A closed gate, good books, happy phone calls and a pesky cat!

Monday, January 2nd., and all is well with the world.  At least, the small one bounded by the durawall and Mauritian thorn.  Dishes stacked up lazily since lunch time Saturday when Bowkers came for lunch are now clean and most put away, 2 laods of laundry done and some hung outside in the brief lull of sunshine before the inevitable return of rain, the pool pump has been connected and is running and the seedlings moved into the sun.  My 4th or 5th mug of tea is within stretching distance ..... agghh, all is well in the world.

And has been for a while.  Yesterday we had our New Years day service, actually, I should probably back up a bit and give a history.  The night before we had our New Years Eve service, the regular 11:30 to 00:10am service.  Mom and I arrived at 11:15 to find the gates locked and not another worshipper in sight!  But slowly they arrived and we ended with a smallish but sincere group.  I think in fact, that it was probably the smallest congregation at this service for a long time, a bit disappointing but ........  Anyway, home and sleep, with the anticipation of the regular combined 9:00am service in just a few hours.

But the service went well.  Numbers obviously well down, downstairs and a few in balcony, and only Lincoln and Theo doing music, but they did a good job and I think I did a reasonable job and we had a good service of worship.  Bowkers had offered for us to come and join them for croquet and tea that afternoon at Seniors if we wanted but when we drove in I said to mom that I was going to not take any chances and I was going to park the condor around the back before the rain came.  No rain up to that point.

Well, just as well.  We settled in the sun lounge, made tea and had I would guess at least 2 inches of rain!  It just poured and did not stop!  I don't think we could have got the car out if we had wanted.  So we took that as providential guidance, and stayed home.  Hence locked gate in the title.

We sat in sun lounge and read, I am reading 3 good books at the moment, also doing the occasional Killer Sukodu, my rule being no numbers written in except the final answer, makes it more challenging.  Hence good books in the title.

But the highlight of the day undoubtedly was the phone call from Beks on their bus stop.  It was so good to hear from them.  We had tried to call earlier, no success, and so to get the call was so good.  We had followed your leaving time and had prayed for you, so to get the call was great.  And then to get Becky's number and be able to phone the boys made these two older folk very happy.  Hence happy phone calls.

And the cat?  Well, Ponyo, having been "done", seems to have decided that as hormones cannot be used any more towards sexual activity, she will just become a bothersome, smouchy, lovey-dovey mog!  She is impossible, she climbs up, nuzzles, rolls herself against any part of your body that you leave exposed, even when I walk, as soon as I stop, she nuzzles my ankles.  Oh, oh, speak of the she-devil, she has just come in the window, is crawling on my lap, nuzzling the edge of the computer, purring enough to waken the dead!!!  Beks, you want a cat at Arundel.  On no, back onto my lap, nuzzling my typing fingers, pushing her body uphill against my chest!  We should just have kept the kittens.  Hence, pesky cat.

Have had a lovely few days.  Saturday morning with all Bowkers at Kuimba Shiri, then G and A Bowkers came home and had mealie and sweet corn lunch (ouch, cat, now kneading me!!!  Up on my chest, head butting me, claws tearing my skin) and stayed until early evening.  Then mom and I had a pleasant evening, I needed to do a couple of hours on my sermon, just to finish off and print, so the time before the service passed quickly.

Today intend to repeat the first two on the subject line, hope for the third and probably going to drown a cat!

"A wee blog post"

I've decided that one week in Ireland is not enough! And I'm not sure how to put that amazing week into a single blog post but...I'll give some highlights.

We had a long train-to-ferry journey from London to Dublin which left us all thoroughly exhausted; by the time Danny picked us up in Dublin at 6am on the 22nd we could hardly stay awake enough to be polite! But the Ramamoorthys, having anticipated this, had laid out mattresses and blankets and we all slept as soon as we arrived back at their house! I lost my voice and so spent the first few days croaking and whispering but thankfully it came back by the end of our stay :) 

The next four days were spent wandering the city-centre of Dublin, eating all sorts of Indian (and other) food and renewing old and precious friendships. The Ramamoorthys had a friend from India staying with them while we were there, Jubin Jacob, and we all had fun scampering about Dublin.

You can see the pictures of our time in Dublin posted below but here's some more highlights:

Seeing Dublin's nightlife when we visited a pub and (of course) tasted Guinness beer and saw ladies in heels that I don't think I'd be able to stay upright on. 

