If you are not a Christian and want to see what all the fuss is about from the safety of your computer it’s a great place to go. If you are a Christian I hope you will find it as inspiring as I have. So I encourage you try it – even if its just once!
Over the last week Angela has celebrated her 30th birthday - I say the last week because she has made sure that its lasted as long as possible. Last Saturday (the 27th of Jan) her birthday party started at 4pm when we had a family hour for friends with kids. Dom & Heidi Dumville turned up with their little two, and Ben and Becs Rexworthy joined without kids - but still enjoyed themselves anyway! The main party kicked off at 8pm and we had a house full of nearly 45 guests! I was in charge of keeping the glasses topped up and making sure there was enough food on the table while Ang enjoyed herself chatting with all the guests.
On Tuesday we went to a Chinese restraunt to celebrate Ang again, but this time she had to share the honour with 3 other friends - all with birthdays this week. Helen turned 29, Ang 30, Miriam 31 and Rowena 32 - it was a great evening with great food.
On Wednesday was Angela's real birthday and we spent the day in London. We started off going to the National Gallery before heading off to the Tate Britain - unfortunately there was a strike of gallery workers so we weren't able to see everything we wanted, but we still saw enough to keep us interested and happy! We then took the tube to Oxford Street where Ang was in heaven as she looked around all the clothes shops -keeping an eye out for the bargains. The highlight of the day was a trip to the theatre where we saw the Sound of Music with the recent winner of BBC's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? Connie Fisher the main lady. It was the first West End musical that Ang and I had gone to and it was thoroughly enjoyable. We finished the day with a bit more shopping on Oxford Street before heading back to Cambridge in the car.
Finally, we spent this weekend in a cottage in Norfolk, with surprise (to Ang) visitors Tim and Debs Yau turning up to help celebrate. It was a fantastic weekend... pictures of the weekend will follow in a seperate blogg entry.
Here are links to the photo albums described in this blogg:
Anyway, we started the long job of searching for a house again. We’d originally put our offer in on the house back in September 2005, so the market (and prices) had moved on by then. We were really hoping to move to the village of Linton as this was right in the middle of our two jobs. There weren’t many houses on the market and we were getting desperate… but we wanted to remain patient and wait for the right house to come along.
Our big holiday this year was a trip to Natal in Brazil at the end of March. It was a great time of chilling on the windswept beach, floating in the pool and discovering a tiny bit of the scenery, culture and history of such a vast country. We really enjoyed our short stay in the comfy hotel and came back to England feeling thoroughly refreshed.
Arriving back in the UK we had just a few days to finalise packing everything from our house into boxes before moving it all into storage and moving to a rented room in Cambridge. When our house purchase had originally fallen through we decided that we would move out of our house in Little Thetford at the beginning of April which would give us 8 weeks to at least find the next place to move to. Unfortunately, as we left our place in Little Thetford we still hadn’t found a place to move to and to be honest it was quite depressing. Fortunately Phil Nunn, a friend in Cambridge made us feel very welcome in his lovely house, within walking distance of the shops! It was really strange sharing a house again, with only one shelf in the fridge that we could use – but it did have its plus points, Phil had a nice TV with a Windows Media Centre PC sat underneath it – I want one!
At the end of April my work (ESco Business Services) moved into its new purpose built premises on a picturesque hillside in the Essex countryside. It was huge step up from the converted piggery that we had previously worked in and has really helped to make it a great company to work for.
The day we moved into the house we also inherited two cute little fluffy kittens called Josh & Toby. Our friends Ben & Becs had had to give them up because poor Becs was very allergic to them. They have brought real joy and companionship since we’ve moved to Linton and they are always a pleasure to watch as they still act like little kittens on their mad half hour.
One of my highlights from June was a church day out to Thetford Forest. It was a lovely sunny day and we had a picnic under the forest canopy while chatting to all our good mates from church. Ang went for a cycle ride with the vicar and family (!) but I stayed under the trees and caught up with all the techy gossip with Ben Rexworthy.
