Top moments of 2011

A friend posted on her blog her top moments of 2011(here) then sent out a tweet to challenge to do the same and STF posted her 11 for 11 (here)...

So my moments for 2011 Hmmm it's been a really hard year for MyPatch in a lot of ways.. but lets see how far we get.....

1.  Hesse (link) with a friend is always good enjoy these trip with this friend a lot...

2.  Trip though the Finnish Archipelago over night with STF and had breakfast on the boat looking out over the harbour in Sweden. playing wii bowling in the children deck very funny oh and Playing M&M poker

3. Getting a second merit for a MA assignment which meant I could go on to the full MA at Cliff College. Thanks due here to STF and My/Our friend and mentor Rev Dr P Meadows. Who believed and encouraged.

4.  Robes project... talking and serving the homeless who stayed one night a week with us in vauxhall over the winter months. For many there were good news stories of lives renewed starting jobs.and new homes.

5.  My New Home and New post in Leicester -

6. Bryan Adams in Concert at the O2 amazing night

7. Cub Camp - eating pizza in Akkalas car that had been smuggled back to camp by her and another leader so the other didn't find out...

8. Little women- Helping with the Lighting at the inner city players production.

9. Tea and home made scones on the patio in wonderful sun in Turku

10. Trip to Greenwich and the docklands museums picnic lunch band in Hyde Park on a hot sunny sunday afternoon Regents park too tea at the teahouse theatre

11. Street party in vauxhall for the royal wedding and wandering round London the night of the wedding chatting and taking in the atmosphere.

Down to Downe

I'm off to Downe today for the weekend it's family camp for the scouts.. This is what they have to say about the place

Downe

"A beautiful, wooded 86-acre site situated close to Biggin Hill in rural Kent, only 16 miles from the centre of London. Downe Scout Activity Centre has welcomed young people from all walks of life and corners of the world for almost 80 years."


I was there last year for a weekend too and it rained and er rained and rained a bit more.. I was wondering if the pioneering skills should have been building arks from rope and logs.... and this time well after yesterday and the thunder and rain we had here  so bad that heathrow had to stop planes landing and taking off for three hours...I'm hopeing that the tents that were put up earlier in the week are all still standing.

Family camp is a bit different from normal as the cubs and scouts mums,dads, granny's granddads brothers and sister can come along and join in too..

all can come even those few who will come and not have anyone with them and be in tents with their friends

I've not done a camp like this before so and looking forward to seeing how you run this type of camp...

Post again after hopefuly a not too wet and windy weekend

who's pulling your Strings......

The 1967 Uk entry to the Eurovision song contest was puppet on a string Last night I got to meet one of my all time favourite puppets from childhood sooty.....

I loved this cheeky little bear. So there was a reason to be playing with puppets well at cubs tonight we had a visit from a puppeteer. The cubs were mesmerised by them. Now I'm not always a fan of puppets I hate the ones that look human so the old guys off the muppet show are out... but cuddly ones like sooty sweep and sue 

Though there is much fun and laughter with puppets. What I got to thinking about was the string puppets I have a few of these. the ones that work by strings that make it move. The question was who's pulling your strings. Who is it that guides your motives and actions. 

This can be taken further who is pulling the string on the street, in the flats or over the estate that we live in. Who is it that is being allowed to run things. Is there a time for a change a time to bring about a new way of thinking a new way of being. 

By placing my hand inside sooty I could control to guide the bears actions... am I as willing as the bear to allow my actions to be guided by God. To allow those action and ways to make a difference on my patch.... 

That was the week that was

I'm a little bit too young to remember that this was the name of a BBC programme in the 1960's ( find a snippet of what it was here) 

I haven't manage to post here or on my daily photo blog all week...

Friday night was film night and 6 teenagers and the lion king it was sick! ( under good authourity that means its a great film) we spoke about forgiveness and knowing who we are.

it's been a busy week here in my patch this week Last weekend was our harvest festival so saturday saw teams coming in during the day to set up different things ready for sunday morning...

After the service was a superman style change into by scout uniform for a trip out with the cubs it was to be a walk along the river looking at different things around our patch which would go toward one of their badges.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't as helpful as we would have liked so it was on the bus to the science museum 


Cubs on Tuesday night saw a visit from one of the local police officers it was great to see the young cubs asking some really great questions and getting to try on different parts of the uniform... 

 my prayer is this will be the only way that these young lives will get to wear this type of jewellery 

thursday some friends from finland ( not the normal visitors they arrive next friday)  arrived  they leave monday I'm away for three days in between and really wondering if I'll manage to catch my tail at some point... 

last night we watched shrek the third very funny film well I say we watched.... half of us watched while the one who wanted to watch it snoozed.....