Making mulled wine, mince pies and brownies to eat while we watched a movie...actually we were so indecisive I think we spent most of the time simply watching trailers online!

Having Biryani, yogurt, chipatis and other spicy Indian dishes for Christmas lunch. 

Walking along the pier after supper and sitting at the end of it by the lighthouse, singing carols and national anthems...we were joined at one point by a local Irish man and woman who joined in with the Irish national anthem.

Leaving Dublin on the 26th we went to Lisburn and spent an amazing 3 days with the Bittle and Fraser families. After a huge meal  on our first evening, the favourites of which were Beks' near-perfect loaf of Irish wheaten bread and Emma's cheesecake, we played a game of Cranium (boys against girls...or men against women) and I think I got a pretty good view of the North Irish sense of humour...teasing, mocking, and laughter all round!

The next day we did a bus tour of Belfast (complete with the Irish humour). I don't know how they manage to cram so much information into one hour! We saw the harbour where Titanic was built and launched, saw the murals in Shankill and the Falls, learnt how Belfast survived the potato blight, heard about "the Troubles"...and so much more! In fact, my interest was so piqued that I bought a book on the history of Northern Ireland to learn more.

That night we also watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie...

The next day was spent on the coast - touring harbours, squeezing into a tiny church and walking along Giant's Causeway with Sammy and Elaine, Harold, Tim and the Bell kids. What made the day special though, was that it was spent battling 70-80 mi/hr winds!! We tried to walk along the beach and had to turn back because it was too strong, Josh and Jed tried leaning into the wind, bodies straight, seeing how much the wind could keep them up and whenever the car was parked we could feel it shaking in the gale! Elaine spent the day "minding the car" for us ;) It was a terrific day and by the time we got back to the Frasers for supper (Irish Stew and soft bread...mmm!) with Mr and Mrs Mitchell we were all exhausted! But happily so :)

Having wanted to visit Ireland since I was a little girl, this past week was truly a dream come true for me - the beautiful Irish accent, in which everything is "wee" regardless of it's size ("the wee church", "a wee high cliff", "a wee meal"), the green, green fields and small roads which everyone charges through at high speed, the hugely hospitable people...it was wonderful. But instead of satisfying me it has only made me want more! I'm not done - I'll be back, Lisburn, just you wait!

The ferry-to-bus ride from Belfast to Edinburgh was much more pleasant than the one going into Ireland - shorter, calmer and better seats. We are now happily installed at the house of Becky Lamb's Aunt and Uncle, ready to greet the new year Edinburgh style! 

Dublin highlights: 22-26 Dec

We have been non-stop so I'm afraid this will be a touching on the highlights of our green Irish Christmas but with a few photos which, as you know, are worth more than many words.

Thursday 22 December - Friday 23 December

We arrived at 5:55am after an overnight ferry ride that was tiring and full of loud children. Danny picked us up and we headed to the Ramamoorthys house where we were kindly greeted and shown a bed for a few hours! The next few days we spent in the city, seeing Dublin and doing last minute shopping. Maybe someone will write later about more in depth impressions of Ireland (Rach?) but here are just a few photographic highlights of our time.

Getting a tour of Trinity College, where Danny did his MBA.

Mailboxes in the Republic of Ireland are green (just so that you know that you are NOT in the United Kingdom where they are red).

We Bells love bookstores... no matter where they are!

Walking down G--- Street (sorry, forgot the name...).

Followed by lively discusion around the dinner table about technology and children, among other things.

24 December
Christmas Eve we spent outside the city visiting the small town of Bray and climbing its "head" for an incredible view of the area.

Making friends...

They liked Mr Ramamoorthy much better.

Where there are posts, Bells will climb...

That's Bray Head, the mountain we climbed up.

Half way up...

On the top!

Jed and Josh found a new favourite pastime... wind leaning started here and continued on the Northern Ireland coast!

Impressing (or scaring!) the locals. Jed entertained a whole family for about 10 minutes! Unfortunately we didn't have a hat to pass around! :)

Mulled wine and electronic devices... mm....

25 December

Can't seem to find the photos but church, lots of good Indian food and movies, games and good conversations! Pretty much all day.

26 December

After an excellent time of good food and lots of sights and memories, time to say goodbye.

