its been an incrediably good couple of weeks. as a surprise (kind of) i took the Boy to Berlin for a long weekend, for his birthday, where we met up with chan, and had a great time. we then had a manic week at home, during which we told our homegroup that we would be handing it on to Tom (R) and Niki (B) at the end of the month, then on Friday we went up to sheffield (where i was at uni) to stay with some uni friends and take part in the webcast of a good friends wedding (who was getting married in oz), this was great, we ate wedding cake, drank sparkling wine at 5 am and generally had no sleep. saturday night we stayed with the Boy's mum, and trekked home on the sunday to spend several hours painting, before heading off to vineyard late's first meeting (our new evening service).

this week has been similarily busy (chris did an excellent home group last night, where we used all our senses - the first time in a while that i've been in the room wilingly with a lit jos stick-, and spent time learning about and reflecting on God's peace,) but so far the highlight has been today, when I went on a field trip, with a group of 2nd and 3rd year students to look at castles in wales, with an amazingly enthusiastic academic. we did an unplanned drop in on an excavation at a roman site (completely by chance) and generally had a good trip. i arrived back in time to go to a lecture on incas (in particular a site near machu pichu that this particular chap had made discoveries at.) all in all, a very good day!

i've not even talked about God stuff, and that may be because i don't know where to start. God has been talking to me about lots of stuff, and its been interesting. i feel like i'm learning so much at the moment, but not stuff i really know how to even say. but its really really good. althoguh i had a weird moment last night, when we shared communion, as i had spent some time that day reading about cannibals (long story) and some of it had been rather graphic. it lent a whole new edge to 'this is my body' and i got a new depth of understanding as to why some romans were horrified by early christian behaviour as they believed they were cannibals because of the rite they shared. ;)

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