What a week.

First of all, the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park.

Amazing! We've been every year for a few years now (me, mum and whoever else is around) and this year was just nice to meander around the gardens and pick up the occasional wonderful idea, and marvel at the often incredible ingenuity of gardeners.

Including a particular one done by Dutch students. Everything was re-used, the theme was infinity - the cycle of life. And sure enough, it had bicycle parts woven into the garden. I particularly liked the path - made of glass bottle bottoms, cans, bottle tops and old tyres.

The best bit though? Spending only £20 on plants, and actually coming away feeling like I'd got something to show for it! They're now planted in my garden, and I hope that in a few years' time they will have grown up a bit and begun to fill up their little bit of garden.

Next up: Soul In The City!

Hurrah! My Holiday for the Year: camping in Uxbridge.

It was so much fun! I reckoned if the weather was always that amazing, I could just live like that...

A typical day comprised:
7.30am crawl out of bed (we had a double mattress in our tent, nicked from our sofabed :o) ... we had a van, it had space, why not take a matress?!)
9am middle of breakfast. Cereal and milk, cup of tea... pot noodle for those who don't do normal meals
10am down to the big top for a morning celebration and teaching from Louis Giglio - excellent stuff
12 o’clock down to the bus to get me and my group off to Ham in Richmond (eat en route!)
1pm briefing at the local church
2pm start gardening! In the glorious sunshine!
4.50pm de-brief
5pm food! Proper good tuck, always helps to have a good meal after gardening ;o)
7.30pm down to the park where there was a marquee and various bands / DJs etc
9pm bus arrives to take us all back to Uxbridge.
12pm bed... z z z z z z

I came away having learned a lot, done a lot (it felt like it anyway) and also feeling like God had a sense of humour – although I was glad I trusted Him.

Steve and I arrived early Sunday afternoon and spent the rest of the afternoon putting up the rest of our church group’s tents as they weren’t expected for another few hours (we took the van, they took the Megabus).

At 7.30, once nearly everyone had arrived, we trooped into the big top to find out what projects we would be doing during the week. I was guardian to a 14-year-old girl from church, and we found ourselves split up from the rest of the group ... when we discovered what our project was, I could hardly believe it.
Old people’s ministry.

I am having a difficult time with my grandma at the moment, she’s pretty old now and is getting grumpier and more confused by the day – it is very difficult to be around her for very long without having to quickly develop coping strategies or run the risk of yelling at her, which wouldn’t help. I thought God must’ve been having a laugh.

So we arrive at our destination on Monday afternoon, and are split again into teams, and I wind up doing ... gardening! I love gardening! I spent the afternoon digging up bushes and weeding (for an elderly couple, mind). Praise God.

Tuesday comes along, and I’m back at the same place, weeding again, while the other two get along with planting pretty things in place of the bushes we dug up yesterday.

Wednesday sees me emptying a shed (you’ve never seen so many cobwebs in such a small space) and sanding and undercoating its door.

Thursday I’m gardening again. Well, sort of. We empty a shed for a lovely old lady who has Parkinson’s disease, and spend the next hour putting everything back again for her. Maybe she just wanted some company! The next hour and a bit I spent talking about the plants in her garden with her and her neighbour, learning stories about various plants – her garden was a Friendship garden. When she moved in a year and a half ago, friends and relatives all brought plants and cuttings for her as a housewarming, so all the plants had stories. One rosebush was discovered desperately trying to grow from under a pile of bricks, so they rescued it and decided to call it “Blessings” as it had been a blessing they’d spotted it. On further digging, they discovered the name tag was still around its stem: guess what it was called. You’d not believe it. Blessings.

Friday we had a picnic for the oldies, on Ham Common. A more genteel sight you never did see! We had a marquee serving tea and coffee and cakes and sandwiches, flutes playing duets, dancers and a small choir to entertain; basking in the afternoon sunshine. And I spent most of the afternoon on a park bench opposite the common talking to a guy who looked homeless but said he had a flat, drinking tea and talking about life.
God’s amazing, he gave me a fright on Sunday and I could’ve given up there and then and said I couldn’t do it; but he’s blessed me with such a week that I couldn’t really have asked for better.

Friday evening, after dinner and throughout the evening’s entertainment and on the bus home, I spent time looking through the Bible to find specific verses of encouragement to give to each member of the team I had been on. I’ve never done this before, although people whose teams I have been on have often done it. It was quite amazing, finding verses that I knew existed, but never realised they were where they were. There’s a verse, John 14:26, which says that the Holy Spirit reminds you of things you have learnt, and that’s what was happening to me.

I had such a good time.

Then Saturday arrived and everything came down and packed back into the van, and off we drove back to Manchester. Everything was deposited, van returned, and then back home ... ?

No – back to my parents house, for a shower, to change into clothes we left there a week ago, and back to Tatton Park for ...


And Finally: Fireworks and Light: The Hallé in concert at Tatton Park

Another fantastic evening, just to round off the week. We didn’t buy a programme, and unfortunately it’s been a couple of days now and I can’t remember what they played, but it as a good evening, enjoyed by all. Steve and I went, both my brothers and their girlfriends went, and my mum went. Plenty of photos were taken on mum’s camera, but as I’d not taken mine to London I still didn’t have it with me... oh well! Even the lack of forks to eat chopped up mayonnaised salad with didn’t dampen the evening.

The “final” piece had been played, the fireworks had been let off and were beautiful, the audience had started packing up their belongings in the dark... and then the orchestra struck up with the Indiana Jones theme tune to more fireworks and much applause! So after all the beautiful music that had been played, people’s abiding memory of the concert will be Indiana Jones and fireworks. Classic.