Now there's a hiatus

Hmmmmm. Problematic hernias. Always caused by obesity apparently. Of course being twelve and a half stone I am morbidly obese, a quivering lump of frightened jelly waiting to expire in a moment from heart attack or stroke. I've grown quite fond of my hernia over the years. It gives me good warning of calorific overload and serves as a constant reminder of how weak willed I am when it comes to food - for my hernia is of the hiatus kind, the valve between stomach and oesophagus is a little wonky.

Consultant and GP alike blame ME. I did it. I am responsible. I am the careless twit who threw her health away on several (how I can lie) bars of chocolate delight and a walnut whip or two. I have gotten quite sick these days, not on chocolate though that would be rather nice, but on the victim blaming culture of 'oh well, I am so sorry you are suffering, but it is your own fault you know, Mrs Very Bad Person'.

Well stuff you. With chocolate. I didn't get the dratted hiatus hernia from eating chocolate at all........ if I turn the clock back twenty years I can see where it came from.

Imagine this.... a very slim woman of around thirty has a wonderful job in a preschool. Every morning, lovely slim lady and other slim friends turn up at the local church hall and set out all of the play equipment for the day. Some of that play equipment is HUGE, heavy wooden climbing frames of superb quality wood, filled to the brim sandpits loaded with scoops and rakes, dressing up boxes complete with the very latest in cast off ball gowns and rolled up carpets to spread beneath the bounty and protect little hands, knees and feet.

I remember the pains. For a couple of days I would live on arrowroot biscuits and Earl Grey tea until they settled down. Not for a moment did I think it was a medical condition, in my ignorance I thought I kept catching tummy bugs from the children!

So, those of you who tell me to lose two stones and it will go away, remember that heavy lifting is a cause too. I think my hernia is much more stubborn than two stones. It could be here to stay.

ANOTHER HIATUS:

Hmmmmmmm. Well, there's a thing. Another hiatus actually. Poised on the brink of actually CHANGING MY MIND I've hesitated. I love my job. I get to be as creative as I can be, I get to help people through some of the worst times in their lives. I get to send people into a rewarding and fulfilling future and begin them on a learning journey that should last for the rest of those lives. And am I happy? No.

Happiness is subjective of course so I will try to explain. I am happy standing in front of my class watching the learners light up with enthusiasm. I am happy when they grow and develop and learn and a whole new vocabulary and perspective becomes theirs. I am happy in the staff room with my wonderful colleagues. I am not happy being part of some big game where those of us who carry the good name of the learning establishment on our shoulders are being robbed of precious management and preparation time by the vicious greedy swipes from  above. Efficiency? Stinks of immorality and bullying.

Here's the hiatus: do I stick with it and gradually let my physical and mental health get squeezed thinner until I disappear altogether? Or do I make a move to another job?

There is another job on the horizon and it could be mine. It is a very different job involving a very different set of skills and it is with a company who actually care for their customer and care for their staff.

I would still be making a difference. A very different sort of difference, but a difference just the same. And a special one involving people at the very extreme of emotional distress. Therefore no more creativity with classes of students, mass hilarity or elated success.

I do so want to make a difference, that different difference. But I'm scared. What would YOU do?

Thinking about being squeezed, I think it's about time I tried another slimmers cupasoup. Yum.

Happy anniversary for the 28th my Lovely Pops! Kiss kiss kiss xxxx.
the spell check has stopped working. Soryr.

Postscript added February 2012. I didn't apply for the new opportunity, my Pops wasn't welcome and she would have been left alone for far too long during the day. There are lovely dog-carers to help out, but I am Pops's primary carer and she is my beloved little friend who I won't abandon for the sake of change. When the time for change is right, God will provide and equip. I wait.

Poppies lift, firm and separate!

http://www.legionshop.co.uk/shop/jewellery/poppy-jewellery/the-buckley-poppy-brooch.aspx

Isn't that lovely? I bought mine and am wearing it with pride. Exactly WHERE I  wore it yesterday it will be made clear in a moment.

Yesterday was graduation day. You would think I would be used to it by now, yesterday was my third, and although they have all been greatly different, this one came with the required outfit of academic gown, hat and hood. Thereby hangs a tale. I should know by now, as a regular wearer of an academic hood (mine is added to my clerical gowns for special occasions), that I would know how to fasten the thing on.

