Wycombe Winter Night Shelter

Good news: I’ve just had a call from the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter and agreed to support them with my PC work for the next three months. This really answers the issues I had on 8th December about finding some way of helping the homeless in the local community. I’ll update my web site (http://www.itfriend.org.uk/) with details once I get them. You can see more about the shelter on their web site http://www.wwns.org.uk/.

Thursday 11 December - Drink

I don’t think social drinking is really a problem for me (I would say that, wouldn’t I?) but I can remember the temptation when I was working full-time. The fast is more promising: particularly after a weekend in France. This is something we need to keep in mind over Christmas: be restrained with the food and drink - but anyone reading this is welcome to try one of my cocktails or a glass of wine over Christmas!

One other achievement today: I reached the target of £1000 for Kidney Research from my PC support activities. I’ve e-mailed all the people who have contributed to thank them. I’m hoping I can support the Wycombe Shelter (see Monday and Tuesday 8th and 9th) for the three months they operate.

We’ve at last put up the chocolate-free Advent Calendar - I’ll put a picture here tomorrow.

Tomorrow: the crib.

Wednesday 10 December - play with children

For children read grandchildren, I think: sitting down with our children and talking through what they really want for Christmas is probably not on. However we do get advised on sensible presents for the grandchildren. And I’m sure they’ll all be looking forward to being together over Christmas: the toy cars come out (some Matthew’s, some mine) and they’ll play well together. We’ll try to arrange some activities for them, too, although cooking with three boys under 5 will be fun!

Looking back, I haven’t heard yet from the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter, neither have I contacted my lunch-date friend so some catching up to do.

Tomorrow (or today) is about social drinking: not much time for this at the moment!

Tuesday 9 December - stillness

As I said, a busy day so not a lot of time to fit this in. However, I did get out two poetry books - Dylan Thomas and Wilfred Owen. I tried to read at lunchtime but didn’t have the time to settle. However, I did arrive for the PCC meeting very early (and I had Dylan Thomas in the car) so I succeeded in having a peaceful 10 minutes before phoning Jane Ray. I’m a fan of Under Milk wood - we did it at college and I have a CD which I occasionally play in the car. His use of language is remarkable: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea. But his poems don’t quite achieve this level. Nevertheless it was a peaceful ten minutes. But I do need to manage my time better so that I get more than ten minutes!

Tomorrow: children’s play

Alone at Christmas

I’ve thought about yesterday’s action ‘find out about what happens in your local community to support homeless people’ so I contacted Jane Ray who is our link with the Old Tea Warehouse. Jane suggested I look at the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter project so I’ve e-mailed them. I’ll keep you posted.

Monday 8 December Alone at Christmas

Difficult: we already support the Old Tea Warehouse in High Wycombe, a hostel for the homeless. We’re on the rota and have given clothing and duvets. I don’t want to be complacent about today’s actions but just giving more doesn’t seem right, either.

Do I know anyone who may be lonely at Christmas? I’m sure there are several: I’ll try to contact them over the next days and see if there’s some way I can help. I still haven’t heard from the friend I e-mailed last week - I’ll try to contact him, too.

Tomorrow: taking time, silence, stillness. This will be a challenge: first day back after a weekend away; 50-odd e-mails (and I’ve deleted the ones trying to sell me something); two PCs to sort out; a PCC meeting in the evening.

Sunday 7 December eating together

Our Christmas cake this year has been made by daughter Lucy - but iced by two little grandsons with a preference for blue icing. So it’s really home made.

Sunday lunch in France is still a family event and we saw several today. We also had a long evening meal with our friends - and they had had lunch with their friends. We’ll certainly be sitting down together several times over Christmas. But it’s often difficult normally to make time but we do our best.

But talking about eating seems rather trivial after our morning visit: we walked through a misty park to visit the Arras War Cemetery. The memorial designed by Edwin Lutyens commemorates more than 35,000 commonwealth servicemen who were killed nearby in the first World War and whose bodies were never found. There is also a memorial to the 1000 members of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Navy Air Service who died on the western front and have no known graves: the life expectancy of a pilot fell from three weeks to 17½ hours in 1917. Visiting this memorial was very moving and made me see the rest of the day in a different light.

The Christmas Fair seemed particularly secular: there was no crib and no reference to the Christmas story. There was a crib in the vast Cathedral - which also had an eagle lectern prominently displayed in the Choir.

Tomorrow: alone at Christmas

Saturday 6th Dec Christmas trees and stars

We visited the Christmas market and shops again today - here are some of the tempting goodies but I managed to keep the credit card in my wallet most of the day.

December 6th is St Nicholas’ day and we saw him abseiling down the belfry of the town hall.

However, the most powerful images today were nothing to do with Christmas but they did constantly remind me of yesterday’s message about debt - debt to people. We visited one of the first World War museums: it was the extensive underground workings built to attack the German lines and force them away from Arras. But the details are unimportant. What came across was the horror of these times. Returning then to the bright lights and happy people at the fair reminded me how much we owe to those who gave so much.

Tomorrow: eating together - should be a little easier!

Friday 5th December - Credit

Cut up the credit card? Not this weekend! Seriously, as a convenient way of paying, credit cards are fine but as a feeder of temptation they are potentially dangerous. We always pay off every month and usually that’s OK although there are sometimes surprises. I can remember having to buy travellers’ cheques and declaring all currency on your passport. Travelling today is much easier and I’m sure the extensive travel nowadays helps people to understand each other better.

