Bibble

Today I had entertainment in the form of a large machine ripping the roof off the building opposite. Very fun. It created lots of dust - not entirely sure this fits in well with breathing difficulties.

Louise returned home today. I've had a really good time with her visiting. Often we do not seem to have very much to say to each other; this time we watched Buffy. That was nice. I also showed her my favourite charity shop. She bought picture frames. Or maybe pictures. I bought a hoodie of anarchy for Anne, which she has just e-mailed me about. Apparently she likes it.

I am now looking into making my Christmas soap. Last year I decided that it would be very creative and save lots of money to make soap for many people for Christmas. I was right about it being creative. This year I want to do it much better.

My biggest problem last year was that it took so very, very long to package the soaps. There is always a trade-off between fast and cheap, and cheap won. It has to be made of paper rather than plastic, though. Last year I double-wrapped the soap in greaseproof paper and sugar paper, then tied it together with decorative wool. The majority of packages were very attractive (the ones with the pink wool were, frankly, hideous). This year I shall not give up three evenings of my life packaging soap. It gets boring.

I also intend to make more soap this year, and to make different stuff which takes longer to cure. I have made the first batch - an unscented cold process soap, which should be really gentle.

Another intention of mine is not to talk about it in a really boring way. I'm sure you can guess just how successful that will be.

Also, did I say this already? Yay for me?

Picking hymns

The new vicar has decided that I am to have responsibility for picking three of the hymns for each service. She Who Plays The Guitar will presumably be picking the other three.

This freedom of choice is both a good and a bad thing. On the plus side, I get to play the hymns I want to play; on the minus side, when they go wrong it is even more my fault than it was before. Additionally, it will take up extra time. However, it will be good for me.

Today is my first day of doing this - they have to be chosen before tomorrow. My theme is:

“The first shall be last and the last first”
that for us even to die is gain as we shall suffer for the Lord’s sake here on earth

i.e. God’s gracefulness and our being willing to suffer for the glory set before us!*

Hmm. I wonder if there is a section at the back of one of my hymn books telling me what to do here. I'll let you know how I got on with this after Sunday's service.

In Other News, they continue to demolish the building behind my office. At the moment, due to the powers that be finally turning the heating on, the weather has improved and so I need to have the window open. The destructors have responded by using loud machinery; it's a relaxing backdrop for a productive and fulfilling day.

The digger thing has escaped unscathed (or got nicked - either way, it is not there any more), and a lot of the ceiling those industrious men appeared to be painting is now rubble. It has decorative twisted steel reinforcements hanging down, rather like jungle foliage.

The destructors are kindly propping up the wall which belongs to both the rapidly disappearing building and the one next to it, which I assume they want to keep. There is a big archway from the outside into a part of building which has probably never had outside from that particular direction before; this has those long steel rods commonly used for propping up bits of buildings and mine shafts in the middle. There are suspicious-looking brieze block sections, where it appears there used to be a doorway which is no longer considered to be useful.**

It looks as though they are packing up for the day. I shall have an hour of silence before returning home and to the barbecue - we will be poisoned with the rest of the leftovers from Saturday, which were not frozen at the time. I hope they are OK. I am also not suitably attired in the slightest - I am wearing an ankle-length synthetic dress made some time in the early 70s, which will not appreciate coming into contact with hot sparks. Or, you know, cold sparks. Sparks in general, really. Hopefully HWSNBN will rise to the occasion and bring me cosy things to wear...



*Doesn't it throw in a lot of excess HTML code when copying and pasting from an e-mail? I was amazed!

**Presumably because it would open several metres in the air onto a building site.