Launching out

Friday night was book launch night - we collected 1000 copies of Les's collected columns at the printers on Wednesday and had the launch on Friday before the shops started selling it on Saturday. All very well planned until the snow started midday Friday. We went ahead and 14 folk managed to turn up, plus the barman bought a copy too! On the way home the roads were awful and we nearly succeeded  in holding a car launch too into Stromness Harbour! Good news - the opened bottles of wine had not spilt - cheers!

We are in....

So it is all over - the sleepless nights, the exams, the projects and the behaving ourselves. We got our certificates from New Zealand in the post last Saturday, had our interviews last Monday and this Tuesday we went before the combined UK field members for our acceptance day. Quite daunting - 50 people who are allowed to ask you anything. However Don our pastor was the warm up act and he did a good job on our behalf - it was all very pleasant eventually and they prayed for us, gave us the right hand of fellowship and - despite my cross cultural hints about no physical contact there was even hugs and the odd holy kiss... The face between us and Don is Jeanette Craig one of the Scottish WEC representatives. Thanks to all of you guys who have prayed for us over the past 18 months - and now things will get really interesting!

Save a stamp.

Handing over a postcard to be delivered by hand....the story is that there is an old sailors'mailbox on the Galapagos Islands where sailors left mail for other sailors returning home to deliver. Now the tradition is that tourists leave postcards for other tourists to deliver. There was a postcard for someone in Orkney  So when meeting Glynn in London, he handed over the postcard he collected there in April.. Hand delivered from an island in the South Pacific to an island in the North Atlantic! Who is it for and who is it from? Answers on  a postcard or buy next week's Orcadian!

The Darlings at home..

No these are not our Darlings but the Darlings in Harrods window being met by Peter Pan - remind you of anyone Cameron? Anyway the windows are gorgeous this year  but even better than Tinkerbell is the new Cygnet from Aston Martin. Same size at as chubby smart but oh so much better, well £30,000 better I suppose! It was the window all the boys were around - raffle ticket anyone?

Autumn Leaves and Bread of Heaven

So we now get practical work for two weeks!

 Les is always one for a tune and was happily whistling Autumn Leaves as he raked and barrowed the falling leaves with some volunteer helpers to clear the grass. I am not going to tell you that the grass is again covered with the next deluge today nor will I tell you that when he went to the Jaz club that very evening they were all asked to improvise solos on the same Autumn Leaves theme song and it too was a less than successful venture.

Meanwhile in the kitchen Gayle (from Canada this one not from NZ) and Fiona were asked to bake the bread rolls for lunch, an altogether more successful venture due mostly to Gayle's calm presence despite the absence of anybody who had ever done such a thing before. Bread of Heaven?You bet!