Walking around the Christmas market and shops this evening reminded us again how stylish and extremely smart most things are here in France. It will be difficult to ‘spend realistically’ on Christmas gifts and food to bring home.

Other debts - ‘claims of love, forgiveness, generosity and mercy’ are much more difficult to measure - a monthly statement would be useful! People are kind and forgiving and don’t consider their actions in these terms, but we should be more aware of their generosity and say ‘thank you’ more often. I’ll try to be more supportive of other people without expecting anything in return. And more aware of the debt I owe when someone does something for me.


I went to the ATM this morning and it said "insufficient funds".

I’m wondering is it them or me.

Family and Friends

Not much time today to stop and think - I’m saving that up for tomorrow and the weekend. I have been chatting to my daughter with messenger - we do fairly regularly. Fortunately we are a fairly close family and I think we will be reasonably relaxed over Christmas - but not the images on the TV ads referenced in the book. And all those ads that appear at this time of year! Usually it’s drink but this year it seems to be CDs. I’m not sure what to make of The Priests. It doesn’t seem to be the Christmas message as I understand it. I’ve just looked at their web site: http://www.thepriests.com/ What do others think of it?

I haven’t sent a text or phoned anyone today as suggested: perhaps I’ll find time tomorrow (later today!) I did try to invite a friend to lunch a few days ago and he hasn’t responded yet - but I’m hopeful that he will.

We’re off to Arras for the weekend. A challenge to connect to the Blog but I’ll do my best. I’ll also make time to do nothing. It’ll be interesting to look at credit (Friday) Christmas tree and stars (Saturday) and eating together (Sunday) in the context of a French Christmas Fair.

What do I really want?

This is difficult particularly when looking at the range in Stephen’s book - from the prosaic (a jar of stem ginger) to the extensive (end of poverty, peace in the middle east) I’ve failed today to find a few quiet minutes to think about this but it’s been on my mind all day. Quite a few things that I could be wishing for seem to befalling into place: we seem to be slowly building relationships with local schools and a meeting this evening went very well. The photocopier in the office has died, however, but in the scheme of things this is nearer to stem ginger than anything.

I was reminded of some work I did some time ago when there was a big emphasis on quality. We spent lots of time and effort trying to improve the quality of everything we did and establishing processes to ensure this continued. One strong message was that we should only consider changing things that were already under our control: it’s all very well saying ‘if only x would do things better...’ but that doesn’t achieve anything. So where does this leave me?

Tomorrow: family and friends

Christmas presents

Presents - cut down or buy from Charities. A few years ago all our family members gave each other simple presents with a very limited value: it was as good as any Christmas. Nobody felt that they had been given an expensive gift that wasn’t really wanted. Finding the unusual present within the limit wasn’t easy, though, so shopping was probably harder!

We’ve given gifts to charities, too - I received a set of oilskins and seaboots for the RNLI. That was good but it would have been even better if the gift had been more visible. None of the local charities seem to do this - or do they? Perhaps we could persuade the Old Tea Warehouse* to start a scheme.

We’ve agreed to limit presents to family this year - and the children have issued lists of suggestions so the chances of unwanted gifts is small. Finding time to shop is challenging - I’ll keep you posted.

Tomorrow: what do you really want?

Christmas Post: A woman went into a post office to buy some stamps for her Christmas cards. What denomination do you want ? asked the lady at the counter. 'Good God!' she replied, Has it come to this? I suppose you'd better give me twenty Catholic and twenty Presbyterian.

* The Old Tea Warehouse is a hostel for the homeless in High Wycombe. It is very actively supported by members of our Church: the Parish Office is currently half full of duvets, sleeping bags and individual presents for the residents.

Afterthought about Christmas Cards

Yesterday’s Christmas Card guidance included "don’t write ‘Must see you this year’ on your cards unless actually you mean it" Looking through the address list last night I spotted one friend on whose card I’d written this - and we bumped into him during the year and said the same. So I’ve just e-mailed him suggesting we agree a date in January or February and I’ll do my to stick to this. Let’s hope we have a date before I write his card!

First day

First day. Guidance is to make a wish list and be ruthless about Christmas Cards. I’ve looked through our address list (on the PC, of course) and there are quite a few names to be dropped. There are, too, many people I’d still like to keep in touch with and sending a Christmas card is a good way. These include several work friends from the USA: I usually try to find the most Christian cards for them because the cards I receive are often politically correct to the extreme, wishing us a ‘happy holiday’ or similar.

I’m feeling the Christmas pressure not from the commercialisation but from the wish to ensure that the activities in Church over Christmas are as successful as possible. Christmas is one of those times when we get people who come very infrequently and I want to make sure that they are welcomed and perhaps will see their visit as a first step to becoming regular members. There’s also the pressure of all the events in the Church during the next weeks. I’m not alone in this, of course, everyone is very supportive.

Wish list? We’ve started attempting to get closer links with the local schools The Misbourne and The Gateway: the latter today asked Vicar Rosie and Youth Worker Lizzie to start regular assemblies so that’s a promising start. I have two meetings with The Misbourne in the next week or so which I hope will make some openings there.

We haven’t put up our Advent Calendar yet - it’s not full of chocolate but is a Danish version - a Christmas tree with velcro spots on which we stick various felt Christmassy things - I’ll put a picture here in a few days.

Tomorrow’s challenge is about getting gifts into perspective.

Stephen Cottrell ends each day with a joke: I’m not sure I can do the same - but here’s an amusing web site with lots of children’s Christmas jokes http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/jokes.html