A long overdue blog!

I'm sure you have all been eagerly awaiting my next blog post and wondering why it has been nearly 2 months since my last one (pahahah)... all I can say is blame my incredibly busy schedule! This term is absolutely flying by and the closer we get to the summer holidays, the more sad I feel at the thought of having to leave. 

The past two months have been packed with all kinds of things. My highlights probably have to be:

• visiting Northampton with my Mum for a weekend in May. It was great to get to know the town a bit more and lovely to spend some time with my Mum :)
• having my first choice for uni accommodation accepted. This means I will be living in student halls with my own bedroom and a shared bathroom and kitchen. It's all starting to feel real now. As sad as I am to have to leave St Leonards, I am so excited for September!
• seeing friends who are back from university. I've had quite a few extended lunchtimes where I've got carried away talking and come back to the office late ;)

At work, we've been doing lots of fundraising for Soul Survivor. Amongst other things, I've found myself collecting money at the toll bridge in a blue onesie, washing 27 cars in 6 hours (with other people), and swimming 96 lengths of the Witney leisure centre pool in 2 hours. It has actually been a lot of fun and I'm so excited for Soul Survivor!!

This week is a crazy week for my family with a baby due at any moment, my 21st birthday tomorrow, and my older sister moving out on Friday. Work is busy too and Olly is away in Sweden this week so Beth and I are holding down the fort. It's funny how it's worked out that everything is happening in one week! What an amazing week though :) I'm exhausted already!

Beth baked me a delicious birthday cake and brought it into the office yesterday. It has been sitting there the whole time tempting me... 

I have a college deadline looming (14th July) and at the moment it feels a bit like I'm never going to get everything done, but I just need to be organised (we'll see how that goes ;)) and keep on top of things. Rather than getting distracted... 

I'm off now to try and get an assignment written before cell group. No rest for the wicked as they say!

An eggscellent two weeks… (sorry, that was a terrible joke)

Hello again! I hope you had a very happy Easter whatever you got up to. It seemed to pass in the blink of an eye and I can hardly believe I'm back sitting in the office having just had 2 weeks off. I can hardly believe that I only have one term left of interning either! We are back at college next Monday and it will be nice to see everyone there again as it has been over a month since we broke up! 

I have had a good couple of weeks off, although I was ill for some of it. I am obviously allergic to holidays as the same thing happened at Christmas ;) I went to Spring Harvest for 5 days which was amazing. The theme was focusing on the Apostle's Creed and how as Christians we can possibly believe in an unfathomable Father, unbeatable Son and unstoppable Spirit. Pretty awesome really. It was lovely to be able to spend more time with people from Hanborough church as well, because I miss seeing them every week at church. 

Apart from that, I didn't do a lot. I had a lovely weekend seeing family and friends :) But I was really ill on Sunday morning so unfortunately couldn't go to church. I managed to muster the strength to watch Frozen and eat some chocolate in the afternoon though! 

I have lots coming up this term so it should be very busy, but lots to look forward to as well. The application for my university accommodation opens this weekend. I'm hoping it will be straightforward and I'll be able to decide where I would like to live before then, haha. I also need to get back into doing college work as I haven't done much at all over the Easter break. Then there are lots of exciting things happening in the youth work, as well as my birthday to look forward to and of course (most excitingly of all) becoming an auntie!!  

For now, I'm going to carry on attempting to tick off my to-do list…

"...Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Philippians 4:8 

I asked Beth to think of a title for this blog and she said, "I'm no good at thinking up blog titles". Thanks Beth.

It's been 3 weeks since my last blog, and it has been a busy 3 weeks. I went to Spain for 4 days to visit my friend, which was lovely. However, last week my brain was still in holiday mode so quite often I had to be told things more than once! 

We have just done 3 weeks of project nights with the younger Pathfinders which was fun. I was really impressed by the bird boxes that two of the boys had managed to make during the woodwork sessions, and enjoyed watching the magic tricks Harry had taught the others. We have finished Pathfinders for this term already as we are hosting a slightly different evening tonight for the young people. The aim is to give an introduction to Christianity and explain why we do what we do. I'm excited as I think it will be a great outreach session and it's always good to have discussion. 

