Chris Moyles and his Essex based Salvation Army fan club

The photo above was taken today when Glyn, Matt White and myself went to visit Ottakers book shop in Chelmsford to have our Chris Moyles books signed and get a photo with the man himself. So here we are.... but there are a few things to note about this photo. Chris appears to only like Matt W as he has his arm around him and him alone. Mind you he did try to put his arm around me but I was too tall and it made his shirt come up - as you can see by way of appeasement I put a hand-of-friendship on his shoulder. Glyn is making a bizarre face and, unfortunately though much less intentionally, so am I - I appear to be smirking; "Excitedly smirksome" apparently (copyright Christina W).

Interestingly just before this photo was taken I presented Mr Moyles with a little blue plastic box with an Electralyte cd, t-shirt, poster and a couple of sticks of rock. I do hope he enjoys them! He seemed to like the gesture and put the box on the floor next to where he was sitting.

Today I met a legend.

Goldmember and the trailer

Today has been an exciting day for today Electralyte got their trailer. We bought it off of our good buddies from the band [dweeb] so it already has a sterling rock and roll heritage. I do hope we don't disappoint it in the future.

You will be pleased to hear that the Goldmember pulls it well - I was very relieved!

I must say that that my automobile looks particularly good in this photo - the sun catches the gold livery beautifully. Long live the Goldmember - may all who travel in her be kept safe.

PS Thank you to everyone who has left nice messages and phoned me in response to Tuesday's post - it's lovely to know I have such great friends! x

My life (and love)

Whenever I talk to people about my blog I usually tell them that I'm not a consistently deep blogger - I generally go for a 1 in 5 or 6 ratio Depth vs Shallow Ramblings. This is an attempt at the '1 in 5'...

The past few weeks have felt like a lot of hard work. I've felt slightly out of it for a while. I dunno if it's tiredness or stress or what. If I'm really honest it's all affected me quite deeply. My relationship with Chell is affected - nothing really bad but it puts us under even more strain than the distance already gives us. I led worship at Youth Councils on Sunday and simply didn't feel up for it, although I did try. It feels like my faith in God is under strain - maybe I'm trying to be honest with where I'm at. I'm quite untrusting of nearly every friendship I have - and I'm feeling a bit jealous of others, not something I'm proud to admit. It feels like I've 'reached the end of my hoarded resources' as that old army song says...

Went to cell group last night...it was fantastic - we talked about love. Three kinds of love as written about in the original hebrew (in Song of Songs. Raya translated as 'Friend or companion. Someone you hang out with', Ahava translated as 'a love that impacts your will. An emotion that leads to commitment', Dod translated as 'the physical, sexual element to a relationship'). It started me thinking about the kind of love I have in my life - the kind of love I have for Chell, for my family and my friends. And what kind of remedy should I seek when the love I have isn't as pure as it should be?

So I read Galatians 5...

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.'

I scared myself when I realised just how many elements of that fruit I'm not displaying in my life. Is the life I lead compatible with this? Does stress and tiredness get in the way of a right relationship with God? And each other?