Category: Life

Blast from the past… 8

We are often in situations where we’re amongst people we recognise, but know almost nothing about.

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Notes from bygone years – Julys duly remembered
Hint: Click on the thumbnails for larger images.

A year ago

On 7th July 2022 I noted that ‘the Conservative party is in a state of confusion right now’. Not a lot has changed in the last twelve months; it seems the Conservative ship is still foundering. I included a picture of a sinking ship in my article, here it is again. I also argued for a general election as soon as possible and we’re still waiting on that one! So the big question now is, ‘Will the Conservatives still be in power in July 2024?’ Hard to say, isn’t it! In my judgement it’s very unlikely, but we’ll have to wait and see. The last possible date for the next general election is 28th February 2025. (See the original post.)

Graphic of a sinking ship

<Jun 2022 – Aug 2022>

Two years ago
Starship’s first launch, 20th April 2023 – Image from Wikimedia

In July 2021, SpaceX‘s Superheavy Booster 3 was being tested at Boca Chica in Texas. They continue to develop and build boosters (and Starships too) at a prodigious rate, and have already launched the full stack on it’s first test flight. That flight failed to reach orbit, and caused serious damage to the launch mount but, following repairs, they are very nearly ready for a second attempt and have made a lot of changes following lessons learned from flight 1.

<Jun 2021 – Aug 2021>

Five years ago
The JDMC cover

In July 2018 I shared an extract from my short guide, JDMC. I emphasised the work of the Holy Spirit in church life and looked at ways we can recognise and value his activity.

I didn’t want JDMC to be only about what we do, but more significantly about what Jesus does. (Read the original article)

<Jun 2018 – Aug 2018>

Ten years ago
Ambience Cafe, St Neots

Research shows we are often in situations where we’re amongst people we recognise, but know almost nothing about. In July 2013 I was thinking about this and how I might notice and engage with such people. (Read the original article)



<Jun 2013 – Aug 2013>

Fifteen years ago
Still from a video about the hymn

In July 2008 I wrote about the famous Welsh hymn, ‘Dyma gariad fel y moroedd’ or in English ‘Here is love vast as the ocean’. Read about the hymn’s origins and listen to it in the original article.


<Jun 2008 – Aug 2008>

Twenty years ago
Crow’s nest on HMS Warrior

July 2003 saw us meeting at home to listen to what the Spirit would say and watch what he would do. And of course, we were not disappointed. Afterwards I posted ‘Fallen and lifted up‘ to capture something of that evening.



<Jun 2003 – Aug 2003>

Twenty-five years ago
Kimbolton Market Place

In July 1998 we visited Kimbolton, just a short distance from our home in Tilbrook. Although it’s a village, Kimbolton always seemed much more like a small town with a market place and Kimbolton Castle, now a private school.


<Jun 1998 – Aug 1998>

Thirty years ago
The Sealed Knot

In July 1993 Judy, Debbie and Beth went to see a Sealed-Knot re-enactment of a Civil War battle. I didn’t go to this as I was probably at work at the time.



<Jun 1993 – Aug 1993>

Thirty-five years ago
Mum and Mickey

In July 1988 My Mum was sixty and we had a party at The Catherine Wheel pub in Bibury. Here she is unwrapping a present – a Mickey Mouse landline telephone. She had always wanted one of these!


<Jun 1988 – Aug 1988>

Forty years ago
Apple pollen tubes

In July 1983 my mathematician friend, Phil, and I had a scientific paper published. Phil built a mathematical model for the effect of temperature on apple pollen tubes. This was based on experimental measurements I’d made in spring 1982.

<Jun 1983 – Aug 1983

Forty-five years ago

In July 1978 Beth was just two months old (whoops, I think I just gave her age away). We were living in a terraced house in Yatton and I was working on plum and apple pollination.

<Jun 1978 – Aug 1978>

Fifty years ago
Belland Drive in Charlton Kings

In July 1973 I inspected the base for a greenhouse with my father-in-law, Ron Hill. Here we are, having a good look. As you can see, Ron’s garden in Charlton Kings was beautifully maintained.