I've finished college for Easter now - it was nice to have this Monday off as I got to visit the board game cafe with some friends (slowly becoming one of my favourite places!!) I've also been on a two day conference with Beth, enjoyed the sunshine while it stuck around (seriously, what is going on with the weather today?!), and been catching up with friends when I can. I'm looking forward to having a bit of time off over Easter especially going to Spring Harvest in a couple of weeks, but I'm sure I will miss all the young people! 

It's weird thinking that one year ago today I was on a plane on the way back to England having just had the worst week of my life. Lots has happened in 12 months! Unfortunately the situation in CAR has not been fixed and has not got better, although there have been little glimpses of hope.

That's all for now. We've got a few things to do before this evening, and I'm sure there must be time for a hot chocolate… ;)

Spaghetti, straws and so many skewers (just some of the things found in the Pathfinders cupboard)...

My goodness, it can't be March already. It's been very busy recently with the weekend away planning and then the actual going away bit! However, as I type this, a pen has just been thrown at my head for laughing at Olly while he is on the phone ...things are all back to normal in the office ;) 

The weekend away was ACE! I was so, so, so tired on Sunday night that I skipped pudding after my roast dinner and went straight to bed (shocking behaviour for me) but it was worth it. We had loads of fun playing games, going on a night hike, eating creme eggs and staying up way past our bed times. I went caving on Saturday and I loved liked tolerated it up until the last bit where we had to commando crawl through a 6 foot long tunnel to get out. I won't be doing that again in a hurry. 

It was great to have some time for the young people to focus on God, and I loved seeing the way they all responded. We had workshops over the course of Saturday and a church service all together on Sunday. One of the things I really loved was the way everyone really cared for each other so the whole group got on so well :)

So now it is a case of getting back into the swing of things. We have lots to do as always; Beth and I have taken on the mighty task of sorting out the Pathfinders cupboards. We started it once before but had to stop as it was taking too long so I think it's going to take all week! The record so far has been finding some blue food colouring in the back of a cupboard that was dated 2009. Beth also spilt spaghetti all over the floor this morning because there was SO MUCH of it :D

I probably won't be blogging for a while again, as I'm going to Spain next week for a few days. For now, I'm off to try and get these cupboards sorted - after I've thrown something back at Olly of course...

"I came in like a pigeon ball"

It's been a while. That while has been taken up with a lot of stuff though like a promise auction, so much training, a retreat to Center Parcs, a sponsored swim, a 21^st birthday, lots of parachute games, a college deadline and a meeting where no-one turned up.


Center Parcs was a lot of fun; some of it “enforced fun” but nevertheless, fun. Olly, Jo, Beth and I got up bright and early (well, early for youth workers anyway) and headed off to SoulNet on Friday 31^st. We arrived and within a couple of hours were in the swimming pool, zooming round the rapids and going down flume slides having just eaten burgers (I did warn them that it's not safe because the piranhas can eat you, but they didn't listen...). The rest of the weekend consisted of interesting talks, amazing time to just be with God and so much activity. I'm not sure what happened to me but on the Friday night I had a massive urge to go for a run, so found myself jogging around Center Parcs at 7.45am on the Saturday morning. When I say “jogging around Center Parcs”, what I actually mean is being forced to keep moving by Olly, whilst moaning and wondering what had been put in my tea the night before to make me think this was a good idea. I was also introduced to the joy that is "pigeon ball" - basically, rugby without any rules where you have to try and get to a certain place with the ball in your hands. We played it in the pool which made it even more extreme. However, I think I did pretty well seeing as I'm usually the one who hurts themselves (I've never done anything serious, not even broken a bone, but I'm ALWAYS the one who gets trampled/accidently punched/hit in the head with the metal frisbee) as I only got hit in the face once. 


We've been really busy in the office as always. I'm excited for the youth weekend away which is coming up at the end of this month. It sounds like it's going to be full-on with not a lot of time left to sleep, but having been once before as one of the youfff I know it's gonna be loads of fun.


