flight.

Standing on the dike in Zurich (NL), with the Wadden Sea on my right, and the town on my left.

After an hour delay, and a rush to get to my gate a 25-min walk away (I cant say I am impressed with Schipol organization, in not publishing the gate number until the plane has landed, when it is a long walk and the plane is already late), I caught my plane and the flight back to London was uneventful. Then another almost 2-hour commute back ho

m

e to Chase Cross.

Church Retreat

Hello again. I'm recently home from a church retreat in Aylesford. We had a wonderful time at The Friars, the home of a Carmelite monastic order. The beautiful buildings date back to the Middle Ages in a very quiet and contemplative setting.

The theme of the weekend, led by Wayne and Lois (Mennonite Mission Network pastors who are part of our church community) was on relationships--within ourselves, with others, the world and the natural environment. One of the highlights for me was the creative expressions of community that we came up with on Saturday morning in groups. Some people created a board gae while others created a sculpture, wrote a poem or created a photo collage. My group created a song, based on the song, Ubi Caritas. In between repetitions of the theme, we sustained the E and wove other elements around it...a litany of some of the things that people have to learn to live with as community over some vocal percussion, and a Gregorian chant naming some of the ways that we experience and deal with conflict, and then a Bible passage read over the drone, interwoven with the Ubi Caritas theme.

I also quite enjoyed the Cabaret evening on Saturday night. We had a rich variety of acts, everything for musical acts to an excellently dramatic rendition of The Highwayman, to a game show (Call my Bluff, like Balderdash/Dictionary) , and lots of humourous acts too. One I remember is the song one person sang called There Were Ten, Ten Constipated Men in the Bible (to the tune of There were Beans, Beans Trying on some Jeans In the Corner Grocery Store).

For instance,

Noah...who for forty days passed only water

Moses...who took two tablets

Peter....who was a rock

Paul...who laboured for the Lord

Titus...whose name says it all

It was quite a funny song, which she learned for a warden, who learned it from a group of nuns.

Comedy aside, we had a lovely weekend for it. There had been predictions of rain, but we only saw about 5 minutes of rain total all weekend. Sue and I had a nice walk yesterday afternoon, and after returning from that, I led a group of people in a music jamming session. Lots of fun.

It was nice to spend time in a relaxing setting with friends from Wood Green. Now I'm beginning my week of half-term holidays...off to the Netherlands on Tuesday. I will blog after that again.

Auf wiedersehen.

October

It has been almost a month since I last updated this blog. After Europe, I have had very little money to go anywhere or do anything, so I have spent quite a bit of time at home or exploring around my community on foot. Even more importantly, we cancelled the BT pay-as-you-go phone/internet package that my housemate Anne had on September 18, and after more than four weeks, my provider Sky has still not managed to reconnect us. It has been an eye-opening experience. In Canada, there is an attitude that the customer is always right, and usually businesses try very hard to look after their customers. Here there is no such attitude...rather, they only answer the questions you ask, and if you are not aware enough to know what questions to ask, they won't volunteer any extra information to you. The onus is very much on the consumer/client to do all the legwork, to make sure they get looked after. While in Europe this summer, we noticed a much more relaxed attitude towards being out of things as well. If a restaurant was out of the first three things you tried to order, you just had to keep going until you found something that they did have...and no apologies for it either.

I have found good friends in my housemates and the house of teachers just down the road. Jessica (the other house) and I have attended the Baptist church in Chase Cross several times, which is very friendly. We have had several invites to dinner already. I just joined a choir in Hornchurch too. It gives me an opportunity to exercise my voice and my piano skills, as the only pianist is the conductor, who is usually not there for the first 15-20 minutes, and who was unable to make it last week.

My keyboard is being stupid and not writing m's, I have to copy and paste them in (and apostrophes and colons have disappeared altogether...sigh...two-year old Toshiba laptops suck), so I think Ill cut it short here.

Ciao!

Hardship Ahead for Education in Britain

Hello again. The kids returned to school two-and-a-half weeks ago now, but things have been really quiet for those of us on supply. My housemate Jen got one day of work last week when she went in for a PPA (prep teacher) trial day, which instead of the interview and time spent getting to know the school a bit she expected, turned out to be merely a "fill-the-hole" supply day. I got one day of work on Monday this week, supplying in a Yr 5 class in Barking, thankfully at a school I was familiar with. I had a good day, nice kids. However, other than those experiences, neither Jen nor I has had any other work yet, despite calling in at 7 am every morning.

