My eldest son is about to return to Australia having spent a few weeks back in the UK during January. His birthday falls about 3 weeks after he has left, so I thought I would take the opportunity of getting him a birthday card before he flew back. (Past experience has taught me that it…

I recently bought some garden lights. The idea is that they are solar powered – charging up during the day and then automatically lighting up at night. 48 hours of sunlight will result in the lights working for around 6 hours. As they are going to be needed in June, my hope is that they…

Who me?           What am I doing here?                                                                                                                                                Have you ever suffered from “Imposter Syndrome”?                                                                                              Surely someone else could do a better job than me?                                                                             I’ll mess up, I’ll fail, this is all a terrible mistake? I remember when I was at university, I failed a respiratory physiology exam and that was the end…

I am not the world’s best timekeeper. Twice a week I share a lift with a friend to our local gym for keep fit classes. We have a system where she picks me up about 15mins before the class is due to start and we arrive with plenty of time to spare. However our system…

Some years ago, Rev Rob Anning came to preach at Elmsett Methodist Church. He asked us to sing a hymn by Rev John Bell, from the Iona Community, ‘You are the God of new beginnings’. It is a hymn that really speaks to me. As with a lot of John Bell songs, it is reflective…

I have recently been looking through family photos as I was putting together a slide show of photos for my aunt’s funeral, and I came across this photo of her great great niece cuddling her newborn baby brother. (For those who might have read any of my previous TFTDs, I refer to 16-10-23– the photo…

When my brother-in-law first visited Suffolk, he thought he had gone to another planet. He is originally from north London, and felt very uneasy without traffic noise, people shouting outside, and particularly the absence of street lighting. I actually quite like not having street lights. When we first moved to our house we had a…

One of the things I dislike doing, and will do anything to put it off as long as possible, is house cleaning. When I was working, I was fortunate enough to be able to pay someone to come in weekly and clean through the house. She retired after our youngest son started at university, and…

The Methodist Church has produced resources for Advent entitled “Out of the Ordinary” and Advent 1 centres around a box of Christmas decorations. In our house the Christmas tree generally doesn’t go up until the weekend before Christmas. There is that moment when you get the box or bag of Christmas decorations out. Ours is…

I have been visiting a dear friend who has been in Ipswich hospital for some time, and each time I go, I wonder which is the best route from Elmsett to Ipswich hospital. What is the definition of best? Quickest? Shortest? Less traffic? My decision is often influenced by things like the time of day…