So how do I describe two Mondays, two Tuesdays and the days inbetween?

Well, last Monday I went back to work. Got cleared up by the end of the day, because of how the office is run… things need to be done, so they do them. And my boss is dead on anyway, so…

Wednesday I took off to get tickets and posters for Adrian Plass sorted out. Lesley Pollock numbered the concession tickets and I numbered the adult tickets, and I dropped them round the six shops… £6 (Adult) and £3 (Child/Student/OAP) from the Oasis, the Bush, Derryvolgie Halls, Wesley Owen, Faith Mission and Good Book Shop, see my site for more info.

After that it was Alpha and church prayer meeting. Apparently on Sunday I missed a really good sermon on worship, so we spent some time praying for the worship… and for a bass guitar (or bass guitarist, we have one other person besides me who can play!).

Thursday I wrote that poem for the Edgehill writers’ group that night. Got Philip Saunders’ book No Ordinary Book, currently reading inbetween times. Written very much in Philip’s authentic voice, you can imagine him reading it aloud.

Friday I got my pay arrears. I can afford Christmas!!

Saturday was dead quiet.

Sunday I went to my own church for the first time in over a month thanks to Autumn Soul and not being world. It was good to be back, and good just to be there back home in so many ways. Paddy preached on guidance.

Monday and today were quiet days. Just catching up on stuff, and tonight I need to finish off the Adrian Plass press release and article for the Church of Ireland Gazette and Methodist Newsletter. Got a quote from Derek McKelvey earlier and discovered that the Presbyterian Herald doesn’t publish a January edition… ah well. lkactually introduced me to a new website, and earlier my right foot was numbish for some reason.

Wednesday… who knows? Take that as it comes.

I know God.

I know God’s love for me.
How he will never let me go.
How no matter how I disappoint him
His love never dies.

I know God’s mercy.
I know how he forgives me.
I know whenever I turn to him
He will not turn me away.

I know God’s grace.
I know he has gifted me.
I know there are more gifts
If but I turn and ask.

I know God’s truth.
How my life doesn’t match up to it.
How he teaches me where I fall down
So I know his love, mercy and grace.

~ Andy Boal 25 November 2004

(life update to come later)

Heh. Forgot to do this bit, because it wasn’t just lazing around and talking to lkactually, although that was part of it.

I finally closed the forums on XtremeEvents. Two people replied at all to the e-mail I sent to all the users earlier in the week, and precisely one of them did anything about it – totally not worth the hassle. So I wiped all the non-staff users, archived nearly all the posts, and made it near-impossible to get into the forums. I think I know how to fix that altogether as well, may try it now. (just need a php BEGIN thing in it)

Keeping the old php files in case I need them again, but much of the database is gone. If I ever reopen them, everyone can reregister, but I can’t see it happening… ah well. Meantime, staff can still get in because they need to – where else would we discuss what to do about events?

Anyway, once I did that, I told the one user who had actually come back that I had closed the forums altogether, and he told me he couldn’t get into the site at all – it was coming up with 404 errors (File Not Found for those who don’t know). Sure enough, it was, and I couldn’t get into the cgi server to check things out – looked like I’d been hacked and I haven’t backed up the php files. Eek!

Rang the ISP, they said there was a problem with the server, and to try again in a few hours (when I was going to be at Peter and Kate’s anyway – incidentally, Peter’s 30th birthday is actually today, but he’s on the late shift for the last time before he leaves the City Airport). So I tried again tonight, and everything’s back to normal except that the .htaccess file had disappeared. It’s all good, fixed the .htaccess file, and I’m more than a little relieved.

Finally… tonight I was supposed to be at the Shining, but I rang David Whiteside and said I wouldn’t be there. Using the health excuse, and besides I was tired after all the exercise.

I’ll decide what church I’m going to in the morning when I get that far, doubt I’ll bother going the whole way to my own church cos I’m too tired. I think I’m going to have to slow down.

Well, I just discovered that Semagic managed to post my last entry four times. Madness… each time it managed to tell me it hadn’t gone through properly so I resent it.

Anyway. Friday and Saturday report time!

Friday: got up later than on Thursday – hooray! My dad woke me up at 9.30am when he got back from the dentist… Went into Bangor at about 4.30pm, somehow found Peter King a birthday present (cordless screwdriver – tools seem to be a theme for his birthday this year!) and went off to his party via his sister and brother-in-law’s house. Good craic, although there were LOADS of kids. Getting to the point where Peter and Kate are about the only married couple for miles who haven’t started their family yet…

Really good though to catch up with people, most of whom I hadn’t seen for many months. Shocked Kate because I liked birthday cake – I said “Victoria sandwich – any time”.

