The waitress was the spiting image of a young woman who worked with us as a one year trainee ....... all the way from Germany.
I am in mid France and we hit 40 degrees today. Stepping out for a meal tonight was like turning on the fan heater. whoooo ........ not used to it.
Must have been idiots to travel from North to south France. All that way and hitting the heat as we travelled ....... that was 1986 when we first headed this way ........ in a mini-bus costing £30 and a gang of kids from tough backgrounds. I was so much a failure but full of excitement, that we took a similar trip the year after with 6 vehicles!! In convoy!! Must have been mad.
Yet these experiences were formative in many lives. People stretched their wings, culture, language skills and every other kind of stretch as we lived so close for two weeks.
This holiday we are doing a steady journey and stopping three times. The first ever trip took a week, yes one week, to get down to the med coast. Then we came straight back!! We still have the super 8 cine film to prove it. Must turn it into a video sometime if anyone I know has the technology. For years after Joan and myself, and the girls, always ran a holiday like this. I was our own as well. We could not afford a holiday so the kids going as an organizes trip made it cheap for all of us.
We took kids from:
st helens ywca ...... the y club
st helens ymca .......
Mayflower family centre in Canning Town east London
.................hundreds of kids I guess in all.
Now here we are tracking back in time and staying in that Italian Riviera which attracted us with groups so long ago, and so many times.
hmmmmmmm
bhp
Well ......... life is good and holidays looming ..... the Doc today said my blood pressure is good and waved any deeper questions aside. My simple medication to carry on whilst on holdays and that is all.
So life is always re-creation and that is my yearn. I have never worked to live ..... always lived to work. Work and recreation are one and the balance a life long mission. The truth is, I have the passion to work with people and I don't want to seek pleasure ..... just use it for refreshment. I do like the odd glass and a small light cigar, as I told the Doc, "and not every day" I rushed to add .........true too.
My mission is to live to love. Make my life an act of love. That is being honest and it is not sacrificial and 'burn out' tactics. Passion for people. Being with them, wanting to learn together about the life journey, all so real. At one time I was a driven man to convert people to the Christian faith. That was it.
NOW .......I still want for them to chose a walk with God, to love Jesus because they realize they are loved by some major creator. Now it is more like letting the light shine than forcing their jaws open so that God will get in. He has to get in if I do the right things. That was me. A driven human.
I ony became an adult when I was around 40. Until then I never accepted myself and always wanted to be ......"if only I could ......"
I was once a person who 'couldn't' and I became a person who 'could'.
I love to see that happen in others in anyway.
I wil love the holidays. Love the joys of beauty in so many things. I will then love to get back and be useful and not a taker (only) in this world ....... but a 'maker' too.
God loves. In my own experience it is a life of finding that love and journeying constantly, constantly excitingly to experience more, and give more, like a never filling drinking jug.
hey .....it is late and I am dribblig down my chin ......... see you soon ...... I plan to blog on holidays ......is that wotk or pleasure ........I never know!!
bhp