In preparation I wore a blouse with buttons. Correct. The blouse was made of flimsy material though and the hood began to slide down my back, lifting my blouse and threatening to cut off my circulation. It wasn't a pretty sight I can tell you. My better half was highly amused.

A kindly colleague gave me a tip.

'Fasten it to your bra with a pin' she said. Super idea... but where to find a suitable pin?

The only thing I had vaguely resembling a pin was my beautiful poppy brooch, carefully pinned to the outside of the gown. Off it came, and standing in the shadows of a rather grand town hall staircase, I managed to pin through blouse and bra and hold the hood down.

Immediate and marvellous effect. The threat of strangulation removed I stood tall. At least five feet two. My back straightened, my chin came up and I looked (but not felt as I had a steaming cold) ten years younger.

I discovered that the lift and separation of a poppy brooch bearing the weight of an academic hood rivals that of any other bosom upholstery. Lift and separation were mine, in abundance.

Eat your hearts out supermodels! I stood proud, in more ways than one, and took my place on the platform, safe in the knowledge that NOTHING was going to let me down.

You know, they didn't let us down, the ones we remember on Poppy Day. They held us up even unto their last breath. They didn't know us but they knew that we would come in the future and they died to protect that future for us. We live in now, this very moment, the future that they gave their lives for. Don't waste a second of it because it came at a great cost.

And, returning to a familiar theme, our lives and out eternal life are secured by another sacrifice, a life freely given that we might be forgiven and have, when our earthly time is over, everlasting life.

Dear Jesus, help us not to  waste a second of our lives.  We are lifted up before our God and we will never be separated from Him. Because of You. 

It's hard to forget

Remembrance Day soon isn't it. Poppy Day. And then it will be Poppy Day again as we celebrate a whole year of gorgeous chihuahua - ness, and look back on how she came to us, settled in and now runs our lives. Poppy Day.. the reality of what it really means is etched into the face of every member and every former member of the armed forces. Look into their eyes and you can see it.

I can't take the credit for the poem, it is a very famous and often quoted one, and I am sure that during my studies I must have picked up ideas from others. So I thank you, those who have made me think and weave together the thoughts below...

 ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.’

As a child, living in a crowded town in an area where there were row upon row of houses opening straight onto a pavement, things that grew were cultivated, they didn’t get there by themselves. I had lots of experience of fields and farms unlike the other children around me, and I was intrigued by growing things. I knew that things in the country grew by themselves so to speak; I knew that things in the town grew because someone planted them. Poppies were an enigma. They grew on bits of waste ground, bits of grass that hung around on the edges of spaces, around crumbled buildings, and were there was a gap between houses that nothing filled. I loved them; I loved the red of them and the shape of them and the fact that they, like me, seemed to hang around where no one else seemed to want to be. They seemed brave somehow, pushing up through the hard ground and flaunting their loveliness in the dereliction around them. I had little to no idea of the significance of the poppy of course; they were just my flower, bright and lovely. Although I gathered up buttercups and daisies, I never broke the stem of a poppy, it seemed wrong to do so, as if I would be removing a badge of courage from the ground. As a child, I reasoned this, I felt this. Somehow, my childish reasoning must have picked up on Remembrance Day and built in me a subconscious reverence for the flower and its meaningfulness.

Remembrance Sunday isn’t a looking backwards day because when we remember those who died, it brings them into the present-day. As long as we do not forget them they are part of our human community here and now. Their lives and their deeds are still meaningful  to us. If we ever forget them then they will truly be left in the past. So by remembering those who gave their lives for us as we do today we are not living in the past –we are enriching our appreciation of the present..  

Remembrance Sunday is a time for looking forward too. There is a close relationship between remembering and hoping. Hoping is like the future tense of remembering.

 When we hope for something which is yet to happen its like remembering what we believe in and trust in – and so the thing we are hoping for also becomes part of our present day – because what we hope for guides our actions here and now

If we remember the dead but have no hope for them; again it is as if we had left them behind in the past. So as we remember our war dead also we have many hopes. We hope they will never be forgotten in the future. As we remember why they died, we hope that their death will not have been for nothing. As we remember the scale and the horror of war deaths over the last 100 years and all the misery and destruction that flowed from these wars also we hope that there may be no more wars like those in the future.

