Outrageous grace

There’s a lot of pain, but a lot more healing.
There’s a lot of trouble, but a lot more peace.
There’s a lot of hate, but a lot more loving
There’s a lot of sin, but a lot more grace!
Oh! Outrageous grace!......Oh! Outrageous grace!
Love unfurled by heavens hand.
Oh! Outrageous grace!......Oh! Outrageous grace!
Through my Jesus I can stand.
There’s a lot of fear, but a lot more freedom
There’s a lot of darkness, but a lot more light.
There’s a lot of cloud, but a lot more vision.
There’s a lot of perishing, but a lot more Life!

There’s an enemy,
That seeks to kill what it can’t control.
I twists and turns,
Making mountains out of molehills.
But I will call on the Lord
Who is worthy of praise,
I run to Him, and I am saved!....
By Outrageous grace……………………

Godfrey Birtill 2000

This is one of my favourite songs. So simple yet profound. Godfrey has led the worship at a number of the prophetic conferences that my church has hosted in the past. For me to be part of a live worship situation when Godfrey is singing Outrageous Grace is so moving that tears just stream down my face. Many of his songs have just come to him while he has been leading worship and they are straight from his heart.

If you can take the time to listen to this video I am sure you will be blessed.

I'm Always Amazed

This world of blogging never ceases to amaze me

and one never knows what surprise awaits on opening up the computer

This week I had an E-mail from a Head Teacher of a local school

of course neither of us knew at that time our local connections

She had Googled for some information and came up with a post from my blog

Her son was researching some local history

The outcome was that she and her son came to visit me on Wednesday

evening so that her son could 'interview' me

They were delightful people and during conversation we realised that she and her sister and my children attended the same school and they are all of a similar age

The son wanted to take my picture at the end of the interview

I do not like posing for pictures but I would not have disappointed him

I was rewarded with a box of my favourite Belgium chocolates

When they finally left I was invited to drop in and visit them as we only live

5 minutes apart by car

Today we had a strange smell in our town, as did apparently most of the south east of England (we learned this from the tv)

The atmosphere also looked slightly hazy/misty

It seems that lots of land in Holland was being sprayed with fertiliser after the Tulip harvest and this smell and pollution had been blown across the north sea on the very strong and cold easterly winds that we are having

I can understand debris as we can have a light covering of sand from the Sahara in Africa when there have been extremely strong Southerly winds(the sand travels high in the atmosphere) but a smell, that is interesting

Today, Saturday we are told that the smell is coming from 'muck spreading' in north west Germany

On another subject entirely

I need to get to grips with my new phone

It was a Christmas present and as I still have money on my old phone I have not yet learned to use it

I wanted a camera on my phone as I am taking photos all the time and do not always have my camera with me

Of course the minute one moves on to camera phone grade (as I am sure you know) then one also has internet, music,radio and more

I do not want to be using up money connected to the internet when I think I am taking a photo so I have a lot to learn

Maybe if I wait a few more months then Oliver might be able to teach me!!!

I'll finish this tome by showing you a card I made for Janie's wedding anniversary

this week

the red ribbon came off her wedding cake 9 years ago

Keeping it White

I wonder how many people remember Avocado coloured bathroom suites
In the 70’s it was one of the latest ‘in’ colours
So we installed that same colour with similar coloured tiles
and Avocado paintwork

Today of course white is the colour and I have even heard that prospective buyers will turn down a house if they see an Avocado suite

A few years after that we wanted to install another bathroom
and as money was tight we were thrilled to see an advert by someone who had just moved into a new house and not liking the colour of their suite,
wanted to sell it
It was a very good bargain – the colour was turquoise
Under the circumstances we were happy to install a colour that was not our choice.
We were doing the job ourselves so Alan tiled the room in white to try and offset the turquoise.
That probably would have been fine, but being the decade when stencilling was all the rage in home decorating
I stencilled quite a number of the white tiles with ‘seaside’ themes
and used a pre-stencilling paste that would make them permanent
I was thinking only of the moment and not looking ahead

Now it seems one can only buy white so when renewing our lavatories recently
we had no choice but to buy white whether they matched or not

We have just finished decorating these rooms so changed all the Avocado to white where it was possible to do that as we do not want to renew the suite and tiles at the moment. I would not have chosen white as a contrast with Avocado but I wanted to link up all 3 rooms.

We have redone the flooring with white Cushion floor too which helps

In the second bathroom with the turquoise suite the paintwork was always white
and because it seemed so boring

I added accessories with a seaside flavour over the years.

In fact Alan would sigh when I went into one of those seaside craft places

What you see here are my efforts to minimise the Avocado and Turquoise

The dreaded Avocado

Took out the Avocado fittings and replaced with white

This tiny room was not a problem

My Favourite Juice

This is my favourite juice

Carrot, Beetroot, Apple and Ginger

I make it to have before dinner several evenings a week

Would I be so enthusiastic if hubby was not so keen

on cleaning the juicer

Maybe not

The finished product - it's delicious

Houses and More in My Neighbourhood

After the snow on Sunday it was so nice to be out walking in warm sunshine by Wednesday.

Sara of ‘Much Ado About Something’ has recently been posting pictures on houses in her area of Southern California. I have enjoyed seeing the diversity of these houses and thought I would like to do the same in my neighbourhood.
I walked to Havering-Atte-Bower which is a village just 30 minutes uphill walk from my house (when not taking pictures!)

You can see different aspects of this same walk here.

There are houses, cottages, bungalows, old, new and everything in between and all so different so I selected a few to post.

The garden gate to the above

Yes, this is a house - it is called The Round House

and dates from 1772

It has 3 storeys and the top tower was used as a lookout during the war

Because it is at the top of the hill one can see over the River Thames

For that reason too I can see it from my garden

I have been on a tour of the house as the owners take part in

London Open House Weekend

The Parish Church of St. John's

The garden here is pretty but the house is out of view

Royal Oak Pub

The Orange Tree Pub

I met this dog on my way home - Charlie is his name

I walked a while with the owner and the dog ran and played and wagged his tail

Although it looked sad, the owner assured me that he was happy, active and not in pain

after surgery on disintergrating joints

I returned by a totally different route and got a good view of

the London skyline on the way

April Musings

Having come to the end of my story I want to thank you all so much for your wonderful comments and encouragement

Even though I very much wanted to do it I found there were times when I just could not face it and wanted to give up

Whenever I sat down to write I found it flowed easily, the hard bit was getting started

Your encouragement helped me finish it

Well as you see Spring is here

I was out walking Friday without a coat

Sunday we woke to this

It did not last long but

Monday we woke to a hard frost

Last week I took off our winter duvets and changed them to the spring tog rating

I was looking out of my kitchen window yesterday and to my horror saw a Heron on the side of my pond
These birds amaze me as they stand about 3 feet tall
That evening there was a programme on TV which said that the Heron population was increasing rapidly on the River Thames
At this time of year they have chicks so often catch goldfish from ponds to feed them
The conservationists were thrilled - I was not
We have lost fish to Herons in the past





Looking out of the kitchen window

Looking out of the back sitting room window


Saturday we spent the day with Oliver at Jane's place

He is now 20 months old

(These pics were taken by his Daddy)

He loves his jig saw puzzles

Here he is contemplating where to put the next piece

He's almost finished

Here he is dancing

I recently received this award again

This time it was from Vee

of A Haven for Vee

Thank you so much Vee, I do not take these awards lightly

I am honoured