NEW BOOKS.

Today I bought some books and I would like to tell you about them!

This morning, my Dad asked my sister and me if we wanted to accompany him on a trip to Rochester to England's biggest secondhand bookshop, Baggins. We, of course, said yes.

Baggins has become a fairly regular destination for family outings, it's a two storey labyrinth of book shelves, only slightly organised - we love it!

Just down the road from Baggins is a decent quality Oxfam shop with a pretty big selection of books, so we stopped in there first and this is what I got:

I've become increasingly aware that I should probably be studying Ancient History at uni, since the latest I am prepared to study is about 900AD and I massively want to study BC stuff, so I've decided to introduce myself to some of the great ancient civilisations (possibly also encouraged by my super epic poster). I decided not to be too ambitious, so a pocket history is about the level I'm going to start at. I'll move onto the Mayans and the Aztecs next.
Ancient Egypt, Barbara Watterson, £2.99.

In January I'll be taking the exam for my first-term history module The End of the Roman World: Transformations of the Year 600. So I couldn't really ignore this book. It includes essays by some of the central historians we looked at in the module, so I'm pretty pleased to have found this textbook for such a bargain!
The Transformation of the Roman World AD 400-900, Leslie Wesbster & Michelle Brown, £3.99.

My final purchase in the Oxfam shop was this little cutie. I really like the Very Short Introduction series, not least because they look pretty... and I'm slowly developing a little collection. I've been wondering about trying to get into some Theology for a while, even browsed through some course content of some Masters degrees (very unlikely to become a thing!) I'd like to know and understand a little more about Theology and decided this was a fairly undaunting way in.
Theology: A Very Short Introduction, David F. Ford, £2.49.


So, I had a fairly successful Oxfam experience and we headed a couple of doors down to get lost in the brilliant Baggins, (I'm really disappointed I didn't take a picture of the inside of the shop to share with you, it really is a book-lover's dream!)
An now I'll introduce you to more new books:

So, this isn't exactly a book, but I was pretty excited when I found it, mostly because it's awesome. This is gonna go up on my wall in York, probably somewhere near my Empires of the World timeline/graph... I'm such a dork sometimes. I also enjoy that it's slightly retro looking.
Panorama of Biblical History, Rev. Louis Munich, £1.50.

Recently I've been really pulled to reading and praying over the book of Acts in the New Testament. I started reading it a few weeks ago and it's been really cool. I started writing a blog about doing church like it's 53 AD (specific date chosen for phonetic/rhythmic reasons...) but there's a lot more to say that I've not come across yet, I'm sure. So when I spotted this daily bible study on Acts, I figured I couldn't pass it up, so, I guess I'm going to start reading Acts again! I'll let you know how it goes (eventually).
The Acts of the Apostles the Daily Bible Study, William Barclay, £2.

My final find for today was this aesthetically pleasing book. It looks super interesting, with 'ideas' organised chronologically and just a few pages on each it will be an introduction to some of the most interesting and radical ideas in history. Currently I'm drawn to Universal Rule (10,000-1000 BC), Inalienable Rights (1400-1800) and Chaos Theory (1900-2000). I think it's probably a bit of a coffee table book, my family loves that kind of book! For now it will probably go onto my bookshelf next to 'Women Who Changed the World', because I enjoy syntactic parallelism. 
Ideas that Changed the World, Felipe Fernáandez-Armesto, £5.

I was pretty excited about the books I bought today, so I decided to share them with you. It might give you an idea of what I'm interested in at the moment, if, y'know, what I'm interested in interests you at all. It might also suggest what I might blog about in the future (I won't say near or distant, because I'm a pretty temperamental blogger at the best of times).

I hope the Christmas break (if you have one) is treating you well and I hope you have some exciting new books in your life!
Stay brilliant! xxx

The Last Seven Days

Well, I know it's been a long while since we last spoke, but I'm not going to fill in the gap - I'm back at uni, it's second year, it counts, I'm busy, blah blah blah - I'm just going to tell you about my last 168(ish) hours.

