A Dream

As I said, I have been thinking about my Northern hometown recently, and now it has got into my dreams.  Should we move back?  Should we not?  As long as Col does not want to, its not an option anyway.  I have mixed feelings. I am so happy here, by the sea, in our lovely flat. And Sheffield has both happy memories and sad ones. I loathed my schooldays for example - from the first to the last day.  And now I come to think of it, I can remember my first day at school vividly  - the horror! - but nothing at all about my last day. Surely I must have felt some joy about it?

Does anyone else remember their last day at school?  I am pretty sure we nearly all remember the first. Though perhaps it is different for the pre-school generation who will already have spent a lot of time away from home and mother, so hopefully it is not the total shock it was.  I remember two little sisters who just cried and cried non-stop until the time came for their mother to return.  That went on for days.

As for those sent away to boarding schools...  Why do we think it's OK to put children through such distress I wonder?   

Anyway, my dream was not of school (or it would have qualified as a nightmare) but of meeting my sister's ex boyfriend - a very nice guy.  He came to our table in a vast warehouse/restaurant place to tell us he was very ill - us being Col, Nute and me.   I didn't catch what he said and had to ask him to repeat it. He spelt out his condition in a loud voice and it was the same as Janet had.  I wonder why I have to be deaf in my dreams too - subconscious, if you are lurking here, please fix.

And I noticed that he was speaking only to me and Col and not even looking at Nute. And I felt sad thinking that after all these years, he still feels hurt that it ended.  But then later in the dream he was looking for her, though I woke up before he found her.

What was the point of all that?  In real life they parted on good enough terms and remained friends. In fact, he came round to take her out for a walk in the park after her husband died, which I thought was a very nice thing to do. Walking is good for sadness and depression.

Of course, I don't want any of us to get old sick and die - or to have any cause for sadness and depression.  I want us all to "inherit the earth" as Jesus promised, and live on this lovely planet forever. And I hope so much that our parents, and Ken, and all those we have lost to death will be waking up and joining us.   The above pic is an Autumnscape, taken by Captain B - I am not sure when and where - but to remind us what a jewel of a planet we are living on - courtesy of our Grand Creator, Jehovah, the God of Abraham.

The Visit

It has been the week of the Circuit Overseer's visit and I thought I would share some encouraging points from it.  For example, he reminded us about Revelation 14:6, which says:  And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, and he had everlasting good news to declare to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

We are living in the events of Revelation now, and the worldwide Kingdom preaching work that Jesus foretold for this time is being done. And it is easy to forget about the angels while doing it as you toil down the street, finding no interest, or no-one at all, at door after door - or getting no positive responses to your many many letters, Yet Revelation assures us that the angels are deeply interested and involved. And they see behind the door.

For sure I was puzzling away over things on the morning that two Jehovah's Witnesses knocked at my door and began to show me that the answers I had been looking for had been in the Bible on my shelf all the time.  

Col's photo of the Regal Angelfish is a tribute and a thank you to all the hardworking faithful angels. 

At the Saturday morning field service, the C.O. read us Paul's words at 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.  Apparently Corinth was the Oxbridge of its day!  Which explains why Paul begins by saying: "So when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with extravagant speech or wisdom declaring the sacred secret of God to you. For I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him executed on the stake."

Here he was, in a city full of academics, and philosophers, who were probably expecting a lot of obscure jargon and convoluted arguments, but he was preaching the clear, straightforward message of the Bible, telling them about the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And of course the truth can afford to be straightforward and logical - it stands to reason.

And then the question we need to ask ourselves: Am I always ready to give a witness?  I can see a lot of room for improvement here. A lot.  And maybe I can get back out on the door to door work, even if only for 15 to 30 minutes at a time, especially now the Big Heat has gone.  I can no longer tolerate the sun, yet I lived and worked in the desert for many years. It is amazing how age, chronic illness and its associated medications will eat away at you.