<Jun 1973 – Aug 1973>

Fifty-five years ago

In July 1968 I celebrated my 20th birthday. I don’t remember the occasion, but it would have involved a bit of a party with my Mum and Dad, my three sisters, Judy, and possibly her parents and brother too. From my current perspective it seems a very long time ago!

<Jun 1968 – Aug 1968>

Sixty years ago
A beach on the Welsh coast

In July 1963 I was 14 years old and we might have been on holiday, but more likely it would have been August. In any case, here’s my Dad taking a photo of the family on the beach on the coast of Ceredigion, Wales.


<Jun 1963 – Aug 1963>

Sixty-five years ago

In July 1958 I turned ten-years-old, and I’d finished my fifth year of junior education. It was the summer holiday, hooray!

<Jun 1958 – Aug 1958>

Seventy years ago

In July 1953 I was four, turning five and hadn’t yet started school. Mum, Dad, my little sister, Cindy, and I lived in Queen Anne’s Road on the Beeches estate in Cirencester.

<Jun 1953 – Aug 1953>

Seventy-five years ago

July 1948 was the month I was born. I was one of the first two children to be delivered at Cirencester’s new maternity hospital. It’s now the main building of today’s Cirencester Hospital.

<Jun 1948 – Aug 1948>

Eighty years ago

On 29th July 1943 my Dad cycled home from school at the end of term. It was his last day of full-time education.

<Jun 1943 – Aug 1943>

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North Coast 500 – Day 1

The tidal range is enormous, exceeded only by the Bay of Fundy in North America, and the beach is gently shelving here so the tide goes out several miles.

Part 1 of a series – North Coast 500

< No earlier posts | Index | Day 2 >

Cirencester to Weston-super-Mare – 16th June

We had decided to fly to Inverness and pick up a hire car there, mainly because we had limited time with Donna’s work and other commitments and we wanted to spend our time on the NC500 route, not driving to Inverness and back.

Perhaps the title is incorrect as the day was spent hundreds of miles from the North Coast 500 (NC500), but it was the first day of our holiday. Our nearest airport is Lulsgate, south-west of Bristol; and Donna’s brother Paul and his wife, Vanessa, live in Weston-super-Mare, which is very close; we drove down on Friday evening, 16th June, and spent the night with them ready to catch our flight the following morning.

Weston-super-Mare beach and pier with the Welsh coast in the distance

It was good to spend the evening chatting over coffee, having a bit of a catch up. We like Weston, the photo shows the beach and the pier. In addition to those, notice the land on the horizon which is part of South Wales, the Bristol Channel which is very wide at this point, and the mud between the sea and the sand. The tidal range is enormous, exceeded only by the Bay of Fundy in North America, and the beach is gently shelving here so the tide goes out several miles. This photo shows Weston closer to high tide than low tide!

We brought our bags into the house and gave Paul the keys as we won’t be needing them and it would be good if he was able to move the car if a need arose.

We slept well, knowing we had a long journey in the morning. It would be the first day travelling north from Inverness.

What is the North Coast 500?

This name, often abbreviated to just NC500, is a famous touring route along the north coast of the mainland of Scotland. You can follow the route in either direction, starting from Inverness Castle. We chose the anti-clockwise version, making the fabulous Highlands scenery a grand finale to our journey.

Which part of a holiday is best in your view? Is it setting out on a new adventure, being away and exploring, or returning home?

See also:

North Coast 500 – INDEX

We diverted from part of the north coast to visit some inland places; it was a day of valleys, woodland, mountains, lochs and narrow, winding roads.


(See indexes on other topics)

Donna and I had an amazing trip around the north coast, mostly following the North Coast 500 route. We flew into Inverness and made our way north, then west and eventually south again, finally heading back to Inverness for the flight home.

Blast from the past… 7

In June 1963 I was 14 years old and on a school day trip to Coventry; I took a photo in the new central area of the city.

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Notes from bygone years – June, June and yet more June
Hint: Click on the thumbnails for larger images.

A year ago

On 25th June 2022 we walked a section of the Cotswold Way, from Dowdeswell Reservoir a couple of hours south-east of Cheltenham, to Cooper’s Hill four miles or so south-east of Gloucester. The walk was 13 miles on a beautiful clear day with light haze, the Malvern Hills (on the horizon in the photo, but nearly lost in the haze) are 22 miles away.

