Thanks to Anne for the humour!!

I actually laughed out loud this morning after I had adopted a confident exterior and proudly announced to a friend on MSN that I was going to wash my hair in the wash basin. I boiled a kettle, emptied a bucket of bath water into the sink and topped it up with boiling water. I dutifully stuck my head in the sink only to find that it covered about 1/3 of my hair!! I literally had to do a headstand of sorts to get my head wet and then finish it off with a headstand in the bath!! I do now feel vaguelycleansed, but a bit of an idiot… Also, when you wash long hair upside-down you emerge l0oking like a Yeti!!

Wahey! got there in the end… Serious knots to contend with…

Ok now there is a warning that the water that is currently coming through the taps could become contaminated with lethal bacterias.  There is a wonderful article in the Echo where some guy calls parents ridiculous for sending their children outside to play in the flood waters…  The next sentence says: ‘”I would strongly advise anyone who comes into contact with to make sure they thoroughly wash their hands. “   !!!!!  With WHAT?!?!?  Contaminated water?!

I knew that we were doomed when this morning a letter dropped through the letter box with ‘Alex Clark Lettings’ stamped on the front.  Of course, we have been living here three months now…  Inspection time!  WAAARRGGHHHHH  PANIC!!!  Oh it’s ok, they’ll give us the statutory 28 days notice.  Oh hang on a minute… Ah.  No they won’t – we’re coming on WEDNESDAY!  Two days.   Great.  The house looks as though a small nuclear explosion has occurred, there are pieces of woodchip wallpaper in the sorts of places in which you should never EVER find them, furniture everywhere, bits of wall dug out where the paper has come off (we had planned to fill the holes and use lining paper to strengthen the cardboard walls), the kitchen carpet (yes, carpet) has started to go mouldy (roll on the case for a lino!) and the bath is full of water (Monty fell in it this morning… Whoops) in snticipation of not being able to flush the toilet soon!  Great timing as always.

I had decided to buy some pink wellies for New Wine (and was feeling rather excited by this prospect).  I had seen loads in the shops and wasn’t at all worried about trying to buy any…  Until Friday that is…  I looked around town on Saturday and could I find wellies??  No.  Panic buyers!! Grrr…

However,  I eventually found some magical pink princess wellies in Faith.  They are beautiful, so I am really pleased!  JT bought some black wellies with steel toe caps from ‘Price Less Shoes’!!  No messin’.   The problem is, I have been avoiding puddles because my new wellies are so beautiful!  This can’t be right…

Last night was another fantastic games night at the Rayfields’… Much silliness ensued following some delicious food (as ever!) by Karen. We started with a giant game of Cranium which the girls won hands down – wooop! After this, for whatever reason, late at night, we all decided to put on hats to play Poker. Most people modeled Kangol hats (all this year’s editions) but I wore a Fatface cowboy hat and Al wore Gabriel’s Monsoon baby hat! It was a very comical game, no-one knew the rules except for JT and Mark and there was a lot of chip-robbing occurring. A late night followed and caused us to be a little sleepy when taking JT’s Dad out to lunch today for his birthday! Still, nice meal at the Langton – recommended!

Church was great tonight, really enjoyed it.  I am reflecting upon various things including a word I had a long time back about Noah and his ark (about a new building?)…  God told Noah to build an ark and everyone thought he was crazy.  When the floods came I am quite sure they changed their minds!!  Well God has told us to build a church and various people think that it is crazy to hire a building, or look to buy a big one.  We forget that that ‘building a church’ is about building a people and can get focused on the nitty-gritty things like the walls to surround the people.  We get cross about the money being spent on these walls without noticing what God is doing amongst the people.

The trouble is, we get so insular, we look inwards at the people amongst us and the problems that we are facing, but then the town actually goes and gets flooded and the council phone Mark and ask for help!  Praise the Lord!  You see the church involves the building of the ‘people’ and the ‘presence’ of God  and those in the floodwaters outside the ark can see this.  Why are we so blind from inside the ark?  It is because we’re not the ones in the waters struggling whilst seeing that there is this whopping great lifeboat on the horizon ready to save us.  Would our reaction to God building his church (and yes, His building) be different if we were the ones in the water looking for something to save us?

So  we’ve got to lose this mentality of ‘two of a kind – I’m alright jack’ and actually take a look outside of oursleves.  This building is not to house US, but those still in the water.  Yes, we fit in the ark but right now they don’t so we’d better not be content with being a dinghy.  I was challenged recently by the notion that those who can lead must lead, because if those who can lead are not leading, then those who could be following are not following…  Problem.

