Although many flat-dwellers are not blessed with lovely views from their windows, My Midnight Man and I are blessed with having a balcony and a lounge window that provides us with a view to a large park. If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you will know this. However, I wish I could share with you the beautiful colours God has blessed us with this year. I believe it has been one of the best years for tree colours because of the wet summer and the late Indian Summer. I’ve taken over 100 photos the last couple of days from the balcony and from out back.
Scarlet, gold, orange, brown and green leaves can be seen on a single tree—variegated and stunning to look at. Only half the trees around here are empty—which usually are stripped bare by wind and rain at this time of year. This year the leaves seem to be hanging around longer.
Before October is completely gone, I want to mention a few more October happenings.
A Visit: During a Skype call in August, My Midnight Man learned that his second sister, “Bea” and her husband, “Ven” were taking a holiday in October and wanted to spend some time with us the evening before flying back to South Africa. “Bea” & “Ven” had been travelling for a few weeks—first to Colorado, in the USA and then on a canal trip in France and finally in England. On Monday evening, (the 10th) “Bea” and “Ven” took us down to the local Toby Carvery restaurant http://www.tobycarvery.co.uk/ to enjoy an evening of conversation—catching up with family news—even more enjoyable because restaurant staff did all the cooking and cleaning up.  |
| My Midnight Man, "Bea" & "Ven" |
Arrangements were made for “Ven & Bea” to come to us for breakfast on Tuesday morning (11th). They brought the ingredients: bacon, eggs, lovely Tiger bread, blue cheese, orange juice and a few other goodies. Whilst John put on the coffee, I cooked breakfast. It was so lovely to hear about their trip to Colorado and France while enjoying a home-cooked meal together. After breakfast, “Bea” gave us a slide show of photos she’d taken on their holiday. They were able to stay with us until about 1:30 pm, before taking the rental car back to Heathrow to catch their flight. If you don’t know what tiger bread is or looks like, here is a photo. And you can find a recipe here: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/7049/tiger-bread.aspx
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| Tiger Bread |
Coming Visits: The middle of September, the publicity officer of HOST, UK sent an e-mail to the Langley Parish e-mail address, asking if an ad for them could be placed into the Parish Magazine. HOST UK is an organisation that recruits volunteers to entertain adult international students during a weekend or over Christmas holiday. The visits allow students to broaden their educational experience by being in “real homes” and tasting local British culture. Since My Midnight Man and I are going to be home this Christmas, we agreed to sign up as HOST Volunteers. If you are in the UK and are interested in providing hospitality and taking advantage of a ministry opportunity, simply visit the website http://www.hostuk.org.uk/ and make contact with them. A regional organiser will get in touch you and complete an application form. The regional organiser for our area visited us on 17th October and we were connected with our first guest on 19th— October, and she is scheduled to visit on Remembrance Weekend. Last week were notified of a second student who would like to come on the 25th of November.
I smile a bit about this because the idea is to give foreign students a taste of British life; My Midnight Man is South African/English and I’m American. Just how British we’ve become has yet to be determined!
Birthday Guests: On Friday, 21st October the phone rang and I answered it. “Is you ‘usband there?”
“Oh, Hi Mark. No, he’s out right now. Would you like me to have him ring you back?”
“No, that’s fine. Just wanted to know if he wanted some clothing.”
“Yes, please. By the way, what are you doing tomorrow? It’s John’s birthday and I wanted to know if you wanted to come over for cake.”
“Okay, that sounds good. Sheri and I will be there about 4:30 p.m.”
I spent most of the 22nd in the kitchen. For breakfast, I fixed American biscuits and gravy. Then I baked an applesauce cake with mixed dried fruit, as that was what Midnight Man requested. I took a risk, making a last-minute phone call on Saturday morning to “TechPhile and Sandgroper” with an invitation to dinner for them and their children for that night. For dinner that evening, I fixed a curried beef dinner—one spicy and one not spicy—basically because My Midnight Man and “TechPhile” enjoy HOT curries—whereas I don’t. Happily they came and enjoyed beef curry with rice, and of course, cake.
It makes me happy that although my invitations were last minute, My Midnight Man’s best mates were able to make it over to our place to celebrate with him. And the visitors were spread over the day. Best of all, it was a warm, sunny day and My Midnight Man got to go for a bike ride.
The clothes that Mark brought fit My Midnight Man well. There was an answer to prayer in the bag as well--a pair of shoes. Midnight Man's old shoes were beginning to crack across the bottom. Finances being tight, going to buy a new pair of shoes was not in sight for the near future. Yet, because God is faithful, He heard my prayers and My Midnight Man has a new pair of shoes that fit, and fit well.
Many good things have happened this month. I am looking forward to what God is going to do in November!
Serving Jesus, Author of our faith, "Lady Helene"
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| Out the Back Door |
Hi :-) Really enjoyed reading this entry and hearing about John's birthday and your potential HOST visitors! Sounds like you'll have a fun-packed November. Hope John likes his new shoes and you're both doing ok xo Love from Carrie-Anne
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