The view north-west across Cheltenham

We walked with Donna’s brother, Paul, and his wife, Vanessa; they do a lot more walking than we do. With stops along the way for coffee and lunch, it was a great experience. A steep climb up the scarp at the beginning and then a more gentle amble along the top took us to Cooper’s Hill.

<May 2022 – Jul 2022>

Two years ago

In June 2021 we visited Malham Cove with the family, an area of limestone pavement in Yorkshire.

Steep climbs up and down, but fantastic views and an astonishing area of deep and wides cracks to enjoy at the top.

<May 2021 – Jul 2021>

Five years ago
Image from Wikimedia

In June 2018 I posted an article on JHM, ‘Adoption as an heir‘. In Roman society, wealthy people might adopt someone as their heir, to ensure that their life’s work would be continued. And this same notion would make sense in helping them to understand that a god might do something similar. Paul uses this tradition to explain that the One God of the Jewish nation doesn’t want us to be slaves or even employees, but heirs with Christ.

<May 2018 – Jul 2018>

Ten years ago

In June 2013 I wrote about leadership, and how Jesus trained leaders. Like the Pharisees, Jesus taught his disciples how to teach. He did it by example, but he also took his closest followers away from the crowds from time to time to spend time teaching them personally in some detail. For more about this, read the original post.

<May 2013 – Jul 2013>

Fifteen years ago

In June 2008 I wrote about ‘Jesus in the prison cell‘, with a video of an Iranian Muslim who met Jesus and decided to follow him. It was an extraordinary story. There are more recent videos, in much better video quality, but I have not watched those. You can find them by searching for Afshin Javid in the You Tube search bar.

<May 2008 – Jul 2008>

Twenty years ago
From Wikimedia

In June 2003 we were going to meet for prayer and to hear what the Holy Spirit would say to us, but as there were only two of us, we instead took a walk up the riverbank.

Here’s what happened.

<May 2003 – Jul 2003>

Twenty-five years ago

In June 1998 Donna and I visited Kimbolton School where there was a summer fair with old cars and all sorts of stalls and events.

We were able to see the inside of the house as well.

<May 1998 – Jul 1998>

Thirty years ago

In June 1993 Judy and I took our daughter Beth and her French school exchange visitor, Julia, to see the Brecon Beacons.

<May 1993 – Jul 1993>

Thirty-five years ago

In June 1988 we were still using a Sinclair QL for word processing with a green screen monitor (though the QL supported colour).

<May 1988 – Jul 1988>

Forty years ago

In June 1983 I was experimenting with apple pollen tube growth at Long Ashton Research Station.

<May 1983 – Jul 1983>

Forty-five years ago

In June 1978 Debbie was three and we met my grandmother (in the wheelchair) at my parent’s home in Cirencester.

<May 1978 – Jul 1978>

Fifty years ago

In June 1973 Judy and I, along with my Mum and Dad, watched a hydrogen balloon (or perhaps a helium balloon) being filled and flying out of Cirencester Park. Amazing to see!

<May 1973 – Jul 1973>

Fifty-five years ago

In June 1968 I was on a sandwich degree course at Bath University and was working hard on a fruit and vegetable farm. I had my first car at this time and was able to visit Judy in Cheltenham and my parents in Cirencester.

<May 1968 – Jul 1968>

Sixty years ago

In June 1963 I was 14 years old and on a school day-trip to Coventry; I took a photo in the new central area of the city.

<May 1963 – Jul 1963>

Sixty-five years ago

In June 1958 I was nine-years-old, in my 5th year at junior school.

<Nothing earlier – Jul 1958>

Seventy years ago

In June 1953 I was four and chose a postcard of Mallard to send to my Granny-in-Ireland.

<Nothing earlier – Jul 1953>

Seventy-five years ago

In June 1948 I was almost a full-term foetus, and had not yet seen the big world outside my Mum.

<Nothing earlier – Jul 1948>

Eighty years ago

In June 1943 my Dad was at boarding school. On 17th they held a fire drill in which he played the role of a casualty with two broken legs. Rendcomb College clearly took World War II seriously (as, of course, they should).