You gotta love Cheltenham…  A bit of rain means that you can break any rules you like, such as red traffic lights meaning stop, driving down the High Street (seriously, check the pic!), etc.  I have included some more floodish pics too as it has been a bit of a nightmare for some.

Stolen from Rob C’s Facebook…

1.  You have to worry when, upon stopping at a service station on the way home for the loo, you feel like you have walked into the en-suite bathroom of a 5* hotel

2.  Team meals…  When handed a plate of lettuce with a dollop of tuna mayo on top, there is always a beefy man or three who adopts a face that resembles a bulldog chewing wasps

3.  Female stewards always wear shorts and take their yellow vest VERY seriously.

4.  If you walk past the big top around 9am, you are guaranteed to be serenaded by ‘a bit of Bennetts’!!

5.  Never EVER try to negotiate with a herd of small helmet-clad children on miniature bicycles with stablisers… You will lose.

6.  You learn more in the showers about family life than in any other situation

7.  The youth venue is placed as far away from civilisation as is humanly possible and there is a good reason for this

8.  A stroll round the market place will always result in an unwanted conversation with a bearded man with glasses, wearing a white with very 90′s flourescent bits T-shirt, a navy blue bum bag and matching shorts, and hi-tec trainers.

9.  People who work in the food vans learn more than any other time that they are loved by Jesus.  They are not so loved by the enthusiastic minstrels who one minute proclaim the smiling love of Jesus and then spout a barrage of ‘acceptable Christian swear words’ when told the price of their Belgian waffle with maple syrup.

10.  Toilet paper ends up in the most peculiar places!

11.  A trip to Street on a day off makes you feel like a celebrity (who shops in a discount outlet store!), everyone knows you.
12.  It is really embarrassing when, whilst following the ‘snaked’ dinner queue, you keep making eye contact with a complete stranger because they look strangely familiar.

13.  A trip to Club One will often result in slime being emptied over you, or sitting on a complete stranger’s lap!

14.  The most enlightening and simultaneously humiliating experience to occur whilst camping with Trinity at New Wine is that you flop down in a green camping chair and help yourself to a glass of wine only to discover, three conversations later, that you have turned up at the wrong party because it it is dark and everyone’s gazebos look the same!  You hurriedly finish the glass of wine, mutter something about getting in the toilet queue before bed and unsubtly go and join the correct party, where your friends are making far too much noise.

15.  At some point during the week, without fail, a tractor with orange lights on it will plow through your field unexpectedly at approximately 5am.

16.  There is something slightly unnerving about bumping into your pastor whilst exiting the toilets at the same time…  What do you say?!  “Nice…er… wee?!”

17.  The most surreal toilet experience happens when you choose the luxury green ones on lorries and seat yourself only to discover that carmina burana is coming out of a speaker (but where?!).  You have a quick scout around in a fit of intrigue and discover a car stereo with a tape in it hanging from the ceiling.

18.  It never ceases to amaze me how people can have a continuous supply or fresh flowers and plants on tables outside their caravan!  I usually have muddy socks outside my tent…

19.  You can spot New Wine techies a mile off…  They wear black with large boots and will always have a lanyard with lots of cards, gadgets and a leatherman hanging from it!!  They also look just ever so slightly perturbed…

20.  Never EVER, under any circumstance, undress in your tent by the light of a torch…  Whilst your shadow may do flattering things to your contours, you will be seen by everybody outside and they may not be able to look at you in quite the same light again!  (oops I should hope not! ! I meant ‘in the same way’!)

21.  One week will be wet, one will be dry.

22.  No matter how much you try to convince yourself that you are at ‘New Wine’, the smells and tell-tale bits of lingering straw always give that slightly odd reality check that you are actually standing in a cow shed singing to the Lord.  This is a peculiar sensation.

23.  Walking around at night guarantees tripping over numerous tent ropes and stubbing your toes on a few tent pegs.

24.  Shepton Mallet gives mud a whole new meaning… Perhaps the remnants filter down from Glastonbury.

25.  You will always slip on a potato skin at some point on the floor of the food court.

I was ashamed at my delight just now, when my wallpaper scraper started to make a theremin-type noise which was directly in tune with thee slightly embarrassing shuffle track playing on iTunes: Need you Tonight by INXS(!)