Les Miserables

Last Wednesday was so much fun!

So, I'd been walking around London on my own after work and stuff in the first week and saw loads of people having fun with their friends and I just really wanted to be with people I knew! Wednesday was a real treat.

A group of people from uni came to London to see Les Mis :)

We went for dinner, then headed to the theatre. It was so much fun! On arriving at the restaurant I didn't stop talking for ages!

Here are some pictures of us at the restaurant:

After enjoying our food we headed off to the tubbeeee....

And to the theatre...

It was a really good production! I hadn't seen it before so it was really exciting! :)

I definitely recommend it to anyone! 

Affirmation and Appreciation

Last week and this week have gone past so fast! I didn't even realise it was already Wednesday - and that's nearly over now!


But to update you on my time in London...


So, I've been doing this work for CARE - researching and writing a paper for them - and it's been really interesting, but I kinda felt like it was something given to me because they needed to find something for me to do. I felt like this because no one else in the office seems to be looking at the same area... but then again, nothing overly major is happening in that area at the moment so I do understand why they're not frantically looking into it.


I was feeling a bit bummed out about it until last Wednesday.


Last Wednesday we had a Public Affairs: London meeting. This involved me, the human trafficking and prostitution officer, a guy that has volunteered with them for the year, the guy in charge of me, and the guy in charge of all mentioned. It was a really interesting meeting in that I got to know a lot more about what everyone had been doing. I managed to suggest something of real use to them too and have managed to implement it too which is really good! :)


The main thing I took from this meeting though was a real sense of appreciation and affirmation. What I have been spending all my time on, is actually really useful to them! That made me feel much much better about everything and gave me much more enthusiasm which is good :)


The rest of the working week panned out as normal really... but the evenings were a bit more interesting!


More about them (and some piccies) in the next post! :D

Commuting hens?

One week down, four to go... and the blisters to prove it! 5 blisters on each foot... that's got to be a record!

So, I'm in London at the moment doing an internship for an organisation called CARE. They are a Christian organisation that work in politics. My task is to do research for topics they may want to talk about/report on. I've really enjoyed looking at areas that I wouldn't normally look into such as same-sex marriage rights and issues around the 'gay-gene'. It has really pushed me out of my comfort zone but has been really exciting all the same and I've learnt a lot already. I have a desk in an room with four other people - the 'public affairs' team - and everybody is really lovely.

The commute however is a little exhausting... and when I say a little, I mean a lot. I leave Sarah's house at 7.00am every morning and get into the office at around 8.45 for a 9 o'clock start. After the day in the office, I then leave at around 5.15 and get back to Sarah's for around 7.00. Definitely not an easy commute. And after this weekend I'm even more tired.

This weekend was Hannah's hen do. It was a really lovely weekend in Suffolk. We were in a beautiful house and right next to the beach. We even went on a speed boat ride! While the speed boat ride was exciting, I'm rather afraid of deep water and I got off the boat feeling a bit unwell. All in all though it was a really good weekend. It was lovely seeing Hannah again. I'm really excited for her and she's moving to Leicester which is great because then I'll probably be able to see her a bit more! : )

I'm really enjoying my time here in London, but I am missing people a lot! I ended up driving for an extra 3-4hours yesterday purely so I could see my mum! I'm also really missing Tom and would love people to be around here. It's really nice walking around a little after 6 and seeing so many people enjoying themselves and the buzz of people in restaurants etc. I just wish I could join with that.

Moving House

One piece of advice I have for all of you is; do not, if you can help it, move house when you are ill. I sadly, could not help it. I had no choice but to move house with a fever.

After finishing exams and enjoying a break I was planning on receiving keys to my new house on the Sunday 5^th June with the intentions of enjoying a slow moving process throughout the week after. However, on the Friday before, I received some wonderful news; I was to move out of my old house on the 5^th June. Joys! So I had 2 days to pack up my stuff, clean around and move out.

The stress of it all sadly got to me a bit more than I had hoped and expected. The Saturday night saw very little sleep as I tossed and turned boiling up and needing a lot of water both in me and on me to cool down. This made moving day a wonderfully exciting prospect...?!

