Mists of October

The other morning there was a very thick mist as I was cycling to church for our Discipleship Year Team Day. I actually had to stop and put my lights on my bike because I was having trouble seeing more than five feet in front of me (I guess qualifying it as a fog, rather than a mist) but the photos turned out lovely! Here are shots from the British Waterways canal I cycle alongside. The shot of me with the tree coming out of my head was a self-portrait I took while exploring the University of Nottingham campus on a sunny day a week ago.


Friday was a long and busy day with team time, theology sessions, cleaning the church, lunch and then setting up and attending a Potential Leaders seminar that night. The next morning the Discipleship Year team was back at church bright and early to serve refreshments for Day 2 of the leaders seminar and we were busy until 4 p.m. I then headed off with my friends Robin and Jida for a walk back into the city centre, where Jida and I abandoned Robin (her husband) to go shopping and do girly things like try on hats and makeup. We grabbed a quick cup of tea and then were back at Jida & Robin's flat for a fast dinner. Since Jida is Israeli-Arab and Robin is Austrian-English, they had yummy Middle Eastern bread, cheese and olives and German sausage. I hadn't realized how my palate was craving some international flavors after the generally bland English food (sorry, new friends). I just couldn't stop eating that sausage and herb feta.

Then we were back to church yet again that night for the Rugby World Cup. For you ignorant Americans (like me), the Rugby World Cup only comes once every four years and England barely made the finals this year after two months of semi-finals. They were playing against South Africa and trying to retain their title from 2003. Well, as you can imagine, rugby fever had swept the UK, and Trent Vineyard celebrated by showing the game on their big screen and opening the bar that's in the corner of the sanctuary/auditorium (the bar is for all big evening events and after every Sunday night service). I desperately wanted to be part of the action but don't understand rugby very well, so was thrilled when they asked me to be on the bar team. It was my second time serving on the bar (though I'm now on a monthly rota) and I had a blast. However, there were a couple of hundred people there, and the queue (yes, the English actually queued up for the bar, until James--the bar supervisor and one of the youth pastors--scolded them all and told them to 'crowd round the counter like normal people') stretched halfway across the auditorium. Thanks to all of the people, there was an insane rush on the bar and I poured dozens of pints, opened a lot of bottles (got inadvertently sprayed with warm ale several times, too) and also served a lot of Coke and juice.

Unfortunately, England lost the game by quite a lot (the best part was when a South African player got accidentally pushed over the the barrier and landed on top of a TV cameraman) so there was an extremely subdued atmosphere when the Brits left after the game. However, there were many, many glasses to run through the dishwasher, so the rest of the team and I had our work cut out for us for awhile. It was fun!

The discerning among you may notice that there is no Carlsberg Export actually coming out of this tap into the half-pint glass. That's because I wanted a photo of me actually pouring a pint--in a church--but was too busy to hand the camera to someone until after the event. Jules (my English 'sister') was obliging enough to set this one up with me after the fact.