Back to the (Ageas) Rose Bowl

A very early start this morning to attend Ambassadors' Business Breakfast Club.  I hadn't been for a few weeks and it was good to attend again and catch up with some of the other members.  We had an extremely interesting ten-minute talk about giving presentations from Hugh Vivian of rockSalt. I am sure that some of the tips which I picked up can be used when preparing and giving sermons in church.Of special interest was the identification and treatment of "gremlins" - those little voices that tell you that you can't do something!  Following this meeting I returned home for a brief spell before picking up James and driving over to Southampton to watch the final day of the county cricket game against Essex.  Despite a brave performance from Adams and the eleventh batsman, Griffiths, Hampshire were all out for 302 runs meaning that Essex won the match by 122 runs.  Hampshire's promotions hope now seem over.  They have one match left - away to Kent which would require an enormous score in the first innings to have any hope of winning.  A really pleasant way to spend a Friday afternoon although I did have to deal with a couple of legal queries during the course of the afternoon.  We ended the day with a barbecue in the back garden.

A tiring day at the Ageas (Rose) Bowl

I didn't sleep at all last night due to Sara's heavy snoring which resembled Crewe Junction in the days of steam or of a cappuccino machine about to explode.  Instead, I went downstairs and watched a full length feature film - Behind Enemy Lines II - a military thriller about four Navy Seals dropped into North Korea on an aborted mission to destroy nuclear missiles.  This morning, after about an hour's dozing I did some work in the study before picking up Richard and driving over to the Ageas Bowl for the third day of the County Championship match between Hampshire and Essex.  Essex were batting in their second innings and put on 475 all out leaving Hampshire a total of 427 needed to win - a mammoth task.  At the close of play, Hampshire had put on 73 for 3 thereby trailing by 354 runs with only seven wickets left.  If they fail to win then Hampshire's promotion hope will die.  This evening Sophie called round and we went through Sunday's service together - choosing hymns and music to accompany the message of my sermon. 

Back to School!

 

 

It was back to school for three of us in this household today.  For Mary, it was her first day ever at her new Secondary School, St. Edmund's Girls School in Salisbury, for Thom, it was the first day of his last academic year at Test Valley.  How they have grown up. It really doesn't seem all that long ago that I saw them both born!  It makes me realise how old I now am, although I still feel so young!  For me, it was the beginning of my second year as a distance learning student of Oxford Brookes University and I spent it at Sarum College writing my sermon for Sunday and writing the first thousand words of my essay on Mission from last term!  I was at College from 9.30 a.m. until 7 p.m. and the day just seemed to fly past. I did attend Morning Office at All Saints with Nils and Andrew and Nils seemed pleased to see me and thought that this morninigs prayers were a good way to start a day of theological study. Tonight I have been catching up on all the other work and correspondence which piled up whilst I was in college.  Feeling very tired tonight and looking forward to reading the final chapter of my book "In the Garden of the Beasts" before going to sleep.  A day of cricket at the Rose Bowl to look forward to tomorrow. 

Mushrooms!

A really warm day today the morning of which I spent in the study with occasional trips to the kitchen for coffee.  Matthew the plumber arrived this morning to inspect a suspected leak under the children's bath.  Indeed there was a leak caused by the plug hole not being completely tight.  The ceiling of the kitchen is now bulging where the water has collected and we found we had mushrooms under the bath!  The whole area is now drying out and Matthew will be back on Friday to see how his repair has done.  This afternoon I attended a meeting of the committee of the Christian care home charity I serve on in Salisbury city centre which lasted about 2 hours.  I am pleased that I have got quite a lot of tasks completed today and tomorrow I intend to spend the day at Sarum College working on my sermon for Sunday and my outstanding essays.  The children are back to school tomorrow so hopefully there will not be so many distractions going forward.

