Snow wishing

All evidence to the contrary many of my colleagues are hoping for heavy snow tomorrow so that they can get a day off. I think that they are likely to be disappointed. I can't say I'm fussed either way.

It's funny, but I am feeling really good at the moment, my health is as good as it has been for five years or more and I feel OK in myself. I don't really know why, but my outlook is very positive at present.

Nothing has really changed in my life to explain this, except that I am actually managing to pray every day - not always for very long or very well, but at least I am keeping at it, which is a major achievement.

The thing is, the more you pray, the better you can cope with life's ups & downs, and the better you feel. The trick is to get into this virtuous circle, and stay there and not allow life to push you out of it.

I can't believe that Lent starts next week. Still it'll give me a chance to look at Delia's other book.

Thank goodness it's Friday

It has been quite a long week, and I'm feeling quite tired; though for some reason a am also feeling quite relaxed. I think that this may be something to do with my decision to avoid getting worked up about work - after all nobody else seems to care that much, so why should I kill myself because of it. I don't mean that I'm not bothered about doing my job well, I have too much self-respect for that. It's just that from now on I'm going to do it differently, and I'm not going to get wound up by people or events.

Why this sudden change, well, it dawned on me the other day that I just don't get paid enough for that amount of stress, and if this means that things don't get done - well there is only one of me and people are going to have to accept that.

Last night we had an SVP meeting and the reading on spirituality was very thought-provoking, it was one of those occasions when you hear something said in a way you have never heard before and something goes click and you see the World in a new way. This is part of the reading:

"We aspire to infinity, to God, and yet we are living in a finite time and space with the many constraints that brings. Our hearts are actually made for union with everybody, and to relate to everything, yet we cannot, on earth, experience more than a taste of what awaits us in the fullness of time. It is not surprising, therefore, that we experience an insatiable appetite for love, that we experience loneliness, that in our restlessness we may turn to alcohol or drugs. Our longing and yearning for a universal love is infinite and with the grace of God our capacity is infinite."

Somehow, though I've heard the same thing said in many different ways before, it never really struck home in the same way. Being a perfectionist this comes as something of a revelation; but I find it somehow freeing - life will never be perfect so just accept it for what it is and get on with it.

After SVP finished I went to play badminton, I have to say I played some of the best games I've ever played, though I was quite tired by the end and was flagging by the last game. Still overall I was very pleased with my performance and enjoyed myself immensely; it was also great exercise, I got very out of breath, which I don't usually.

Today

Apparently today is the most depressing day of the year. Funny thing is I've felt quite good today, I think I was a bit ahead of the trend and had mine last week.

I haven't been posting much lately - too much TV & video games. I've been playing C&C TW3 this week. The annoying thing is when I got to the end of the scenario the storyline totally ignored the fact that I'd won without doing what they expected me to do. So it didn't make any difference that I'd managed to avoid using the WMD (thus destroying half of Europe), they acted as if I did anyway. Oh well, never mind.

Our new Deacon gave his first proper sermon on Sunday, it was very good. I also discovered that I'd double booked myself on Thursday with SVP & badminton, hmm this could be interesting - can I get to both?

Last week I actually managed to beat HL for the first time in ages, I'm finally beginning to figure out how to deal with his service. Unfortunately I then managed to lose to RM for the first time in ages, though it was very close.

Quote of the week

I think it's time for another quote, this one is from Albert Schweitzer:

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."

I have just come across another really good quote from him, so today is two for one day:

"Do something wonderful, people may imitate it."

Jesse James

Saw "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" last night, it was an excellent film. Brad Pitt & Casey Affleck were both excellent, the script, sets & cinematography were superb. Also something you don't often notice in films , but which I feel compelled to comment on in this case, was the sound, not the musical score (though that was good too), but the actual sound effects, they really were noticeable and played an important part in the film.

Pitt's Jesse James was truly frightening at times and clearly paranoid. Affleck's portrayal of Ford, was at first just creepy, but at later on you began to understand Ford's motivations. It would be so easy to succumb to the mythology of Jesse James and create two-dimensional characters but this film avoids that pitfall; rather it seeks to explain without condoning either character. It clearly makes the point that James was a cold-blooded killer, not the Robin Hood figure of legend, while at the same time showing the normality of his family life, and placing him into the context of the post-Civil war world in which he lived.

Well worth seeing, if you get the chance.

Memorial service

Last night I went to the memorial Mass for Fr. John Fitzgerald. It was a very nice service, led by Bishop Mullins, whose sermon contained a number of quotes from Fr John's poetry.

The singing was also very good, though a couple of the sung parts of the Mass were a bit ropey.

I don't know why but I felt a bit depressed afterwards.

I am quite tired this week, though it has gone quite quickly, I've been very busy at work and the first week back is always tiring.

Played badminton on Tuesday, I did better than last week, when I lost every game. This time I only lost once (though very badly: 21-10) to HL. He is really difficult to play against now.

Off to the cinema this evening to watch the Jesse James film. Of which more later if I remember.

New Deacon

I met the new Deacon at Welsh Martyrs on Sunday, he is a huge guy, totally dwarfing Fr Paul, but like most big men he seemed very cheerful and friendly. He is with us until Easter and he will be ordained in the summer, sadly I don't suppose he will be returning here after that; priests, especially young ones, are increasingly scarce in Menevia Diocese, and I doubt we'll have two here again.

I once heard a talk given by a priest, who, musing on the lack of vocations to the priesthood, said "maybe God has had enough of us and has decided to do something else", hmmm.

Mondays

Went back to work today after a fortnight off, yuck!

Actually it wasn't too bad, as returns to work go, relatively stress free, without any nasty problems appearing on my desk; but I'm still quite tired afterwards.

As the Boomtown Rats said - I don't like Mondays!

Sadly nobody out there has seen fit to give me a million pounds, so that I can quit work and do something I want to do instead. With a million I could live happily off the interest even at 5% gross. Unfortunately real life doesn't work that way and most of us have to work by the sweat of our brows to make ends meet, and some people have trouble even doing that.

I guess I ought to be grateful for what I've got, after all, by Worldwide standards I am incredibly rich as are most of us in the West.

Still as a lowly government employee it is a bit annoying to see the obscene amounts paid to sportspeople and entertainers, when we are getting an effective pay cut. It wouldn't surprise me of M.P.s went and gave themselves a huge raise despite what Gordon Brown has said about restraint - I wish I could vote for what I got paid!

Layout

I've just been experimenting with altering the layout of my blog, by changing the HTML. The reason I did this is so that when I use photos from Flickr I can use the medium size images of 500 pixels wide without the right-hand edge disappearing off the screen.

It actually turned out to be fairly simple once I figured out which values to change, perhaps I will do some more experimenting in the future.

St Winefride's Church

Thought I'd do another photo-blog, this time with a picture of St. Winefride's. I'm afraid that even in this photo it is possible to see the sad condition of the building.

Worse still over Christmas, vandals smashed several windows in the Church Hall, making it unusable, until they can be fixed - which is going to cost money we don't really have.

I'm not going to comment on the perpetrators, other than to call for the return of the stocks & pillory to common use.

Photo-blogging

I went out and tried my new digital camera for the first time today , and the results were pretty nice, even if I do say so myself. I think my photos came out pretty well, considering I have no talent whatsoever.

I decided I would try my hand at some multimedia blogging and add this picture of Aberystwyth.

What next - me singing - perhaps I will spare you that!