Saturday, October 29, 2005

Conference Season

Seems like only yesterday I was in the UK travelling around and trying to sort out the final legal things to get bank accounts working for the organization [not as easy as it might sound]. Then an overnight flight back to Cyprus - and into 'Conference Season'. The winter in Cyprus is the time for conferences and as someone remarked today you could almost spend your whole time going from conference to conference up till Christmas. A few years ago I tended to go to a few more than I do now. I am bored of conferences - they often end up being a talking shop where little gets done!

Anyhow, this week I have been up and down to Limassol to a conference there which was fairly useful. I suppose its cheaper to fly everyone to one place and then allow loads of meeting between people to take place, but even me who is pretty extraverted gets tired of going from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting...

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Busy...

Another day of doing lots... first a trip to the garden centre to get a present for my mother-in-law, then a trip to another part of Birmingham to look for a notebook computer for a colleague - second hand, had seen it earlier and was sold by the time I got there - then lunch with a family friend, then off to anther outskirt of Birmingham to see if Daniel can get old repairable instruments [he bought a flute in that state for 10 pounds] then off to a place Daniel might spend his next year, back to where we are staying for a quick dinner and then Tim off to an organ lesson and Daniel and I go to do the final packing of the stuff we are taking to Cyprus [they will pick this up between 9am and 12.30am tomorrow]. The photo of my phone diary shows how the week has looked... longing for Cyprus and being normally busy!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Sorting :-(

Although all the stuff we want to take to Cyprus is out of our house, it wasn't yet packed in a way suitable to ship. We have just spent the first two days of this week, re-packing and sorting [and throwing away more] everything so that [hopefully] it will all arrive safely in Cyprus.
Some things we have re-utilized: For instance, there is a very nice bookcase we inherrited from Sue's grandparents which we have used to contain bubble wrapped paintings inherrited from both of our grandparents.

I think it's about 45 boxes we have now packed. It was very tiring work and other than packing solid pine wood sides for both Sue's and mine and Daniel's beds, it's all finished. They collect on Friday.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Wesley and Methodist Churches

When I was growing up I read avidly the 'Journal of John Wesley'. It came to life for me when I started work at Bush House in London. Bush House is at the end of the Strand and opposite is the tiny church of 'St Mary's'. St Mary the Strand is famous because it's the church John Wesley was thrown out of for being a heretic.

It was a Methodist church I was speaking in - first time in a Methodist church, and fortuneatly I was not thrown out as an Anglican heretic!

And... I managed to get an afternoon sailing with a friend of mine in his Enterprise. YEEAAHHHH! [It was his church I was speaking at!]

Friday, October 07, 2005

Out of the house

One of the reasons to come over to the UK was to clear out our house. We have decided to sell our house in the UK and buy one in Cyprus. We had been sort of lending our house to a local church that in return were financialy supporting us, for them to use for a series of Australian pastors. Just over a year ago they appointed a local English pastor so the house was no longer needed for this and we rented the house to an elder from the church, who now wants to buy it. This means we will not have the expense of paying Estate Agents!

We spent a few days going through all our remaining possessions in the house - taking some to the dump, some to charity shops and the rest put in boxes to ship to Cyprus. The task was more difficult as the previous auzzie pastors had left things behind - so they weren't the tenants, nor were they ours! Anyway, its all out now and safely in the garage of a friend of ours who is graciously lending part of it till it is collected and taken to Cyprus.