I have spent the time at home walking around my area, getting to know Collier Row, Havering-atte-Bower, Chase Cross, and Romford better. I've also spent a lot of time on the phone with Sky, as we have been trying to cancel my housemate Anne's media package and get mine established at the house. Every person I talk to seems to have a different message, but the latest message seems to be that we have to wait 14 days after the BT broadband is cancelled to set up my Sky broadband. Not sure about the phone. So we are currently phoneless (well, landline-less) and internet-less until that transfer happens. We're watching more TV as my Sky TV could be transferred immediately, since there was no cable TV in the house when I arrived.

As well, we're getting to know our new neighbours, Jessica and Chelsea, two Canadians who are living just down the street from us. We get along well...Jen is out with them today in London doing some touristy stuff...I decided to stay in Romford and get some things accomplished here instead. We're planning a birthday party for Jen on Sunday night with them.

I had dinner with Peter and Muriel, a retired headteacher and his teacher wife--both from Chase Cross Baptist, which I've been attending the last few weeks--last night. We had a lovely time and it was very interesting to get their perspective on the education system currently. They were talking about how schools are doing their best to avoid using supply teachers and paying the agency fees by calling back retired teachers and by moving teachers around internally within the school. Muriel, for instance is a resource teacher, and she gets moved into supply cover if someone is away. I've also heard of EAs being charged (even for several weeks at a time) with teaching a class when the teacher is away, doing all the work of a teacher without the qualifications or remunerative pay (EAs earn approximately half what teachers make). All of these strategies are becoming increasingly common now as schools are under intense pressure to cut costs. Peter's comment was that he is quite happy to be retired now, as it's anyone's guess how things are going to shape up as the budget cuts become more clear. I have heard that government departments are going to be cut an average of 25% with certain departments facing cuts potentially as high as 40%.

Then I asked Anne this morning what she thought the chances of Jen and I getting work this week were, and she indicated "Not good." She said schools have to cut £1, 000, 000.00 from their budget this year, a figure I hadn't heard before. I wondered aloud what work there was going to be for agency teachers this year, and her response was that schools like taking on agency teachers for short-term contracts because they don't have to pay benefits or holidays and they can fire with short notice.

I'm not sure what all of this means for me. For the moment, I'm on guaranteed supply, which means TimePlan has to pay me for 8/10 days every fortnight, but of course it will not be sustainable for them to maintain that for very long if I (and every other guaranteed teacher) is only working 2/10 days. So I shall wait and see what develops.

Lisbon-Home

Our second-last full day of the trip...we got up around 8 and I ate my fruit skewer as Karen packed. Then we caught an airport bus, arriving at Barcelona Airport around 9:30. We ate our pastries from La Mie Calime as we waited for our departure on TAP flight at 11 am.

I was tired when we arrived in Lisbon, so had a nap in our very comfortable hostel room, as Karen went out to explore. We found some lovely things (scarves, earrings, etc) for sale and I found a doll for my young friends Rosie and Dieunnie--a bit too small for them yet, but their mother can hold onto it for them until they're old enough. Then we walked along the waterfront, through a slightly sketchy area towards the restaurant we wanted to eat at. After much wandering and map-reading, we found it, but discovered that it was not open until 8:30 (we had arrived at 7:15). So we walked down the path we had walked up, bought some drinks, and found the metro station. We had considered the bus, but a friendly local told us not to take it--"You'll never get there!" We took a few photos down by the waterfront and then retraced our steps up the slippery cobbled stairs to the fado restaurant.

It was a lovely meal. To begin, we had a deep-fried fish/vegetable snack with bread and butter. Then I had 5 pieces (!) of pork loin with potatoes, onions, and flavoured rice with sausage in it. Karen had medium steak with fried egg and chipped potatoes. As I had way too much food, and Karen wasn't wild about her steak, we traded meals halfway through. As to the music, fado is a type of music that is typically mournful and is frequently characterized by themes about the life of the poor or the sea. There was a guitarist and a Portuguese guitarist (I had to look it up to find out what this other stringed instrument was) as well as two female singers who alternated singing. So there were about 20 minute sets in which everyone put their forks and knives down and listened to the music in between which they'd turn the lights up and resume serving. Karen and I appeared to be the only people there who didn't speak Portuguese, and frequently most of the gathered assembly would join in for the chorus of a familiar song. It was neat to be part of, though it was also the greatest language barrier we faced during the whole trip as we didn't speak Portuguese and they didn't speak English.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Lisbon Story Guesthouse. It really was a lovely place to stay, with an inviting common room with lots of cushions to sit on--just so long as you're young enough to get back up again! The staff were really helpful and even let me print something off without charging for it.

