Yes

Today my journey towards Ministry took a giant leap forward. At my Final Review (or Assessment) my two assessors decided that my training had reached completion. After the end of this month I will be able to apply to congregations who are looking for a minister. I continue working full-time in my training placement until the end of November.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me on my journey so far!



At lunchtime, a little earlier in the day, I noticed a cat in my back garden playing with something on the grass. When I went out to investigate, I discovered a frog. It was quite big, almost two inches long, and apparently none the worse for the cat's attentions.

Shortly after the above photo was taken it leapt off into the border for some peace and quiet, and hopefully continued eating up large numbers of pesky bugs!

Where the frog came from is a mystery because there is no pond in my garden. It must be a good climber, and have climbed over the walls surrounding my garden, from one of my neighbour's gardens. I hope it stays and eats up more of the creepy crawlies munching on my plants!

Onwards to Mannheim

In Brussels we had 50 minutes to wait before our Deutsche Bahn InterCity Express (ICE) train left for Koeln (Cologne).



The DB ICE train was a lot shorter than the Eurostar, with only about 8 coaches including the two end coaches. The two end coaches are favoured with seats that allow the passengers to watch over the driver's shoulder out the front, or rear, windows and see the track ahead, or flowing away behind. Our seats were farther back so we weren't able to watch while the train was moving.


After leaving Brussels we passed through Leuven, the home city for Stella Artois beer. One of the Stella Artois plants is close to the Leuven station as you can see from the photo above.



Most of the High Speed rail network in Europe is built on new track-lines, with many new stations. There was a lot of competition to build these stations and some of the designs were rather spectacular. I was particularly impressed by the one above.



At Koeln we had a short stop to change to another DB ICE train. The station is right next-door to the awesome Koeln Cathedral. We visited there in 2002 on a previous holiday. It is well worth a visit and very accessible from the train station. There are many good pictures of it on the internet.



Shortly after leaving Koeln station we crossed over the River Rhine. It is very broad considering the city lies about 400km inland from the North Sea. As well as the barge visible in the photo, there were many other barges and passenger craft moored to the river banks.



At one of our stops enroute to Mannheim I was surprised to discover that we were in Frankfurt Airport! We weren't planning to change to air travel, but it would have been easy to get off the train and jump on to a plane instead!

At last, some four hours after leaving Brussels, and seven hours after leaving London, we arrived in Mannheim. It was great to see our friends waiting for us on the platform. We tired but glad to have reached our destination.

Underground Underwater Twice

After departing from St Pancras at 8:34am, we tunneled under most of North East London, and by 8:52 we saw the spectacular Queen Elizabeth II Dartmouth Crossing bridge which carries the M25 across the Thames Estuary to the East of London. After we had tunneled under the Thames we crossed over the Medway River next to Rochester at 8:57, and by 9:22 we were in the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel for the 15 minute underground and underwater crossing.



The pretty French countryside passed by in a blur, on into Belgium, and finally we pulled in to Bruxelles Midi station at 10:34am, UK time, only two hours after we left London. Below is the mighty train that zipped us from the political centre of Britain to the political centre of Europe.

Passing through St Pancras

After arriving at Kings Cross station, we walked next door to St Pancras Station. From there we travelled to the town of St Alban's for our overnight stop, and then returned the next morning for our 8:34am departure to Brussels. The impressively ornate exterior dates from its construction in 1868.


The station has recently been redeveloped at a cost of £800m (twice the cost of the Scottish Parliament building) as the terminal for the International Eurostar trains to the the Continent. I like the bright colour scheme they have used for the equally ornate interior. You can read all about the redevelopment here.


I was very impressed by the departure lounge with its wooden floor and the vertical metal supports holding up the ceiling. The supports need to be strong because up above stand several of the Eurostar trains, each with their 18 coaches and twin power cars. The 400m trains are so long that the station had to be extended from its original 689-foot length. You can read more about the train technology here.

As we departed on our high-speed Eurostar I managed to snap a quick photo of the iconic Post Office tower before we entered the long tunnel heading Eastwards across the North London. It was further proof that we really had passed through London at the start of our European journey.

Diesel Electric

The train on the left of the photo is the 125mph express that brought us from Edinburgh to Kings Cross station in London, on the first leg of our European holiday. It's powered by twin diesel-electric engines, one at the front and another at the rear, which took us down the track in a nifty 4 and a half hours.

The train on the right is one of the newer 225kph trains that also run on the East Coast main line from Edinburgh to London. They are all-electric engines powered from overhead lines and have a top speed of 140mph.

This means they cannot be used for the Aberdeen to London route, for that section of track is not electrified. So the 125s are used for the Aberdeen to London trains, and once they leave Edinburgh, they stop only at the main stations such as Newcastle, York, and Peterborough. The faster 225s stop more often but their higher top speed allows them to keep up with the 125s all the way to London, so they also take about 4 and a half hours to do the journey.

We spent the night visiting family in St Albans, to the North of London, and continued on our trip to the continent the next morning. And I'll tell you about that part of our journey another time.

Back Home Again

Sorry it's been so long since my last post.

My family and I have been away on holiday for the past three weeks, and I'll tell you more about that in the coming days.

But one of our fantastic experiences was a wonderful fireworks display for the Swiss National Day on the evening of 31st July in Basel. We were there for a few days visiting friends.

I took lots of photos and some of them were quite good! I hope you like the one above.

It's nice to be back home - and back to work already!