<Nothing earlier – Jul 1943>

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Blast from the past – INDEX

(See indexes on other topics)

This is an index page, from here you can browse around all the articles in this series, or find a particular one you’d like to read.

Blast from the past… 13 – December 2023
Blast from the past… 12 – November 2023
Blast from the past… 11 – October 2023
Blast from the past… 10 – September 2023
Blast from the past… 9 – August 2023
Blast from the past… 8 – July 2023
Blast from the past… 7 – June 2023
Blast from the past… 6 – May 2023
Blast from the past… 5 – April 2023
Blast from the past… 4 – March 2023
Blast from the past… 3 – February 2023
Blast from the past… 2 – January 2023

Blast from the past… 1 – December 2022

Meet two of my online friends

They are both unusual people, have rather special ways of looking at the world, and comment from opposite sides of the war in Ukraine.

Yaroslava (Yara) is Ukrainian, she lives in Kyiv with her son and her cat; she writes and photographs what she sees around her and posts news and thoughts. Konstantin is Russian, but left in 2022 and now lives in Uzbekistan; he gives 30-minute live YouTubes about life and events in Russia followed by open discussions online, and he runs a breakfast club for Ukrainians and Russians in Tashkent.

I’m exaggerating when I say they are my friends. I exchange messages with Yara occasionally and follow her on Twitter, but I’ve never had a reply from Konstantin. But to me they feel like friends. They are both unusual people, have rather special ways of looking at the world, and comment from opposite sides of the war in Ukraine. I think they would agree with one another on many things, both oppose the invasion and the war, and both feel compelled to communicate these things to the world.

I’d like to introduce you to them.

Yara

The two best places to look for Yara are on BuyMeACoffee and on Twitter. Click through and read some of her posts. Yara is artistic and expresses herself poetically, what comes through most clearly are her heart and her feelings in the moment. She writes about the war (of course) and she uses imagined dialogues quite often. On Twitter she sometimes tells us how she is feeling, shares photos (most of them very, very good) and makes delightful short videos as she walks around Kyiv. Yara is proud of her city, and rightly so.

Konstantin

Find Konstantin on YouTube (Inside Russia), I recommend his daily live videos. He thinks things through very thoroughly before starting a session, and usually he sets out his points carefully and convincingly. Sometimes his emotions show through a little of course, but logical thinking, business experience, and planning ahead are his strengths. He has a relaxed pace in his livestreams and this can make him seem slow to develop an argument, but it also make it easier to follow the underlying logic.

Summary

Yara and Konstantin are two very different people. What they have in common is that through no choice of their own they have been deeply affected by the war – as have their friends, families and neighbours.

Both have had their working lives interrupted, and both have embarked on new and perhaps unexpected projects. Both are worth listening to if you want to better understand this terrible conflict and how it’s disrupting life on both sides.

I’ll say no more about them, they will both speak for themselves.

Nova Khakovka

Under the appalling circumstances of the breach of the Nova Khakovka dam a few days ago, I can’t publish this post without mentioning it. But words fail me. There are none that fit. ‘Tragic’ barely scratches the surface. And if it was a deliberate act, ‘evil’ and ‘heinous’ are utterly inadequate.

Yara and Konstantin have both responded to the breach in their different ways and I’m sure they will mention it again as the details and the terrible after-effects become clearer. The world will not forget this event. If it was due to poor maintenance or improper management (this seems rather unlikely but is conceivable) then Russia must take responsibility because they invaded Ukraine, captured the dam, and were in control at the time of failure. If it was deliberately breached following a political or military order to do so, that is even worse and the world will not forgive those responsible. In time there will be clarity on the cause of the dam failure, currently there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence pointing to a deliberate act on the part of Russia.

Fallen Rhododendron flowers

He invites us to share in his spiritual life, a gift since we cannot deserve or earn it.

Fallen Rhododendron flowers lie on the ground – they are still beautiful. If you follow Jesus, perhaps you might say the same of fallen people (ie all of us); fallen people are lost but still beautiful too. But unlike the flowers, for fallen people hope remains; there is a Way, a Truth, a Life.

