europe and bees

So Nigel Lawson has declared that when/if there is a referendum he will vote for Britain to come out of Europe. In the last referendum he voted for Britain to go into the EU while I was very grateful that I was away on holiday with friends (who I met at Assembly over the weekend). I remember it well - it was the same summer that snow stopped play at a big cricket match! I was 27 back in 1975, I knew how to sew and how to keep my sanity while bringing up two small boys but I didn't know whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing to go into Europe!
I am quite a bit older now, although I don't feel it inside and I am very fortunate to have a skeleton and muscles that still behave themselves even though other bits are not so good!
But I still would not know which way to vote. We don't know what life would be like if we had not gone into the EU back in 1975 and we don't know what would happen if we came out of the EU.
But I am very grateful that we are in the EU and I will now quote from 'Riverford', from whom we get a box of fruit and vegetables each week and who won 'Farmer of the Year' in 'Radio 4's Food Awards'.
"Hurrah! In a triumph for bees and the independence of science, our Environment Secretary and the chaps from Syngenta were defeated last week by an EU commission vote, which will now restrict the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops. To descend to the Defra position, where nature is expendable unless it can be demonstrated incontrovertibly that it is worth saving on economic grounds, would be hugely depressing. It makes me ashamed to be human and even more ashamed to be British. Thankfully there was more enlightenment elsewhere in Europe - as well as a great number of passionate Brits campaigning here."

Women! written Saturday posted Monday!

Getting a wifi signal while at the Assembly can be difficult - and coming away without the laptop’s charger makes life even more difficult! At last I have some time to blog but this may not be posted until after I get home on Monday although I’m writing this early on Saturday evening.

Great news, we have a new General Secretary - a woman! Lynne Green - and if you read my previous post - she was one of the names I had in mind. I knew of Lynne when I was on the Baptist Union Council - everyone seems very happy. We also have a woman Moderator of Council, a woman Moderator of the Trustees and a woman Vice President. This has been a huge change - only a few years ago all the top positions were held by grey haired men in grey suits!

Today has been one of meeting up with friends as previously arranged but also bumping into friends; one from over thirty years ago and the other from my childhood and teenage years, totally unexpected and quite wonderful!

Having met my blogging friend for breakfast we went to Morning Prayers; a quiet reflective time which we both felt was very special. It was led by Amanda who I first met when I went to meetings at the Baptist Headquarters in Didcot. Amanda will be leaving at the end of next week, and I wish her God’s blessing in her few weeks off before starting an exciting new position. 

Blackpool

It has been a bit quiet on the blogging front due to Easter, a holiday in the Lake District when I went down with a bug that had been going around Chapel - although I don't think I caught it there as folk know they have a cold I appreciate it if they stay at home! and also more home improvements but with someone else doing the work!
I have now arrived in Blackpool for the annual Baptist Assembly.
There is so much to look forward to... and meeting friends comes top of my list - and I've already bumped into a blogging friend. I was so concerned that our paths would not meet that we have arranged to have breakfast together tomorrow.
Then I'm meeting a friend from teenage days - gosh we have been friends for 50 years!
Tomorrow morning the new General Secretary will be announced. The Baptist Union is going through a big shake up and like the position of Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope - no-one wants the job. It will be very interesting to see who gets it! I have a couple of ideas - but doubt if I'm right!
But first things first... I'm off to a prayer meeting - it is so good to start the weekend together in prayer.

simplicity

Having wondered in my last post what the Archbishop of Canterbury would be wearing last Thursday, I was left with mixed feelings. On one hand I was a bit disappointed that he was not wearing a cope that had been specially made for the occasion but that was more than outweighed by the fact that it was the same outfit that he wore as Bishop of Durham and even then it was second-hand!
The cope, stole and mitre had been made for the Revd. Ian Cundy and given to him as a gift when he left St. John's College, Durham where he was a tutor to take up the position of Bishop of Lewes and then Bishop of Peterborough. Sadly he died at the age of 64 but his family kept the set of vestments in the hope that one day this 'mantle' would pass to the right person.
Ian Cundy was Justin Welby's tutor at college and both families worshipped at the same church and became friends, and when Justin became Archbishop of Durham he was offered the vestments and they fitted perfectly! And so, on being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin declined the offer of a new set.
Likewise the new Pope, Francis 1 is wearing simple vestments, so unlike the previous Popes. He is also wearing black shoes under a simple white habit rather than the hand-made red loafers worn by Benedict. Pope Francis 1 is also placing himself on the same level rather than elevated on a throne when welcoming people and has also started inviting guests to his early morning Mass - including Vatican gardeners, street sweepers, kitchen staff and maids working at the hotel where he is currently staying.
I look forward to the ministry of both Francis 1 and Justin Welby.