If I do, I will have to send a thank you card to the C.O. and his wife - and of course, above all, thank Jehovah, and Jesus for all the help and encouragement the congregation gives us.

And I do know that this Kingdom preaching work is the most urgent and important work I have ever done.  

The work upstairs continues, with banging, drilling, and hammering. The drilling in the worst, plus the worry that  a whole section of the roof might come down...  at which point this blog probably disappears in a cloud of dust.

An Amazon Review of The Umbrellas of Hamelin

The Photo, taken by Col, is of an Umbellifer. It was the nearest I could get to an Umbrella.  I can remember many years ago, on a visit to friends in Thailand, we visited a parasol shop, and somewhere there is a great  photo Col took of a vista of colourful umbrellas/parasols. But I haven't come across it yet.

I hope this exquisite plant will do the job.  And while "the world" would never ask us to suppose that those parasols made themselves, it demands that we shall think that of the Umbellifer. But I hope we can see the Grand Designer, Jehovah, in its exquisite design, artistry and engineering - all carefully coded and fitted within a tiny seed at that!  

It is, simply, a miracle in plain sight.

This is such a lovely and thoughtful review of "The Umbrellas of Hamelin".  And what greater endorsement could there be than having a reader buy more copies to give as presents!

Having thoroughly enjoyed Waiting For Gordo and Disraeli Hall by Sue Knight I couldn't wait to read this compilation and it did not disappoint. The stories are a quirky collection of observations on human life in a variety of situations ranging from the humorous to the terrifying.

My particular favourite is The Martian Goes to a Party and has a Nice Day. Although written some time ago, the Martian's comments remain disturbingly valid to this day and I would love to read more of his thoughts about the human race.

Klook and Plukey brought back my own not entirely happy memories of being a convent school pupil in the 1960s as well as the widely held belief of the time that a girl's main aims in life should be to get a boyfriend, marry and have a family.

Sue Knight's abilities to portray characters and settings through her shrewd depiction of little details reminds me very much of Barbara Pym as does the 'lives of quiet desperation' described with both humour and pathos in The Umbrellas of Hamelin and Disraeli Crescent.

This collection has much to offer those who enjoy a good story and to aspiring authors looking to improve their technique. It would also be an excellent choice for book groups as the stories contain much food for thought. I have already bought copies as Christmas presents for family and friends. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Umbrellas-Hamelin-Sue-Knight/dp/1914060555

The Jewel

I was out on the balcony Monday morning starting my studying for the week. It is the week of the Circuit Overseer visit and so the mid-week meeting moves from Thursday evening to Tuesday evening and I have to condense my week's study into two days.

The sky was wonderful, very blue but full of scudding white clouds, with an occasional rain cloud shading things as it hurried across, going somewhere else. The photo above is of a different sky, over the same beach, but also a lovely one. There have been floods in parts of the country. The sea was surging and roaring, and so beautiful. It was like being inside a living jewel, which I guess the earth is.  It is easy to pray when I am on the balcony, to thank Jehovah for all of it, and to ask that Col and me might be here in the paradise earth able, one day,  to thank Him from a perfect heart.

Tuesday morning was stormy, wind, rain, and a face to face appointment with my GP, hopefully to discuss what has happened to my eyes, and to see if anything more can be done or should be done - plus to get more info about the doubled meds. The young trainee I saw - very nice lad - checked my eyes - I may be referred to hospital Ophthalmology - and told me that nausea is a fairly standard side-effect of the increased meds, but if I take another daily med with it - one I already have but do not take often - that may help.

It all comes back though to my being past my sell-by date. While we were there, Col booked our next Covid jabs plus the winter flu one, to be done next month.

But the system of things on the earth... where to start... turmoil... disaster... I guess just watch any episode of the News.  But brace yourself.  With all that is going on the headlines here have been captured by one Russell Brand, who I have never watched, nor ever wanted to.  He has never hidden his behaviour, but if anything he has flaunted it - which is why I have never wanted to watch his act.