Rhododendron flowers lying on the ground where they fell

Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

The Way

Jesus is the Way because he is the only road to safety. We are free to follow any route through life that we wish, but the only road that promises and ensures safety is the road that Jesus travelled. Like us, he was born, lived as a child and went through the process of growing up. Unlike us he didn’t mess up.

If I want to walk in safety, I can only do it by walking with Jesus. I need to get to know him better, listen to what he says, say what I hear him say, do what I see him do.

The Truth

Jesus is the truth because he doesn’t hide from us. How can we define truth and falseness? Well, people sometimes say of a person, ‘What you see is what you get’. This is never literally, reliably, always true of any other human being. We hide things for a variety of reasons, even as children. If we’re ashamed of something, we hide it. If we break something, we might say someone else did it, or pretend we weren’t there at the time. Human nature is to turn to what is false when the truth is inconvenient or embarrassing or dangerous. Jesus is the exception that proves this rule of human nature. Not only did he always stick to what is true, he is truth personified.

The Life

We are alive because we are self-sustaining physical systems carrying out physical processes. Anything that destroys the systems or stops the processes causes us to die. If I’m not allowed to breathe, I will die. If I’m not allowed to eat or drink, I will die. Jesus, during his time with us, was just the same. But he was nailed to a cross which made it impossible to breath unless he could support his body weight, and he was not allowed to eat or drink and when, finally, he was offered something, he refused it. As he grew weak, breathing became impossible and he died. Yet he also has a spiritual life, and physical life was restored to him for a time as well (though bodily he was different in some very significant ways).

He invites us to share in his spiritual life, a gift since we cannot deserve or earn it. And he doesn’t want to wait, he chooses to give us spiritual life now, while we are still physically alive. For a time we can have both as he did, and later we retain the spiritual life even after our physical life is over.

Yes, it’s a mystery. No, we can’t explain it. But Jesus is not only the Way, and the Truth, he is also the Life!

If you want to follow the Way, discover the Truth, and live the Life, you really need to get to know Jesus better. One way is to read the book called Luke. It’s in the Bible, and it’s available online for free.

The end of humanity?

For such an alarming topic it’s a remarkably calm discussion, but also a very informative and thought-provoking conversation.

The rise of AI and the possibility (some would say certainty) that this means the end of human civilisation and the extinction of our species, are topics being seriously warned against by a number of thinkers, scientists, and AI experts.

Artificial General Intelligence – Image from Wikimedia

The Guardian discusses these issues with ‘the father of AI’, Geoffrey Hinton.

Listen to the podcast and see what you think. The potential end of humanity is not something to be swept under the carpet. We need to think about it right now. It would be extraordinarily foolish to wait, it might already be too late. For such an alarming topic it’s a remarkably calm discussion, but also a very informative and thought-provoking conversation.

I believe everyone should have the chance to listen to this.

See also:

Human origins

Theorists can move forward again – and the picture seems a little more complicated than we thought.

Where did we come from, and how? We’ve long thought in terms of an evolutionary ‘tree’, but our origins in Africa are more like a braided channel. This idea provides a better fit to the data.

Based on fossil evidence alone, studies of human evolution have long agreed that modern humans evolved in east Africa and radiated out from there. But with the development of cheap, fast and reliable DNA evidence from modern populations, and DNA from fossil teeth and bone samples, it’s becoming clear that theorists can move forward again – and the picture seems a little more complicated than we thought.

Human dispersion, events described in the article all took place in Africa – Image from Wikimedia

On 17th May, Ragsdale and others published a research paper in Nature; ‘A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa’; their evidence suggests evolutionary connections in populations that were separated for a while before recombining. So instead of an evolutionary tree (which most people were expecting) it seems that our human past is more like a set of braided channels.

Previous views on human evolution proposed a tree structure (branching but not recombining). However, the new ‘weakly structured stem’ model fits the data better than a tree model. It also explains the diversity of genetic forms in modern human populations, and shows that there is no single place in Africa where humans ‘originated’. After this process within Africa, humans spread out as show in the map.

See also:

Blast from the past… 6

In May 1993 we made some very large bubbles in the back garden.

