Humph

I think that word best describes how I feel about last night's match. What's worse being reduced to 10 men, losing a 1-0 lead, not winning the champion's league or facing spurs fans.

It's definitely the latter - like they've won anything.. At least we still have champion's league football next season.

Another Great Weekend

At the moment I'm loving what's going on with the Church. Friendships are deepening, there's a greater desire to get involved in making a real difference in the community and our acts of worship seem to be becoming more participatory which is a great move for us as we've come from a fairly front led starting place. This sunday was my birthday celebrations and we started with coffee and croisants at ours then headed to the Methodist church next to where we live to try it out as a venue. It's really good space that they've spend a packet because they discovered asbestos in the roof, they've been very welcoming and are happy for us to use the church after them on a sunday if we want to. It went well and had a good feel. Back to ours for the birthday bbq, then some of us headed to the park for a game of pitch and putt in the overgrown and abandoned municipal pitch and putt, we're thinking of taking it over as the council don't seem to want it...back to the house for more food and a few hands of poker. The boys are proving worryingly good at this (it is lemonade in their bottles and we play for fun not money in case any of you were particularly worried..) it was a great day.

Tottenhams new strip

I know I really shouldn't be making fun of our fierce rivals pre match food poisoning outbreak but I just can't resist it and thought you might like to see their latest sponsor..I'll stop gloating now honest...

Oh what fun we had..

At the moment I'm adapting to a new form of life, as I move from being part of a large "busy" church who started their fourth main sunday service yesterday to being involved in leading a small community who are trying to work out what to do with their time and energy. It does mean that I have more flexibility on a Sunday and yesterday was a day when a appreciated the flex.

Our gathering in the morning was very positive as Barry and Kate shared some experiences of kindness that they had received while on holiday in Oz. It opened up a great discussion about whether and how we as a group will be prepared to let our "schedule's" be interrupted for the sake of being kind to others.

We then shot up to a Hindu centre in Hertfordshire to join in the wedding celebrations of Nisha and Ishvar. Nisha is the daughter of one of our neighbours and it was great to be invited to share their wedding day. We had missed the ceremony part of the day but enjoyed the food, and celebration and being part of a different community for a couple of hours.

Back to North London and another community at the Griffin pub in Whetstone, where some of the guys from church were watching the last Arsenal match of the season. I made it for the second half and there were equal numbers of Tottenham (our north london rivals) and Arsenal fans in the pub. It was a significant match as it was the last one at the old stadium, and would decide which of the north london teams would take the remaining place in the champions league. Thierry Henry did his duty and duly scored a hattrick and West Ham did us a favour and beat a Tottenham team complaining of food posioning. Chants of "the tottenham chefs a gooner (our nickname)" reverberated around the pub. Not sure some of my Tottenham friends are going to be speaking to me for a while particularly Matt and Jon who I couldn't resist ringing towards the end of the game. (Jon was trying not to find out the scores so presumably will never speak to me again.)

Got home and was rung up by David who wondered if I fancied going out for a beer in the evening. We spent a good hour talking about how the church is going and reflecting upon the quote on the bar from Benjamin Franklin which I photographed and have posted.

Have a good week...