Happy New Year!

I know it’s taken me all of twenty days, but I’m still wishing regular visitors to this blog – and all new guests too! – a very Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas…it really does seem that January has come round much sooner than I expected! If you were around last year, you already know my take on resolutions (read that entry here: Happy New Year!) but nevertheless, the start of the year is always a good time to reflect and plan for the next 345-odd days ahead.

I achieved some of my goals from last year, but I’m more or less working on the same things. Just for fun, I’ll reproduce last year’s list now, along with a progress report of sorts:

Come on, Lewis!

Today was my Sports Day.

Well, that’s a tad misleading. Not that I was taking part myself – certainly not in the persistent rain! No…I spent my afternoon watching the British Grand Prix, wringing my hands and sitting on the edge of my sofa.

As you can probably guess I was rooting for Lewis Hamilton all the way, just hoping he would control his car in the inclement weather for the sixty laps round the course at Silverstone, praying he wouldn’t aquaplane off the road and end a third race this season without points.

And he came through! After a miserable couple of races in Canada and France, he won the Grand Prix with a clear sixty-eight second lead, and is now tied at the top of the Drivers’ Championship table with Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.

I’m glad he won, if for no other reason than to silence his critics.

The vagaries of Facebook

I found this fantastic article on Times Online about facebook:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article4249605.ece

Although I’m signed up to the ubiquitous social networking site, I have to admit that my enthusiasm has waned somewhat since I first signed up last October.

It was amusing at first; seeing how many of my friends were already ‘initiated’, browsing through the myriad of applications, posting videos of my ’song of the week’ on my profile page and keeping in touch with loved ones on different parts of the globe.

But I have gradually tired of of getting ’friend’ requests from creepy people I don’t know, and the potential for intrusion. And, there is the small fact that although I’m quite a geeky nerd of a girl, I actually do have a life (thank you, God!)

Happy New Year!

The fact that you’re reading this is proof that you made it through 2007 in one piece.

And I don’t know about you, but that alone – forget for a minute the things we usually consider important: jobs, homes, cars, money – is reason enough for me to thank God.

2007 was a strange year for me. I started off with a big bang and it was full steam ahead…

…until a couple of well-aimed blows mid-year knocked me for six, kicking the ‘oomph’ outta me. Left gasping for breath, it was all I could do to make it to the finish line. I just about hobbled across on my crutches, all battered and bruised…

…but enough of that! It’s 2008, and I’ve got my groove back!

Tales of handbags and stolen phones

I confess to being one of those crazy women who love gigantic handbags.

You know, one of those you see on the train. Her phone rings with an irritating tone just as you’re getting stuck into your book, savouring those last moments of peace before you get into work in the morning. She fumbles around in this massive bag looking for it, to no avail. It rings again and again…

 …and it’s all you can do to stop yourself from throttling her. Yeah, I’ve got one of those bags.

Plus, I’m not sure I can explain why it’s always so heavy. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if I am asked to check it in at an airport one day, having surpassed the weight allowed for hand luggage! As someone once said to me, I could easily fit a human head into it. A gory qualification, I know, but I thought it would help give you an inkling of just how big my handbag is!

In addition to its size, it’s one of those which doesn’t have the facility to lock or even close, and tends to gape permanently as part of its design. And that hasn’t posed me any particular problems. At least it didn’t…

…up until yesterday.

Please support me as I Race for Life!

I’m doing the Race for Life later this month, which funds the wonderful work done by the charity Cancer Research UK.

Help me support a worthy cause! Please click on the ‘justgiving’ button above to make a donation.

No amount is too small…thanks for your time and help.

O Death, where the hell is your sting??

ESKOR MFON AND IFY IRUKWU: A TRIBUTE

And so they died.

They both did – Pastor Eskor Mfon passed away on the 30th of April 2007 after a prolonged illness, and Pastor Ify Irukwu breathed her last on the 4th of June, having battled the scourge of cancer for over a year.

I’ll be honest, I do still find the concept of death difficult and don’t handle it as well as I probably should. Perhaps it’s down to the fact that I don’t have a complete revelation of it which I should as a Christian. But it hurts like hell to lose a loved one, and that’s what these two were to me.

It’s particularly hard when they leave us too young and too soon. Pastor Eskor had just turned fifty-four, and Pastor Ify was eleven days shy of her forty-first birthday.