Rainbows, lollipops and (fingers crossed) sunshine!

Tomorrow weather and energy permitting I'm going to my first Pride celebration so when I came across this blog http://walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.co.uk it felt like fate.

'Walking with Integrity' are a church campaign in America who don't just passively accept people but go to Pride festivals and welcome people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. They are campaigners for gay rights too.

So often all you hear about with the church in the US is those awful publicity hounds of the Westboro Baptist Church. As a Christian (albeit one having a crisis of faith) these people hurt me as they can't fail to give all Christians a bad name. I was so pleased to find that somewhere in the world the accepting, loving and welcoming face of Christianity, the one that I believe is most prevalent but all too quiet, is taking a stand.

I enjoyed one sermon on the site so much that I wanted to post a little of it here. It starts with a heartfelt appreciation of the joy of finding your partner....

"It is no small consolation in this life to have someone you can unite with you in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love, someone in whom your spirit can rest, to whom you can pour out your soul, to whose pleasant exchanges, as to soothing songs, you can fly in sorrow… with whose spiritual kisses, as with remedial salves, you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties. A man who can shed tears with you in your worries, be happy with you when things go well, search out with you the answers to your problems, whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart; . . . where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you, where you so join yourself and cleave to him that soul mingles with soul and two become one."


and goes on to admit some hard truths and call for people to make some difficult amends...

"We are asking the church to do exactly what my friend said they must do - recognize that its teaching has been wrong and admit that it has harmed many children of G-d in the process. In the words of the confession we will use today, it means being able and willing to admit that “We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created.” 

But that is only the first step. It also means, in the words of the Confession, that we must “repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” Having lived through the painful process of desegregation in Central Florida in the 1960s, I know only too well how difficult it can be to admit that you were wrong, that your understandings, words and behavior have been harmful to others and to realize that you had no choice but to repent, to change your mind, change directions, change your life if you were to live a life of intellectual honesty and integrity. The cognitive dissonance that arises from such a realization is painful and incredibly disorienting."

And finally, a note of hope for the future

" ... One of the most encouraging things I have ever heard him (Jack Spong, reformed homophobic, now equal rights campaigner) say was that the outcome of our long struggle for gay and lesbian equality has not been in doubt for some time now, only the time table for the goal of full inclusion."

I hope they don't mind me reposting such a large swathe of the sermon but they are about spreading a message of love, and so it is my privilege to pass it on. I hope I demonstrate my support for my gay friends and at least some of them will let me be a bridesmaid at their wedding (hint, hint).

Blackberry, proudly purple!

xxx

So the sunshine has now gone but I feel I made the most of it. Getting out of the house several times unlike over the period of March sun when Is stayed in bed with the curtains closed. There has been a BBQ, a little walk and a week at home with my niece who discovered ice cream in all its confusing ways of being surprisingly cold and surprisingly yummy.

In particular I was glad that the sun stayed out for the Cobden View pub charity day. I made a 'My Little Pony' inspired pin the tail on the donkey and we also ran a tombola. Arkady came along too and helped blow up the balloons. Sophie was adorably determined to blow them up too but at 3 years old I think it would have been rather miraculous if she had succeeded.

A wonky looking donkey - too big to take a photo of on the kitchen floor really.

It was nice to have to get up in the morning because it meant we had the rest of the day in the sunshine. The pub garden was followed by a BBQ in the park with Mike and Paul, then USLES Eurovision party and back to Mike and Paul's to catch up with some old friends. 'French food' (camembert and french stick) was a particular highlight of Eurovision, unlike the French entry.

Blackberry pony trots off.
xxx

Something I guess we all aim to achieve is being a better friend. So often trying to be a good friend is one aspect of my life in which I manage to overcome my fears and sacrifice my terror on the altar of friendship. Last month was no different. I went to support my housemate Arkady in his first wrestling performance. For some reason I often feel more comfortable on a stage than in an audience. I have familiarity with my surroundings, some ownership or stake-holdership in the event and, most importantly, control. At wrestling I had none of these things but luckily, what I did have was a fellow nervous nelly on my arm. Mr Matt, complete with cords and looking like his usual eccentric self accompanied me as we ran, a little late, up the steps of a community building on Leppings Lane. We weren’t 100% sure that we were even in the correct place but as we entered the building resembling ‘The Burrow’ i.e. held together by PVA and magic, we reassured ourselves that there probably wasn’t more than one wrestling event on in Hillsborough that night.

A motley crowd of stage night goers, small waif-like children and bemused-looking wrestler WAGs were sat around an impressive looking ring as we took seats tentatively at the back of the room. I can see how Arkady came to this from pantomime. The whole thing is a performance rather than a competition and good guys and villains get time to have plenty of banter with the audience between their moves. On more than one occasion the small children looked in danger of being flattened by a lycra-clad bruiser being thrown over the ropes.  The typical habitat of a Mr Matt or a BlackberryThorn is in a theatre or a library and so our laughter was mainly of the nervous sort.