London photos

We are finally at a fast enough internet connection to upload some photos - so here they are! Enjoy...

Our first day in London, Jed is trying to upload a final essay due in 4 hours. We are standing outside a closed Burger King trying to use their weak internet signal to send it off... you'd think we'd be able to find a stronger connection.

Buckingham palace

Ice-creams and milkshakes at Harrods with Aunty Jenny. Oh yes, so tasty.

Jed and I shared this.

Josh and Jed posing at a fancy house in Guildford with the Richards.

Natural History Museum - we went to a Wildlife Photo Exhibition with Becky, Josh's friend from Oxford (we're holding postcards of our favourite pictures).

a lost blog.... and Spirit FM

Merry Christmas eve!

Sadly, internet was not working smoothly and Jed's 2 hour long blog entry has been lost! So I thought I'd add a brief one; just imagine that this is longer and better written and then you will have an idea of what Jed's post was like. We'll try play around with the blog and see if it was saved somewhere.

Its said that everyone has 15 minutes of fame in their life. On Thursday Jed and I were three times lucky and had about 45 mins of fame. for just those minutes, the two Bell sons were the authourity on Zimbabwe for the small Christian audience of Spirit FM. How did we end up on the Irish airwaves? I'll tell you. Danny - with his usual gift for getting involved and excelling at things - has just been recently trained to volunteer as a RAdio Jockey on Tuesday evenings from 10-12pm for the conversation segment of the evening. He hosts interesting people (!) and plays music inbetween 5-10minutes chats with his guests. This Thursday another RJ called in with a lost voice - actually I think she probably texted in! - and Danny very kindly agreed to step in for an hour, saving his Irish listeners from 2 straight hours of continuous music during 'conversation time'. At about 8pm, Danny came into the lounge where Jed and I were reading as asked if we wanted to be his guests on the radio. yikes!

After not a little backwards and forwarding, we decided to say yes! Not sure what to expect, we arrived at a darkened building with a few lonely cars in the parking lot, and followed Danny up empty floors with deserted desks. Sound emanated from a single room on the third room. For the last hour the 'autoplay' of Spirit FM which passed through the empty building beamed across the Irish republic, but to me it was just a computer left playing music in an empty building. Danny got behind the controls, moved the mouse to wake up the computer and we were off!

Danny has quite a gift for radio. It was surreal to speak to him 'normally' one moment and the next hear him through the studio earphones in perfect Radio voice. The talk itself was quite fun! it took a while for Jed and I to get used to the feel of talking on the radio, and for the life of me I couldn't think what to say to great the listeners. Eventually, I ended up greeting Danny "hi danny" - pretty lame... This was by far the hardest part of the program for me! Unfortunately, its very hard to have a deep or indepth conversation about Zim, which is really what the topic deserves but at least we were able to raise awareness of the country with a few Zim jokes thrown in.

As I am writing this, all four Bell siblings are sitting in the lounge together. Jed and Beks talking about Mugabe and homosexuality in Zim. Rach is trying to fix a sale she made on Amazon. I am trying to finish off the post and write an email or two before breakfast. Waffles today! mmmm. Rach's voice is returning. It nice to hear her talk, rather than rasp a reply.

Last night and this morning, I managed to go for a walk in the neighborhood and was reminded gain of how beautiful this part of the world is. I love the strong winds on overcast days with long green grass areas and gnarled old trees.

Merry Christmas to all as we remember our Saviour's birth.

Asian Persuasion...in Food

I realize that this is quite a lot post, it being Friday (wow, its actually Friday!) and here I am only now getting started on Monday's post....

Monday was a three quarter day, the other quarter gallivanting off in Guernsey. To be honest, I seem to have gone blank on what exactly we did in the morning! aha! that reminds me, I'm actually writing about Tuesday not Monday. Wow, this post will be interesting!

Tuesday....incidentally also a 3/4 day. We lazily meandered into London late morning. Jumped off the tube around Leicester Square and walked around China town. Wandered around a radius of about 200metres and kept getting frustrated that we seemed to frequently cross the invisible boundary from bright red banners and Chinese characters to the dull grey of modern London. It was only when we left that we realized that we had only explored the fringes of Chinatown! Probably due to the inadequate and uninformative details from Google maps on the iPad which precisely pinpoints our own position on the map but can't precisely label the entire sprawl which is Chinatown! Really, the manufacturers failed on this one...