Tracking =>

Tonight was the first night of the new term for the cubs. For those who don't know cubs are 8-11 year old scouts.. And very funny little critters. For most I haven't seen them since camp. Some I bumped into when shopping it's funny to see them being silly then stop as you walk round the corner or trying to figure out if it's Hathi ( my jungle book cub name ).... as one conversation went yesterday... I shouted over your mums right its me :)

Tonight they were learning about tracking... following signs.... making a path for others to follow after them....

each week on a Wednesday I attend the weekly Saints alive communion where we look at the lives of saints and martyrs and the directions the message of their lives that they left us....

sometimes like the cubs the directions we are following seem to get muddled or lost... it's then that we need to step back see where we came from where we are and then look forward to where we need to be walking.... some times as with the track that was set out tonight to stop and take a carful look for the next marker is needed ( the cubs made some very small arrows to follow) trust that the way where following is right.... even when the signs are only small... that they are further apart. or to step back onto the right track again....

Theres much to learn from these little critters.... 

Over at See-through-faith they came to a similar thinking in todays blog post (here)

Fits like a Glove!!!!

Looking back at some of the things from camp....

Somerset Rural Life Museum 

I mentioned in a earlier post about the visit to the museum one of the temporary exhibits was based on gloves. 

Glove Affair!

Glove-related art, including garments, hangings, sculptures, animatronics and writings, all on the theme of gloves and their symbolism in history, art, literature and romance. South West Textiles Group Touring Exhibition. Textile demonstrations.

I really liked this, gloves are not my thing I'd rather have cold hands than put them on. This drove my friend mad in january when I visited Turku Finland, most of the time outside was spent by her telling me "to put you gloves back on" it was well below minus 20!!!

The artist wrote about the work that she liked words and finding words from different places. Glove works well.. So I took a close up of two...

 

Finnish and swedish as that is what many of my friends speak

while taking this one of the younger Cubs came to talk to me and the glove picture came into the topic. This cub is from Poland so we looked through to see if the polish for glove was there. and found it.

What was wonderful about this time was just talking and listening to the Cub To learn from each other he became the teacher for that short moment age no a barrier. As he explained how to pronounce the word, it took a few attempts for me to get it. His no it this not what I was saying made us laugh what also was good was that I didn't know that actually as with other words they were spelt slightly wrong. He did give me the right spelling but that was a week ago.

Looking at this just reminds me of my patch, there are many different cultural backgrounds that come to form the patch work that is my patch here in north lambeth in the community and the Churches. So much so that talking to a lady from a church in the next Circuit they have 40 different languages and nationalities present in fellowship there... Wow..

What a rich tapestry that that is 

how does the Wesley Hymn go 

O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer’s praise,

The glories of my God and King,

The triumphs of His grace

In many schools and libraries here in the uk there is a poster that says welcome in several different languages.The idea of this has given me a idea for our church here in North Lambeth Parish and Circuit to do the same for us  using a word or phrase that we can show just this unity and joy in fellowship from the many languages that we have. 

The Day after the camp before

Finally crawled out of bed at at around 9:30 am. I hadn't felt really all that tried ubtil walking through the front door. 

Some of the camp posts have been updated with photo's all taken on my Nokia X3 so I'm fairly happy with the out come though one or two are a little shaky.

Some of the events of camp I'll return to over the next few days and talk a little more about.

Thank you to the house-elf for making sense of the text messages and writing the posts :)

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 6

Day 6 (Friday) homeward bound

We arrived home at 5.30ish today - more or less on schedule :) after travelling back via Stonehenge.

The last episode of Dr Who was filmed at Stonehenge. This was the second site this week that has had a connection to Dr Who  Wookey Hole Cave was where the doctor (David Tennent) found out he was going to die.  Since many of the cubs are Dr Who fans (like me) it was pretty exciting!

I've always wanted to go to Stonehenge and now I have! It was busy - too many people to be honest- and I'm a bit sad that I never got to go there when I was the age of most of cubs, because nowadays when it's a site of national heritage you can't get up close to the stones and touch or climb on them. That would have been great!

Hearing the commentaries through the hand-held device about Stongehenge, its history and its people was very interesting. Though the original reason for Stonehenge has long been lost, some of the myths and legends surrounding it (alien theories, the devil and /or Merlin in the time of King Arthur) were fun to listen to.  It was interesting to be there at this time as it's only recently been announced that another henge has been discovered nearby. (link to BBC site on new discovery )

We were all shattered when we got back ... the leaders probably even more than the cubs (who were still hyper!) 

