Peace and calm

I was over in Belfast last weekend. Part of the reason for going was to help me consider my options for next year. Also went to chill and do some shopping. I went for a walk on the Sunday afternoon and took some pictures of some swans in the harbour. I particularly liked this one.



I guess I like the sense of peace and calm which I see in the picture. This reflects the peace I need at the moment. My future is very much full of possibilities, options, maybes and suggestions. I could go to Belfast or stay here, do a masters or a more practical course. And I honestly just don't know which is best.
But one thing I do know, is that God is in control and that gives me the peace I need. This verse in Colossians 3:15 (Amplified Bible) sums it all up...And let the peace, soul harmony which comes from Christ rule, act as umpire continually in your hearts deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds...

It's been a while

Well, its been almost 6 months since I have written anything of worth on here. I am going to try (I'm sure I've said this before) and be a little bit more consistent with my blogging. It seems like a good time to do this as I am working out what I am going to do next year, stay teaching or something else. I'd really like to work for the church at some point in my future and I think this is the moving towards being able to do something about it. Decision time is here and I am stuck. I'm meeting my new minister next week and I am hoping that will help. I'll keep you informed as to what I'm thinking.

Thought I'd add 2 snow photo's as well. This is from my walk to school on Monday. It was very pretty. Not so pretty on Thursday when it snowed again. I think falling over might have coloured my appreciation of the snow that day!

God's presence

Psalm 103
Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him,

and his righteousness with their children's children-
with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.
Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.
Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Came across this through a friend's blog (I love copying ideas!). Apparently a US organisation has come up with a list of that nation’s top 100 books, although it estimates that on average most adults have only read 6 on the list. I find that last bit unlikely - there are loads of children’s classics there too, so a child could easily log up 6 through their school years. Anyway, I’ve highlighted in bold the ones I’ve read. How about you? And do you think there are any glaring omissions from the list?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - almost finished!
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

It's cold today and nearly June, what is going on?

I can't believe its almost June, where is the year going? All my wonderful plans for writing on here more, have fallen by the wayside. I blame it all on the past couple of months being very busy. To be honest I prefer it that way. I'd rather than very little time to sit down and write posts, than lots of time to write but nothing interesting to write about.

I've also realised I work much better with pictures than writing. So again you're going to get a series of pictures to show what I've been going rather than lots of words. Writing takes too much time and thought. Pictures are easier.

So here is the past couple of months in pictures...

The sunset at Silverknowes in AprilEaster in Northern Ireland

Jeremy's Leaving - Pub Quiz at the Blind Poet

20-30's Weekend Away at Gatehouse of Fleet. Definately one of the best weekends I've had in ages. Such a relaxing time away, good laughs!

MoonWalk

I'm taking part in the MoonWalk. Walking 13 miles. Please sponsor me!!

https://www.bmycharity.com/rachelsloansmoonwalk

Silverknowes

I went for a walk along the shore at Silverknowes today. The light on the water was amazing. These are some of the photo's. I really enjoy being by the water. Its definately one the places where I feel alive and content.