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…
COP28 starts in 10 days’ time in Dubai. The lectionary reading yesterday was the parable of the talents, where a slave owner gives each of his slaves 10 talents, before going away for some time. 10 talents was a considerable sum of money, even one talent was more than any employee or slave could expect…
Our Messy Church was held on Friday 10th November, so it felt right to think about Remembrance and Peace. We have a new member on our “Messy Planning” Team and she always comes with something useful whatever our theme. Sure enough, I received an email from her telling me she had found this poem in…
A couple of weeks ago I played in “The last Night of the Proms.” Not THE last night of the Proms, but our local small town variety. Members of our local town orchestra with a few guests brought the old favourites as well as a stunning performance of Greig’s Piano Concerto, with the soloist from…
Many of us will have experienced some amount of flooding as a result of storm Babet. Where I live, apart from the inconvenience of not having easy access into town, there was not much damage. There was a slightly anxious moment when water was flowing from our pond (drainage ditch off the fields) across the…