Sunset is Meaningful

In the Northern Hemisphere

sunrise and sunset feel like they are on "the wrong side" for me.

This sunset on our way home at about 4pm-ish

feels like it is on the East.

Sunset is about 4:30pm at the moment.

Since I see the sunset easily every day from my spare bedroom in La Lucia,

I will think on these sunsets here on this trip and feel connected to

my loved-ones here.

Final Week with Hilmar and Dianne

We enjoyed a quiet week with Hilmar, Dianne and Phillipa.

We like to quiet right down before the rigors of our international flight.

I enjoyed the view out of their lounge window. 

Beautiful Autumn is in the air...

The leaves are changing colour all around.

Our final week we slept in their lounge.

At night we took down and covered the clock so as not to hear the ticking.

I put it on the couch.

Tulip tried and tried to get the moving second hand.

It was so funny watching her persistence in trying to get that moving thing!

I thought I'd be compassionate and remove the offending hand by turning the clock over.

Then she tried to get to it underneath.

Lovely minutes among the last of our trip's memories.

So good to spend time with Dianne and see her 

consideration and compassion growing and blossoming. 

She is beautifully professional with her clients.

She is so talented and unusually aware. 

Good to see her managing her various challenges with 

more skill and confidence.

She is a really good woman in many ways.

I'm proud to be her mother.

I'm thrilled to hear she and Hilmar have been called to coordinate the

Faith in God Primary activity days programme. 

(I think that is what it is called...?)

I pray this will be a blessing to them individually and together.

Phillipa is thrilled!

Hilmar took us on Tuesday to catch the X26 bus to the airport.

We awoke at 4am to catch the bus just after 5am in Croydon.

And then from bus to Heathrow express train to terminal 4.

Our flight was delayed.

This is us taxi-ing towards take-off.

Goodbye lovely England...

I love your grey days.

See you again next year... Deo volente.

I loved the discipline and professionalism of the Etihad Airlines stewardesses.

Doug asked what Abu Dhabi airport was like.

Glitsy... differently glitsy to Dubai airport.

I loved this mosaic creation in the centre court of our departure terminal.

Wonderful craftsmanship.

I liked this lego camel.

I took the photo for Samuel.

Please show it to him someone?

When we got home I was thrilled to hear that Hilmar has been accepted 

as a participant in the Harrod's Management Programme.

Go Hilmar!

Go Dianne!

Go Phillipa!

Tot siens...

Pause for Reflection...

Ponderings on my journey from Carisbrook to Redhill - 15th September 2015:

"We need one another, so I will defend each man as my brother, each man as my friend."

My beloved ones on the Island - I echo Jesus' words
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

"We're on this train to where this train is going."
(Inside in our souls and/or outside in our bodies.) 

From evening scripture reading with Samuel and Isaac 
the night before we left:
"Jesus was led up of the Spirit to the wilderness...
Then Jesus was taken up into the holy city
and the Spirit setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple..."
(Sometimes when we go to be with God in a 'high place' 
or when we are placed in, elevated to, 'high' places' 
we are severely and thoroughly tested...)
(And... by the way... then we have a TESTimony afterwards...)

Advert on our train journey:
"Those who face the music get to pick the tune."
(I can do the really hard learning and practicing... then I am free-er!
More able to be creative!  More Useful. More used would I be.)

"Sometimes it is interesting 'outside' while we are around a silly 'inside' conversation.
Sometimes the conversation 'inside' is more interesting and not much 'outside.'
(I was reading my morning scriptures on the ferry being conscious of 
some Bestival goers conversing next to me.  
Then I was looking outside the ferry windows still surrounded by chatter.  
We couldn't find three seats together so Glenn and Patrick sat together 
and I sat two rows in front of them in a single seat with the windows 
of the ferry right in front of me.)

My mind wandered to remembering our last Sunday School lesson.
"There are several individuals in the class this morning that are
'strangers and foreigners' to those usually in this class -
yet in this class 'we' are neither strangers nor foreigners,
but of the household of God, gathered in this place on this day
to be blessed and to bless."

I thought about how I sometimes feel about a 
"Public Displays of Affection" - that it can be distasteful.
I thought about people who can be churlish and surly publicly.
.I got here to Dianne's and looked up the definition of the words:
churlish - rude, mean-spirited.
surly - bad-tempered, unfriendly.
"Is that not also distasteful?  A public display of churlish and surly behaviour?"
Distasteful - disagreeable, unpleasant. 
"Hard for the one receiving that churlish and surly behaviour,
and unbecoming to the one behaving that way.
Difficult too for the ones witnessing it."
Sometimes it is me being churlish and surly... sobering.

