The Naming of a Cat

Sheesh, who would have thought agreeing on a name for a cat would be such a hard task!! The vet has his name as 'Biggles', his first names when we arrived were 'NoName' or 'Lumpy' (due to his hernia!) then he got called 'Frankie' but it never stuck, then 'LittleH' because he follows Heather everywhere, then we found out he was a boy, so naming after Heather wouldn't do. Various suggestions have been come up with including 'Snuggles', 'Mr Slurpy' and 'Oscar'. 'Shadow' was thrown out due to a previous house pet of the same name.

How do you name a cat? The guinea pigs were easy, but how do you name a cat? The debate continues. Let's just try a quick poll, everyone but Jim is in the lounge watching TV, let's ask if they have a favourite. Please excuse me for a moment.

10 minutes and some hard debating later...

Well, here we are, a live blogcast, and the favourite is....

Yoda!!??!!

It was decided we'd feel too daft telling people his name was Slurpy or Snuggles, we all liked the name Oscar but agreed it just doesn't fit him (thanks and sorry Jenny). Numerous other names were put forward but none really fitted and then Yoda came up and it just seemed right! The stupid thing is it does seem to work! Who would have believed?

Well, let's see if it sticks.

Here he is 'in action' anyway. Oh, and he came through his hernia op very well, but he's a bit less of a boy than before he went in as he had another 'little' op at the same time.

Yoda meditates on the Force?

His Jedi mind tricks work very well on Heather, she does anything he suggests. :-)

For a Jedi master, ain't he cute!

Steve

YOUCH!!

The flashing lights and other special effects like the disappearing arm and numb feelings were very impressive on Saturday night, but the thumping pain in my head really decided it for me, I don't think I want to try a migraine again!

Feeling somewhat more human today...

Glad I'm not the kitten, at least my arm only seemed to disappear, he's in for an operation on Wednesday and some things really ARE disappearing - ooch! Still, he's also having his hernia sorted so he should be happier for that at least.

We're still trying to decide on a name for him that everyone likes, yesterday we suggested Shadow as he always follows us around, but Jim has already had dog with that name, so back to the drawing board! Good job we don't have to name any kids between us all, they'd probably end up being 'Boy' and 'Girl'

Steve

Reflections on Friendships

Thanks Norma for your comment on my last posting, I'm so thankful I've never had to go through the pain of losing a friend my age. Within the last year I've lost two friends who were much older, but never anyone near my age. Thanks for your thoughts and comments in your blog remembering KT, like Jenny's recent blog remembering Heidi it made me think how precious life is and how precious the friendships that God gives us are. There was no comment I could make to either blog, but they both gave me cause to stop and reflect.

I had been thinking just the other day about how the most important thing that God has given us is our relationships and then you added your comment to my blog just reiterating what I was thinking. Things and possessions have their place and their value, but nothing compares to a true friend. I stumbled across a wall hanging of Val's the same day that I'd not seen before that says, "Life has no blessing like that of a loving friend." One of the verses that slips in most times I preach is, "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ who you have sent." (John 17:3) If God values relationship above everything, so should we!

One thing coming to Canada has done is help us realise the value of our friends at home and it is such a blessing whenever we hear from any of them knowing that despite the distance we are remembered, even as we regularly remember them. I have a photo montage over my side of the bed and I also keep a small photo album that contains pictures of my family and friends which I often pick out of my bag to look at, to enjoy my friendships and to pray for the folks I love. The photo of the youth group wearing white plastic macs at Edinburgh Zoo is especially precious - we miss you guys and pray for you often.

I encourage you, cherish your friends, the past is inhabited by them and the future will be made with them. They are too precious a gift to treat like anything else!

Bless you all,

With lots of love,

Steve

Problems with the Space-Time continuum

(Or Does anyone have a spare Tardis?)

Last summer whilst traveling in the van with the team from England we played a game with a pack of cards. Each person takes one card and the person with the highest card asks the person with the lowest card any question they like. I still remember being asked, “If you could have one wish, what would it be?” I thought for a few moments and answered, “I wish all my friends could live together in the same area rather than being spread around the world.”

Yesterday I got prints made of some of the pictures we took in Ottawa and today I put them into a big photo album that already has some pictures of folks back at home in the UK. I took the opportunity to look through them all and felt a bit damp eyed as I smiled at what I saw. I do miss folks but I am learning to enjoy looking at photos without feeling too melancholy, to look back and enjoy the memories rather than pining for the times and people pictured.

Still, there does remain the problem in the space-time continuum - that our friends are spread over thousands of miles and it’s difficult to see them. We missed being able to just drop in on my parents when we moved away from Nottingham to go to Morpeth, three hours drive away, but living in Canada is a different league! Even Gord and Glenda, also in Canada, are five hours flight away. (Six if you have to have the plane de-iced a couple of times when touching down en route as happened on the way back to Lloyd a week or so ago!)

Am I being morose or feeling depressed, no, but I do miss our friends and family who are elsewhere despite having some wonderful friends here in Lloyd. However, if I was asked the same question again, I’d answer it differently now, a little more realistically than hoping for all my friends to live in the same area. I’d simply ask for a Tardis* so we could go and visit anyone we wanted whenever we felt like it.
We’d want a Tardis rather than just a teleporter because there is a 7 hour time difference between Lloyd and the UK so we couldn’t just pop over for supper and a game of Balderdash ‘cos everyone would be in bed, we’d need to move a little in time as well as space!! Any Timelords out there reading this blog got a spare Tardis?