Anyway. Taxi back to my grandma’s – same driver as took me from Fisherwick after Andy Flan, great craic. Got to bed after midnight, and set the alarm for a shocking 6.30am… eek!

This morning, I left my grandma’s (hopefully without waking her up, she didn’t show any signs of it despite her bedroom door being wide open when I was putting lights on and off elsewhere in the house) after a nice breakfast at 7.25 to get the train to Botanic, then walked round to the Church of Ireland Centre via Easons in Botanic Avenue. Left about 9am with Claire Hewitt and Sam Williamson in Doug Smith’s car for Kilmore House in Glenariff.

For those who don’t know, Kilmore House is used as a retreat house by assorted groups. It is maintained by the Christian Brothers, and is primarily used I think by Catholic schools for weekends etc. It also gets used by Christian groups who know about it from other places, and Youth Initiatives, whose TEC (Together Encounter Christ) weekends I went on for some years makes very regular use of it.

Today, though, it was for church – our Alpha Day Away. The day itself went well, just good to be hanging out, listening to the talks, discussing and worshipping.

Before lunch, we went for a walk in Glenariff Forest Park, up the waterfalls – haven’t done that for about seven years, or even longer. Shock horror! So we walked up, had a snowball fight as we went (there was lots of snow to have a fight with, having fallen on Thursday night!), and got to the top car park and waited for Lesley Pollock (assistant chaplain) to pick up the two drivers – for ages. Long enough to continue the snowball fight… then Doug went and got his car (a mile back down the trail), and met Lesley on the way – she couldn’t get in because the gates were closed.

So Lesley went back down to the bottom car park (at the Manor Lodge pub, although we didn’t go in), and Doug took us back down another trail. Claire, Karen Brown and I were chatting well behind the others, so we didn’t see them taking a right turn – fortunately, when we looked down the right-hand track, I saw someone turning the next corner, so we didn’t have to guess. Sam took Doug’s car back down while Doug conducted us, and a hungry group got back for a late lunch!

Got back to the Church of Ireland Centre about 5.30pm, and headed down the church and did a bit of jamming with two of the guys from Janus Head. Fortunately I can read basslines from a guitar player reasonably well… not perfectly, but I can read fretboards. Add in an ear, and we’re fine.

Then I went home, took my third antibiotic of the day (they run out on Monday – hooray!) and went to sleep for an hour or two. Excellent idea. Woke up and watched a program about Band Aid: the record that rocked the world, and now a programme about Rock artists (see the current music thing in this blog).

And I’m still sneezing. Back to work on Monday, and to be honest I’m not sure how much better I really am healthwise. Soon find out.

And so much for Thursday.

Had to have meals at sensible times today, because I was at the doctor’s this morning. Meant I had more than I had had the last few days, because I had breakfast, lunch, tea and supper – and it felt good!

Pity, because I rather like having breakfast at lunchtime. (No, I am not developing an eating disorder, this is how I eat on days when I’m not doing anything in particular – late breakfast and lunch, nothing until late evening. Ordinary days I eat normal times, except sometimes I don’t eat in the evenings until 9pm.)

Anyway, I’m signed off work until Monday, and still on the antibiotics. Got the poster and tickets for Adrian Plass off to Margaret and Paddy – in my usual brilliance, I forgot to attach them to the e-mail first time round!

Otherwise, it’s been a quiet day. Won an old Lego Lorry from 1986 on eBay tonight for not very much cost, which is rather good.

Thinking about sleep.

It is far too late to be doing this nonsense.

Anyway.

What has happened since I last blogged, and when was that? Can’t even remember…

Anyway, today I woke up and as usual did very little. Tried ringing Adrian Plass, did ring Paddy McGlinchey successfully, and e-mailed Adrian McCartney re the idea that lemon_nomel and I have been working on to replace On The Journey. Later I e-mailed John Kee with my idea for what to do next year at Summer Madness.

And today I also worked on a logo for the Church of Ireland’s 50th Anniversary, based on the work Mat Thampi did. See what everyone thinks… now I’ve changed the year from 1995 to 1955… oops…

I NEED SLEEP!

I like feeling lazy!

Anyway. Got a doctor’s appointment for Thursday morning, and a prescription to pick up later. Means that I’m almost certainly off for the week… not my own doctor, but he said he’d backdate a line for me when I see him.