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Notes from bygone years – May without limits

A year ago

In May 2022 we visited St Neots in Cambridgeshire, our home town before moving to Cirencester where we live today. We were visiting friends for a big party in their local village hall.

Pretending to be on a tropical beach

The whole thing was themed for a Caribbean feel, and we all had our photos taken against a backdrop of palm fronds, a golden beach, and sparkling sea dotted with distant islands.

<Apr 2022 – Jun 2022>

Two years ago

In May 2021 I took a photo of this plaque in Black Jack Street, Cirencester. It commemorates 1900 years of the town’s existence, founded by the Roman invaders in 75 AD. I wonder what they’d make of it now?

The phoenix rising from the ashes has long been Cirencester’s emblem. Corinium, as the Romans called it, was a frontier settlement in 75 AD and the years immediately following, but it grew to become the regional capital of south western Britain – the province of Britannia Prima.

Wikipedia has a good article about Corinium.

<Apr 2021 – Jun 2021>

Five years ago

In May 2018 I wrote about the work going on in our new house. The builders had done much of the work on the new extensions, but nothing was finished yet and a lot of our possessions were inaccessible – including our summer clothes. And the weather was getting warmer and warmer!

Our partly liveable house

If you’d like to know more, read the original article.

<Apr 2018 – Jun 2021>

Ten years ago

In May 2013 I was reading ‘The Shaping of Things to Come’, an excellent book by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Amongst other things, they remark on the fact that Jesus was a Jew, the New Testament was written almost entirely by Jewish authors (the exception being Luke), and the earliest church (in Jerusalem) was Jewish in nature too. If we are to understand Jesus, the New Testament, and the church, we have to pay attention to their Jewishness. Read the original post.

<Apr 2013 – Jun 2013>

Fifteen years ago
The ‘Sagrada Familia’

May 2008 – We had a holiday in Catalonia and visited Barcelona where we took a look at the famous Sagrada Familia with its amazing ‘biological’ shapes. What an astonishing place it is!

To learn more about this wonderful feat of design and engineering by the architect Antoni Gaudi, read the Wikipedia article.


<Apr 2008 – Jun 2008>

Twenty years ago

In May 2003 I was reminded about the significance of rivers and their behaviour and about the river in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation. Life is not about the mundane things we do from day to day, and we don’t get far by our own abilities. Real life has an essentially spiritual focus. I wrote a blog post about a meeting that helped me see these things more clearly.

<Apr 2003 – Jun 2003>

Twenty-five years ago

May 1998 saw me designing an automated news website for internal use by research teams at Unilever. I’d only been in the job for a month, and I already had an overall mechanism in mind and was working on the programming required.

<Apr 1998 – Jun 1998>

Thirty years ago

In May 1993 we made some very large bubbles in the back garden. We had a special bubble-making kit with a large fabric loop on the end of a wand. It was an amazing process! The picture shows my daughter Beth and nephew Tom experimenting with a bubble.

<Apr 1993 – Jun 1993>

Thirty-five years ago

In May 1988 I was working at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol, developing techniques for imaging water droplets on waxy leaves by rapid freezing and scanning electron microscopy. This led to a paper on the topic.

<No earlier data – Jun 1988>

Forty years ago

It’s May 1983 and time for the annual school fete; my daughter Beth and her friend Vicky were in fancy dress, walking with their teacher.

How time flies – my grandchildren are older now than my children were then.

<No earlier data – Jun 1983>

Forty-five years ago

In May 1978 I borrowed a friend’s car (we didn’t have a car at the time) and drove with a very excited daughter to visit her baby sister at Bristol Maternity Hospital.

<No earlier data – Jun 1978>

Fifty years ago

In May 1973 Mum and Dad visited us for the day and we spent some time in Clevedon. Here’s Dad taking photos on the rocky shoreline.

<No earlier data – Jun 1973>

Fifty-five years ago

In May 1968 I was in lodgings in Pershore, working on a fruit and vegetable farm nearby as part of my undergraduate degree at Bath University. It was a sandwich course in horticulture, and the summers were the industrial experience part of the course.

<No earlier data – Jun 1968>

Sixty years ago

May 1963 and I was in my fifth year at Cirencester Grammar School.

<No earlier data – Jun 1963>

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