24 hours in

I bought a Patriots cap - aren't I cool?

Last Sunday, Sam and I went down to London to see the Patriots play the Rams at Wembley stadium. It was such an amazing atmosphere - before we even got to Wembley. For those of you who aren't/don't have boyfriends that are into American sport - the Patriots are an American Football team. One NFL (National Football League) game is played each year in London (it's actually going to be two from next year, but that's probably unnecessary information...), so we were super lucky that our (read: Sam's) team was playing in London this year. So London streets and tube stations are full of European NFL fans, all wearing the jersey of whatever team they happen to support, all sharing a look of solidarity over their shared passion for a sport played on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
The game was so much fun, Train played, there were (fairly unimpressive) cheerleaders, there were fireworks - however no ticker tape, seriously gutted about the lack of mini, shiny paper squares. I got over it though, because the Patriots won 45-7 - sorry Rams!
Also on Sunday, a brand new University Radio York show, called The Blurb, aired. I was on it - yey! I'm going to link you, but you need to be aware that I have never recorded for radio before and I clearly need to practise my radio voice - (press shift and) click here.

48 hours in
Dedicated student that I am, I spent £50 to get a peak time train ticket from Leicester to York to get back in time for my Monday morning lecture... and I slept through my alarm. The inconceivable expense of on-the-day train fares left me no choice but to spend an extra day in Leicester (half price food at the Slug and Lettuce on Mondays) and get a train to York on Tuesday, resulting in me missing two lectures and a film screening and putting me seriously behind on work right at the start of the week. I don't really want to talk any more about Monday... or Tuesday.

96 hours in
So, I came up with this format for my blog because I felt like I'd had a really good week, but I have now realised that it did get a little dry in the middle... Wednesday was mostly made up of catching up on work, but I did ring my mum, brother and sister in the evening for the first time in FAR TOO LONG. Joey is working at the Natural History Museum in London at the moment, so that's pretty cool. Unfortunately, Dad was out when all the phonecalls were occurring - sorry Dad!
Ooh ooh, I just realised that Wednesday was the day that I found out I would be choreographic for the Dance Society Christmas Showcase this year - yey! I'm going to going a group dance to Regina's Spektor's 'Samson' - I'm sure I'll post a video on here some time shortly after December 8th.


120 hours in
(I'm genuinely using a calculator to add up the hours for each day... GCSE maths was a long time ago... and it's 3.43 am) Thursday nights are cell group - YEY! I cooked pasta and bolognese, with real actual meat in it! We had a really great cell, chatting about what we feel God has made each of us passionate about and supporting each other in prayer. I'm going to take this opportunity to shout out to Niall and Rob, they're two awesome G2 freshers - there are many many more, but they were the two present on Thursday.
After cell group, I had to stay up super late to continue catching up on work, although, given that my work did include watching two Left Bank, French, 1960s films I guess I can't complain too much.

144 hours in
Three hours straight of seminars looks pretty horrific on a timetable (for a BA student...) but mine were so very good this week. I don't think I've actually told you My Dear Reader Chum (a Miranda Hart reference, seriously, listen to the Blurb podcast already!) about the modules that I'm doing this term; Post-War European Cinema and The End of the Roman World. In film we were look at the French Left Bank, we chatted about the utterly incomprehensible but totally brilliant but-I-recommend-you-don't-try-and-watch-it-at-3am 'L'année derniere a Marienbad'. It's such a contrast to go from that straight into my history seminar on the writing of Gregory of Tours (a sixth century 'historian' for those of you not interested in the Late Antique period). I'll stop boring with information about my degree now.
On Friday night I did some volunteering with York Archaeological Trust, they were hosting an event with Richard Platt, whose ever so cheery book about the plague has been shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize. Since I'm interested in book publicity as a potential career, it was really great to be a part of - also, I got to help kids with really tenuously plague related crafts and that's always fun!

