Paul & Sue Hazelden
- Family News -
January 2010 Onwards

January 2010

Friday 1 January: a late start. Philip rolls in some time after 1 pm. He had a good time, otherwise unspecified.

We are thinking of going out to see the new  Sherlock Holmes. Philip decides to come with us, so off to the Orpheus.

What to say? Not a traditional Sherlock Holmes film: Watson is smarter and fitter than in the books, but this makes for better cinema, so how can you complain? It's a wonderful roller-coaster of a ride, rather than the more measured stories we are familiar with, but again, this is a film of its time, and it works. And the partly-completed Tower Bridge is an excellent setting for the climax.

Alan is home and packing when we get back. He is picked up and driven off to the airpost for his skiing holiday some time in the small hours.

Saturday 2 January: I'm late for my two-yearly eye test, but they fit me in a bit later. Very little change to my prescription. Join Sue in checking out the charity shops in Westbury.

We fail to find a place for a coffee, and go to the health club instead. The sauna is good, but quite crowded so it is hard to get a decent temperature. A couple of the folk in the sauna are suspicious of my claim that the steam room is not full of steam, but you can't convince everyone.

Coffee and diary check afterwards, then Sue drops me off at work and I finish off some of the year-end jobs while she visits Staples.

We are not home long when Ian rings from work: he has a flat tyre. I find some Allen keys and drive off to pick him up. He dismantles the bike, and it just fits into the back of the car. We think someone knifed it, in the hope of stealing it overnight.

Sunday 3 January: back to Hillfields, very enjoyable. The pavements are covered in ice, but once there the welcome is warm and sincere - back with old friends. I risk something fairly different from the traditional sermon, and they respond well. For which I am most grateful.

Sue takes Ian off to get some new shoes and a puncture repair kit. Repairing the bike takes most of the rest of the day, but he gets there in the end.

Monday 4 January: deep frost in the morning, and it takes a while to get the car ready to drive.

At work, about mid-day, the BBC ring up. They are inteested in what happens to homeless people in the cold weather - a reasonable question. They come down to the shop and spend about an hour filming, but sadly don't get to speak to anyone who is actually sleeping rough right now, so they wander off again. The piece is broadcast in both the local news slots in the evening, and they have done a good job, given the little time they can give.

I'm late for the prayer meeting at Pip 'n' Jay, but Mike is there and it is good to pray with him and chat afterwards. They are painting the ceiling at Pip 'n' Jay, and moving the scaffolding , so it's not the quietest prayer time ever, but who needs silence?

Tuesday 5 January: Alan Goddard and I drive up to Clevedon, and on the way I pick up the bits for a new computer for work. We look at a possible site for a charity shop, and then visit an example of the sort of thing we might be doing. But there are a lot of hurdles first, not the least of which is convincing the board that the timing is not totally insane.

Homegroup is cancelled tonight, as more snow is forecast and the roads are already pretty bad.

Wednesday 6 January: it snowed overnight, and there are no trains on the Severn Beach line, or busses along the Portway. We can't get the car off the drive safely, so unless we walk to work, we're working from home.

Ian, predictably, has no school, either.

Friday 8 January: we drive in to work. Very little traffic on the Portway, the scenery is beautiful, and the easiest journey we have had for ages. But I'm still glad I postponed my session with Dave Wiles again - driving down to Keynsham would not have been fun.

When Sue gets in to work, he new computer is waiting there. She had got a netbook of her own - an Asus Eee PC with Windows XP. 1005HA with Intel Atom N280 processor, 1.3M camera and 2 Gb memory. In other words, nice than mine in every way, except that it is running Windows.

When we get home, I discover that her new computer is an electronic Mars bar! "Eee PC: easy to learn, work and play," it says on the box. It is also smart and black. Pink was not available as an option.

Sunday 10 January: it's my turn to do the words at Highgrove, again. We are late getting to church, but Ed has set up the computer and the song list. Which is good news, as Andy Street has a presentation, and then he turns up with an updated version, and then we discover that it doesn't display properly - the wrong version of PowerPoint, we assume.

We manage to get Andy's laptop set up and displaying the presentation in time, just before the service starts.

The initial words and the presentation - about the toilet block on Sea Mills Square - go fine, but then when we switch back to the words the alignment on the projector has gone and we are missing the left edge. Fortunately, Ed has the projector controller. He updates the projector settings while the congregation are singing a song, and it all looks fine again. I never knew church services could be so exciting.

Sam Marsh is talking about the Bible - 'The Book that changes everything'. he says a lot of useful things, and we even have a handout with useful notes and further resources. But he doesn't go near the basic problem that good, evangelical Christians read the Bible and understand it to say radically different things. We have to face up to the fact that we don't agree before we can even start to work out why, and what we can do about it.