In the meantime, I shall have to make do with staying in touch by e-mail, Skype, MSN chat, newsletter and blog and hope that it’s not too long before I see you all again.

Miss you folks,
God bless and lots of love,

Steve

*The Tardis was Doctor Who’s time and space traveling machine for those not familiar with the name – if you’ve not heard of Doctor Who, he was the main character of a TV series of the same name made by the BBC, one of the longest running TV shows in the world at one point. For the longest time as a kid I thought it was Tardisk, but then I realized it was an acronym for Time And Related Dimensions In Space. You can find out more on the BBC website.

Oh, and yes I do score VERY high on the dweeb, geek and nerd tests.

A Christmas to remember

Happy New Year to you, I hope you have had as wonderful a Christmas as Heather and I have just had. If you have then you too have probably just had the best Christmas you can ever remember!

When we were in Ottawa in the summer, Gord and Glenda, Jenny’s parents, invited us to spend Christmas with them. After having spent a few very enjoyable days with them and Steve, our answer was very easy to give and so we splashed out on ourselves to buy ourselves our most expensive Christmas present ever – two return tickets to Ottawa. So here I find myself now having come back to Lloyd from our most wonderful Christmas as a married couple. We had an enormous amount of fun with Gord, Glenda, Jenny, Phil and Steve and had the pleasure of meeting Lindsay, Phil’s girlfriend. It was of course a marvellous treat to see Jenny again – Christmas with the rest of the family would have been great, but the fact that Jenny was able to make it back to Canada truly was the icing on the cake.

An added bonus, as if it wasn’t good enough, was that we also had our first White Christmas ever – something we would have missed had we stayed in Lloydminster – phew!

So what did we do? Well it would take longer than is polite in a blog posting to describe all that we did, but I’ll try to give you a taster. Amongst other things we sang various songs ranging from serious to very silly, went ice skating, had snowball fights, made silly movies, went as a family to see “The lion, the witch and the wardrobe”, made a snowman family, watched DVDs, visited various people, went to a Boxing Day party, ate in a Thai restaurant, played games, had a murder mystery, ate turkey, wore party hats, played with cats, stargazed, cooked curries and a hundred and one other things!

I won’t post all the pictures I have from our time away on my blog, I rather think it might exceed my storage space! Between us, Jenny, Glenda and I managed to take around 280 pictures! I will however include a few choice pictures that aren’t too embarrassing!

Most of the action happened at the family home …

With Gord and Glenda…

Jenny and Steve…

Lindsay and Phil…

Not to forget Robin and Toya…

Robin is a very sophisticated feline…

We also had very friendly neighbours in the back yard…

Back row – Gord, Dave, Glenda
Front row – Jenny, Phil, Steve

At the church Christmas party we became honorary family members and performed “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” with them. Here we are after the event.

Aunt Leah came for supper on Christmas Eve and tried out the timer on her new camera…


New year’s eve was celebrated at a Thai restaurant followed by ice skating and a speedy drive to arrive home with about 3 minutes to spare!!




We also had a murder mystery for which we all dressed up, it was good fun as we all tried to enter into our roles. The food was excellent too.


Steve was given a telescope by Gord and Glenda, and eventually we had a clear night and he was able to try it out. After locating Venus and Jupiter, he succeeded in finding Saturn which looked stunning. Although it was quite small in the eyepiece, you could clearly see a fat ring shape around the spherical planet – pretty cool!

It is such a blessing for Heather and me to have been made a part of Jenny’s family this last year. So often when you are friends with someone you get to know the rest of their family but they just remain acquaintances. After having had Jenny become part of our family when she lived with us last year, we were delighted that we got on so easily with Glenda when she visited for three weeks just before we left for Canada. We had already met Phil the previous November when we visited Lloydminster to see how Team Canada ran. Phil was on the team that year and so we got to know him quite well and yet again found that we hit it off together really well. On staying for three days with Gord, Glenda and Steve in Ottawa when we arrived in Canada last June we found that we just fell into the family, so to be able to spend Christmas with all but Dave and Tanys and be part of the family was a blessing that I don’t really know how to describe in words. It was a pleasure to get to know Steve and Gord so much better, and to meet Lindsay as well as having some very precious time catching up with Jenny, Phil and Glenda. We were sad to not see Dave and Tanys, but hopefully we can make that up in the next few months as they only live a couple of hours away. Jenny’s family are a very special bunch and I am certain that we shall look back on the happy memories of this Christmas with great fondness for many years to come.

It was with deep sadness in our hearts and tears in my eyes that we left them yesterday, but with an eager anticipation of seeing them all again before too long. The gifts we were given for Christmas were lovely, but none of them compared to having been given a family to celebrate Christmas with whilst in another country. God is Soooooo good!

As if all this were not enough, we now get to celebrate Ukrainian Christmas with Val and Jim, our family here in Lloyd!

God bless you throughout this New Year and may you know his favour in your life.

With love,

Steve