In July, the Football World Cup passed by very quickly but I did manage to capture some atmosphere on Parkers Piece in Cambridge (a park) where they’d set up a giant TV screen for the 10,000 fans to watch England loose! Toby and Josh enjoyed the football too as you can see in the picture below!
One of the best parties we attended this year was for Laura, a friend from work. It was held at the beginning of August to celebrate Laura turning the grand age of 21! The theme was a Hawaiian Beach Party and her family had spent ages preparing all the decorations, food and home made bar for the evening!
Soul Survivor 2006 was one of the highlights of the year for me. It is a Christian annual youth event held in Somerset and we took the youth group from church down. The week was full of good sung worship, teaching, great bands and fun back at the campsite. It was great to see the youth group bond with each other as well as grow in their own relationship with God.
At the end of August I flew to Berlin to help with the logistics of a Christian conference aimed at emerging leaders in Europe. It was a really encouraging conference with so much good material to try to absorb. I was mainly involved with the sound engineering for the fantastic Danish live worship band (below) and the British theatre group but also had a chance to lead some small group discussions and get to know people from all over Europe!
September was also a busy month with a trip to sunny Plymouth to see uni friend Emily marry Gareth. The day started out with our Vectra breaking down on the way which meant we were late to the wedding itself – but we still managed to arrive in time to see them say I DO! In the afternoon we walked around Plymouth harbour with friends Pete and Louisa before heading to the reception to see some great singing!
On the Sunday we drove to the Eden Project (below) which was pretty awe-inspiring and kept us entertained for the day, but as we were just setting off to head back to Cambridge the car made some very scary crunching noises... that was the end of the Vectra! We had to make the long journey back to Cambridge in a little Corsa – never again!
The end of September saw us take a short trip north to Thornham in Norfolk for our cluster weekend away. (Our cluster is a group of about 30 people from church who meet together every 2 weeks.) Again we were blessed with lovely weather and managed to do a walk across the muddy/sandy beach before heading back to the cottage (below) for a lovely dinner with everyone else.
Our second major holiday this year was a long weekend break to Ireland in October in which Ang and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Ang was already in Ireland for a meeting in Dublin, so I flew out in the evening, hired a little sports car and then started the journey together across to the west coast where we stayed in a hotel overlooking the Ring of Kerry – a combination of high mountains and coastline. It was a good holiday with some really stunning scenery (below), good food (and beer) and a great castle near Cork which Ang absolutely loved! It also gave Ang and I a chance to look back on the last 5 years of marriage – an exercise that we’ve really valued as we look forward to a lifetime together. 
In November I turned the grand old age of 28 and we held a birthday party at our house in Linton for all my friends. Ang did an amazing job of providing huge amounts of tasty food (below) and I had a great evening catching up with everyone who’d come to celebrate me!
In December, we held a few pre-Christmas parties, travelled up to Ang’s parents in Kirkham, and then came back to Linton where we hosted my parents and brother for Christmas and boxing day celebrations. Angela again cooked some fantastic food and really spoilt us with a perfect Christmas turkey. It was also a good time to spend with my parents and brother, playing games and watching the Christmas films on TV.
The final highlight of the year was our New Year’s Eve party which we again hosted at our house. Ang had arranged a murder mystery evening with our friends in Cambridge and everyone made a great effort to dress up and act their characters. Unfortunately I ended up being the murderer so couldn’t take part in the sleuthing, but it was a great evening topped off with karaoke at 1am!
I will definitely look back at 2006 as a year of changes. Moving house was a hard experience, especially as for four months I didn’t know where I was moving to, but looking back now it has definitely been worth it, I am really feeling like the house is now becoming a home. It was also hard to see good friends move on from Cambridge, but at the same time I have met new friends and will hopefully develop just as good friendships in 2007. I am really forward to the year ahead and the ups and downs that will come my way!