In the afternoon, Sue goes shopping for a new bed for Alan - his Christmas present from us. The room in the flat he will soon be moving in to doesn't have a bed, and he is due a new one: the one he is using at present is the first we bought for him when he moved out of a cot.

The shopping is a partial success: she has ordered a bed to be delivered to his new flat. The problem is that they can't deliver it till February. Alan is not impressed. However, he was given an invitation to go and buy the bed with her, and declined it. I think this is what they call a 'life lesson'. You don't always know in advance what questions will arise.

Monday 11 January: Ian has an exam today: Critical Thinking. How does it go? "Fine."

Wednesday 13 January: a meeting in the morning with some folk who want to set up a wet house in St Pauls. A 'wet house' is a place where alcoholics can go, where they are allowed to drink. Ovbiously, you don't want them to drink, but if they are not interested in stopping, then there still needs to be a way to reach them and offer help and support, and encourage them to stop. It's a vital service, and one we don't have at present. We want to support it as much as possible. There is a meeting next week, and the idea might get the go-ahead for a more formal investigation and costing.

In the evening, another volunteer training session. As always, it is a fascinating experience, thinking about homelessness and helping people explore what it means and all the different varieties of it.

Thursday 14 January: Sue drives the car up onto the drive - the snow has cleared enough. Then Sue and Alan pack his things into the car, with a mattress (no bed in his new room!), I wish him all the best in the new flat, and they drive off.

Our eldest has officially left home.

After they leave, I can't concentrate on my work. We know he is going to leave home. We know it is right and good and healthy. But that doesn't stop us missing him.

I go up to his room - his old room - and do some tidying of the mess left behind. In the wardrobe is a pile of old White Dwarf magazines. He used to spend hours on those Games Worshop war games and painting the models. Most of his money went on them for years. Then it passed. A few years ago, he gave all the models away. And now we just have the magazines he collected.

When Sue gets back, it is nearly time to go out again.

In to work for a meeting about the Sleep-out in February, some more planning for it, and then the BCAN Homeless Forum, which we are hosting this month.

Friday 15 January: a meeting with Andrew Lord from Alabaré, along with Jeff and Alan again, talking about the possibel charity shop. It sounds like we can put together a very plausible plan, even if starting another project right now is a bit daft.

The BCAN Steering Group goes well at lunchtime. I really wish I had the time to devote to this work: there is so much more the church in Bristol could be doing, if they could only see it.

Sue takes the car home and packs, then a little after nine o'clock she and Ian come down and pick me up, and we drive off towards Brighton.

The further we go, the more snow is evident by the sides of the road and on the fields and hills.

We are booked into a transport hotel just off the M3. Lots of snow and slush in the car park, and large areas of standing water. I go in to Reception and register, then trudge through the snow to the entrance for the rooms. They are friendly, and provide a dental pack with toothbrush and toothpaste when we discover that Ian has failed to pack his.

The place advertises wifi, but you have to pay for it. Sue has bought a broadband dongle for her netbook, and it works fine, so she checks the email while Ian and I go to bed.

Saturday 16 January: up soon after seven, with the intention of being down for breakfast when it opens at eight. Not quite.

We are only a little late arriving at Sussex University for the Chemistry Open Day. The first talk has started, and we have to enter the lecture theatre at the front, beside the speaker. This is the place where they discovered C60 - 'Buckyballs' - and they are rigly proud of it. The student chemistry society is even called 'C60'.

After the initial talks, we have a tour of campus, then some lunch, then Ian gets to visit the department and do some kind of practical - he gets to blow something up - while Sue and I go on a coach tour of Brighton. It is dire.

We have a second year history student giving the commentary, and she has no idea what to do. Which is very frustrating, as she clearly knows a lot of interesting details about Brighton and the various places and buildings we pass. The sea is very impressive - close to high tide, and large waves rolling in. When we reach the habour wall, we see some of the waves crashing over the top.

The weather is wet and overcast all day, which makes the view over the South Downs rather less impressive than they planned. At this point, we get two of the classic pieces of commentary: "I will now shut up and let you enjoy the wonderful view, which you can't actually see today. Ha ha ha." And then, a short while later, "I know I promised I would shut up, but I'm going to break that promise. Obviously. Because I've thought of something else to say. Ha ha ha..."

