williamonthehill

Normal Service will be resumed as soon as possible.

I was expecting to post more frequently than this but....

I have just started a new temping job over in Stratford. This means an early start and a train from Sydenham to London Bridge, then Jubilee line to Stratford. This is the first commuting I have done for over two years. And I had totally forgotten how tiring and how frustrating it is, and how it adds hours to the work day. So I can appreciate that the weekend starts this evening. Hurrah!!!

Having heard the news on Sunday night and then again on Monday morning I was expecting a real struggle to get in to work. In fact, it was a real cinch and I got to Stratford at 8 AM and finding myself with an hour and a half to spare before I reported for work, having been instructed to turn up at 9.30. No! It was Tuesday which proved to be the nightmare journey, with engineering works 'overrunning' on the Jubilee which meant trhat the line was virtually closed down.

EEEEK!!! Panic at London Bridge briefly before realising that a dash across London Bridge to Monument for the District Line, then change at Mile End for the Central line to Stratford. Yep, I was twenty minutes late but I can live with that.

As an aside: if you require yet another reason NOT to vote for Mr. Livingstone, look no farther than the Jubilee line itself. Delivered several years late, and with an enormous overspend, the overspend would have been larger still but for Mr. Livingstone. He 'shaved' nearly £200 Million off the overspent budget by the simple expedient of scrapping the bespoke but highly expensive signalling system for the Jubilee - purpose designed and built, Ken told us he was doing us a favour by scrapping it. He sourced another signalling system, second hand, thirty plus years old from the Paris Metro.

So, next time you are on a Jubilee line platform when they announce yet another signal failure delaying your journey home, thank Mr. Livingstone.

Clivecare Consultancy

This week I have been busy and wearing my "Consultant" hat. I have been showing a client around some projects and agencies for persons with Learning Disability. The client is a small charity, registered in UK but working in Romania where they have been involved in children and family work for 17 years now. They are going to expand their work into the field of Learning Difficulties. They have some young adults - 18 + years old, currently stuck in an Institution. The plan is to open a residential unit for 8 and to work with them in a positive manner. They also intend to have a day facility - some workshops - and a day centre to offer some respite for some families who have Learning Disabled children.

Now I really have to earn my money. I am going to write up the visits and pick out ideas and values that we could take to Romania. But not right now... I have a head-splitting headache and I am going to bed early. Start tomorrow.

Potatoes, Barley and Tomatoes in a Pan, with Oregano

This is a good, simple, cheap Italian peasant dish, suitable for Lent

INGREDIENTS

4 tbsp Olive Oil

6 Tomatoes, chopped

2 sprigs fresh oregano/2 tsp dried

1 Onion, peeled and chopped roughly

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

20 small salad potatoes, skins left on (quartered or halved into bite sizes)

200 g pearl barley

water

salt/pepper

METHOD

Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add the tomatoes and Oregano. Fry for 5 minutes, stirring, letting the tomatoes colour a little.

Add the onion, garlic and potatoes and cook on a lower heat for a further five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the barley, cook for another minute then cover with water - about 1 cm depth above the surface of the contents of the pan. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer, cover with a sheet of greaseproof paper of foil and cook for 15 minutes or until the barley and potatoes are tender. Add a little water if it dries out. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with Pecorino cheese shavings if prefered.

Happy Mothers Day

Today is Mothers Day. This is a Christian Feast which has nothing to do with motherhood. It was a day when Christians remembered and celebrated the Mother Church, the Cathedral of the Diocese and the Bishop.

It was 19th century America which broke the church link and changed its nature to 'mothering Sunday', a celebration of mothers everywhere.

So I hope that you are giving your mum breakfast in bed, cooking her Sunday Lunch and that you bought your flowers from a florist and not the petrol station forecourt. Love and cherish your mum. You only get the one!

Lecture Time

Today, on the news (BBC Radio 4) I heard an item that rather made me cross. The report from the Parliamentary Select Committee on Overseas Development was released today because it is Mothers Day. The report concerns the issue of women dying in labour or during delivery. It makes the point that the statistics concerning Africa have not progressed one jot for twenty years and this despite all the money that has been injected into Africa during all this time.

What made me cross was the statement in this report that the fact that the situation had not improved for over two decades was; a collective, global responsibility. Sorry, I can't see that at all. Collectively and globally the United States, the UK, the European Community, even Russia and China as well as Australia and New Zealand, the World Bank and the United Nations have poured billions of Dollars as well as agencies and people into the African continent and especially into the usual 'stretchercase' nations in sub-Saharan Africa. So it isn't fore the lack of effort, committment or money that this situation has not improved.

So we have to ask ourselves who is responsible for this situation if it is not improving or responding? Well, how many hundreds of millions of dollars did Idi Amin salt away in Switzerland? Or, more topically, Robert Mugabe is known to have a personal fortune amounting to nearly four hundred millions. When are the Africans ever going to help themselves to more than world money?

I don't think I need a lecture from a bunch of obvioudsly ill informed MP's especially at a time when we are seeing them with their snouts in the trough of their 'private' expenses.

A good read for Lent

One of the books which I have been reading for Lent is Sister Jeremy Hall OSB: Silence,Solitude,Simplicity: A Hermit's love affair with a noisy, crowded, and complicated world  (2007, Liturgical Press, USA ISBN 13:978-08146-3185-0).

This is a wonderful book. Very thoughtful and full of prayer. Having lived as a hermit for over twenty years (and a religious sister for 68) Sister Jeremy is sensitive to words and what they mean just as she is sensitive to the world around her. Her message is this, that a monastic is not on some pedestal or behind a wall and away from the world; no, they are right there in the thick of that messiness which we call life. Each page is soaked in prayer and love and is exquisitely written. Her message to us all is that: we all need God.

Sister Jeremy defines spirituality as not simply the way we pray, any ascetic practises we might adopt, or any prayer or Bible study group we may belong to. " Spirituality is essentially our being - before- God and how this works out in all aspects of our lives: our self-understanding,our values,our relationships,our commitments,our prayer, our work, our leisure, our goals and the means we use to achieve them."  So often we encounter individuals who describe themselves as spiritual and who go on to describe a compartment of their lives, an aspect but not the whole of their life. Sister Jeremy gently disabuses us of any such silly notions. We are simply spiritual beings and no part of our lives can be separated out in that way.

In the book we are taken to the desert and we are taught the value of silence and solitude as ways of improving our prayer life.

" The fruit of prayer is a deepening of faith. The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is service. But to be able to pray we need silence; silence of the heart. And if we don't have that silence, we don't know how to pray." [ Mother Teresa]

I am still reading this book so I will have more to say in another post.

Thought for the Day

All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!

GOETHE

In other words; make that decision, own it and take it into your heart and nurture it there. When you have done this then the edifice moves and things really start to happen. All manner of unforseen incidents,meetings, material assistance and helpful people will come forward to help you.