Scattergories.

(This lily happens to be called Scatterbrain!)


Last night was our House Group Christmas party. We all met at Brian and Jill's for a meal, which incidently, was lovely. Following the eating, Jill and Brian decided it was game time.

Scattegories is the now, commercial name, for a very simple game that many people play/have played and call many different names. For my family is was 'Animal, Vegetable and Mineral'. Not that we ever had 'mineral' as a category (who knows enough of them?!), but the name stuck.

Jill gave out the paper, Brian the pencils. Jill called out the categories as we all wrote them down. The starting letter was chosen and off we went.

The rules were quite strict (or should I say, bizarre) - I wasn't allowed Dark blue for a 'D' colour, but I was allowed Dusky pink ???? !!!!!!

But it was so reminiscent of 'the old days'. Sunday afternoons at home with my Grandparents. Grandma Watson knowing every flower and tree under the sun - for every letter of the alphabet, Grandma Ord making them up! Grandad Watson 'resting his eyes', but then whispering answers if we'd managed to position ourselves close enough (then stealing our pen and paper to spell the latin names correctly!).

Oh those were the days. And I miss them.

Scrooge?

It was a cold, damp morning on the playground as the grumpy teacher went out to meet the 30 small beings who would spend the day causing trouble, as usual.

On approaching the disjointed line of eager beavers, she spotted a brave soul giving out white, named envelopes to the specially chosen ones.

"Is someone having a party" the Grumpy one enquired.

One child leapt with excitement "No Miss, it's my first Christmas card."

The child knew, as soon as the words left his naive lips, that he should have kept his mouth shut, or better still, lied.

The innocent, wide eyed children clung to their enevlopes, anticpating Grumpy's next move.

"It's November. Since when did we celebrate Christmas in November? Bring them back when it really is Christmas."

The cards were dutifully and painfully gathered and replaced into the grimy, blue book bag.

Heads hung low.

Bar Humbug.

Really, Kirsty, there's no need to thank me!

"I'm Kirsty and I've got new hair"

How do I find out?

Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I?

What do I think?
What do I feel?

Why do I do?
Why do I don't ?

Why can I be?
Why can I not?

Who decides when?
Who decides not?

Who really is me?

Mathematical Morning

Last night was a late one. Went on a Hen Night.
+ I'm on a course today. No school
= Sleep in.

Just gone online to check where the course is and spotted it starts at 9.30 instead of 9.
COULD HAVE HAD 30 MORE MINUTES IN BED!

GrrrrrRRRrrrrr.

Another day at the office

At work today, a well respect teaching assisstant said to me: "25 years I've worked here....and it's worse today than it's ever been."

The children are hard work sometimes. They have a severe lack of respect for themselves, their friends, their teachers (or indeed any adult).

They don't care about their surroundings or the equipment they use.

They have day, after day, after day off school....get behind in their learning...have more days off because they don't fit in and can't keep up. And so it continues.

They don't see the point of school, so run away fast enough to not get caught.

They claim disabilities, inequalities, differences, to stand out, get attention, be different, be noticed.

They swear, they hit, they argue. And that's just with the adults.

A normal days work? A teacher's job? Maybe. They're only children, afterall.

But there's more to it than that.

I simply responded "Even more reason why we have to love them."

"It's ok for you," she replied, "you've got a faith."

She's finding it hard. It's hard to give out when, on the receiving end, negativity is all you get.

"But what if we give up on them? They respond to us like this because of how they are used to being treated elsewhere. If we, the only example of calm, kind, love, smiles, forgiveness etc etc that they get, don't show them how life 'should' be, how will they ever know?"

I continued....."Not all nice people have a faith, but for me it's the only way."

Another day in the rain.

The title of my blog 'Another day in the snow' is something that I aim for day, after day, after day, and can honestly say, I don't experience often.

The title was inspired by a passage in the book 'Dangerous Wonder' which is one of the most powerful passages I have ever read and perfectly, puts in to words, by heart's desire and how I feel about God.

Today, although momentarily, I had that experience. The songsters sang 'You are the light'. It is a song that I love, but have never been able to sing all the way through. Today was different. I sang it, no problem. I still meant it, but, no tears.

The next song we sang was 'It must be love'. I've never been a huge fan of this song. I can't really put my finger on 'why', exactly, it's not the words, meaning, notation, but I just think it's generally a hard song to sing.

In relief of getting through 'You are the Light' I must have lost myself in the words, because an overwhelming sense of God and his love just came over me.

It was almost like I saw the realisation move from the back of the church, towards me and 'drench' me.

It was then that we turned to look at three powerpoint pictures, demonstrating how open (or not) we can be to receiving the Holy Spirit. The final picture encapsulated the moment for me - "Another day in the rain"

It's not the same picture and doesn't quite have the edge, but I have longed for a long time, and still long for every day to be another day in the snow.....more than just a 5 minute feeling.