Justin's cope

I've never been quite sure if I passed my 11+ or not. This is mainly due to my Mum emphasising that the adults in my life got together and decided that I would enjoy a more technical education. When it came time to choose my subjects for GCEs, I chose along with a few academic subjects to take cookery, needlework and embroidery! And the most difficult subject that I undertook was embroidery!
I not only had to know all the different stitches but I had to be able to do it and design for it and know the history of it. Like maths there were three exams to cover all aspects but the exams were far longer.
Studying for the history of embroidery entailed several visits to museums including the British Museum where we looked at copes which were hundreds of years old. They were kept in huge semi-circular wooden boxes so that they were stored flat.
A cope is the cape worn by bishops on ceremonial occasions.
Back last November, Rowan Williams handed back his cope to the people of Wales (he was previously Bishop of Wales). It is thought the the cope cost around £10,000 and was made in Wales from Welsh materials. It was hand-woven in silk, embroidered with gold wire work and lined with Welsh flannel.
For the legal ceremony yesterday, Justin wore plain black and white but at his enthronement in March he will be wearing a cope, mitre and stole. The delay between November when he was chosen until his enthronement could be because there will be some very busy people designing and making these garments. I wait with interest to see his outfit!

riding bikes

I got my first two-wheeler bike for my eighth birthday - it was too big for me so until I grew I had wooden blocks on the pedals!

We were a bike riding family - Dad rode to the station everyday, parking his bike in the bike sheds at the church near by. Mum rode hers to do the shopping with a basket on the front and my brother in a seat behind hers.

And later on we all cycled to church; Dad in front, then me, followed by my brother and then my Mum. By the age of ten I was cycling to school, dancing lessons, Girl's Life Brigade and Sunday School - all of which were at least two miles away.

I passed the cycling genes onto my sons and daughter all of whom have cycled to school and work at one time or another, even if it was over ten miles into the centre of London!

Paul, my younger son has always had a very special love of bikes. At a very young age he borrowed my bike to do the London to Brighton Bike ride with Mark and his Dad. And within a few years he was doing it on his own bike by himself and arriving in Brighton within a very good time, ringing me up to tell me the good news.

While at school he got a weekend job working in a bike shop - his wages each week came home in the form of bike bits in a carrier bag and his 18th birthday present was a bike frame for all the bike bits! He joined a cycling club and raced.

It was very obvious to us all that cycling was Paul's life!

When it came to choosing a career, as parents we thought cycle racing would be his choice.

But no! as a seventeen year old he knew and told us that not only would he have to practice by cycling a hundred miles everyday he would have to take drugs.

A schoolboy knew that over twenty years ago! There are some things in this life that many of us just don't know!

Paul is still cycling, sometimes with his 5yr old son and he carries on buying bike bits but this time for a firm who pays him! He was offered several tickets by his suppliers for various cycling events at the Olympics and chose the Friday when the big races took place. He loves his job!

Congratulations to Nicole Cooke who has just retired from a drug free career in cycling and paving the way for women cyclists.

someone else's 'muriel'

Our decision to move to Wales was one of the spirit and heart rather than the head. It was far from logical, especially when my younger son said that he and his wife were expecting their first baby and we were planning to move miles away.

There was no suitable house for sale that fitted our criteria and we knew that we had to choose a property with our heads and it had to fit our list of 'must haves'. So we rented for two years.

Of course during that time we did fall in love with a 250 year old cottage. 

It needed quite a bit of work and the owners were reluctant to accept our offer. But as the cottage had been on the market for over a year and they wanted a sale they agreed. Two days later it rained, and rained, and rained and a stream up the hill blocked with debris and a torrent of water came straight down the hill flooding the cottage as well as the Chapel so we pulled out and waited another nine months for a suitable house.

When we came for our first viewing, we were a little concerned that the previous occupiers had moved the bathroom to one of the double bedrooms leaving a small box room just big enough for a single bed and a small chest of drawers but no electric sockets. So we had to allow enough money to move the bathroom back and we made it bigger by removing the wall between the loo and small room.

But...

someone had painted a mural in the double room!

Over three years later it is still there but parts of it have been abused by me getting rid of excess paint on my brushes and roller when I finished painting my study and the bathroom. And by the end of today I'm hoping that it will disappear for ever!