We rejoin Ian for a final talk, and then it is over. The whole experience is quite surreal, even if you exclude the commentary on the coach. In our day, we had university interviews. Yes, they wanted to show us round and explain why theirs was the best place to study, but it was very clearly balanced by the other part of the message: this is a wonderful place to study - if you are good enough for us. But today is all about them selling Sussex University to us - both the parents and the students. It's a great place to study, the students enjoy some really great parties, and we will look after your little darlings really well.

The other really strange thing is what they choose to tell us about. I understand them being very proud of their Buckballs and other grouodnbreaking research, and of the big and impressive machines the students ae allowed to use. But there is one key selling point which almost everyone we meet is desperate to tell us: transport to and from the campus is really great, even out of term time.

I don't recall transport receiving anything more than a passing mention anywhere I visited. It never occurred to me that transport was somthing I needed to worry about. As a potential student, I just assumed that there would be transport available, which would be more or less adequate. Even as a parent, I just assumed that access to campus was something they would sort out, rather like adequate water supplies and garbage disposal. But no: being able to get off campus by public transport at any time of the day or night seems to be a major selling point at Sussex University.

Strangely, nobody seems to want to talk about the obvious topics of interest for people visiting Brighton: the naturist beach, the gay community, and the massive use of Ketamine in those parties they keep telling us about. Sue think there may be a reason why they don't want to mention these vital aspects of Brighton's culture to the parents visiting today. Don't they think the parents would be interested? I ask, and she gives me one of those looks. I guess not.

After the final talk, I am having a coffee and trying to find out what Ian got up to in his department visit, and we are waiting for Sue to get back from the ladies, and a tall man with a ponytail comes up and joins us. "What do you think of the place? Do you think you would like to come here?" he gushes. He is a lab technician, and he is understandably very proud of the big, glossy and state-of-the-art machines the students are allowed to use. And the public transport. And he thinks Ian would have a great time if he came here.

Sue returns, and we escape.

On the way home, Sue suggests that we break the journey home by stopping at her mother's place. It won't take long, and we would have to stop for coffee at some point, anyway.

Then we see a sign that warns us there are delays on the M25. Sadly, there is no sensible route which avoids the M25. We navigate across country, eventually reaching her mother's house just a few minutes short of the time we had originally anticipated getting home.

Sue's mother is doing well at a practical level, but her memory is not good. Not as bad as my father, but the problem is still very obvious.

We are heading out the door when the phone goes, so Sue goes back inside to answer it. It is Pip, at the supermarket. We stay and see Pip, who very kindly brings some cakes with her. She seems fine.

The rest of the journey home is without delay.

Sunday 17 January: we are late for church. Rob is preaching, not surprisingly about prayer at the start of the church Prayer Week. It is a good sermon, but oddly ambiguous about an illustration near the end. It is an excellent account of praying for a man and then witnessing to him in a sensitive way, and the man eventually comes to faith. This is used to illustrate the point: prayer works. But it is not clear if Rob sees that the prayer works because God drew the man to faith, or it works because God inspired Rob to witness in an appropriate way. Or both.

After church, Sue and I drive down to work. We have lunch in the Full Moon on Stokes Croft, which is very nice. We have our diary check, then Sue walks into town for the shops and I go in to the office to do more preparation for Monday. After a few hours, Sue comes back, has a cup of tea, and then drives home while I walk down the street to the Baptist Church.

At City Road Baptist, we have a joint ACTS service to mark the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Rob Scott-Cook is the guest speaker. Another excellent talk. Afterwards, he drives me home, which is very much appreciated - both for the lift, and for the chance to chat for a few minutes.

Monday 18 January: Sue and I drive in together as usual. Prayer in the shop, then a lengthy team meeting. Half an hour sorting through the mail, and then people start arriving for the board meeting.

Sue drives up to Newbury, to spend some time with her mother and see Ray to talk about the will some more. She is staying with her mother overnight.

We have a CCM board meeting in the afternoon, postponed from last week because of the snow. It is a long meeting, but a very productive one. We are very frustrated on the purchase of the Queen Vic: the squatter is still there, and seems to have no intention of moving. After the meeting, I work through into the evening.

A nice volunteer gives me a lift home soon after 10, which is much appreciated. A letter from the hospital, to the doctor and copied to me, is waiting, which confirms the conversation with the Endocrinologist just before Christmas.

Tuesday 19 January: another planning meeting for the new building, after the prayer meeting at lunchtime. It looks like the plans for downstairs are getting pretty solid.

In the evening, the Multi Faith Forum is at Easton Christian Family Centre, so a good chance to see Philip Nott again. The main item is a pesentation by a chap from the council on the Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Review. Lots of really good, spontaneous feedback to him, strongly backing up what we have already sent from Voscur.