The Scriptures urge us not to grieve over the dead as if there was no hope. We are to remember what and in whom we believe and have hope – remember what happened to Jesus – he died but we believe he was raised from death. So Christian hope is the dead will rise again. As we remember God; who holds all life in his hands; as we remember Jesus and what he taught and what happened to him; then may we hope that the dead will see a day when they know that they are not forgotten but are forever alive in the love and memory of God.

Remembrance Sunday helps us to make that vital link between people in the past who served us well and our hope of peace in years to come. Today is an opportunity to make the link -as we honour those who died, as we support the work of the British Legion, we are in some way securing some sort of future peace for their families and friends at home. In addition, we honour them by working towards a hope for peace in the future.

Remembrance day reminds us that the peace that we have enjoyed for the last 50 or so years here in Great Britain was not bought cheaply.

It is not just a reminder of those who died in the First and Second World Wars - important as they were. It is also a reminder of other conflicts that our armed services have been in

The Korean War
The Aden and Malayan Emergencies
The Falkland War
The Cyprus Conflict
The Northern Ireland Police Action
The 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars
The Afghanistan and Iraq Conflicts

And it gives us an opportunity to say “Thank you” for the sacrifice that so many made - so that we in the United Kingdom can enjoy peace and we can do so in an informed and thankful way. As Christians we have our book of memories to help and guide us towards the ways of peace and righteousness. Our Bible is a book of memories.

There we can recall God’s goodness to his people starting with the stories of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Old Testament.
There we remember – in the New Testament – the story of God sending his own Son Jesus into the world to bring mankind back into a right relationship with God - culminating with the ultimate sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf on the Cross. Thus a book of remembrance, a book of the present, and a book of, and for, the future, our future and the future of all humankind.

For every one who suffered, Christ suffered too. For everyone whose body was bloodied and torn, so too was his body. For everyone who was wracked with pain so too was he. For everyone who cried out with despair, so too did he cry out. For everyone who entered into a living hell, so too did he, and he took on the hell of the dead, and was victorious, for them, for us, for always.

‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.’

When fighting ceased in 1918 the mud of the battlefields was allowed to rest and nature began to be restored and before long the wild flowers grew and bloomed including the poppy. The colour of red reminded people of bloodshed and the sacrifice made by millions of brave soldiers. And so the poppy became the symbol of sacrifice.

We, in the Christian Church, also have a symbol. It’s the Cross of Jesus. One of His great sayings is: ‘Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13). And that’s just what He did.

Amen.

What's a few months between friends?

I disappeared from the blog scene. Stuff was going on and stuff is still going on, but stuff goes on in the lives of every one doesn't it?

I just felt really guilty about the self indulgence of the whole blog thing. Why should I spend my time writing onto a virtual sheet of paper things about myself, my family and events around me when there is so much happening and needing to be done?

The marking for instance..... the pile just grows and grows.
The essays to be written for my course.......
The ironing. Oh the ironing.

My sister has been to stay. Last summer she tydied up my utility room and folded my rebellious ironing pile into some sort of order. Wonder if she noticed during this visit that IT IS THE SAME PILE? I could have pretended to have recycled it but I really didn't notice myself until she had gone home.

oops.

Well, new developments chez moi. Something popped up, popped in and pops around.
(Sounds so rude!)
It's small, furry and gives a great deal of pleasure.
(Sounds even ruder)
I get to stroke it and it positively trembles with delight.
(Oh the absolute rudeness)
And if I give it a little kiss..............
(Rudeness personified now)
I get over come with love for it
(Overcome with rudeness!)
And I want more.
(shame, shame, shame).

It's POPPY. Poppy is the most delightful, delectable and deliciously cuddly little doggy ever to be found. Description doesn't do her justice, she is ADORABLE and she's here!

For Poppy it has been a tough journey, leaving her previous owners and moving in with us - but I hope it has been worth it for her. Now that I'm back on board with my literary self, I'll post about Poppy and her journey to us and all that I've learned in the meanwhile.

Bye for now folks and thank you for waiting.