Ramblings from an English Garden

Monday, 21 July 2008

Pilgrims Hall Worship Weekend

So many have said that they are looking forward to my posting on the outdoor Praise and Worship weekend at Pilgrims Hall. First I will clear up some misconseptions that I am picking up when reading comments. This is not my church. What I said about my church (and that is the wider grouping of the 10 house churches) is that we were meeting every week night for the foreseable future for a time of praise, worship and prayer and that this was happening in conjunction with many places around the world as a result of the outpouring in Florida at this time. Pilgrims Hall is a ministry that I am involved with. It is a 20 minute drive from my home and in a different geographical area to where I live.It is a Christian Recource Centre where people go for retreats, conferences and counselling etc. This weekend we celebrated 40 years of this ministry. Before that Pilgrims Hall was a private home. It's present name is the result of it being a stop over for pilgrims on their way to Canterbury in the distant past.You can see much more on Pilgrims Hall by clicking on same on my sidebar.

In order to celebrate the last 40 years of the ministry we had a weekend of outdoor praise and worship. On Saturday (and for me this was the best bit) there was continuous praise and worship from 12.0 midday until 7.30 pm. Different worship bands/groups from surrounding churches took part so that this was a continuous event. From 7.30 pm until 9.0 pm there was a Celebration service and then from 9.0 pm until 10.0 pm more worship. During the afternoon people came and went and/or stayed and brought a picnic or bought a meal from the outside caterers that we brought in and just enjoyed themselves in an atmosphere of worship.

Sunday morning there was a service which included communion with folk from a number of local churches present and this was followed again by live worship from several groups until 3.0 pm. One of the difficulties in arranging an outdoor event in England is the unpredictability of the weather. I began the day in a teashirt, later followed by a blouse on top. As the day wore on I added a fleece waistcoat, then a fleece jacket and by evening a mac on top of all of that. Many people had more sense than me and brought a blanket. The weather fluctuated between getting burned by the sun to light rain to shivering.It was a great time though so come with me and I will take you around some of the grounds before everyone arrives.

Haystack seating

Says it all

The Prayer Tent in the Sunken Garden

This was for people who needed prayer

Looking out of the tent

I wish I had photographed inside the greenhouse as the flowers were beautiful

We are now in the Walled Kitchen Garden

Bridge over one of the many ponds

This is ornamental, the others are in the wooded areas and larger

Beehives in the Orchard

Just one hen showing by the tree but lots more in a previous post

The homemade cakes from the outside caterers were delicious

Have never seen slices so big and prices so cheap

WORSHIP

The Rainbow after the Rain

The sunset at the end of the day

Hope you were Blessed and thanks for coming with me

Computer Update, Awards and More

Can't leave my blog for too long so continuing with Alan's for the time being.

I had no option but to take it to the professionals and am amazed to find that they are stumped over the problem too. It looks like a complete rebuild and that means also paying for everything to be backed up first as I do not want to rely on my external hard drive at the moment.

My son says everything is on my external hard drive (I had been backing it up after all) but he says it is in an encrytped form. I AM TAKING NO CHANCES! I am told though that when I receive my computer back it will be as good as when it left the factory. This is going to end up the most expensive new keyboard and mouse imaginable. Hopefully I will have it back by tomorrow evening.

On the family front, dear little Oliver will be 2 on Saturday. Hard to believe. Even harder to believe is the fact that my son Peter was 40 last weekend. He's enjoying himself in Venice at the moment. Not forgetting Janie who has had a birthday this month too.

On to some awards before posting on this weekend at Pilgrims Hall which I will do separately.

This 'Just Plain Fun to Read' came to me from Zetor at Mog's Blog. Thank you so much. I am passing this on to Paula at Mob Always fun to read about dear little Hannah's progress.

This Super Commenter came from Susie of Susie's Space. Thank you. Many of you are regular commenters on my blog and you know who you are, so please feel free to accept this award yourself.

I will take this opportunity of saying a big thank you to all who comment on my blog and especially regulars. Very much appreciated and it is amazing how these turn into cyberspace friendships.

