SHERBORNE CASTLE
A bank holiday outing with our friends Barry and Pat

(click on picture to enlarge)

Prayer

I am reading Philip Yancey's book 'Prayer: Does it make any difference?' Every page is loaded with interesting and thoughtful observations, so I am having to read it in short doses, so that I can absorb it. Today I read some of his observations on the difficulty of praying (p153):

Prayer remains a struggle for me. On the other hand, so does forgiving someone who has wronged me. So does loving a neighbour. So does caring for the needy, I persist because I am fulfilling God's command, and also because I believe I am doing what is best for me whether or not I feel like it at the time. Moreover, I believe that my perseverance, in some unfathomable way, brings pleasure to God. We must always pray, and not give up, Jesus taught. . . . . .
I appreciate prayer mostly in retrospect. The process itself feels like work. I look for ways to avoid it, and keep glancing at the clock as I'm praying. During the day, however, thoughts and impressions come to mind that stem directly from my prayers. I am far more likely to view events that occur and people I encounter from God's point of view. Like a lingering scent, prayer carries over into the rest of the day.

HOLIDAY CLUB

Our church (Priory St Baptist Church, Corsham) put on a holiday club for children, with singing, drama, puppets and much, much more!

SHEEP

These sheep are being herded past Great Chalfield Manor on an August evening.

STANWAY FOUNTAIN
Stanway fountain, near Winchcombe in the Cotswolds, was constructed in 2004. It is 300 feet high, making it the highest fountain in Britain, and the highest gravity-fed fountain in the world. Truly impressive!

Stanway House

RAILWAY AT TODDINGTON

7903 Foremarke Hall at Cheltenham Racecourse station, and taking water at Toddington

Saltford

These two pictures were taken at one of our favourite local places, on the River Avon at Saltford, half way between Bath and Bristol. (Click on picture to enlarge.)

ANDY AND DEBS' NEW HOUSE

Our son and daughter-in-law Andy and Debs have bought a victorian terrace house in Plymouth facing onto a large park. This gives them a pretty big front garden - all looked after by Plymouth Council. In the picture below, the terrace is hiding behind a row of trees

Wendy, Rosie, Debs and neighbours' cat on the front drive.

Sean
(See also the bottom of the entry to this blog of August 2nd) Our son-in-law Sean went into hospital to have a cyst removed from his abdomen. It turned out to be a tumour weighing 7 lb, and larger than a rugby ball. This was a blow, because it will mean regular CT scans for a while into the future, to check on his health. However, the better news is that the hospital thinks that it was all removed cleanly, and they are hopeful that there will be no recurrence.

More fun with Frankie the snake.
Would this be suitable headgear for Ascot next year?

My belated 65th birthday celebration
It was not until 29th July that we could get together with our 'Devon family' for a birthday celebration: - a selection of photos follows.

Sean was in hospital, having had a huge cyst the size of a rugby ball and weighing 7lb removed. However, he was able to come home on Monday 30th July, and is making a steady recovery from his ordeal.

Wedding Blessing
Wendy's youngest sister Joanne was married to Marouane in Tunisia in January, and they had a Wedding Blessing in Radstock Methodist Church on July 28th.

The two photographs above are 'proofs' from the website of www.theimagefile.com/web/martinchivers, from whom prints can be ordered.

The second photo is of Jo and all her sisters, and her brother Rod.

Below is a picture of the chocolate wedding cake made by Leila.

Joan's Birthday
We took Wendy's mother Joan to The Courts at Holt for her birthday outing.

STEAM!

My blog deserves the occasional steam locomotive. This one is at Quorn station, on the Great Central Line.

GARDEN PARTY

Despite the wet weather of our 2007 summer, it was dry and sunny for the garden party which our church put on for the senior citizens of the locality.

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

RUBY WEDDING

Our friends Roger and Margaret Stevens celebrated their Ruby Wedding recently. Here we are with them in Bradgate Park, not far from Loughborough.

St Margaret's Church, Cley-next-the-Sea, where Aunt Grace's funeral took place.

Grace Lockett’s Funeral.

It was a huge privilege to be with the extended Lockett family for Aunt Grace’s funeral on 2nd July up in Norfolk. It was a stormy day yet the rain kept off at all the crucial moments. The service of committal was at the Parish Church at Cley-next-the-sea, where Hugh and Grace used to live. We were reminded that even in her 80s Grace used to run a nursery group in the church there. She also used to ride a bike, falling off into the hedge from time to time and picking herself up giggling. Their bungalow was named “Emmaus”, and indeed it still is: it is the first thing you notice as you enter the village from the south. Hugh and Grace called it by that name to relate it to the story in Luke 24.13-36 where the disciples meet and unexpectedly recognise the risen Jesus. Likewise their home was a place of hospitality, and a place which breathed the presence of Jesus (as I myself experienced when I went to stay with them after my bereavement in 1994). I was able to refer to this when I gave the reading at the second service later in the day.

The service was conducted with great dignity by Simon Lockett, who is a vicar. Cley Church is enormous, ancient and beautiful (see attached picture). There was a violent storm whilst the service took place, but as we went outdoors for the burial, the sun shone out through a gap between inky clouds. There was even a fly-past by the RAF, though that was not pre-planned!

In the afternoon there was a service of thanksgiving at Dereham Baptist Church, during which time various members of the family were able to have their say and give tributes to Aunt Grace. Seretse Khama sent his condolences. He is Vice-President of Botswana and has visited Grace and Hugh many times. And why? – because he was a toddler in her nursery group in South London many years ago and never forgot Grace. Many another ex-toddler kept in touch with her through the years, and I can only imagine how she had such an impact on them that they would do this.

Outstandingly Grace was a woman of prayer, who prayed daily for all of her family, and for her extended family as well as for many other people. This keen interest in people coupled with an unswerving belief in the power of prayer led several people at her funeral to testify to the effect she had had on their lives.

The Bison Farm

We visited recently the Bison Farm at West Knoyle (just off the A303 near Mere). Well worth a visit! Click on picture to enlarge it.

Dick Prior

Dick was another of my parents’ generation who died recently, aged 91. He was my father’s cousin, a fine dedicated Christian (doubtless yet another beneficiary of Pamela Ann’s prayer: see my blog entry on 14th June). He was a maths teacher and housemaster at Kings School, Canterbury. Subsequently he was a headmaster in Nigeria and then at Oxford, with an interlude in between when he taught at Bradford Grammar School. I met him for the first time whilst he was in Yorkshire, but did not properly renew acquaintance until nearly 40 years later when he and Joan moved to Shaftesbury.

Dick in the RAF in 1944

With Dick and Joan in 2005

Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, immediately below St Peter's Church where the thanksgiving service for Dick was held on 15th June 2007

Aunt Grace

Aunt Grace was very special to me. She departed this life on 13th June 2007, on her 94th birthday. What was particularly special about her was that she walked with Jesus in her daily life and was therefore a woman of prayer, in tune with her Lord. She was a great comfort to me when I was bereaved. Over many years she had used what she called our ‘family prayer’ as she prayed daily not just for her own children and grandchildren but for nephews, nieces and their children too, “…that not one of them should be missing on the coming day of glory.” (a reference to the day when the Lord Jesus will return for his people.) It was a prayer known to be used by Pamela Ann Prior (1790-1858) and subsequently taken up by later generations of the family with greatly positive outcomes for many of us.