Rose Croix Enthronement in Brighton

The weather has turned much warmer today and as we enter into September so it appears summer has arrived.  I spent the morning in the office and also doing a bit of gardening - especially removing more ivy which seems to be growing wildly up the walls of the house.   Sara and Mary went into Portsmouth (Gunwharf Quay) to get Mary a Cath Kidston bag for school - Mary has saved up her money to buy this fashion accessory!  I left Thom and drove over to Brighton this afternoon for a meeting of my Rose Croix (Christian Degree) Chapter and called in at Carlo's to join Sara and Mary for an ice cream - they were heading west and I was heading east along the same road.  I arrived in Brighton just fifteen minutes before the start of the meeting.  The meeting lasted from 5.15 p.m. until 7.45 p.m. I didn't stay for the dinner but left immediately after the ceremonies to attend another meeting with Peter and Tim from Civic Lodge in Southwick where we discussed lodge affairs at the Ship Inn near the station.  I finally got back to Winterslow just before midnight after a reasonably good journey back. 

Saints put on a good show

Thom was up early this morning but neither Sara nor I felt very lively and so had a bit of a sleep-in after our long day yesterday.  Mary was still staying at her friend Izzy's until mid-morning.  None of us attended church today.  We were due to attend a champagne breakfast for Sara's friend, Karryne, this morning at the Hook & Glove in Farley and we decided that we would all go over and that Thom and I would then drive on to Southampton for the Saints v Manchester United match.  However, upon arrival at the pub we found that the breakfast has been cancelled!  Sara and Mary called in to Karryne on their way back home and Thom and I decided to go back straight back home for an hour before finally setting off for Southampton.  We eventually arrive at our reserved car parking spot at around 2 p.m. with two hours to spare before kick-off.  We had lunch at our usual chippy and arrived at the  ground a good hour ahead of kick off.  This gave us an opportunity to read the programme, watch the teams training and have a chat with Andy, John and family.  Saints played well this afternoon and a huge roar went up when Lambert scored the first goal.  This was closely followed by United's equaliser and the teams went in at half time to a scoreline of 1-1.  Saints scored again early in the second half and the score remained 2-1 to Saints for quite some time until two late goals from United stole the points with a final score of 2-3!  A hat trick from Van Persie. Kelvin Davis also managed to save a penalty struck by Van Persie.  Although Saints still need to get some points on the board, their two games against the two Manchester sides has shown that they will be a force to reckon with once the new signings have gelled.  It will be a hard slog but not impossible to stay up.  Tonight, after ringing Mum for an update chat, I spent the rest of the evening with Richard in the Lion's Head where he told me all about his son's wedding this weekend.  We plan to spend a day together at the Ageas Bowl watching Hampshire in their final county game against Essex on Thursday.  

A Day in London (Olympic Park)

The alarm went off, as set, at 3.30 a.m. and we were on the road to London by 4.15 a.m. (me, Sara and Thom).  We had an easy journey up to Surbiton where we caught the 05.58 train to London Waterloo and from there the Jubilee Line to the London 2012 Olympic Park for Day 3 of the Paralympics.  We had to wait about 15 minutes for the gates to open but once through the security checks and inside, we had plenty of room and time to roam around and look at the park before having a McDonald's Breakfast and finding our seats in the Riverbank Arena for the 7-a-side football.  We saw two matches - Russia 8-0 Argentina and Netherlands 1-4 Iran, before we had to leave the Arena and have some lunch (very good, though pricy, haddock and chips). Our day passes allowed us to enter some of the other venues but, unfortunately, all were already fully booked.  By 2 p.m. the Olympic Park was extremely crowded  - there must have been 100,000 - 200,000 people there and so we decided to leave and catch a tube into central London and have a look around the National Gallery.  On the way to the tube station, Thom was delighted to find a shop which sold USA sporting caps and he was able to get one for his beloved Washington Nationals baseball team (he had been hoping that his Grandpa could send him one from America at some time).  He hadn't expected to find a specialist shop in the UK although I did tell him that you can get most things in London if you look.  We caught the Central Line to Mile End, changing for the District Line to Embankment where we got off and walked up through Charing Cross to Trafalgar Square.   Inside the National Gallery we saw examples of Monet, Rubens, Manet, Turner, Constable, Rembrandt and other famous aritists - too numerous to mention here.  We stopped off at Waterstones Costa Coffee shop in Trafalagar Square before walking up Whitehall to Parliament Square, over Westminster Bridge and found a noodle bar for supper by the old County Hall.  We eventually caught a train back to Surbiton just before 8 p.m. and arrived back home at around 10.30 pm.  A really long day and we all went to bed quite exhausted.   An enjoyable day none the less and I'm glad we made the effort to do it.