168 hours in
Brings us to now, I'm finally up-to-date with work, which is fortunate, since I need to think about starting essays this week... super. I had a good day, it wasn't majorly productive, I switched my hair back to a centre parting, replaced my ripped-beyond-acceptable jeans and volunteered at Barley Hall for the Illuminating York festival.
I've run out of steam to keep writing... I just watched two really great films, The Descendants and LOL - check them out if you get the chance.

Stay super! xx

P.S. I'm well aware that I over- and mis-use punctuation - I'm working on myself, promise.

York and Back Again: a student's tale

Since arriving back from Brittany I have done very little with my time. The first few weeks in September are no more than a blur of sleeping, watching films and complaining about how dull Kent is. I have of course started doing some reading for next term and I can only apologise for all of the Post-War European Cinema references I will make in the relatively near future. I'm very excited for year number two of uni!

Nothing could have stretched my excitement further than to go and stay in York for a week or so. I went up with Sam and we spent a nice few days enjoying the city, for York locals the Gourmet Burger Kitchen is very nice, Lendal Cellars is also very nice, Jorvik is smelly but always worth a visit, Yates's I would avoid. I've never been to a Yates's before, but we were looking for somewhere to watch some football. I had always assumed it was a bar, and a bar it was until about 10pm when all the chairs were cleared away and a pole came out, oh yes, you read right, a pole. I find this strange, that a place that is showing football games on multiple TVs also has a dancefloor. Colour me utterly baffled.

Supercool prize from the G2 Leaders' Social Media Quiz!

I stayed in York a couple of days after Sam for the G2 Leadership 24 hours. I probably mentioned sometime in the Spring that I started a bit of cell group (church jargon for a bunch of people from church getting together, having some food, chatting about the bible, praying, playing icebreakers etc.) leading, so was invited along to the 24 hours which included a curry, some training and Go Ape. It was a really awesome weekend. As a student in church it can become really easy to stick to student circles but it was super cool getting to know the leaders of the family and community cells.

Our Saturday Morning training was lead by a guy called Roger Bretherton, a psychotherapist and Christian, who took us through some of his thoughts on the beatitudes and some of the ideas he through up about two of them really struck me:

"God blesses those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
God blesses those who are humble,
    for they will inherit the whole earth." Matt 5:4-5 (NLT)

Roger talked about mourning and how that can mean mourning about a situation we come into contact with. We can mourn for our community or our planet when we see something that's not right with it. He said that mourning can lead to conviction to act and God meets us in this, providing the resources we need to act. It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from one of my favourite worship songs; "Break my heart for what breaks yours... for your kingdom's cause." (Hosanna, Hillsong United). Roger linked this desire to act against what we mourn about to being humble and gentle. What use is it to want to change things if we're judgemental and proud about it. The call to be humble challenges the nature of our mourning for the world.

After a really good and challenging morning, we set off for Go Ape, now I quite enjoy outdoorsy stuff and I've had a fair go on high ropes and zip wires in my time, but it turns out that Go Ape was just a bridge too far. For those of you who haven't Go Ape'd before, it's essentially lots of ropes and bridges rather high up in the trees. Half way along a fairly unstable tightrope I decided to break down and cry- go me! So clearly it wasn't my cup of tea and I won't be doing it any time soon but it was a fun experience... well it was fun once I'd taken my harness of and I was sat on a nice stable bench on the ground!

In the evening, all the student leaders got together to have some food and a chat about what the student work in G2 might look like this year. We had a really great prayer time with each other and I made a commitment to be bolder with my faith and to be bolder sharing it. So, in the end, the whole Go Ape experience turned out to be a pretty useful analogy.

I'm now back in Kent for a week now, and in all honesty, fairly bored. My little taste of York was a reminder of how much I love being at university. Next time we chat it will be on the other side of a six and a half hour car ride!

lovely new earrings from Etsy!