Sunday arrived and I drove my car to the new house full of wonderfully heavy items ready to move into the house. After church we went along to our new house to be spoken to about fire, gas, electricity, water etc and to receive our keys. My health was probably most evident while we were listening to the landlord explain everything when I suddenly had to make my way to the stairs to take a seat to stop myself from either throwing up or collapsing. Then for moving the stuff in!

Thankfully I did receive some help moving in, and later moving out (next car load) which was very much needed!

After moving in completely, moving out completely, and cleaning up completely, it was really nice to be able to enjoy the evening in the house with most of the housemates for the first night.

Although moving in was a bit stressful, I am very much so looking forward to next year, and it really is a very nice house!

Birthday weekends

My birthday is on 4th May, my cousin's is on the 6th May. It was tradition that every year we would have a birthday weekend on the May Day Bank Holiday, however as I moved to Aber last year we weren't able to do so.

On Thursday I came home for the weekend as a surprise as it was mum's birthday on Sunday. I texted my youngest sister and asked her to postpone tea for me and make sure mum didn't know. However, by the time I had arrived it was pretty clear that I was coming as Esther had asked for an extra place setting to be set for her imaginary friend... oh dear... 

We were all ready for a birthday weekend for me and mum when on Friday my aunt asked whether they should be arriving on the Friday night or the Saturday morning. My other sister (Rebekah) had invited them, which was 100% fine, but had not told mum that they had said yes! 

So Esther and myself, after a lovely walk in the grounds.... 

set to tidying the house! 

My Aunt, Uncle and two cousins were here for the Friday night and Saturday and it was a lovely day :) We sat and had a picnic breakfast and lunch in the garden while our Uncle practised his first aid for a test on us - Rebekah was awfully good at playing dead! After that we went for another walk in the grounds... there's a beautiful bit with a lake that I've never been to which shows just how lazy I am! They hold weddings by the lake - its so beautiful! We collected pine cones as well for the fire :) 

It's been a wonderful weekend, yesterday (Mum'd birthday) was wonderful too with lots of food, puzzles and a lovely walk :) 

It's been a really nice weekend just relaxing at home :) 

20...

I must apologise for not writing as much recently, it is the end of term and essays, exams, and the sun are becoming very prominent in my life for now.


I was just on facebook procrastinating and found a quote on a friend's status:
'When you have no helpers, see all your helpers in God. When you have many helpers, see God in all your helpers. When you have nothing but God, see all in God; when you have everything, see God in everything. Under all conditions, stay thy heart only on the Lord.' -Charles H. Spurgeon


I just thought it was really beautiful, and rather relevant for this time of year; when things are busy and focus is on so much that God can get pushed out of the picture. 


I realise that I haven't said anything about New Word Alive since returning, and this is a fail 
indeed. 


New Word Alive was really helpful for me. I found it both encouraging and challenging.


I am going to share a couple of things from that week... 


1. God is all. 
One thing that has stuck with me the most is that God doesn't need us, that we aren't important. Now, don't get me wrong, He wants us and to Him we are incredibly important and precious. But for His plan to work, we aren't the responsible ones. 
We have our roles, but we aren't needed: 

It isn't our faith... it's God's faithfulness.

2. To love God, we must understand His love for us.
In life people may let us down. Friends, family and loved ones can make us feel unloved. But we still love them. This love for them, however, can be from our own will (even if only for a short while). We can choose to love them anyway.
With God, a being that we can't always see and feel, it can be really hard to love Him. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true... at least for me. But I know that the only way I can love Him is through His love for me.  
Just think about that for a moment... 

The only way I can love Him, is through His love for me...

While that can sound like a 'cop-out', handing all responsibility over to God, it is amazing in itself! and guess what... God already has that responsibility, not in a burdensome way, but because He is Love! 

When we find it hard to love God, just think about His love for us... remind yourself of the Gospel and all its greatness!

It is so freeing to realise that everything is on God!

This doesn't mean that we are to be lazy... God's love should spur us into action and love for others. 

Tapping into the source of Love can only lead to a constant flow of love!

It is so beautiful to think of God and His love for us! :) 

And what a beautiful thing to reflect on in the first steps of my year as 20! :) 

The Joy that overflows with His Love!   

Ladybirds and Daisy's :)

 I was meant to be studying... I got a little distracted for a while...