God is Faithful.

And what is this phenomenon about The Notebook? Someone please enlighten me.

He's going for distance, he's going for speed...

My social rant is still pending....However, I have more pertinent stuff to write about. Originally this would have been about my diving trip at the weekend - beautiful scenery, great weather and pretty good diving. I could have regaled you with stories of the wood cabin we stayed in, the stories round the bonfire and the awesome 'first barbecue of the year'.







But I don't want to write about that anymore. Last night I experienced this.

Now I've no idea what 'hives' are, and I was spared the diarrhea and vomiting, but I got a full quota of the rashes, itching and nausea. Basically last night I went out for dinner with my Granny and my cousins, and having spotted mussels on the starter menu, munched my way through 25 or so of them. About half way through the main course (a tasty Calzone pizza), I noticed2 or 3 of what seemed to be bites on my stomach and legs. Passing them off as spiting of the fleas which I must evidently be carrying, I soldiered on with the meal. However, by the coffee, the itching had got worse and I thought I was going to hurl. A visit to the bathroom did not manage to procure any vomit (maintaining my record of not throwing up since my infamous incident at the White House in 1999), but did confirm that my body was now covered in a red and white blotchy rash.

To cut a longish story slighty shorter, we visited my aunt (a doctor) who confirmed that it was an allergy, despite me never having a reaction before, reassured me that I wasn't going to die and suggested I had a cold shower to reduce the burning pain from the itch. So I went up to the bathroom, where upon I very nearly passed out (ever had that feeling where everything closes in and you cant see any more? It's great!), and promtly returned downstairs. Ultimately I ended up sleeping (sort of) on my grandma's sofa, valiantly trying and failing to stop itching. And during a trip to the bathroom at 2am, I nearly passed out again twice.

In all, not a lot of fun. And the worst bit, despite my cousin repeatedly telling me how red and puffed up my face was and that I should take a picture, I didn't get any pics to show my devoted readers (all 4 of you). C'est la vie.

You don't need no credit card to ride this train

I had an interesting rant to blog about, but having just returned from a staff conference, its probably more appropriate to talk about that, and leave you baying in anticipation for the next post (it's about the state of our 'yoof' ).

So Friday to Tuesday, I was down saaawf. Friday night I stopped off at my folks for the night, and my sister had driven up from London for the occasion, so we all went out to a local (when I say local, I mean in the hills in the middle of nowhere) pub/restaurant for a very tasty duck and lamb dinner, where the famed local (this time I use the word to refer to a regular drinker) who drinks with an owl on his shoulder failed to turn up. Anyway, the food was great, and it was most excellent to spend time with the family, even if at points the conversation descended into inquisitions about respective siblings' romantic lives.

The conference was also excellent. It's always great to hang out with the staff family. The food was tolerable (we were staying in Nottingham uni - makes you never want to be a first year student in halls!), but the program was ace! God challenged me on lots of exciting stuff and I got a lot of vision for the coming 18months. We had a commissioning service for our departing National Director, David Wilson (now to be a European Director) and the incoming guy Andy Atikins, where we all got to wear posh frocks (or at least the girls did. Actually, come to think of it, I can't remember anyone wearing a dress) and clap lots. Even Mr OM himself, George Verwer turned up! It was also kinda sad too because barring a day or so in June, the conference was the last time I'll see a lot of the yankedoodles working in Liverpool (yes, yes, I do have a soft side to my emotions), who are a heck of a lot of fun to be with.Schmoozing with our American friends. Don't worry, the facial hair has gone.

Thee food may be crap, but the campus was pretty.


I also got forced to acknowledge how soon the project to Lithuania is (6 and a half weeks to go) and how much I have left to do. Made a start and bought all the flights yesterday, making a £1400 dent in my credit card, so lets hope nobody pulls out!

What else interesting to talk about? The abortive attempt at watching the Back to the Future trilogy in one go,which ended up just being two Indiana Jones films because none of us actually had the Back to the Future Dvds? Or the farcical story of my losing my phone down a sofa? Actually, I'll talk about none of them and go and have my tea instead.

Zwanzig Centimeter!

To those concerned, I didn't travel with my face looking like that. To the disappointment of others, i shaved it off. However I'm toying with the idea of growing something similar for the Agape conference next week....

Anyway, the trip to France was great. Short, but a great way to relax and stop thinking about Lithuania projects and such things. It must be said that the weather wasn't great - indeed, the woman selling lift passes tried to fend us off "But monsieur, 'aven't you seen le weather report?" When we replied in the negative she shook her said and muttered stuff about cloud and no visibility. Well lady, thankyou for informing us. Seeing as the weather is so bad, i'm sure it's no problem for us just to nip back to Scotland until the weather improves a bit. Or, on the other hand, keep your negativity to yourself and sell us what we asked for!

Anyway, she was only half right. The cloud brought with it lots of snow, and at some points there was even beautiful sunshine. The off piste runs starting at the top of le Grand Montets in the Italian bowl (so named after the Italian's who died in an Avalanche a few years ago), past the avalanche warnign signs, through the trees and eventually arriving in Argentiere at the at bottom after a vertical drop of over 1200m (three times in a row) was the highlight of the trip for me.

Thursday was a wash out. By which I mean it was proper minging. Ski resorts are supposed to have snow, right? Not driving rain three quaters of the way up the mountain! This meant that only the very top part of the runs had nice snow, and the rest of it was like snowboarding through a half drunk slush puppy - you know when you've sucked out all the syrup and all you're left with is munched up ice. I have never been so wet on a mountain. Fortunately, after a couple hours you hit saturation point and stopped caring so much. By the afternoon it was literally only the British left on the mountian -all the French had gone home to their vin chauds and creme cafe cigars. We even overheard someone in the lift queue complain about the same lift pass girl trying to avoid a sale by giving another negative weather report. At least she was right this time. But us Brits are hardy souls, and cry's of 'watch out for that rock Rupert' and 'Oh, thats a lovely carve Tara' could be heard bellowing from the lungs of folk still having a jolly good time.

Anyway, the whole holiday was great. I would rather had more time in the board park (my attempt on Thursday in zero vis led to me crashing, taking a wrong turn and having to climb out of a gully in thigh deep snow). French food is indeed excellent, and despite being rather tasteless, baby octupus was fun to eat (although is that ethically sound? Can the Octopii maintian sustainable populations if we're eating all their babies??).

Flippin Soaked

No idea what this cross was doing. I just hope it wasn't marking a grave.


Who's that sexy guy?

The top of the 'Italian Bowl'. Everybody heading down was praying against avalanches (of which the chances of one occuring were 4/5)
Mont Blanc. Highest mountain in Europe. Doesn't look it, does it?