Sunday 21st July

 Bear with me... I know what it is I mean to say, but not how to get there.

Let's start with a recipe for vinegar cake;

(I got to vinegar cake from remembering when I used to take the children to the Wildfowl Trust in Arundel at halfterm. On this occasion the half term was blighted by days and days of rain, so I packed up a picnic, snacks, pencil, paper and books for me, and 'set up camp' in a corner looking out at at the birds from the huge window in the main area. Meanwhile the two children, probably about 8 or 9 years old, were fully occupied by all the half term activities; a table for making rubbings of bird shapes, quizzes, 'guess what's in here' feely-boxes with nests, feathers etc, and, wonder of wonders, a giant volcano demonstration involving quantities of vinegar, washing up liquid, red paint and bicarbonate of soda. 

    But that's all by the by)

The recipe for vinegar cake comes from the Norfolk WI, via lavender and lovage. The link comes right at the end of the post, as she says that her first version was too crumbly.

I was going to make the cake today, half quantities as there are only two of us, but I will have to wait until we have some more milk.

Anyway, where was I - oh yes, trying to work out what it is I want to say which is not exactly cakes or vinegar or volcanoes.

I was - oh hang on a moment - the sun has come out so I've had to pause to take off one layer and open the patio door, and then I spotted that some of the erigeron daisies have gone to seed and I wanted to make sure I saved some seed for next year. It self-seeds freely in all the crack between the patio pavers and then has to be rootled out so I wanted to grow some in pots - right, I'm back now

I was thinking about the line in the hymn 'speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, oh still small voice of calm' - now you can see how vinegar cake and volcano experiments fit in?

And how when Elijah was so monumentally fed up with God and hid in a cave, the voice of God wasn't in the storm or the earthquake but in the silence afterwards, and how when Jesus calmed the storm he merely rebuked the waves - can you imagine him looking out at the tumult and merely saying 'now, that's enough, calm down'? Also, when he cast out demons and healed people he didn't seem to be shouting and gesticulating all the time.

Well, over the past few weeks as I've been becoming accustomed a new way of doing things and coming to terms with the implications, I've been doing a fair bit of volcanic eruption, violent storming, torrential outpouring. I'm at the still small place - at the moment. It probably won't last! 

Meet my new friend and companion... it really needs some doodle eyes on it... don't tempt me. I have a whole reel of them close at hand...

I expect God was just waiting for the noise to stop for long enough to get a word in. 

Philipians chapter 4

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I do feel sorry for my Best Beloved, living with someone whose mind and thought processes skitter around in the way I have just demonstrated in this blog post. Now, about those erigeron seeds... oh, is that the time already? I appear to have missed the church livestream. Again...