Also worth mentioning:
Whilst in York, I also reactivated my Netflix account and I set straight to work at becoming fairly addicted to Lost.
I've recently become fairly addicted to Etsy.com and plan on buying many many pretty rings in the coming months. Hazel's sister sells some really pretty jewellery so I splashed out on a cute little pair of earrings, if you fancy a look a some beaded beauties head over here.
Yesterday I finally posted Chapter 4 of the Sound of Rain. If you've not heard about/read Rain before, it's a teen fiction coming-of-age story that I'm posting chapter by chapter on another blog, you can read the new chapter, and all the previous chapters here.

Stay awesome! x

La Belle Vie: 2 week holiday in suprisingly sunny Brittany!

So it's taken me a little longer to get around to writing this post than I had intended, but here I am.

At 5.30am on 13th August I got on a train to Dover to meet my family, but not before I met a relation of Mo Farah's in Charing Cross station, we had a good chat about life and being awake in London in the middle of the night. I love meeting unexpected people at unexpected times. Having not slept at all that night, I was pretty grumpy when I met my family and Sam in Dover at about 8.30am and I proceeded to sleep the whole way to Brittany. If you're geography is a bit rusty, that's a pretty impressive amount of time spent sleeping in car.

We've been to Brittany once before and we went back to the same place this year, Arradon. It's a pretty little town with a small harbour into the Gulf of the Morbihan, great for sailing! The first couple of nights were pretty stormy but for about a week in the middle of our holiday we had beautiful sunny weather!

Sam reading on our favourite little island.

I went out for a sail on the Elle K, our little Laser, with Mum and Dad - I didn't manage to persuade Sam into any sailing, because he is boring. In theory, I learnt the basics of sailing when I was a kid, but I haven't practiced much(/at all) since I did my course, but still, Dad thought it would be a good idea to give me the tiller and the mainsheet and let me do a bit of, uh, steering. I even managed to tack (to tack, verb: turning the bow of a sailing vessel through the wind to change its course) the boat without causing too much chaos, which I was pretty chuffed about. I did, however, give control back to Dad when we entered the ferry lanes; I enjoyed the power, but I know my limits! When we weren't sailing we spent some time on our favourite little island, not far out from the harbour. Sam and I went exploring round the island; climbing on rocks and such, because clearly we walked straight out of a Famous Five book.

We - Joey, Peter, Sam, Kat and I - also rented some kayaks for a day, that was pretty sweet. Although, the geniuses that we are, we set off paddling against the tide... hard work. We did, eventually, manage to reach an island and had a little picnic. I decided then and there that I now want to join the canoeing and kayaking society at Uni, because clearly I have time for that!

In the past, our family holidays have been about mentally fitting in as much tourism, as many museums and as many city visits as possible. As a nice contrast, this year we spent a lot of the holiday in and around the campsite; Sam read about 987,905,398 books. We were staying in a municipal campsite, which meant we could use some of the municipal sports facilities; we played tennis, basketball, went snorkelling and Joey and Peter had a 200m race - I was in charge of timing since I don't consider running an enjoyable pastime...

LAND TRAIN!

We did fit in one day of visiting though; we went to Auray, a historic riverside town. We wandered, had crepes, went on a land train... yes, a LAND TRAIN, which excited us all, since between the five of us we have a combined mental age of about 23. In the evening we dropped in at Carnac, where there was an evening artisan market, it was amazing, but also it was the kind of place you should take a decently stocked purse to; there were stalls selling handmade bags, jewellery, clothes, paintings, sculptures and all sorts of pretty things! In between the stalls were fire dancers and beautiful folk music groups. It was fun to just wander round at twilight in such a good atmosphere!

pretty earrings from Carnac artisan market

All in all, it was a nice and relaxing holiday. The Morbihan is definitely a place I would recommend visiting!

Since coming back from France life has been pretty uneventful, apart from yesterday. Yesterday we went to Joey's graduation in FALMOUTH, let me tell you, Falmouth is not close to Kent at all. As we were driving back we listened to the final of the US Tennis Open on the radio... oh it was nothing special, only the monumental day when Andy Murray won his first Grand Slam…!!!! So, 10th September, we'll call that a good day?