Wednesday 20 January: off to Belfast for a JITC meeting. Flight from Bristol airport at 7:15, so we leave the house at 5, getting up at 4:30 to make Sue some coffee to drink on the way.

Straight through the security check without triggering the alarm. Don't often manage that. Some work on the netbook while drinking a coffee, then the flight is called and I meet Bishop Roger. He is always an interesting and enjoyable person to chat with.

We have a very rough patch on the flight, just as the crew are serving me a drink - so rough that they have to stop serving and sit down for a while.

We get a taxi at the other end, and it is another interesting taxi driver. He takes us out of our way to show us the beautiful architecture of a church he used to walk past on his way to school. I don't get this from taxi drivers in Bristol.

It's a long day of meetings, but very useful. Plans for Belfast are looking good, but Edinburgh later in the year seems to be very much cut back, and we are not at all clear about what will happen after Belfast. Still, time enough to worry about that.

The journey back is fine, with the flight much smoother. But Sue has the time wrong, so she picks us up at 8, when we arrived back in Bristol at 7. And then we get a bit lost taking Bishop Roger home, so it is quite late before we get back.

Friday 22 January: at work, Alan and I have a meeting with Olly and Richard Nochar. We manage to identify a number of the issues relating to the council's strategy for responding to homelessness. Richard confirms Olly's point that the council's 'Preventing Homelessness' strategy is intended to cover responding to homelessness after it has happened. Even if it hardly mentions this vital aspect. The main conclusion is that we need to talk with St Mungos about the work they do.

Sîan is still off sick, so we postpone the staff 'Christmas' meal, due to happen tonight, again.

Saturday 23 January: very frustrating: in the diary - and still on the web site - is an event at Christ Church, Clifton. All About Me: a critical look at the self-esteem movement, by Glyn Harrison. I've been looking forward to this for weeks. But when I arrive, the place is deserted. Almost. I eventually find a lady, who tells me the event has been cancelled.

We use the unexpected time by taking an early lunch, a trip to the council dump, and then going to see  Up in the Air at Cribbs. We both love it. Some reviews suggest there is too much sitting around and talking, but some of the dialogue in those scenes is just brilliant. It handles some big issues with a light touch, and it's brave for a mainstream film to tackle such a difficult topic. The real people who start and end the film are very powerful.

Tuesday 26 January: down to Pip 'n' Jay in the morning, to help Richard do the heath and safety review for the Sleep Out at the end of February. A few minor updates to last year, but nothing significant has changed, and no problems were identified last year.

At lunchtime it is a BCAN seminar at Woodlands:  A different sort of radical politics? with Revd Dr Andrew Davey, the Urban Affairs specialist for the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England. Very helpful talk, seeking to apply Christian principles to difficult political questions. And the discussion afterwards is lively, with high quality input from a wide range of people. The main frustration is that I'm not clear where we go from here. It seems too worthwhile to just leave here.

Homegroup in the evening. We pick up Esme: it is her last Homegroup meeting before she flies out to Uganda on Sunday, so we pray for her, and give her an MP3 player to listen to music and sermons on while she is away.

Quote of the day: "Men don't want to sing love songs to a man while the vicar wears a dress." -  Ruth Gledhill

Wednesday 27 January: ACTS and Voscur clash, which is a pain. Even more so because I get to St Agnes, and can't get in. The outer door is locked, due to vandalism, and there seems to be no bell. I don't have a mobile phone number for anyone who should be there. Hang around for a few minutes, then off to the Create Centre and the Voscur board meeting. Nicely early for Voscur, which provides the opportunity to chat to some of the folk beforehand

Friday 29 January: it is the CCM Staff weekend away at last. Been trying to get this arranged since last Summer. We are all able to get away, and most of us can bring our partners, which is excellent.

The plan is to leave Bristol around 3 pm, but I'm stuck in the office, and Simon is working on the computers, and there are phone calls and last minute problems, so in the end it is nearly 5 pm before I get home Sue is not impressed. But she has packed, so we throw the bags in the car and head off.

Fortunately, we manage to drive straight to Rora House, having decided to ignore the SatNav. Several others set out less late than us but tried to follow their SatNav, so a bunch of us arrived at almost the same time. And the folk at Rora were helpful and flexible with the food, so it worked out fine after all.

The first session, after the meal, goes much better than I had dared to hope. We are looking at the shape of the ministry five years from now, sharing hopes and dreams and vision. It is all amazingly consistent (oh ye of little faith!) and very encouraging to hear different aspects but one common vision for the future - both from the staff and their partners. Despite all the difficulties, we are aiming to establish a multi-site operation. Of course, we have to report back to the board, but I can't see them disagreeing with anything substantial. It seems we have a solid foundation for looking tomorrow at the details of the next few months.