This is from a recent online article by Peter Hitchens in The Daily Mail: 

Mr Brand, remember, had in 2008 distinguished himself with his horrible, creepy prank, alongside Jonathan Ross, that he played on the actor Andrew Sachs.
Remember what he did. He left three messages on Mr Sachs' answerphone, making repeated lewd and graphic claims about his granddaughter. These were then broadcast by BBC Radio.

These remarks were then broadcast by BBC Radio. So it seems as if he has had a free pass for all sorts of bad behaviour, and suddenly it has been withdrawn.

Why?  Maybe he is as puzzled as I am.  Well, he has made his money at any rate. The world and its Movers and Shakers have both lauded and applauded him, or they did only just yesterday.

In shining contrast, the foremost quality of our Creator, Jehovah, the God of Abraham, is loyal love.  And he appreciates and rewards good and loving behaviour.  He will help us when we stumble and help us to get up again.  And his standards never change.  As James reassuringly tells us:

"Do not be misled, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of the celestial lights, who does not vary or change like the shifting shadows." - James 1:16,17

The world of politics, the world of Moving and Shaking, can change at the drop of a hat it seems. What it applauded yesterday, it might condemn today.  But our Creator does not vary or change like the shifting shadows. We can rely on Him completely. His word is a rock of truth in a spinning world.

And I wish everybody could know that.  So I guess I need to keep on trying to tell them.

The Umbrellas of Hamelin - A GoodReads Review

Here is a review of Umbrellas from a real author, Mark Henderson.  I know he is a fan of "Waiting for Gordo" - and, thank goodness, he likes this short story collection too.  

Anyone who’s read Waiting for Gordo or Disraeli Hall will expect the fine literary style of Sue Knight’s stories to mask unsettling and thought-provoking contents; and they won’t be disappointed. Notwithstanding their variety, the stories in The Umbrellas of Hamlin are all seen from the viewpoints of lonely, isolated, troubled women trying to come to terms with their situations.

The title story typifies this theme. It’s set in an art gallery where Anita is employed but threatened with redundancy. She spends her lunchtimes in a small room beside the gallery where a continuous black-and-white video is projected on to the wall, showing women hidden under umbrellas walking through incessant rain. She is usually joined by three other women; but are they really her friends, and does the video ever stop playing, even overnight? And is it in truth displaying the continual wet weather in the world outside? What happens when Anita finds herself alone with the video display? It’s a memorable, beautifully-written tale hinting at meanings beyond its confines.

Some of the stories are more direct, though still subtle and multilayered. The Martian goes to a Party and has a Nice Day is a fine portrayal of the sense of isolation and incipient menace that afflicts emigrées (and emigrés) in all lands. One, Talky Tin, is very short and witty. Others are far from direct; The Rainy Day House moves from an annoying if potentially dangerous situation to a surreal fantasy about the protagonist’s present and projected future, revealing much about the character in so doing. Klook and Plukey takes the standpoint of a middle-aged journalist recapturing her teenage years by interviewing two clever girls from her schooldays and revealing her own location on the autism spectrum in the process. The final item in the collection, the novelette-length Till They Dropped, turns the theme of returning to childhood into a futuristic nightmare, an elusive horror story that demands to be re-read and thought about; not that it’s easy to STOP thinking about it!

This is definitely a collection for your bookshelf if you’re a lover of good literature, but lock it away from people who’re too young to handle stories that get under your skin and unsettle you.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196073058-the-umbrellas-of-hamelin

I hope they are quite funny too - some of them - and that they won't be too unsettling.  I did write much of this before I had any idea what the Bible said. I have a very different outlook now, and tend to confine my writing to blogposts and to my witnessing letters and emails.  So I guess Umbrellas will be my last book.  IF I do "inherit the earth" as Jesus promised, then I don't know if there will be a need for fiction then. But if there is, I guess there will be new stories. At the moment we only have one, the one we are living in: things have gone wrong, they need to be put right.

