Books Galore

After our bathroom leak, these are all the books from the room below that got wet in the 'flood'! Fortunately the water missed the large majority of our books and we got those dry ones off the shelves in time.

It is now over two weeks since the episode of the escaping water and only a few of the wettest, most sodden books are still a little damp in the middle. The rest of them have dried. Mind you, some of them have gone so crinkly and expanded I'm not sure whether they are still usable.

Fortunately the dehumidifier works away by itself, blowing dry air across the wall. The books, wall, and ceiling, dry by themselves, without anyone needing to attend to them.

Round about our regular week-day work, we've been busy trying to figure out where we're going to go next. My training placement finishes at the end of November and we still have no clear idea about where God is calling us to go.

Certainly we will be going, at some point, for I'll have to live in the manse of whichever parish I end up in. Liz is determined she's not going to be left behind, and I'm glad about that!

Last weekend we went to visit some possible places. In those four days we travelled 800 miles and saw round 18 different church buildings and manses. Although seeing all these places in one trip was an efficient use of time and diesel, it has left our heads rather overwhelmed with images and impressions.

By Friday, only yesterday!, we had made some progress in sorting our the jumble of pictures and places, and were ready to go to Anstruther to spend some time with a minister friend, talking over where we had got to. He was very helpful and together we identified some of the underlying issues that have been making it difficult to find the way forward.

However, we still have a lot of work to do, looking at other places and comparing them with the ones we have already looked at. Sometimes it seems like we are making progress. At other times we seem to be sliding backwards faster than we are stepping forwards!

Last weekend we travelled almost as far as you can and still be on the mainland of Scotland. Below is one of my photos at that famous spot on the North coast, looking North to the Orkney islands. It is rather grey because the sun was setting and it had been raining recently. But you can't take that photo anywhere else!