France and wolly mammoths

We were on holiday in south west France last week. It was a terrific break and we both felt very refreshed (at least until we returned to work). We stayed in a gorgeous 'gite' in a quiet valley and the weather was superb - I think it was sunny every day! Here's the gite:


On the Sunday morning we drove out to the nearest market. It was interesting trying to buy the weekly shop at a market, but Sara was in heaven! This pic at the market shows Sara on the right with Andrew and Liz next to her (the couple we were holidaying with):


One of the places we visited was the site of the prehistoric cave paintings at Grotte du Perc Merle. Dave particularly liked the woolly mammoth!

Searching for God Knows What

This is a superb book which I've (almost) finished reading now. It's a refreshing reminder that the message of Jesus is first and foremost that we need to be in a right relationship with God and all the other junk that comes with 'religion' - superior morality, comparing ourselves to others, trying to force others to be more like us - is just that. Junk.

Donald Miller describes how humans, without God, have a 'lifeboat' mentality. We're all stuck in the lifeboat, desperately trying to persuade the rest of the lifeboat we're valuable and shouldn't be thrown overboard. As long as there's someone else in the lifeboat who's lesser than me, further down the worthiness scale, then I can feel safe and derive some pride. The problem is this isn't how we we 'wired' by God. We should be depending on him for our feeling of self-worth. But we don't and consequently we're never completely fulfilled and will envy others...

This is a thought-provoking book that asks questions like: "When did you last see an ugly person on the cover of a worship CD?" I bought it at a CLC bookshop and it's available through Amazon too.

N Ireland 1 England 0

Oh dear, that was painful wasn't it?

Feel too depressed to write anything other than repeat what Alan Hansen said - in the past they said England couldn't win a world cup becasue they didn't have world-class players. Now we have Ferdinand, Terry, Gerrard, Beckaham, Lampard, Owen, Rooney...that excuse doesn't wash anymore!

I still think England will qualify for Germany 2006 but does anyone really think anymore that England will win it with Eriksson in charge?