A significant amount of time has passed since I blogged in the traditional way. I keep forgetting to take my camera places, but from what I can remember, this is how September has been so far.
The month began with a whirlwind trip to Norwich, where I had to return to take two days worth of training in preparation for my student associates scheme placement. I used this time to settle into my new house, and also had the opportunity to spend some time with my good friend Sally. We explored our new local areas together, met up with Mrs Chorlton and found that our respective new houses really aren't too far apart at all!
I've come to the conclusion I spend far too much time and money on train travel. This Norwich adventure was quickly followed by an even faster trip to the south coast, Hastings, to be exact, in honor of my old housemate Katie's 21st Birthday. It was an awesome trip, great to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while, and to engage in lots of dancing. Look at this last photo below..I love Beccy Twist. Although I needed to make a hasty getaway the following day, there was just enough time to visit the local church and nom some chips on the pebbled beach before dashing for the train home. I refused to leave the seaside town without a paddle in the channel! It was cold.
The following week flew by in a haze of tea, nothing much catching up with friends. I spent a few days with my Nanny, who returned from taking my Grandad's ashes to Ireland and stayed with us a few days. We watched a disproportionate amount of daytime television, and walked around the shops in Groby. The weekend following that flew by in a whirlwind of total madness. On Friday night, Ryan's 21st Birthday Party was fun despite some rain.Then Saturday marked the end of Groby URC's annual week of prayer. The obligatory Saturday night church praise party BBQ passed with loads of joy, singing, piano playing on my part and dancing. The Sunday morning was full of much the same, and Sunday afternoon brought the baptism of Tom, a friend of mine from church. This meant more worship leading, and a really joyful afternoon. It was great to share in Tom's celebration of his faith, particularly with cake, getting excited about possible future baptisms and jumping around on the trampoline in his back garden into the evening.
The week and part of a week since this wonderful weekend has been a working one. I've been privaledged enough to be working in the science department at Beaumont Leys School, Leicester, as part of the student associates scheme. This so far has been fun, and should be a good earner of the pennies. On Thursday I get to accompany year ten on a trip to Twycross Zoo, absolute win. Around this I've been dropping into various church activities such as Revelation, the youth bible study group which was the highlight of my week during sixth form. Despite being the grand old age of twenty, and often a leader to this age group, I stand with so much to learn from the discussions and absolutely love spending time with the youth! I also loved spending some time with Sian 'Slay' Moseley taking a walk in my trendy new nike high tops to Groby Pool, the village's finest night time spot.
After my first week at the school, it was time for yet another crazy weekend. Friday night brought Helen's 21st Party, Cosmopolitans and Rasperry Daquiris all round. We danced lots on the Top floor of Leicester's Superfly, it was wicked! Sad black cab syndrome quickly arrived when I realised I may not see these friends for a while now. Saturday brought a trip to Luton to see my Nanny, and an enormous much appreciated fry up completed by lots of tea, trifle and my favourite Marks and Spencers biscuits. We helped hang some new curtains before heading home quite late.
I slept until Sunday, (another relatively busy one!) went to church, and then went back to church in the afternoon to prepare for the 3SE evening service. We did what we used to do every month without fail, arriving for a music practice at three, jamming for a couple of hours and retreating to James' house for tea before the evening service was brilliant. The lovely Miss Jackie Williams, youth worker and now a friend from Desford came to speak on the evening's theme 'believing without seeing', an all round challenging one. Naturally the evening progressed happily to the Stamford Arms. Such is life eh?