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

July Musings and This Week's Garden

Computers!!!!! As it happens I can do far less than I at first realised on Alan's computer. He does not have 'Word' or 'Excell' or anything like that. He uses it mainly for the internet and languages (he is a fluent German speaker and dabbles in a number of other languages, including Russian). Added to that he likes 'flying' with his Flight Simulator and that is about it.

Worse than that, when I came to connect my external hard drive it turns out that nothing is backed up since it was first installed at Christmas! I have missed something somewhere. So I cannot access any of my photos either.

I think I am learning a great lesson here - do not take anything for granted with computers and check everything regularly. Do not leave those necessary jobs like sorting and filing photos and getting them onto disk etc. Keep stuff backed up and up to date and check that this has been done, do not assume.

So for the immediate future I can only post newly taken photos.

It seems so much of the practical side of my life is contained in my computer. Who would have thought how much we would come to relpy on these machines.

It's quite a busy week anyhow. Our church is continuing it's nightly prayer and praise time. These evenings have been excellent. Pilgrims Hall, the retreat centre that I am involved with is celebrating it's 40th anniversary this coming weekend so I am heavily involved with that. We have a whole weekend of outdoor praise and worship in the grounds. There are many local Christian worship groups taking part so this will be an ongoing and continuous thing throughout the weekend except Saturday evening when there will be a more formal gathering. Sunday morning many local churches are coming together for worship and the breaking of bread, after which the outdoor worship will continue. For those that are camping they will be in a constant atmosphere of praise. Alan and I will be part of the team in the prayer tent. I am sure I will have some photos after the weekend. At least they will not be locked up in my computer!

Hoping to take a break tomorrow and have a day out - more photographs!

For the moment I can leave you with some photos of my garden this week.

This was how I spent yesterday - so much pruning once the flowers fade

Looking through the window from my potting shed

Well into the Lavender season - I have 15 bushes in all

Saturday, 12 July 2008

Computer Problems

You may, or may not remember that a few months ago I bought a new wireless keyboard and bluetooth mouse. I originally bought Microsoft hardware but had problems with my computer recognising it so took it back and changed it for Logitech hardware which was what I had been using all along.

The Logitech keyboard and bluetooth mouse has behaved in the same way and to this day we have not been able to solve the problem. Today my son in law came over and spent hours trying to fix it. He found a forum on the internet which showed that many others were having this same problem. It seems to be down to Microsoft and a conflict of drivers, or something like that.

Anyhow the upshot of all this is that after installing and uninstalling several different keyboards and mice, my computer will now not recognise any of them so I am unable to use my computer at all. My son in law has plans of what he will have to do to fix the problem but it is time consuming and he lives an hour away and also an hour away from his job in the city, so I do not know how long I will be without my computer. This will of course seriously affect my blogging.

I am typing this on my husbands computer. Fortunately I have everything backed up on my external hard drive so if it is very long and drawn out it is possible to connect that to Alan's computer in order to access my photos but I sincerely hope it will be fixed in the not too distant future as I have mountains of work I need to do on my computer apart from my blog.

Being used to high capacity specifications and software on my computer I don't have the same scope on Alan's as his is very basic but I am grateful that it is better than nothing. Difficult to deal with total abstinence once one becomes a seasoned blogger, as I know you all know.

So for now, blessings to everyone and hope you have a good weekend. I was blessed to have a day playing with Grandson Oliver.

Friday, 11 July 2008

Real Life and an Award

I have received this Arte y Pico award again. This time from Amongst The Oaks. Thank you so much I am again honoured. It is awarded for blogs that "Nourish and Enrich the Spirit and show Creativity, Dedication, Art and Joy." As I have already passed this award on before, I am sending it to one person this time. The award goes to Christi at Charm and Grace Cottage as I see her blog as being all of these things.

Now to some real life that was not particularly artistic nor joyful. Having struggled with a lot of pain this week and feeling quite low as a result, I went off for my weekly swim yesterday afternoon. I went for a parking space that was close to the walkway (for no other reason than choice) and to get into this space one has to drive over a hump. As I drove over the hump I did not take into account the 'children crossing' post and drove right into it. I think the weight of the car bouncing over the hump caused me to smash the front bumper/fender.