I hope you've enjoyed catching up with my summer and I hope you've enjoyed your own; we've a little bit of decent weather, haven’t we? x

Hydrating the nation: More Than Gold mission trip to London 2012

The astute among those of you who follow me on Twitter will notice that I was in London a couple of weeks ago now. This is one of those rare posts when I'm not going to apologise that you've not heard from me for a while, because after London, I spent two weeks in FRANCE - but I'm going to save that for the next post!

#TeamG2

I spent ten days in London, leaving in the early hours of the morning after the closing ceremony. I went down to London with a group from G2 in York, let me introduce you to them; Gav, Rosie, Radi, Jo, Garreth and Hazel. More Than Gold is a big mission network going on during the Olympics and Paralympics, in London and all over the country. When we arrived in London we had little to no idea about what exactly our team was going to do. Originally we were going to be working with a church called Grace in Soho, but those plans fell through, we did go to a service at Grace though, it was in a bar, and essentially it was G2, but with alcohol rather than caffeine.

But what we were actually going to do was the least of our worries as it was less than a day before Gav had to head home with glandular fever, leaving Rosie as our one team leader. I'll say now, she stepped up awesomely.

While we were in London we stayed in a Salvation Army training centre along with Salvationists from all over the world. It was amazing to meet so many people, I would now claim to have good friends in Germany, Canada and the United States. We had some great conversations about differences between church institutions and particularly the absence of any sacraments in the Salvationist church, including baptism and communion. I also had a really interesting conversation with a Canadian called Erika who grew up Salvationist and is now converting to Ukrainian Catholicism - it was good to think about the value of sacraments and what they are for; not letting ritual stand in the way of an honest relationship with God, but using them as symbols, for reflection and to remind us to be respectful. I have honestly taken so much from meeting these people.

On Monday, we were due to start with our mission work in Westminster, but what with our original plans falling though, we seem to have fallen through the net and no-one was expecting us. That was a pretty disheartening day, we felt like we were a bit of a spare part. Rosie was ace, got on the phone to organisers and they found us a team that could do with some extra people, so by the end of the day we'd got a team to join for Tuesday and in the end the disappointing situation gave us a good chance to think about what it was that we were there for and what it was all about.

Tuesday morning, we rocked up to Euston train station, ready hand out thousands of bottles of water. It was a really simple thing to do, but it was great to just be serving the city, giving them something they needed rather than pestering busy people. Every now and then someone would stop and ask why we were giving away free water and it was those conversations that were really encouraging. Later in the week we started face painting too, that was a bit more conversation prone because you're with the same person for longer.

It was a really good experience to just serve the city and be useful. Especially working alongside the Salvation Army, it made us think, as a team, about serving regularly and not just around big events - we're coming for you York!

Also, thank you to everyone from G2 who supported our team, financially and in prayer. It was great to be supported by such an awesome church!

Watch this space for a post about my holiday in Brittany,
Stay happy! x

Inheritance Cycle vs The Old Kingdom

In my first English seminar at university we went around the room and said which book we last finished (that wasn't on our reading lists) - it was a pretty predictable bunch, 1984, a Jane Austen or two, Moby Dick, War and Peace, it was the summer of 2011 so a couple of girls said One Day. But what about me? Well, when it came round to my turn I kept my eyes on the table and said Twilight - having stayed up until sunrise reading it for about the 6th time. I guess it's fair to say I'm not particularly high-brow.

My brow was lowered further in my Easter break this year. I had just finished a superbly uninteresting module on Victorian literature and wanted to rebel. A few blogs ago I mentioned my Young Adult Fiction binge over Easter - it consisted of skim-reading Harry Potter, re-reading the Black Magicians Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, reading the Hunger Games trilogy and the holiday came to a close with Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy.

Mum bought Sabriel (the first book in Garth Nix's trilogy) for me when I was nine or ten, I started reading it then but didn't make it past the first couple of chapters. Desperate for a YA Fantasy fix I grabbed in from my bookshelf and powered on, a few days later I stopped by a Waterstones to pick up books two and three and finished them in a handful of days. Emily is also a lover of YA Fantasy and when she spotted news of my binge on Twitter, she decided to fuel my addiction with some of her favourites. In the first few weeks of the summer term I found myself in possession of Christopher Paolini's Eragon, book one of Inheritance Cycle. Generally more popular than Trudi Canavan and Garth Nix, I had high expectations for Paolini - boy was I disappointed.