Posted by the resident house-elf. Just because :)*

* My Patch's author is semi-comatose on the sofa in spite of having been revived by numerous cups of tea. Must be time for bed!

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 5

day 5 ?

How quickly time passes! It doesn't seem a week since I was packing to go to to camp. Tomorrow (Friday) we leave, and head for the 3hr-ish journey back home to London. We're going via Stonehenge - a place I've always wanted to visit :)

Today was the beach and swimming. Yay!

The cubs made their own Tor and St Michael's tower

We travelled over to Burnham-on-sea. The cubs made a bee-line for a hovercraft sat outside its house, and fired questions at the man standing by it. They were Burnham HoverCraft Search and Rescue , and the cubs got to sit in the larger rescue craft!

 

What was really interesting to me was the brass plaque on the hovercraft house. 

It had been build in a mere 72 hours during a programme called Challenge Anneka- a programme that I often used to watch! To see that house - sixteen years on  - still standing, still in great condition, and providing valuable lifeguard cover on the coast - was fantastic. You don't always get to find out what happens to these sort of things, and today this really touched me.

(Posted by the resident house elf, who is heading to bed after a fabulous day in the west end with Godson and family)

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 4

day 4: Wednesday

30 mins after Akala (cub leader) went to get the cubs up this morning, I went down to fetch them for breakfast ... They were almost ALL still in bed. Their reason? "Akala didn't tell us to get dressed!"...

We left to visit the Somerset rural farm museum. This is a free museum which takes you through farming in the local area. Having played old fashioned "pennyhands"yesterday what caught my eye at the farm museum was the measure of a pennyworth of milk.

To top the visit off there was the chance to make a willow fence, called willow wanging! There was also an exhibition of gloves (inspired by 25 pairs found in a box!) More on this later ...

(posted by see-though faith, resident house elf, who has enjoyed cooler weather this evening here in London - though it was hot, hot, hot earlier in the day!)

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 3

day 3 (Tues) Wookey Hole


Wookey hole is a cave system that has a strange tale of a witch and a priest. A woman (who the villagers were afraid of) lived in the cave. She was deemed a witch, and so the villagers sent for the priest (to exorcise her) ... the story tells that he followed her into a deeper part of the cave until he found some water. He took some, blessed it, and started to sprinkle it around when he heard a scream. Later a stone figure was found in the cave.


What struck me was that hundreds of years on, we still act like that. We have the same sort of attitude to people who don't seem to fit in. All too often they (the misfit) are seen as the reason that things are wrong, and they are made the scapegoat.


I found myself challenged today and want to challenge you too ... Ask yourself whether your actions (and your heart attitude) are more like those of the villagers than the hand and heart of Jesus.


(posted by the resident house-elf who was glad of a heavy shower tonight here in London - it's so much cooler now!)

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 2

day 2 (Monday) Glastonbury Tor

after feeding the cubs - off they went to feed the animals!It's easy to forget some of them (city boys!) haven't had this type of close contact with animals  when it's second nature for me. They had great fun being close up to hens, pigs and piglets (and this evening they were asking to help with this again!)

This afternoon we hiked past the famous old trees, gog and magog 

Situated near the foot of Glastonbury Tor Hill, stand two ancient oak trees which popular folklore hold to be over 2,000 years old. The two immense and beautifully gnarled trees (named Gog and Magog) were once part of an avenue of oaks that led up to Glastonbury Tor (and, according to some sources, beyond to King Arthur’s castle in South Cadbury).

 

what is sad is that one of these magnificent trees was recently pronounced dead.. and there are signs that the 2nd tree in part is dying too. coming from nottingham I know how much is valued in the tales of our old tree The Major Oak and the conservation that has been undertaken around it.

.......and on up to Glastonbury Tor. 

St Michael's Tower 

It was busy but great at the top inside the tower, showing the history of the place. Part of the plague states

Richard whiting, last abbot, was hanged on the tor in 1539, when the dissolation of the monasteries was taking  place. 

The beautiful view from the top of the Tor across the counties gives a far different tale to some of its sad past!

(posted by the resident house-elf who is still in hot and sticky London!)

Tales from cubs' camp in /near Glastonbury day 1

Camp day 1 / arrival

After a 3h journey and a cool start to the day we arrived at Paddington Farm and a sign which said

 :)

First job was moving the very friendly goats out of our field.

Samson and Benny

After lunch it was the supermarket run, supper and time for the camp fire.

We watched an amazing sunset - the oranges reflecting off the old Abbey at the Tor.

 

They say there is something about this part of England and finding a quiet spot .. it does feel as if you're closer to God here.

(Posted by my friend see-through faith -resident house-elf -who I abandoned back in hot, sticky London!)