Today is our first attempt at a major excursion – well major for us that is – venturing out to visit some of the famous sites of Paris we have come here to see. Julia had a plan – she usually has – which involves taking the Metro out to the Église Étienne du […]

It is the second day of our two week holiday in Paris, France. Yesterday was wonderfully warm and sunny when we arrived at Gare du Nord, and the streets of Monmartre were packed with people – Parisians and tourists – out enjoying what was forecast to be the last Sunny day for some time. The […]

It is the 1st November and Julia and I on our way to France to potter about Paris for a whole two weeks!? In response to numerous requests I am once again blogging whilst we are away. Quite unexpectedly we have managed to squeeze this trip into our ‘busy schedule’ following my recovery from major […]

I never really achieved my potential when I was at school, or even at college. I scraped through my 11+ exam and got to Grammar School but did really badly there. The first time I took my ‘O’ Level exams I only passed one – in Art – and had to ‘re-do’ the 5th Year. […]

Beckenham Baptist Church (where Julia and I were the Pastors from 2004-2010) has a low brick wall, about two feet high, running the length of one side of the building, separating the pavement from a narrow strip of garden bordering the church car park. For generations this has been known as the ‘walking wall’ since […]

Some years ago, a close friend of mine was the Assistant Minister of a large Baptist Church in the UK. Although he initially thought it both a privilege and an honour to be called to serve God in such a church, he soon found it to be a very frustrating experience. The Senior Minister – […]

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), the author of classic books like Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, spent his childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. Apparently, one evening, when he was a young child, as dusk was turning to darkness, Robert had his face pinned to the window at the front […]

I was brought up listening to stories. As a young child my parents read stories to me every night until I learned to read for myself and was then able to hungrily devour book after book! My father, in particular, told me numerous stories. Stories from his own childhood in the 1900s, stories from his […]

The first thing I saw, when I came round from my recent  major heart surgery, was Julia’s lovely face grinning at me through a forest of arms, legs, tubes, drains and so on! I would like to tell you that my first words on waking up were a heroic statement of faith and confidence, such […]

A book that I have found both fascinating and helpful over the years – and one that I find myself frequently returning to – is Derek and Nancy Copley’s little book (first published in 1978) called Building with Bananas. Derek and Nancy chose the title after listening to a bricklayer on a local building site […]