Before I continue, it is probably worth mentioning two things. Firstly, I haven't actually finished Inheritance Cycle, in fact I didn't even make it to the end of Eragon, so this review is wilfully uninformed. Secondly, Inheritance Cycle is a quadrilogy not a trilogy - I don't like quadrilogies, I can't tell you why, it's inexplicable, I just don't like them.

When I made the final decision to give up on Eragon, people who had encouraged me to read it all replied with the same shrug and "Well I was quite a lot younger when I read it." This response made me wonder, why is it that I'm too old to enjoy Eragon, but I enjoyed Old Kingdom more now than I did when I was younger? Both series are in the Teen Fiction section in Waterstones - trust me, I checked - so is the 'well, I guess you're too old for it' excuse valid?

Both series centre around magic - in Old Kingdom magical knowledge is gained through knowledge of symbols for things, magic in Eragon requires knowledge of an ancient language. So far, pretty similar? It ends there. Old Kingdom is much more original in it's a concept; a magical kingdom where electricity doesn't work shares a border with modern countries where magic barely works. Nix contrasts the country of practical technology and the country of symbolism and mysticism. The necromancy aspect to the magic also feels original within the context of a YA Fantasy.

Philip Pullman describes Sabriel as "a fantasy that reads like realism." I disagree entirely, what makes Old Kingdom such a good read is that it is entirely surreal. The first few chapters are almost uncomfortable to read as it takes a while to adjust to the casual references to the Dead, whether they be a threat to Sabriel or her servants. Old Kingdom is a trilogy you have to be utterly consumed by in order to really understand the world that Nix has created.

Eragon couldn't be more different. The phrasing and style of writing is generally dull, but that's par for the course is you're going to read YA when you're an adult. What I really couldn't handle was how much each chapter feels like an entirely separate unit and the only thing that happens in each unit is exactly what the chapter title points to. There's no sense of subplots or excess plot just for the sake of entertainment and being immersed in a story. No, everything is on a need to know basis.

This sparsity of indulgence in his world is extended to the characters that Paolini creates. I get the impression that this is the area that I'm going to get most stick for - yes I Eragon is like able enough and I could probably write a short paragraph to introduce you to him, but I don't understand him the way I do Sabriel. There's also no spare dialogue between characters, so the relationships just don't feel natural. Sabriel spends something ridiculous like 164 pages without making any contact with any other human but somehow there is more dialogue and character development than in the same number of pages in Eragon.

This experience of both loving and, for the first time, hating Young Adult Fantasy has taught me something. YA fiction is only good to read as an adult if the author does more than tick the boxes and tell a fun story. Garth Nix creates a world that he seems to generally care about, I feel like he's spent time thinking about details of his creation that are surplus to the requirement of the plot. Christopher Paolini on the other hand has created a world that fits into a box, a box that is perfectly and neatly gift wrapped for a very specific audience demographic.

It's similar to the comparison between Disney cartoons and live-action Disney Channel original movies - but that's a whole other ballgame.

Comments, tweets and disagreements welcome. 

The sun, the Son and a haiku or two.

As ever, it’s been a while – mostly I’m not going to apologise because I had, y’know, exams. But they did finish about 3 weeks ago now, and yet you still haven’t heard from me, why you ask? One part laziness, one part genuine busyness and two parts my housemates have been jetting off home for the summer and I didn’t want to lose a second before they disappeared from my life for three months.

Okay, dramatic, but hopefully you can forgive me, just like you always do!

