I'm Back

Okay, it's been a looooong time and so much has happened and changed since then. I have become so busy with various things that I hardly have any time left to do crafts, so I have decided to use this blog in a more conventional way: for updates on my life and things I do, sometimes photos, rather than only showing my scrapbooking work. Let me give you a brief summary and point you to some new links that will show you more about some of the things I'm involved with (the links show up as green words in the text).

First of all, I've started a part-time job in June. It's only very small, about 8 hours a week as Administrator of the Runnymede Deanery. I'm enjoying it very much - a lot of it is correspondence and admin stuff from home but there are also some meetings to attend and networks to set up which is a bit of a challenge. I'm still doing bits of translating and proofreading from home but it is nice to be involved in something more definite which has a goal to work towards rather than just completing individual little jobs...

Then I have also become involved in the committees of the two Scottish Dancing Clubs to which I belong, being the Minutes Secretary for one and the Webmaster for the other. The website is only in its infancy and in fact it will only go online this week, so I will have to add that link later.

I am still very involved with our church - they have a website now (not written by me), so if you are interested look here. I am back on the church council, now as a Deanery Synod Representative which is also in connection with my job. I'm still part of the team running Coffee Break on Friday mornings and Songs of Praise on the 2nd Wednesday of the month; still singing in the choir and also presently organising a Church Barn Dance for early September. After the holidays I will be starting the "Green St Peter's Project" which consists of implementing Eco-Congregation and also doing a series of monthly education snippets in the church services and notices about how our members individually can become more environmentally friendly. This is something I've wanted to introduce into our church for years, because environmental issues are really close to my heart, and finally got the green light. By the way, Eco-Congregation is a project developed by A Rocha, a Christian environmental charity.

Still on the spiritual side but nothing to do with our parish church or my job, I have also become interested in contemplative Christian practises, and during a Christian Music Conference at Worth Abbey a few weeks ago I met Phillip Roderick of Contemplative Fire whom and which I find really inspiring and hope to get more closely involved with.

Another thing that now takes up a lot of my time is studying with the Open University. My subject is Geoscience and Environmental Studies (at the moment the courses are overlapping but eventually I will have to choose into which direction to go). I'm only studying on level one so far and it's not really challenging at all, other than having to find the discipline to do it regularly - reading, activities and TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments). The courses I do at the moment are "Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis" and "Introduction to the Environment" both of which will finish in September. So far my TMAs came back with positive remarks so I expect to pass the ECA (End of Course Assessment) without too much trouble.

Of course, something had to give to make room for all these new ventures, and mainly that was my crafts hobby. I have almost stopped scrapbooking all together, and I had already more or less stopped needlecrafts and card making a while ago. At the moment, I'm more interested in doing things together with other people rather than all things that keep me home alone. The scrapbooking I miss a bit but not as much as I would have thought - maybe one day I'll come back to more of it... And of course I'm still running SfP (Stitches for Presents), the charity crafts group, which is going from stregth to strength.

On the hobby front, I still love my Scottish Dancing and in the winter half of the year go to two club sessions in Guildford and Addlestone, a fortnightly dance meeting here in Chertsey (which is mainly older ladies, many of whom I know from church) and assorted open dances and balls on Saturday nights. It's a shame that Sean isn't interested in dancing... During the summer, there's not much dancing available other than the Summer School in St Andrews/Scotland and I've decided to attend there for a week this year as my holiday. I'll be going together with Richard, a friend from the Guildford Club, from 9th to 16th August.

I'm also becoming more and more involved with the bellringing which is a bit of a family hobby. It was my FIL Bob who used to do it in his younger years and picked it up again when he saw and met the ringers in our church at Eleanor's baptism. Then he talked Sean into starting and at the beginning of last year I started, too. It was hard going first but this year I started going to another church with Bob where the bells are easier to ring and found a new enjoyment in it, so I'm making progress now... I'm regularly ringing for practise at both St Peter's (our church) and Old Windsor towers as well as for services and weddings at St Peter's, and have been to several outings to ring at other churches in the South of England including the Cathedral in Guildford.

The canoeing is a bit on the back burner, mainly due to my health problems. It's always given me back aches, and over the last couple of years this has just got worse and worse. Earlier this year it was so bad that I started really intensive treatment first with a chiropactor and then with a doctor for sports injuries. He found out that the problem was not only the damage to my spine from the old horse riding accident many years ago but also muscle weakness, i.e. the muscles not holding the joints in place and also getting tired very quickly, therefore causing extra pain. He diagnosed this as a result of a metal allergy caused mainly by the metal fillings and crowns in my teeth - so all of these have to be exchanged. I'll be talking about that more when I'm going to see the special cosmetic dentist next week who can do porcellain crowns and fillings but hopefully it will make a big difference and I should then be able to follow a regime of physiotherapy and chiropractic treatments to get me back in "working order".

What's even better is that I have also finally found something that helps with the symptoms of my ME - particularly the irritable bowel and the low energy levels. (If anybody wants to know more about ME there are some interesting things on this website.) It's a product called Aloe Vera Gel and it's really quite amazing - it's like a jellyish drink (best mixed with a bit of fruit juice) that you simply have once or twice a day. It's totally natural, organically grown and ethically produced and distributed via a network marketing system rather than shops. It was a recommendation and I am so glad that I found it. I'm trying to find out more about their other products and about their network marketing system opportunities because I'm so enthusiastic about it that I would like to join and help other people with this stuff as well... So, my life will probably get even busier!

I think this is all for today - I'll definitely try and write more regularly in the future, so do come back and have another look soon!