The photo is of our fierce and lovely Saudi cat, Whites.  He appears as Tiswas in The Martian Goes to a Party and as Talky in the eponymous Talky Tin.

He is buried in a desert garden, with flowers.  Will we see him again in the paradise earth - IF we are there that is?  Would it mean anything to Whites to see us again, or not?   Well, one day, I hope to know.  I would love to see all our cats again and our lovely Shadow, the Golden Retriever.

The Blue Underwing, the Clifden Nonpareil

We were out on the balcony Wednesday evening and Col said that with these Underwings turning up on our balcony, we might be seeing a Blue Underwing soon, especially as it was such a calm night for migrating across the Channel.  A lot of moths seem to stop off at our balcony for a rest after the crossing, and spend a cosy night in our Moth Hotel - there is an eggbox cup for all who come.

Sure enough, just before bed, one of the gigantic creatures turned up!  And Col got some great photos.  It is so lovely, clearly a work of sublime artistry and engineering.  But then Jehovah is the Grand Creator.

Jim popped in to photograph it yesterday evening - it posed obligingly. And so would I if I looked as lovely as it does.

The upstairs builders were quiet on Wednesday, after a noisy Tuesday. There was a little work in the morning, but nothing at all in the afternoon. They were simply not around. So I was able to have my usual afternoon Zoom session with a friend. Thursday was very noisy - lots of drilling and hammering. Col did well to be off in his detecting field in the Hampshire plains.

Our mirror and pictures will remain off the wall until we are sure it is finished. They are saying two weeks, so, on that basis, I am hoping for no more than a month.

I am feeling quite sick at the moment, which will likely be because they have doubled one of my meds. However I finally have an appointment with my GP, face to face, next week, so I hope to be able to discuss it then.  The weather, having cooled down, seems to be hotting up again, but today there is a definite feel of Autumn in the air.

Now. on Friday morning, we hope to get off early to do our fruit and veg shop - and we hope the builders might take the day off.  We did get off early and the builders got started on the drilling, banging and crashing quite early too.  I posted a copy of Umbrellas to Elizabeth, an old schoolfriend.

Waiting for Gordo, in Arabian Weather

September has been incredibly hot and humid so far, with the sea as still as I have ever seen it - so no cooling breeze, just heat and humidity.  A friend was out on a fishing boat and said he has never known the sea so still. Thankfully, on Sunday lunchtime a breeze started up, and it is still with us. We did have one brief cloudburst. And it is certainly cooler today.

But it has been like being back in our desert town, and is bringing back some memories - see Col's photo of desert flowers above.  

Clearly I used to be able to cope with the heat. I can't now.  Summer in Arabia is no joke, yet in the early years, I used to walk back from my job - we worked from 7 a.m. till 12:30 - in the noonday sun, along with all the other mad dogs and Englishmen.  It was quite a long walk, across a big stretch of shade-less desert out to the little courtyards most of us Brits lived in.  Or, more grammatically, in which most of us Brits lived.

Here is another review, this time of my eco-thriller  Waiting for Gordo- all part of revving up for M.A.B.L.E. - the Fantastic book Launch in October:

The location in Waiting for Gordo by Sue Knight is an exotic corner of the world we live in today. The story takes place on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. Written with a light touch, it will make you smile, but then make you shiver at the sinister undertones. Also, what a great name for a book! Apparently, it was originally destined to be called Small Island, but Andrea Levy got there first.

https://medium.com/feedium/reflecting-an-uncomfortable-reality-eco-thrillers-99813c4988a5

It has become oddly timely given the concerns about global warming and strange weather. - and the disasters that is causing.  It was written over several years on a couple of small islands in the very low-lying and very beautiful Maldives.  I used to sit under a palm tree in the bar, in the morning, having waved the Shoal off on its boat, with a glass of whatever the current fresh fruit juice was - often pineapple.  And I so much wanted to capture two things: the paradise-like beauty of the islands, but also the way that what ought to be a paradise is not. Earthwide, the serpent is still in the garden - still running the garden - and still deceiving so many of us.

