Sunday 14th August - Bible Society Video Trek

Bear with me, non-churchy types; I think this is interesting for anyone who is fascinated by Ancient History...

I was looking for the next project or theme or whatever for my very casual church homegroup (we meet on zoom to chat, and talk about whatever we were supposed to have looked at during the week but forgot or didn't get round to). The constraints are; 

It must be freely available, as I don't want us all to have to buy some book or course,

It must not be prescriptive as in, 'read this and then answer these questions'

I need to be able to quickly and easily print off something to send to one member who is not on the internet, and joins the group at a friend's house

I need to like it and find it interesting and thought provoking

It needs to be amusing (sorry, I have a mostly, but not always lighthearted and frivolous approach to things)    

At the Bible Society website I discovered this video series;

and so we are sorted. The videos are only a few minutes long, so it is easy to watch them during the zoom, and I can easily copy and paste and post the extra information.

What is really interesting is seeing the places, so different to here in England, where the events of the Old and New Testament took place, and hearing Andrew Ollerton's quirky take on them.

And yes, I did buy his book 'The Bible', after doing a 'look inside' on Amazon.

Anyone who can write this gets my attention

  

Saturday 13th August - Ooo err, What happened there?

 I have just deleted yesterday's post as the formatting for the blog seemed to have gone crazy, and somehow yesterday's post and the day before's were somehow overwritten on top of each other.

Deleting yesterday seems to have solved the problem.

But time and tide wait for no man, and you will never find out about yesterday...

I woke up at 4am this morning, and crept down stairs and out into the back garden without switching on any lights to try and save my night vision.

Luckily the full moon was still just to the side of the house, but it was still pretty light, light enough to see the flowers in the border. After a while more stars became visible as I became accustomed to the darkness, and eventually I SAW A SHOOTING STAR, a single bright silver-white streak across the sky!

That was the only one; I didn’t stay out long because star gazing is jolly hard on the neck muscles. I expect I could have spent longer outside if I had brought a blanket out to be able to lie down, but neither the hard paving nor the prickly dry grass seemed like comfortable options. I wonder if you can buy specially designed star-gazing camp chairs? Probably one of those loungers that capsize when you try and get out of them would be a possibility.

I have had this as an ear-worm for several days now; but a lovely ear-worm all the same. 'Moon and stars' is the bit that has got stuck, like a needle on a record.

 Today is another day of seeking out cooler spots. One cat is almost invisible at the back of a flowerbed close to the house; her fur is exactly the same colour as the earth. The other laboriously oscillates between ‘her chair’ and the floor by the piano. The current afternoon spot for humans is outside in the shade where a breeze comes around the corner of the house, not too far from the fridge.

Thursday 11th August - How are you doing?

 We. Are. Melting. 

I have opened every single door in the house, including the front door, in an effort to get some kind of air flow, but the breeze that comes through the house is roughly the same temperature as the blast that meets you when you open the oven door while cooking.

"Could you limit yourself to no more than half an hour on the computer?" he asked, "as I haven't got round to hoovering out all the fans yet."

At last, the desire to do watercolours has returned, after many, many months. It is a good job that I don't earn my living from painting pictures. All it took was idly scanning through youtube videos, and then one high-speed tutorial caught my attention, and I thought "I can do that!". And in time, I will be able to. I have re-labelled a part used book "Experiments and Mistakes", rather as I labelled my very first sketch book, and am beginning to use it.

Drawings;

Saturday 6th August

- I have forked out the princely sum of £10 for a set of six five-minute stretching sessions from www.balletbasedmovement.com. I strongly recommend them; here is one of their free videos

It is a delightful older mother / dance teacher daughter combination. She started teaching her mother ballet exercises because her mother had balance and foot strength issues, and many of the videos are free. 

Sunday 7th August - water saving continues. We now carry a couple of buckets of bath water downstairs to save for the garden and let the rest run down the plughole to prevent the drains from clogging.

Monday 8th August

We joined a large (about 40 people?) family lunch party, at the most gorgeous location about 90 minutes drive from us. It was a boiling hot day, but the venue had an elegant covered terrace in the shade, so it was perfect. We came late, in time for coffee, speeches and toasts (the occasion was a memorial lunch for my Aunt who dies in 2021), as I desperately wanted to be there, but also need to be so careful about avoiding catching Covid.

Tuesday 9th August - Oh thank heavens for the piano tuner, who worked his usual magic!

  Time's up - need to power down!