I said to Angela at Jungle Jim's
"We are on the way to being FULL of grace and truth like the Saviour.
Of course we will not get it right all the time.  We are on our way.
There are those around us who are ahead of us - we can learn from them,
ask them how they do it, watch how they do it, and try it.
We are ahead of some others.  We can be generous and compassionate
to them and let them learn from us as they reach out to us."

On one of the stations our train stopped at I saw someone look at their watch...
I thought "It doesn't matter what YOUR watch says the time is...
the clock on the platform is the one these trains follows...."
A big lesson as I apply the principle in my life.

I look forward to this day -  
when 'they' will be able to let any 'nursing or weaned child' 
in their presence be themselves un-attacked by them.  
I love it when I am in the presence of those who are able to, 
but do not,strike at the nursing or weaned child parts of me.
I love being around those who do not HURT or DESTROY (Me).
I then feel like I am indeed in HIS... HOLY... MOUNTAIN...
I love that 'rest', His rest.
Not for the faint-hearted...

Isaiah 11:9
8The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, 
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. 
9They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, 
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD 
As the waters cover the sea. 
10Then in that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, 
Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; 
And His resting place will be glorious.…

"Honour thy father and thy mother..."
Not one, or the other...
Both.
Find ways to honour MY father and MY mother...

I remember one who had challenging parents say 
of his father  "I learned integrity from him."
and of his mother "I learnt compassion from her."
Knowing his parents my respect for him went up as he 
mentioned the qualities he singled out to honour in each of them.

I have some more work to do...
"One day at a time, sweet Jesus - "

Isle of Wight Final Week

So sweet...

Cheryn was changing Emily's nappy,

Isaac was gently holding her head.

Emily has grown!

She is a dear little baby.

Glenn spent a lot of time figuring out where the fault was.

The electricity were tripping out intermittently...

By this time his knees were sore so he worked lying on his side in the loft area. 

Friday evening Glenn and Patrick were still busy with the electricity problem that 

turned out to be three problems that happened to appear to be one.

Samuel and Isaac were somewhat poorly so when they were asleep

Angela and I joined Pete, Zeek, Rachel, Corbin, Cheryn and Emily and

six or eight other adults, all but one of whom I didn't know, and three other children.

Pete prepared a beach potjie at Fort Victoria beach.

What a particularly special evening for me at the beach sitting around the campfire

and telling stories and having meaningful conversations.
The tide was lapping in, approaching the campfire.
In Pete's temporary absence
I started the precarious move of the fire to higher, safer, beach sand.
By the time we left the in-coming tide was licking the embers
in the previous place the campfire was situated.
I'm sure Pete had no intention of being at the site so late.
Circumstances developed and so it turned out to be.
An unexpected and very special evening for me. 

We hardly saw much of Roxanne and Vincent this visit.

They were in and out about their Young Adult business.

This is a sign at Samuel's class room.

Saturday afternoon we took Samuel and Isaac to a friend's birthday party at Shanklin.

                            

And after the party we strolled to the beach to de-stress

from the noise and the psychedely (my word)

This was on the way to the beach.

On the beach across the road from Jungle Jim's.

I liked seeing Angela's hair flying in the breeze.

She is going to have it cut and donate it for wigs.

She is truly a good woman in many, many ways.

 Guess whose toes?

Do you see these little toes?

I went for a beach stroll.

And back again to the sand-play.

Samuel wandered off.

Lovely almost two hours on the beach after Jungle Jim's.

  Bless Angela... she puts the last of the sandwiches out for the sea gulls.

                      

Yesterday (Monday) we went to Bebe-Chinnos with Isaac

before fetching Samuel a little later.

I saw this sign in one of the home doorways on the way back from there!

I had a good giggle.

We fetched Samuel.

I stayed in the car and enjoyed seeing these berries.

I also enjoyed a feast of blackberries again!

Cheryn visited for the last time beinging Emily.

Here is Kieran feeding her as they were about to leave in the evening.

The lounge has curtains!

Glenn put up the rails.

Dianne found the curtains on free-cycle.

I adapted the curtains to fit.

The laundry has curtains too!

They needed shortening.

 And back on the early-morning ferry today with Patrick.

There were lots of Bestival-goers on board too.

Most of them left Sunday night or yesterday.

In Southampton there were three huge cruise ships that I saw docked.

This is one of them.

The cars on the ferry.

Grey day today.

I love grey days.

We have been blessed in our travels - un-wet weather every time until today

when it was fine drizzle.  Lovely.

On the train to Redhill again...

I liked the message in this advert.

"Find your place."

Indeed.

Find out who you are and what YOUR place in the world is.

More lovely flowers on one of the stations.

Our journey was about two and a half hours.

Another good message...

"Believe in better."

Indeed.

Dianne met us at Redhill again

and we are here for our last week!