Saturday 30 January: after breakfast, we have a short devotion. Then the staff have another couple of sessions while the spouses go sightseeing and visit the House of Marbles. Again, a helpful time. Nothing terribly unexpected, but a good opportunity for folk to talk and listen to each other without some urgent appointment looming.

After lunch, we go out for a walk round Venford Reservior. Fortunately, Alan is awake: he does some sums and works out that we have to leave the reservoir in an hour if we are to get to the restaurant where we have an early booking.

So we start waling round the reservoir. It is really very lovely. After half an hour, we turn back. It is very tempting to try and get all the way round, but we resist. Perhaps when we come back.

The restaurant is on the Teign estuary. It's a bit difficult to find - our satnav does not pick up a signal all the way - but worth the effort. And the food is as good as the location. We have a window table, and watch the full moon rising over the opposite bank and reflecting in the water. Magic.

Sue packed the New Scientist. Interesting articles on an international protest against homeopathy, the fragility of digital information storage, the human genome (34% virus!), why we should run on tiptoes, and about what happens in the brain when we 'get' a joke. Also a review of a book, '36 Arguments for the Existence of God' - a novel by Rebecca Goldstein. And an interview with Matthieu Ricard, the author of 'The Art of Meditation,' talking about Buddhist meditation.

There is also a letter which seems very significant to me: a psychiatrist responds to the recent article about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ('DSM') by pointing out that patients want their experiences to be medicalised. It's a disturbing trend in modern society - see This thing called life for the full letter.

Sunday 31 January: after breakfast, we join Rora for their Sundy morning service. Lovely people, and they invite is to share about the work, which Alan does very well.

A final session together, confirming some of the ideas we have shared, and confirming my impression that this is something we would like to do again.

On the way home, Sue and I drop in on the House of Marbles, and find several members of our party there already. We enjoy ourselves showing them round, and introducing them to the large marble run on the end wall, and the massive marble in the garden.

Esme flew off to Uganda this morning for nearly three weeks.

February 2010

Tuesday 2 February: an initial meeting about the BMFF byudget first thing. A very useful time, but it identifies a lot more work we need to do, and the time is fairly tight.

In the evening, another BSOCS event at Woodlands: Why Bother with the Old Testament? It's not really aimed at people like me, but the question and answer session at the end is entertaining and enlightening. I feel a bit more clarity on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments would have been helpful, but this does not seem to be a common response.

Thursday 4 February: a 'Skills and Worklessness' forum at the Barton Hill Settlement. Lots of old, familiar faces, but I don't have time to chat. It turns out to be all about the European Social Fund, so is almost completely irrelevant to us.

Dash away at the end to get to a FareShare Franchise meeeting. Now this is a useful way to spend an afternoon. Meeting folk who run other FareShare franchises, and finding out what we share and what is different in our various projects - that is really helpful, and quite exciting.

Friday 5 February: Voscur training in the morning. An excellent session on governance, specially tailored for the Voscur board. The training is fairly standard material, but I pick up one point about charity law I had missed before. But it is really helpful to consider the material together, and make some progress in thinking how it applies and should apply to our situation. Followed by lunch together in the cafe at the Create Centre.

I drive Simon to Protishead in the afternoon to swop some faulty memory supplied by Novatech. The drive gives us the chance to agree some next steps in sorting out the CCM computers.

In the evening, the Anabaptist Network has another table fellowship. I'm late again - there was a problem in the shop, with some food left on the cooker at too high a heat, and the smell of burning seeping out of the front door...

We get back to the problem of Christians engaging with society, and how to exercise power as a Christian. Stuart thinks we need to work out a new approach for the post-Christendom situation through prayer, Bible study and discussion. I think those things are vital, but we will not be able to work it out in abstract: we can only discover what it means to faithfully follow Jesus in the political arena by following a step at a time, and using what God provides as we walk in faith.

Saturday 6 February: we have a Strategy Day for CCM - trustees and staff together. It has been booked for ages, but works very well a week after the staff weekend away.

Pick up Graham, then drive in for a 9:30 start. The first session is part of the orientation: the basic starting points from both a Christian and a secular perspective. Both parts generate some interesting and helpful debate, but the session goes on considerably longer than planned.

Still, the whole day is great. We pray, and we explore ideas and possibilities, and we gain clarity on a range of issues. The future may not be all mapped out, but the options are being narrowed down, and everyone is sharing in the journey.

All I need to do now is to try and write down what we talked about, and what we agreed, so we don't lose it, or fail to communicate key aspects to those who couldn't join us today.