E-mailed work (rang first!) so they could sort out my work e-mail (I dread to think) and send me my self-certificate – I’ll post it back when I get it tomorrow.

In other news, I got a personal e-mail from the Beano editor this morning – impressive given that I only e-mailed him this morning!

More later, if there’s more to tell!

Well, here we are! I’m still blogging several days on, what’s wrong with me?

Anyway, going to work tomorrow ain’t gonna happen. I’m still dying with this cough and cold. Have to ring the doctor tomorrow, make an appointment and get a sick line. And ring the office to get them to send me out a self-certificate form.

Meantime, what did I do yesterday and today?

Yesterday I went up to Belfast for a meeting of Railfuture (NI). I’ve swapped roles with the Secretary so that he’s now chairman, but he was having a lot of undeserved hassle at work, which apparently is getting sorted out. There’s a by-election in Larne borough or something, so we’re doing a little campaigning there (watch the papers for a letter from a friend of mine!) ahead of it re the threatened Larne line… meantime we’re watching the Londonderry line but not treading on the toes of the excellent Into The West.

Came home, relaxed and stuff.

This morning I didn’t bother going to church, had breakfast after 12, and headed off to Ballyholme for 2.30 to help set up for Informal Worship. Sorted out the Powerpoint and did assorted tricks to swap laptops for a video clip from Kenya (about two or three people went over there from Ballyholme last month, and showed some of the camcorder footage tonight).

Interesting thing – I was also looking after the sound a little because Chris Archer wasn’t available, so by the time I adjusted the sound so Rory Wilson could be heard over it, or so that the video could be heard when Rory wasn’t talking, he said it went better than last week when they did it themselves at the 10am service!

And so here I am, listening to Delirious. Life ain’t too bad!

I’m 55% freak!!

I also got 11 out of 12 on this Densa test (no, I’m not Dense, you’ll see), and I’m 72% hardy according to this site… what are you?

(Thanks Mel!)

Well, I actually shaved today for the first time since Sunday – wow! Soft as a baby’s bum (and if you’re American, think British).

Walked into Bangor and bumped into lkactually and fishgill… they haven’t actually got lkactually‘s new outfit yet!

I went on down to Boots and Easons, looked at the Live Aid DVD in HMV, and stopped off in Safeways to stock up on chocolate (yay!) Two tubes of Dairy Milk miniatures for £2… how to make an Andy happy! Got the bus back up because walking down the Newtownards Road was freezing…

Tonight: New Simpsons and… *checks TV listings* that’s about it. Back to work on Monday I think.

… is that you don’t have anything to write about.

Ah well.

So here we are, it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t shaved since Sunday so my face is beginning to resemble Rob Elkin’s (but not quite that extreme!)

This afternoon I think I’m going to catch up on my e-mails… loads to send re Adrian Plass, and a couple re Summer Madness and maybe Streetreach too – its new site is open at www.streetreach.net.

Anyone got any ideas for what else I could do today?

Well, here I am on a quiet Monday morning at home, and I haven’t had breakfast yet.

Still off sick with this cold, but I’ve just downloaded the Semagic LJ client so I don’t have to faf about on the website any more… all good!

Think I may get a few things organised for Adrian Plass today. Ruthie’s done another poster, and it’s lookin’ good!

Suppose I’d better do some sort of update post, since I read everyone else’s livejournal!

Um.

In March 2004, I changed office. It was a good move, now in our Estate Services branch. One of those places where we actually work as a team instead of talking about it – too dependent on each other not to.

I’ve settled down nicely in the Church of the Resurrection at QUB. Working on an Adrian Plass night for the church on Friday January 14th, being organised by myself and the rest of the XtremeEvents crew – see http://cgi.xtremeevents.org and register on my forums! (and do some posting)…

We also organised an Andrew Flannagan concert on 14th October, but I try not to talk about that… oops…! It all started with a 24/7 prayer week some of the folks on the Summer Madness website had a vision for which we picked up and brought to life – and finished with an overnight worship session. Very long night for an Andy…

The crew is now myself, Ruth Strong, Jemz Kirkpatrick, Dave Lowry, Sarah Reid, Rob Elkin, and our latest addition – Mark Railton.

Meantime, my laptop died this year, and PC Servicecall managed to return it to me without fixing more than one item. Still waiting for them to reply to an e-mail to say what they propose to do about it.

So I’m sitting in my room on a Sunday night with a bad cough and cold, not going to work tomorrow probably. And I’ve still no life, so no change there 😉

More later.