Suspension of Blogs until after Christmas

Hi all, I am away on a holiday and the internet is spotty at best. So there will be no blogs posted here until after Christmas. Thanks for your understanding.

Many thanks,
Paul

The gift of anticpation

We are going on a trip to Europe for 5 weeks leaving this Thursday coming. I must say we have done a fair bit of travelling over the years and most of the time I just turn up on the day and go. Obviously I pack and do all those kinds of things but I don't usually anticipate ahead.

This time however I have made the effort of join my wife as an anticipator of things to come. This is not without risk I must say because you take the risk of being disappointed if it doesn't fulfil your expectations. I have decided this time I am just going to jump in with both feet. It certainly feels like we are closer together as we leave.

We have planned, plotted, chosen and experienced all that is on offer before we have left. So we have indeed maxed out the experience thus. far. I used to think I was living "in the day" but I think I have gained in anticipating this experience even in living each day ....one day at a time.

Anticipating has proven to be a gift I wasn't expecting. it has set a gateway to the trip that I have never head

Bev has just told me ....................................It's three days to take off.......................magic!

Next week I will be reporting in from London or Venice, two places I love. Bucket list things happening soon!! Watch this space.

Never too old to learn

I was on Church set up yesterday. Our church takes place in a local community centre that has multiple users both in the week and weekend. So we must set up the main community hall meet to our requirements each week. That involves make sure the kitchen is prepared and everything is ready for the service. One of the tasks is putting out the chairs ready for the service. Now you think that maybe a fairly basic task, just set them and follow the church pattern and to a certain extent that is true.

There are however some ways of approaching this that are better than others. The task of setting out chairs requires us to move the chairs in stacks of six from a storage area to the main auditorium. Now I have usually moved from the chairs closest to the front first and worked my way back, fairly straight forward. Now yesterday I was working with a couple that own and manage a funeral home and have to move chairs around a lot. I was busy in the kitchen when I came to do the chairs they were well into moving them. Rather than moving from front to back they were moving from right to left. The space on the right was actually much more open as opened out into another storage part. As I looked I realised how much more efficient their method was for both putting them out and returning them.

It dawned on me that no matter how often you have done something you can always see a better way either from someone else or a good idea of you own! You are never too old or too experienced to learn a better way! It’s not we are too old, we just stop trying to learn. Look for a new way to do something this week.