After much searching through the dozens of Chinese restaurants (the criteria being: 1.cheap 2. good vegetable dishes 3. bubble tea (quickly removed from the list) 4. Filled with Asians (they've got to know if their own food is bad right??) ). Unfortunately, the place we finally waltzed into had 2/1000000000 of the Chinese population in it. ie. 2. Regardless, the food was amazing and we shared three dishes of consisting of Dim Sun - 4 ball things filled with yummy other things steaming in a basket - and two other dishes which I cannot recall exactly what they were. One had pretty decent tofu in it with eggplant and the other had great noodles with large chunks of lamb. oooo, the sounds of pleasure which leave my mouth even as I recall this in writing is testimony to the food's quality!

From here we rushed (!) off to the Natural History Museum where we met up with Becky who took us through to the picture gallery presentation. These were the top natural photos in the world taken in 2011 and they were honestly spectacular. I'm not one for walking around for appreciating things like this, but the photos were....captivating. Unfortunately, on leaving, I fell into the blatantly obvious tourist trap and the strategically placed shop (exiting the exhibition required one to go through the shop) and bought some beautiful postcards....yes, i'm a sucker.

Anyway, we found a coffee shop and dipped in to play a few rounds of banagrams-much like squabble but without the point system. From here, Beks and I decided to go meandering along the river (which was beautifully lit with lights, especially the bridge) whilst Josh and Becky went back to her house to prepare supper. After much excitement and adventure (including running out of money on my oyster card which disallowed me into the bus) Beks and I eventually arrived having walked the whole way-great walk actually. then followed a pleasant evening with some scrumptous lasagna and fascinating conversation. Also entertaining to watch the banter between Becky and her landlord Richard, another fascinating gentleman. Again, we followed supper with a game of bananananagrams. Becky, in a very unhostlike manner, repeatedly won. As a result we the Bells, unaccustomed to such a devastating series of losses soon packed up and left in a huff, though not before shaking the dust off our sandals (or tackies) at the door...Na, not at all. The game was lots of fun and it was a satisfying end to a great day.

Carol Service without Supporting Bells and Christmas Tree

Your show sounds wonderful, in fact, both of them.  Ours was great as well.  Tuesday evening was our Carol Service, and I decided "If it works, don't fix it" and so, other than the occasional tweeking of slides, and putting in the readings for the congregation (do you remember last year, Beks and Jed?  Forgot to put the words up for the congregation and I had to rush up and do the three!) we kept the programme the same as it was last year.  We also had a challenge of musicians, Marleen being away. But I leaned heavily on Rosemary Van Der Merwe, who was fantastic.  We had her on piano, Manna on Sax, very effective with some of the more plaintive carols, our music team, who are so willing and are more and more adept and then Daniel Mboweni on the violin.  He really was brilliant, played for most of the songs and did a fine job.

And our readers just somehow managed to get everything perfect!  Tapiwa Marufu started us off, and her voice is so clear and expressive, which really set the standard and the tone.  Then Mr Katsande, Shamiso Nziramasanga (great job), Dave Hardwell (fine, clear, expressive) Mariette (typical excellent Mariette), Itai (well practiced, meaningful), Daniella (super reading) and finally Jasper, (same excellent standard carried through).  Everyone did a great job.  Raymond on powerpoint (a glitch or two, but they happen even when there is a Bell driving), Ian on lights and mics (similar comment, but very minor glitches).  Had one or two places where everyone was waiting for someone else to start and I was sitting willing the right person to do so, but nothing that detracted I think from the message.  So it was good.

Wednesday was tree day.  I headed off to work and mom and A and M went tree shopping (I had picked them up from their dad before Carol Service).  I got home to discover a well balanced, not too tall or wide tree, standing upright in the corner, with lights already in place, but arranged so very well, blinking ones interspersed with non-blinkers.  M and A had done a fantastic job!  We spent an hour that evening putting decorations on the tree and on the pelmits (?) etc of the lounge and we have a very cosy, Christmasy lounge.  I really think the tree they did is one of the best we have had, maybe I think that every year, I don't know.

They are back with dad, will join us Sunday and then stay until Wednesday.

Well, I am in the office, and need to get sermon done for Sunday, so let me sign off and send this.

God bless you all, look forward to some news about Trinity College.