I am looking forward to having a holiday, preferably somewhere hot after all of this bad weather! One year ago today I was in Bilolo, having the best time ever and actually able to feel my toes without two pairs of socks on. I have Spring Harvest to look forward to – maybe there will be a heatwave over Butlins?!


I'm off to Northampton tomorrow to have another look around the university so that should be good. Then Beth and I are off for a week as it's half term; however, I've got 4 days of work with Yellow Submarine so I'll still be busy busy busy! I'm hoping I can squeeze in some serious sleeping at some point!


That's all for now. I'm off to find some letters and numbers so we can play Countdown at Pathfinders tonight...

Uni offers, sour Skittles and cups of tea with Kate Feast (which are my favourite and she is just so amazing)

So it's come to that time again when I write a blog. It's been a busy few weeks getting back into the swing of things. There have been some really big positives though :) like I got into my first choice for university! Northampton, here I come... and it's been great spending time with the wonderful youfff again.

I had to say good bye to one of my best friends on Sunday. Rachel has jetted off for 7 months of travelling all over the world! I am really excited for her and it is an amazing opportunity :) but also gonna miss her a lot. I've already heard some funny stories about her adventures including being sick and taking selfies on a plane. What can I say really?! I would've been shocked had she NOT got up to mischief ;) 


I'm really looking forward to going to the SoulNet retreat next weekend with Olly and Beth. It's a weekend run by the people who do Soul Survivor, aimed at youth workers/people who work with young people and giving the opportunity for a bit of a break and some fun at Center Parcs! Unfortunately, I am missing my little sister's birthday (for the second year running) as she turns 19 on the Saturday, but I've got some surprises planned so I hope she won't be too annoyed :D


Recently in the office we have been: thinking lots about the youth weekend away coming up at the end of February, watching Prank vs Prank videos, drinking hot chocolate (shock), planning fundraising activities for Soul Survivor, eating sour Skittles, and keeping busy with all our usual weekly goings on. I'm still loving every moment of being a minion ;)

I've been encouraged in lots of ways over the past week. I think people don't realise how a tiny little comment can sometimes be the most encouraging thing I've heard all day! I feel very blessed to be surrounded by such lovely people.


Before I go, the title of this blog might sound a bit weird, but a certain someone was saying the other day how I never mention her in blogs and seeing as we've done quite a lot of tea-drinking this week...

Why hello there 2014...

Happy new year all! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed all the new year celebrations. I'm glad to be back after the break. I mean, there's only so many days you can spend watching films and eating chocolate... it's a hard life! I was quite ill over Christmas which was rubbish, but it seems like lots of people were being struck down with bugs or colds. I think next year, I'll be dreaming of a healthy Christmas!


I came back into the office on Friday along with Olly and Beth, and it was really cool to have some time to pray for the upcoming youth work this year. I think I'm right in saying we're all excited :) we've got some ideas for one-off events in the next few weeks as well as being inspired in the more long term work that's happening. I can't believe how quickly time has gone since September. Yesterday Olly and I were feeling a bit sad that the internship will be coming to an end in the summer... part of me wants to stay forever! But I'm also excited about what's coming next, plus there's loads of time before the summer so I'm going to enjoy every moment.


I haven't really got any new years resolutions. My friend Emma has started this “one word” resolution thing. (Check out her blog http://juststepoutoftheboat.blogspot.co.uk to keep up with how her year goes) Basically, you choose one word to sum up what you want to achieve out of the year and spend time focusing on that, rather than making endless lists of resolutions that you know deep down you're never going to keep. I thought it was worth a try and I've come up with the word MOVE. For those of you who know me well, it isn't just so I can sing King Julian. Every year I dream of being fitter and doing more, so in that respect it's a good word! But it's also making me think about the changes that will happen this year and I know that God wants me to move on from lots of things that have held me back before.


I've finally sent off my university application and I'm pleased that I've had two offers. Things definitely seem on the up at the moment and I'm feeling grateful for lots of things, especially God giving me so many amazing opportunities. I'm praying that 2014 will be a good one!


“Be very careful, then, how you live your life – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity...... always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:15-20