I felt frustrated and upset at doing this so decided to not go for a swim after all and just drive home. As I was driving out of the car park on a one way system, a car suddenly appeared directly in front of me, driving at a fast pace. I stopped my car only to have this guy force me off the roadway in order to get past. He was very abusive and aggressive and feeling the way I did it upset me some more. I felt a wreck when I got home so rather than wallow in my feelings I called a friend and neighbour from my house church to ask her to pray with me. I was feeling so angry towards this man. I knew during our prayer time that I had to forgive this man but did not feel like and did not want to, but I also knew that 'in faith' I could at least thank God against everything that I felt.

On returning home I got to wondering why the episode with this guy had upset me so much, and I realised that I was furious because I was in the 'right' place and the guy was in the 'wrong' place and yet he took control in the situation and got his way - so unjust. God began to show me that there are no rights in the supernatural, only good and evil and I became aware of what was behind the behaviour of this guy. Seeing that and knowing that it was God speaking to me freed me up into being able to let it go and to speak out a blessing on this guy and pray for him. It does not make what he did right but it stops the enemy having his way in trying to pull me right down.

So thanking God even when it is a struggle, and the last thing we want to do, releases something in the spirit and breaks that hold that Satan wants to have over us. So was it a bad day after all, not really as I learned something worthwhile.

Wednesday, 9 July 2008

Kew Gardens - London's Royal Botanical Garden

Last week while staying at Janie’s we decided to take a trip to Kew Gardens. We live in North East London and Kew is in South West London so going from Janie’s is a shorter journey.

It was the 1st July and the temperature hit the mid-eighties (for one day only as it happens). We have had rain, rain and more rain ever since and there is talk of a European Monsoon season! Wet weather set to last at least until the end of July so I do hope we get some breaks in that. All the gardening I planned to do this week has not been touched.

Back to Kew. Our last visit was 45 years ago, yes, even I found that hard to believe. It was worth it in the end, but early in the day I was beginning to wonder as getting there became somewhat of a hassle. It is hoped that people will take public transport when visiting Kew as they do not have a car park (It is in a busy area of London) but the website said that one can park on the road outside. The road outside is very long as Kew itself is very large.

Our journey began on the M25 London orbital and almost immediately we were in heavy congestion exacerbated by an accident. Having been held up, when we reached the M4 we decided to stop at the service station for Loos and coffee only to find the loos out of action, yes all of them, male and female, unheard of in all our years of travelling. Just one mother and baby room and a disabled loo left functioning so not difficult to guess what the queues were like. We were at least grateful that we arrived 30 minutes after 3 coaches.

Eventually we were on our way again and arrived at Kew only to find we needed to drive for nearly 2 miles before we found a parking space. Added to that parking tickets could only be purchased at the local shops that were even further along and the longest parking time was a mere 4 hours. We were fortunate to catch a bus back to the entrance, not something we would normally do but time was limited and it was very hot.

On arrival at the kiosk when trying to pay by credit card we were told there would be a wait as the card machine was down. Were we really meant to come out today? Fortunately I was carrying cash.

The attraction that made it all worth while was the new tree-top walk. I have a problem with heights but was determined not to miss it. I passed others on the way up that were stuck half way up the steps afraid to go further. So with legs like jelly and a raised heart beat I got to walk amongst the tree canopy. The walk is made up of open mesh so that nothing is missed so it was a challenge. I do know that faith and courage is not the absence of fear but going ahead in spite of one’s reactions.

Kew is vast and one needs more than 4 hours there (2 days probably) so I can only give you a slight glimpse of the place. Added to what I am showing you there is the Bamboo garden, Azalea garden, rock garden, bog garden, ice house, winter garden, Duke’s garden, aquatic garden, rose garden, Queen Charlotte’s cottage and more.

Two things I learned that I did not know (obviously there is much, much more but this is what I noticed). A banana tree is a herb and The difference between a forest and a woodland is: A woodland has an open canopy allowing plants to grow on the ground, a forest has a dense canopy and little will grow at ground level.