Our bravery was rewarded just before the end of the first half when Arkady swaggered on in character as ‘The Baron’, a Southern ponce (yes, he’s playing himself ;-P) hurling insults and telling the noisy little ones that it was past their bedtime (I happened to agree). Arkady in lycra isn’t exactly my idea of a pin up poster (think more the tweed of Matt Smith and the voice of Alan Rickman) but he was  excellent. The throws he used on his opponents looked really professional and much better in situ than when he had attempted to demonstrate on me in our kitchen. I didn’t like it when he got thrown and clutched Mr Matt’s arm – he probably still has the finger marks.

Here is a shot of him in action....

The blue blur is Arkady, kindly letting a skinny kid beat him to a pulp.

He lasted a long time in the final fight and went out just after an old guy who could easily have been a Jimmy Saville impersonator.

Though I can’t say I’ll be turning into a regular I certainly did enjoy seeing Arkady in action and can’t wait to help him work on his costume.

More blackberries than thorns on this little adventure!

xxx

Ellie's Airmiles

Yesterday I went with Mum, Dad, my eldest sister Lu and her baby Kate to the glamourous Market Rasen train station (which is actually quite cute now some of the village people have done it up) to pick up Ellie.

Ellie is my little sis' and has been away 7 months having amazing adventures you can read about here . She has come home a very different colour and seeming to have grown (mainly as she's half a foot taller than the rest of us anyway). And so we made a banner and took balloons and I made a cake...

Indonesia is a bugger to ice!

...of the places she went  -Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji!

She seems to have brought the Fijian weather back with her, as well as a few Fijian swear words. Her washing has been hanging in the sun all day as she's slept and got excited over things like squash, which apparently is a really British thing, and hot water.

Kate is too tiny to remember her but Ellie has claimed her affections quickly with a bracelet of shells she made on the beach.

As a blackberry I would simply turn to weepy mush if I tried this, but have enjoyed travelling through her pictures and blog.

xxx

Pottery...erm?

So, long time no blog. I do apologise to you, dear mythical reader, though I have no valid excuse. I've just been doing the usual - USLES, job rejections and depression, as well as spending far too much time on the internet.

I'm now at home for the week waiting for my little sis to arrive back from her travels so I shall also be updating here and catching up there. This was the plan anyway, until I took a new medication, which has left me in a rather spaced out state for 2 days.

Never the less I have something to show you. Earlier this year I took up a New Year's challenge of seizing the year and started doing the pottery class that I'd previously been too scared to join. And here is my first pot....

...it's all right. I know what you're thinking and I agree, it is pretty hideous. But it is hideous with a purpose - a learning curve of ugly, if you will. It weighs 5lbs as we were encouraged to do something big as a first piece and the shiny, textured technique on the main body is called burnishing, which took 3 hours of polishing with a tea spoon to achieve, followed by a rub over with shoe polish once it was out of the kiln. The lip is glazed over a black and matching green slip. It's not quite a vase or a pot so lesson #1 is that now I'm going to make stuff with a purpose! So I've started on mugs and a teapot. Lesson #2 was that scrapping something I've spent an evening on is far more sensible than carrying on with something that I don't like and I guess lesson #3 was the techniques.  So, as it turns out, after all that waiting and wanting that I'm not great at pottery but at least I've tried.

Let's hope my next attempt will be less thorns and more blackberries!

xxx

Press play without a pause

Phew, what a week! I have just got back to Sheffield after challenging myself to a 4 day stint of theatre devising in Hull. I applied for Press Play - a tour of theatre devising for young people through the National Youth Theatre - not thinking that I would actually get  place. I was more than a little bit terrified when I did. This was to be 4 days of intensive workshopping in a new city with people I did not know and far out of my comfort zone. 

But I did it. Thanks in no small part to my Godfather's brother and family who live in Hull and took excellent care of me. I learnt a lot about devising theatre as opposed to writing it and came away with lots of ideas. I had one wobble on the 3rd day. The 'press' of 'press play' refers to THE press. We were looking at news stories, so many of them to do with pain and I got upset when some people in one of my groups wanted to put a 'clowning' effect on it. When the leader said clowning I think he was referring to facial expressions but we started to head more towards slapstick. A lovely beardy chap called Antonio tried to mediate and help but I couldn't take part in something I didn't agree with. You know how these things escalate into upset. I left and had a cry in the toilets. I couldn't run away. I'm not saying that I didn't want to, I just wasn't wearing shoes at the time. The hardest thing about getting upset like that is having to hold your head up and walk back into the room. I did, and was glad to see they had toned down the bits I had found offensive (though at the same time worried that the group leaders would think I had been making a fuss over nothing).

Even so, mostly it was really great. I lasted and learned and am more than a little bit proud of myself - I know some of the others were too. I wish I had been well enough to cope with study and these wonderful youth opportunities as I am now getting rapidly too old for them. I am toying with the idea of doing a short course at uni so I can get involved with some of the 'students only' stuff that goes on. Onwards and upwards.

Photosplosion

For those of you who don't know Craftster it is a craft website/forum where people share their creations. I wanted to upload my latest (and some older) stuff but can't get the pictures to work. So I'm going to try linking them over here instead. Get ready for a photosplosion!

Hmm, what else might I want to post to my Craftster account.