Dear friends, Karen and I had a lovely holiday last week, and while we were away we had a chance to catch up with family and friends we haven’t seen for quite a while. We had an opportunity to eat out in some of our favourite places and have trips out to some of our…
I love villages that have maintained their historical feel while finding a place in the modern world. Lavenham in Suffolk is a good example not far away from where we now live, but one of my favourite places is Dent in north Yorkshire. The village is accessed along single-track roads and can be a nightmare…
At 7:10am on Thursday 14th March 2013 we became grandparents, and I will always remember the first couple of weeks of my grandson’s life, I was besotted and had to have my daily fix of seeing him. Like most grandads I guess, I thought that my grandson was the most beautiful person who had ever…
For several years, The Great North Run was a big event in our family, and we made an annual pilgrimage during September to support family members and friends from Church as they made their way from Newcastle Upon Tyne out to South Shields. Not that I have ever even contemplating taking part, anybody who has…
Way back in the latter part of the nineteenth century a wealthy Halifax businessman Sir Henry Edwards had a long-standing feud with neighbouring landowner John Edward Wainhouse. To prove his superiority, Edwards built a large house standing in its own land and boasted that he had the most private estate in Halifax, and nobody could…
Dear friends,As we move through October things are starting to pick up in the life of the Circuit and our Churches and I thought that it might be helpful to flag up two or three events. Occasions like this don’t happen very often in a lot of Circuits, please come along and support Ruth. Please…
The comedian Peter Kay said in one of his routines a few years ago that he liked to take his mam shopping, because in doing so, that allowed him to legitimately park in a parent and child parking space. The thought of a grown man in his mid to late forties taking his mum shopping,…
Dear friends, Channel four are currently screening their modern adaptation of the James Herriot story “All creatures great and small” I loved reading the books, more than once and whilst I loved the original BBC story screened from 1978-1990 starring Christopher Timothy, I love the new series. I often find that when we have had…
Back in 2016 The BBC screened the first series of the BAFTA award winning drama series “The A Word” which tells the story of the Hughes family who live in Cumbria and are coming to terms with the truth that their little boy, Joe has been diagnosed with autism. Joe’s parents go through the agony…
Dear friends, Karen and I enjoy going to Church when we are away on holiday, mainly because we seldom have the opportunity to sit together in worship, and I believe that it is good for me to be able to receive and be fed instead of always being the one who is attempting to preach.…