A Day in February

School Half-term holiday already for Oliver

and Grandma gets to take care of him for a day

Here he is with the white chocolate and caramel chip cookies that Grandma helped him to make - ready for the oven.

When I was getting everything out he said, "Call me when you need me - no don't do that, call me when you are ready to weigh the chocolate chips,Grandma"

We had a simple but fun day

Having been to the adventure play ground in the park our next call was to the

Vintage Emporium

This is a massive place and only a few photos here but Oliver just loved running around the passages and asking about everything.

The kind of place that would take a day to look at everything and without a 4 year old

The tea room was very in keeping with the atmosphere

Then once back at the house Rebekah was home and saying cheese when she saw my camera!

And here she is having zipped a toy into my camera case

The Grace Outpouring

The write-up on the back cover of this book says it all.

Imagine a House of Prayer in every town.

Imagine churches filled with Christians who want to bless others; who want to pray and then stand back and watch God at work, changing lives before their very eyes.

Since his arrival at the Ffald-Y-Brenin centre in rural Wales, Roy Godwin has been able to imagine all this - because he has seen the amazing effects of God working in sovereign power on people who weren't even sure He existed! Roy has witnessed the outbreak of God's bounty and blessing in the retreat centre, in the grounds, in the fields and out in the community. His story will be an inspiration to all those who are looking for a new trust in God's willingness to bless the needy with repentance and the Holy Spirit.

These photographs were taken by a friend who visited last yesr

I read this book for the first time last year, though I have known about it for quite some time, as I know many people and have many friends who have visited and/or stayed there. As far as my reading the book is concerned, it impacted me with a renewed sense of Grace. For the people I know it seems people come away having had very different experiences but all speak of the sense of peace and the presence of God.

The chapel is built into the mountain

When Roy and his wife Daphne first took on the centre they did not understand why God had called them there as their ministry had been very much in evangelism. However very quickly God began to show them. People would drive past and feel compelled to drive up the hill and find out what it was all about.

Roy felt that what he was to do was offer hospitality, bless people and pray for them and leave the rest to God. Confirmation came when a couple felt compelled to drive up to the house and when offered tea the man began to talk about po*rn*ography and continued to utter foul language during a tour of the grounds. At the end Roy ushered him into the chapel and as he stepped over the threshold he fell to the ground and weeping called on God to forgive him asking God to clean him up and sort out his life.

The following link gives much more information if you are interested by clicking on the various subject tabs.

http://www.ffald-y-brenin.org/

1:1:11 ???

Some interesting numbers this year

1.1.11     1.11.11     11.11.11

and

if you take the last 2 numbers of your date of birth

and

add the age you will be this year you will come up with

111

Here we are before the age of digital cameras with 14 megapixels
and certainly before blogging was even a word, some photos of Bridgnorth in Shropshire, an English town on the River Severn 

and a couple of a steam train approaching the railway station at Arley

think The Railway Children

How much amateur photography has advanced since I took these about 1995

The Silversmith and some Colchester

I came across this recently and liked it

The Silversmith



There was a group of women in a Bible study on the Book of Malachi. In Chapter 3 verse 3 it says: ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver’. This puzzled the women and one of them offered to find out all about the process of refining silver and report back to the group next time. She tracked down a silversmith and made an appointment to visit his workshop to watch him at his craft. She didn’t mention the reason for her interest.


She watched as the silversmith held a piece of silver in a flame and let it heat up. He explained that to refine silver one needed to hold the metal right in the centre of the fire where it was hottest so as to burn away all impurities. The woman thought of God holding us in such a hotspot from time to time but wondered again at the words of the verse ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver’. When she asked the silversmith if he really had to stay sitting there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined, he answered that yes, he not only must sit there holding the silver steady but he needed to keep his eyes on it every second it was in there. For if the silver was left a moment too long in the heat it would be destroyed.


The woman asked one final question. ‘How do you know when the silver is fully pure?’ He smiled at her. ‘That’s easy! It’s refined when I can see my reflection in it like a mirror.’

Did you?

Thought I would post these last few photos of Colchester. You may remember my post on Colchester Castle and it's history.

Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town.

The Emperor Claudius spent just sixteen days in Britain, long enough to lead his troops into Camulodunum and receive the submission of several British kings. The Roman army then built a legionary fortress on the highest ground inside Camulodunum, the site of the present town centre.

By AD49 the fortress at Camulodunum had been turned into a civilian settlement named Colonia Claudia after the Emperor, and this became the first capital of the new Roman province of Britainnia

Here we have just left the castle and are walking up the high street.

The Town Hall

An old coaching in from the front

and from the back

Speciality Sausages

Would like to have tried but we did not have a cool/ice box with us

Waterstones book shop

and a selection of other shops and such a mixture of the old and new