After breakfast, we headed to the Santa Justa Lift, a tower that enabled us to get a nice view of Lisbon. Then we met Ali, a Senegalese man who had friends in Montreal. He was delighted to talk to us, and offered us necklaces--valued at 15 euros each (Karen got an amber one, I got one with a blue stone whose name I don't remember) --within ten minutes of meeting us. We reluctantly took them and turned to say goodbye. As we walked away, he asked us if we could give him some money to help him feed his family. We offered the necklaces back but he was absolutely insistent that we take them, even if we didn't give him anything in return. So I dug 6 euros out of my change purse and we said goodbye. We took Tram 28, an old heritage tram with wood-pannelled walls inside through the hills of Lisbon, the old town. I loved seeing all the Portuguese tiles decorating the outside--and inside--of buildings. Here's a sampling.

After lunch, we walked toward the harbour for a boat ride. We asked an information person where we could go on a short boat ride and she suggested St. Charles Islands. However, when we got to the station, there was no St. Charles listed anywhere. No schedule was printed anywhere and the agents spoke no English. So we finally got on a boat going to Barreiro, that was supposed to be a half-hour ride. We got to a harbour that said San Bento after about 20 minutes and proceeded to sit there for about ten minutes. We finally decided that if it was going to take so long to get to Barreiro, we'd better just jump off here, wherever we were, and have a look around before finding a boat back to our hostel. So we got off the boat and then discovered that the Barreiro train station was just behind the boat station. As it turned out there wasn't much of anything at Barreiro except a train station, we quickly returned to the boat area and picked up the next boat back to Lisbon.

After a quick supper close to our hostel, I grabbed my things to go to the airport. (Karen was leaving the following morning at 8 am. ) We went down to the street so I could catch the airport bus and it arrived almost as soon as we did. Since they took cash only, I paid, gave Karen my remaining euros (she was running low on cash) and quickly said goodbye.

One minute down the road, I realized that I didn't have one bag...Karen had thoughtfully carried it for me and when we hurriedly said goodbye, I forgot to take it from her. I thought about what was in it--a few souvenirs, a bit of food, some books for the plane, my trip journal, and my airline ticket and Gatwick Express ticket (for returning home to London late that night) and quickly decided that it wasn't worth it to me to go back. I knew from previous experience that I could fly just by showing my passport, and I had my reservation number for the train ticket stored on my mobile phone. And since neither of us had enough cash left to take another bus/taxi to the airport without withdrawing more cash if I got off the bus now, I thought I'd just let Karen take my bag home with her.

So I got to the airport, and suddenly thought that given my late flight--I was scheduled to land at Gatwick at 11:30-- and the fact that I no longer had my carry-on bag--that it would be quicker if I just took my knapsack as a carry-on. So I went through security and had my jam from Avignon confiscated--no, I hadn't thought about that being a liquid--and proceeded to look for a crossword book to replace the one I had left with Karen. Just as I was returning to my lounge to await takeoff, I had a call from my mother saying that Karen had come to the airport with my bag and was waiting for me near Gates 37-43. This was around 8:25, and my plane had originally been slated to depart at 9:00, but now it was delayed an hour. So I tried to get back out of security, and had problems with the staff, who didn't want to let me back out and who also made me dump out my bag several times to show them the toothpaste in my bag that kept setting off the alarm system. When I was feeling absolutely frustrated and ready to give up and forget the stupid bag, I finally ran into an agent who helped me. He asked me to describe Karen and then found her. He took me through a staff-only passageway so that I could--without leaving security--accept the bag from Karen. She was standing on one side of a wall that was a bit higher than waist-level and I was standing on the other side. She handed over the bag and I said goodbye again and went on to my gate.

The flight was more than an hour delayed, so it was about 12:40 by the time we got into Gatwick. Knowing that the last train from Gatwick was at 12:30 and that the Tube shuts down at 1:00 am, I knew that I had two choices...pay a fistful of money for a taxi home, or sit on night buses for a six-hour journey home. I chose the painful option of 106 pounds for a taxi. I guess at that time of night, there are only the large van taxis available, no cheaper minicabs, and where I'm living now is out in Zone 6, rather than Zone 4 as Barking was. So we drove to Romford, but because the cab driver wasn't familiar with Chase Cross and the GPS wasn't registering my address since it's a new residential area, he finally dropped me off in Romford. So I caught another cab home for another 10 pounds.

Thankfully when I got to my new house, the key worked and I found all my things waiting for me. To bed about 2:30. So I had an exciting/stressful end to a very memorable trip around Europe.