Great News

What would we do without cameras on mobile phones!

The sun is just rising as I am looking out of the window from my hospital room. It was an early start this morning as I had to be here for 7.0 am.

As a result of both my ultrasound scan and MRCP MRI Scan which showed up dilated pancreatic and bile ducts with some slush in the gall bladder I am having an endoscopic ultrasound any moment now so that everything can be looked at from the inside.

Fast forward an hour or so and  I am told that everything looked normal, no stones, no dilation and no slush in gall bladder.

I think it worth a painful throat with difficulty swallowing for a few days in order to have this news.

Now I can rest and relax in bed, dozing or watching the large flat screen tv in this very nice room which includes a safe, refrigerator and sofa blus a comfortable arm chair with foot rest and DVD player until I have had some lunch and feel ready to go home. All curtesy of the new private wing of our new NHS hospital.

It was also great to be told by the consultant a few weeks ago that during colonoscopy my colon looked

'boringly normal'.

Seems like time to thank all my blogging friends, amongst the many others here and overseas for their interest, care and prayers.

Will be seeing my consultant on the 6th to wrap up final details of the other bits and pieces.

It has turned very cold here with heavy snow falls in the north (10 inches) and spreading to the south over the next few days. For the moment for us it is heavy frost.

Still more to come on Cambridge

Some Views Around - Cambridge Pt. 4

A small view of a little of Cambridge

There are still a few of the old telephone boxes around

On the railings of the church one can see many adverts of the various college activities and clubs

We come across the Marketplace

A stall selling many kinds of loose tea

A very life like model of a Cornish Fisherman above the Cornish Pasty shop

For the uninitiated a pasty is a selection of meat and vegetables encased in pastry - a throwback from the days when men took their meal with them into the fields 

Bycicles everywhere and more college adverts

The entrace to Clare College 1326

 

There has to be somewhere to sit and drink tea

We found a place we liked better

(another post)

A Week in November

November can be one of those dreary months weatherwise, dull, misty and damp, but on a late afternoon walk this week the sky certainly made up for it

and have you ever had one of those weeks where the daytime calender for the  coming week looks almost empty and then......

Denise drops in on Saturday to invite us to Sunday lunch after  house church.....

then Jane E-mails to see if we can get together for coffee on Monday.....

then Maria wonders if we can get together Tuesday

(Tuesday happened to be the one day of the week we had booked)

having a couple of evangelist friends from Ohio visiting so......

 a morning spent with Maria at her home on Wednesday.......

then at a meeting on Wednesday evening Gerry wonders if it is possible to link up for tea on Thursday afternoon....

followed by Marion who suggests Thursday or Friday for tea and a catch-up.

Friday became the time for tea and catch-up at my house where we were unexpectedly joined by Lorraine.

Marion suggested it was like waiting for a bus

No sign of a bus and then they all come at once!! 

Then there is the unwelcome visitor who terrorises our fish

and then having a birthday this month (although not this week)

there was the welcome visit of the post man twice who brought

gifts from 2 blogging friends

The above came from Sara and the paper of which her card is made contains seeds for wild flowers. 

The book tells what it would have been like to sit at the feet of Jesus and learning first hand about his kingdom. Be imersing oneself in the culture, prayers and feasts of first century Jews, one can enrich their undersatnding of the Bible and of Jesus. 

The second came from Teresa This book portrays the inspiration and history of 25 of the most popular hymns. It features the sites where they were composed and takes one on a journey across England and Wales and highlights the places that gave birth to Christianity's most inspiring and unforgetable music.

There is an accompanying CD of all the hymns featured

So a heartfelt thank you to both Sara and Teresa 

and not forgetting some cards I made this week

I'll return to Cambridge in my next post

The New Face of Shopping

I wonder, do we really need or want to be shopping in the dark!

Whilst pretending to look outside onto the waves rolling in on a Californian beach

Then there is the sewing machine shop! 

No! just a guise to draw attention

To what is inside

Spotted these new stores while visiting our favourite shopping mall last week.

The only downside to this mall for us is that it is the other side of the River Thames.

The lesson in this story is to take note of the weather forecast before travelling.

The gales and highwinds forecast where enough to necessitate the closing of the bridge whilst we were there.

It took two and a half hours of queueing to just get onto the M25 when we left in order to go through the tunnel to get back northside. We could not move in any direction as everywhere was gridlocked.

Very different to the trip we made 2 days earlier taking 25 minutes to get home at

7.30 pm in normal weather

Trinity College - Cambridge Pt.3

We will take a visit to Cambridge again with this post and this time we will go into the grounds and chapel of Trinity College.

Trinity is the largest college in the University. Today it consists of a Master; about 160 fellows, most of whom are engaged in teaching; about 320 postgraduate students; and about 650 undergraduates.

The King's Hall received it's charter in 1337, and was given buildings by King Edward III in what are now the northern parts of the Great Court. Michaelhouse, founded in 1324 by Hervey de Stanton, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Edward II, occupied buildings to the south.

We will enter by the Great Gate where we see a statue of the College's founder King Henry VIII

Here on the west side facing inwards are statues of King James I, flanked by his wife, Anne of Denmark, and his heir, Prince Charles (later King Charles I)

The public are not allowed access to student accommodation areas naturally. Among former occupants of the Great Court

Sir Issac Newton (1642 -1727), mathematician and natural philosopher, lived in rooms on the first floor between the Great Gate and the Chapel. In what was once his garden, between the cobbles and the Chapel, is an apple tree descended from one at his home in Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, and planted in 1954.

(See an earlier post on Woolsthorpe)

We will now go into the Chapel via. the outer hall

Newton

Tennyson

More stained glass windows which all tell their own story

Alan is pointing to the organ pipes

Like many other college chapels, it is divided by the organ screen into two; the anti-chapel and the chapel. Services are held here daily in term-time. Evensong has been held here regularly since the founding of the chapel.

Looking back into the hall

No forgetting the hall ceiling with it's many crests 

The novelist W.M.Thackeray (1811-63), author of Vanity Fair, lived on the ground floor in what is now part of the Porter's Lodge.

Hope you enjoyed your visit to another college

We visited only 3 this day but more Cambridge photos to come