Spring Has Sprung!

 Saturday. 8.10 a.m. It's bright and sunny. Mind you, it can be deceptive and might well be chilly out. I won't know until much later.

1.00 p.m. It has turned out to be quite warm. Not sunny, but mild nevertheless

I've been to Boots Opticians to collect my new glasses. I had two pairs made up, one for long vision, for driving and every day, and the second pair for reading. I was shocked to find when I put on the long vision pair, how sharp and crisp everything was. 

I then walked through the shopping centre and went into Midsummer Place. Just inside the doors, a man had set himself up, with an amplifier and microphone, and was singing. I say 'singing', but, let's be perfectly honest, it wasn't very good. One of the pieces he mangled (for want of a better word.) was a song which Carol and I had as our 'sort-of' song, 'Chasing Cars,' originally done by 'Snow Patrol.' Brought back some memories, and happy, but it upset me to some extent, not more so than having some idiot mangling it. 

I walked back to the car and, just as I was about to get in my car, t a really large car turned up, I think it was one of those huge 4-by-4 monsters. The driver was attempting to reverse into a space, just opposite where I had left my car. As the car began to manoeuvre, I saw that one side was heavily dented. It looked as though something or someone had run into the car, or else, the driver had smashed into another vehicle or run into a wall or something. The way the driver was making a complete hash of reversing into the parking space, it was no wonder the car got dented. 

Sunday. 8.00 a.m. I was woken in the night by a very heavy rainstorm. I'm not sure what time it was, but I think it must have been around 2 a.m. I went into the kitchen to look out of the window, and it was difficult to see across the garden (obviously not helped by the fact that it was dark, although there were very bright lights along the various paths. Bright enough to guide any passing aircraft into land, or even some alien space creatures.) The rain was so violent, there was a sort of fog. It was extremely noisy. Fortunately, it didn't go on for more than five minutes. I expect there will be a great deal of standing water on the roads around Milton Keynes, no doubt there will be vast puddles in and around the roundabouts, pooling where the water can't run away. The roads in Milton Keynes were built without cambers, and gutters which allow water to drain away. It seemed more like a cost-cutting exercise when the city was built, but it was a mistake. If the Romans could build their roads with cambers, why aren't modern roads built with them? I actually think most roads are. 

As I write this, the sun is shining.

1 p.m. I was on refreshment duty at The Oaktree Centre this morning. I've been involved with this for several months now. I used to be on The Genesis Team, which is responsible for setting up the Sunday services and setting out the chairs, but I was beginning to find it quite tiring, as it involved lifting and pushing, the chairs on trolleys and then lifting the chairs off the trolleys. 

Today we had what's termed 'Café Church', which means there was no service, but a chance to fellowship with church folk and, hopefully, allow those who don't generally go to church, to come along and enjoy coffee and tea, pastries and cookies, in a relaxed and totally informal setting, with some live music. I got to the Oaktree Centre at around 9.40 and had to start filling the coffee urn. This takes at least an hour to warm up sufficiently before a decent cup of coffee can be produced from it, but for some reason, it didn't seem to warm up properly. It would take at least the whole length of a normal Sunday service, to be ready for people when they came out at the end. I wasn't on my own doing the refreshments. A lovely lady who is in my Thursday morning Bible study, Hyacinth, was with me. But there was real, what I call 'frothy coffee' being made, a la Costa or Starbucks, produced by a proper coffee machine. Several people have been trained as baristas to make this coffee. The machine they use is in the cafe area and is a Gaggia machine. But most people would seem to prefer this coffee, rather than what we had to offer. Because the urn wasn't functioning properly and not heating up sufficiently, we could only offer Nescafé. Nothing wrong with that, but when you've got coffee which is as good, if not better, than what you could get in a high street coffee shop, such as Costa or Starbucks, who could blame them?