Last Friday night, Tress and I went back to that little “hole-in-the-wall” place on Blackburn Road. It’s a tiny Thai restaurant we went to a couple of weeks before and we liked the food and the folks who own and run the place. It is also just as the crow flies from our home.
On Saturday morning, it was remained very balmy – the thermometer had hovered in the high teens all night – so it was near perfect for us to do some housework, both in and out of the house. For several days now, I had been thinking about responding to the working bee call for the parsonage on Wilton Road. St Alf’s was getting a new staff member in. Ben and his family were going to move in to the house in early November. I couldn’t however, deal with having our house in such an unkempt, untidy and generally in a touch “urgh” state, so I decided to stay home and deal with the home stuff instead. We walked the little fella and then got promptly to work.
Tress gave the house a thorough vacuuming while I trimmed the very overgrown hedges on the front eastern side of our fence. They were very thick and tall and wedged as they were between the roof lining of our neighbour’s property and the roof of our deck, it took a lot of manoeuvring to get to the bits I wanted to get rid of. There were also other plants and bits and bobs that needed work and finally, when the lawns were mowed and grounds swept, it was well past 1pm and we got cleaned up and headed for lunch, before getting some groceries and then headed home.
That evening, we went for a treat at St Alf’s. The Melbourne Welsh Male Choir was to perform in a fundraisers for Tony Rinauldo’s FMNR work. They were joined by a few local St Alf’s wonderful music talents and it was a real treat to listen to the choir, Joanna Cole, Hayden Taylor, Dennis Wang, Racheal Zhou and Andrew Pemberton. Helen Petering, the music minister of St Alf’s did a lot of accompaniment (other than for the choir) and she was very good too. It was a very enjoyable evening of soaking in beautiful music, and Tony’s work got some support.
Sunday was very wet, and grey. It was a touch cold too, with a top of 13deg forecasted. It felt wintry, that’s for sure. When I looked at my tablet to catch up with the news, I saw that Bobby Charlton had passed away.
Bobby Charlton is a legend of English and world football. He played for Manchester United his entire career. He was then a director of the club. He visited the supporters’ club in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia back in the 90s’, and I had the wonderful privilege of meeting him. A genuine lover of the game, he sat down and talked to us and autographed souvenirs, and demonstrated that his reputation as a kind gentleman was true and well deserved. He kept muttering “no game… no game this Saturday…”… the weekly league fixtures involving United were obviously a key feature of his routine. I had a photo of him and I somewhere, I need to go look for it again.
After St Alf’s later that morning, we were meant to catch up with Lauren Weatherlake to be part of the advocacy group for her work (and that of Amy Just) with AFES, but we missed them and will now catch up with the rest of that group in a couple of weeks. I looked to campus ministry as a source of anchoring, learning and comfort in my uni days. It gave me, in the midst of trying to navigate a path into the future, a sense of who I am in God’s sight and what He wants of me. It was a a cornerstone of those formative days in uni. When I heard about Lauren’s work with AFES a few years ago, I decided to come alongside and that has continued for a little while. So when she reached out to Tress and I a few weeks ago to be part of her advocacy group, I thought it’d be a good thing. I have been, after all, praying that God will show me how I can better serve Him.
We then headed for lunch at our usual spot in Donvale, then home before taking the little one to the Brickworks shopping center so he can get a walk. We then returned for me to do the week’s lunches before we finally put our feet up to chill.
Ante 