tremours

A few years ago when buying organic food the lady at the till told me that she could not afford to buy it. My response was to explain that we did it for health reasons and that as we didn't go to the pub or theatre or cinema, good food was what we could enjoy. A doctor when diagnosing ME (chronic fatigue) advised a diet cutting out all 'e' numbers! So many folk want to buy food as cheaply as possible, fuelled by the supermarket wars, not realising that it is not usually the supermarkets that take the cut but the farmers!
I believe that my tremour is the result of the cheap food I ate back in the sixties, seventies and eighties - there is the saying 'we are what we eat'. My tremour is benign and not Parkinsons but because of my tendency towards asthma I cannot take the usual pills but have found some that seem to take the edge of it - until I get into a social setting! It is ok if it is dinner and I'm not driving, as a glass of wine works wonders but that is no good if you are having breakfast in a hotel before driving a hundred miles! My bacon and mushrooms I could spear with my fork - no trouble - but the scrambled egg refused to stay on my fork and flew off before it reached my mouth! but I was the only one in the dining room - hardly a social setting! in the end I gave up and copied my younger grandboy and used my fingers - job done! Methinks another visit to the docs to talk about what to do when my shakes go wild!

catalyst live14

I got there and it was brilliant! 
I've come away with thoughts yet to digest, some wonderful memories and a couple of books by two of the speakers! One of the books is the autobiography of Sir John Houghton. I was first encouraged to think responsibly about our planet by one of our lodgers thirty years ago and immediately changed my washing liquid and washing up liquid to a more environmentally friendly one. Since then we have changed our eating habits to organic food, grown without the chemicals that continue to damage our environment and our bodies. Over the years and through his Dartmoor blog, he has made me aware that we have already past the peak oil production - we now have less oil under the ground than we have already used up! Sir John, speaking just before lunch, made us aware that the oil companies are not at all worried by climate change and the melting of the icecaps as there is more oil to be found underneath. As we approached lunchtime I had a sick feeling in my stomach!
The day was interspersed by poems from Lucy Berry and I hope to use one or two of her poems in my next service.
The highlight of the day for me was the talk from Glen Marshall on Jazz. As well as being a co-principal of the Northern Baptist College, he also blows. He spoke and his talk was illustrated by the playing of a sax by one of his fellow blowers. It was loud and beautiful! His talk took me from smiles to tears, touching something deep within me.

its been a funny week

I've arrived in Reading ready for Catalyst tomorrow. Having lived life to the full in past years I now have to take things a little easier, so I'm sitting in my hotel room having driven here this afternoon. I love driving which is good as Tuesday I drove back from a holiday in Kent and Essex, visiting my brother and his wife and also my elder son and family. We have a small camper van and camped just outside Canterbury. We were able to walk into town and thought it would be nice to have a short visit to the Cathedral; a little walk around with time to sit and pray but when we saw the entrance price, we decided that £19 was rather expensive for half an hour. I'm assured that the audio guide is excellent but we didn't want that amount of information. So we admired the gateway and walked away.
Yesterday I went to the village Coffee Club having stepped down as chairwoman, I am now the treasurer as no-one else wanted the job! I managed to get three loads of washing done, dried with a few items needing an iron. But why did I put the last load on this morning? with no time to dry ready for ironing! Sometimes I need to remember to engage brain!
Last year I came to Reading with a friend but woke on the day of Catalyst feeling awful and spent the whole day in bed, feeling better the next day to drive us home! Fortunately I have no sense of any bug having crept up on me, so hopefully I will get there tomorrow.