Before I fill you in on my life since we last spoke I have some admin. Firstly a shout out to Opemipo – I bumped into him on my train journey home for the Christmas holiday and he mentioned that he reads my blog, as ever excitement unfolded on my part, so Hi Opemipo, I hope you’re still reading! Secondly, Tom O’Dair gets another mention, two for two aye? In response to his comment, and as a general update on my last blog, I’ve not finished Eragon and I’m not really planning to. I just got bored, maybe it’s because I’m just too old for it now, but I managed to be utterly consumed by Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom Trilogy though and that has a pretty similar reader demographic. Maybe it's just got a dull and generic storyline? I’ll probably write a comparison of the two when I’m back in Kent for summer and my life slows down a bit.

So no we’re caught up on paperwork, I’ve got three things to tell you about – the sun, the Son and a haiku or two – I just love it when I come up with a snazzy title!

The sun came out just about when my exams started, of course. I didn’t sulk too much though – spent the day before my first exam lying out on the grass with cider and revision notes. My exams went pretty well and, in colossal contrast to A-levels, stress didn’t really get the better of me – yes personal growth! With one or two disappointments, I’ve managed to get myself a 2:1 for first year. Forgiven me for neglecting you yet? Thanks.

I’ve decided I can’t really work the Son into a coherent or natural sounding sentence – it just worked well in my title. But basically, church has been immense this term at Uni. I’ve starting doing a bit of cell leading since Easter – for those of you not down with church jargon – a cell is kind of like a bible study group, but the term bible study excludes worship, prayer, mission, fellowship (and all sorts of other church jargon), so we call what we do 'cell groups'. It’s be a great experience, but also kind of strange because I’ve ended up co-leading a cell made up mostly of people 2 or 3 years older than me. But more than the actual leading side of it, I’ve learnt a lot about just being available to support people. Having some kind of title related to it has made me more aware of reaching out and serving the people around me. Ooooh, here comes another shout out – Lizzie Briggs – I don’t know if she’s come across my blog or not, I guess we’ll find out! I met Lizzie because she joined my cell and we hit it off pretty quickly and I’m very thankful that cell leading has led me to meeting her.

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff that’s been going on in church this term – I went on a student work training day, we’ve done a really challenging series on the Holy Spirit at G2 and we looked at Daniel in at Christian Union. I would like to tell you about all of these things, so I might compile some sort of post over the next few weeks, so again, watch this space.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, are friends with my on Facebook or check my ‘book blog’ from time to time in the vain hope I’ve uploaded a new chapter… might have noticed that throughout June I’ve been writing a haiku or two... or ninety! Well, it’s the first of July now, so I’m done. I’ve done it; I have written 90 haiku in 30 days. I wanted to write a blog about this sooner, but let’s be honest the best intentions have never done my blogging any good before! It’s not too late now though.

The reason I’ve been writing 3 haiku a day through June is to raise money for Student Linkup. Student Linkup is run by Fusion, which is an organisation that supports student in churches all over the UK. Linkup runs for three months – 90 days – through the summer, helping school leavers ‘link up’ with churches in their new university cities. I found G2 through Linkup, so I wanted to get on board to help Christians starting university this year. Each day of Student Linkup costs about £200 to run, so Fusion has asked students/church leaders/parents etc. to do a 90 Challenge to raise money to fund one day of the Linkup summer. I decided to challenge myself to write 90 haiku in June.

If you’ve been noticing my haiku popping up on the internet but haven’t hit the donate link yet or this whole challenge is news to you – I really want to encourage you to take a look at all my haiku here, where there’s also a link through to my sponsorship page. If you like my haiku and you really want students to settle into church at Uni, please donate what you can, sponsorship is going to be open until the end of July.

After a brief survey of all 90 haiku I’ve learnt two things about myself; first, when I say am/midday/pm I actually mean midday/pm/night because that’s how my body clock works and second, I do nothing but eat in the am period of my day.

Okay, so this has inevitably been a long post – I’ve given you two spoilers about posts to come; book reviews and thoughts about what church has challenged me with in the last ten weeks. I’ve also given you some homework, take a look at my haiku and drop a couple of quid onto my sponsorship page.

As ever, leave me a comment or tweet if you have something to say and I hope you’re kicking off summer well – wherever you are! xo