Farewell my Antipodean auntie, the youngest of my father's six siblings. You were born in India, the youngest child of Welsh missionaries, you married uncle Dennis to whom you were married for 60 years, in the UK and with him you emigrated to Australia. Your good Welsh name flipped pronunciation according to hemisphere, half of... Continue Reading →

Okay, it's also a bit "Sound of Music" and generally very Alpine but it's also very self-confidently Austrian. They have a national culture, character, cuisine which they completely embrace. Seriously they DO wear lederhosen, and not just for the tourists. They play long alpine horns (and cow bells) as musical entertainment and every single house... Continue Reading →

Book review Published 2005 and the film came out in 2010 so forgive slight plot spoiler in this reflection (about content not ending). What does it mean to be human? If we had to prove that we had souls, what evidence would suffice? Would it be the capacity to appreciate all create art, beauty, poetry?... Continue Reading →

Does anyone else think this is a very strange question? Am I the only one who longs to reply 'No, I'm actually an alien from the planet Zorg"? Of course, I get it. I am simply being required to confirm I am not a robot or a computer programme. But surely 'ticking a box' is... Continue Reading →

Last week I had a lot of fun talking to our local Church school about Palm Sunday.  Taking a 'leaf' (groan) from Bob Hartman's style of story telling, I quickly realised that this story lent itself to being told by the letter P. Palms, parade/procession, people, prayers.... For my primary school crowd it didn't need... Continue Reading →

It's taken me a while to get my thoughts in order for this final blog post about my recent trip to the Holy Land. Maybe because it was at this point in the journey that I became much less of an observer and much more of a participant. Our exploration of Jerusalem took the form... Continue Reading →

For the second part of our pilgrimage we moved from blissfully beautiful Galilee to Bethlehem, via two brief stops. First we stopped at the Jordan River very near to the site of Jesus' baptism (and also several other old Testament events, an example of how history piles up vertically in several places). This was the one... Continue Reading →

I am just coming to the end of an 8 day journey through the Holy Land. We began in Galilee with three nights at the Pilgerhaus a retreat house on the shores of Lake Galilee. Highlights here included an swim as the sun came up, a boat trip out on to the 'sea' of Galilee,... Continue Reading →