The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him - Revelation 12:9

But not for much longer.  And that is the good news of the Kingdom of God - the new and perfect heavenly government, that will soon be ruling over the earth. Under its loving rulership the whole earth will become the paradise of peace it was always meant to be.  And we will wake up to no more horrors on the news. There will be nothing then to make us afraid or even worried.

A Cold Snowstorm?

POSTSCRIPT

In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

Seamus Heaney
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/postscript-8/


Autumn always catches at my heart. The photo is of a September sunset as seen from our balcony on Sunday. And if Col and I are here a million years from now, as I hope we will be, and we have seen a million sunsets, we will never have seen another one exactly like that one. Such is the amazing variety of Jehovah's creation.

I was so pleased to learn that the earliest calendars begin in the Fall, which suggests that Adam first opened his eyes in an Autumn Garden, the Garden of Eden.   And I love this Heaney poem which describes those glimpses we get all the time of the paradise that the whole earth should have been - and will be when it is under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government for whose coming Jesus taught us to pray.

This month we are making a special effort to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God.  It is what we, Jehovah's Witnesses, are always trying to tell you about, in harmony with Jesus' own words, at Matthew 24:14:

 "And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."

But we hope to be making an extra special effort this month. It is so urgent.

It is not, of course, the beautiful earth that will come to an end, but the present wicked system of things on it will be gone, for good.  So this is very good news we are bringing to your doors.

As I was having my morning coffee while watching a Youtube video about hikers on the ACT Trail (USA), I heard the expression "a cold snowstorm was predicted". Which made me wonder .. as opposed to a "hot snowstorm"?  I had always taken the coldness of a snowstorm for granted.

We are having a very hot and sunny start to September, so I think the snowstorms - hot or cold - will be holding off for a while.

I had an appointment booked for two blood tests on Thursday morning and no sooner had I had them done than my GP contacted Col by text in his field (out there in the Hampshire Badlands) to say that she needed me to come in for a blood test to check how I was doing with the increased dosage on the new medication...   If only I had known a bit earlier. I now have an immense black bruise on my arm from the morning tests and just didn't want to face any more for a while.

So I rang up wondering if the gallons they had extracted in the morning couldn't be used to provide the answer - but no, they couldn't.  "Well" I said glumly, accepting another blood test appointment "I suppose I may have a few drops left in me."

The Receptionist seemed to find that very funny - so maybe I brightened up her day at least.  And the test got us out very early Friday morning and both blood test and fruit and veg shopping were done by 9 o'clock.  I wish I could say that I then went on to have a very productive day...  but I didn't.  I did some witnessing letters, made lunch - veggie soup - and supper - baked potatoes with salad (baked sweet potato for me).  And I watched Tipping Point.  I have developed quite a passion for it.

I much prefer the daytime TV programmes these days.  Anything new they put on the evening, any new drama or series, tends to be ruined by the (apparently) compulsory addition of what they call "adult" content.

In this context the word "adult" means the sort of stuff very dirty-minded schoolchildren would snigger about round the back of the bikeshed - or worse!

George Orwell noted the frightening way language was being twisted in his famous "1984" - "War is peace", for example.  And I am trying to remember the word he coined - "Doublethink/Doublespeak" - which is now frighteningly insisted on by "the world".

THE UMBRELLAS OF HAMELIN - first review

Here is our Blue Moon rising over the ocean - from last week.  So lovely - and not in the least blue - though the sky was. The tenuous link to this blog is that it is only once in a blue moon that I have a new book out, and get a review.  So here below is my first review, from a real writer too - Penny Frances.  I am so glad she enjoyed the book, and very grateful she took time to say so!

She says. of Umbrellas:

An intriguing collection of stories ranging in length from the flash fiction Talky Tin to the previously published novella Till They Dropped. All written in a wonderfully disconcerting, often surreal, deadpan style that belies sinister undercurrents.
From the beautifully understated study of lonely women of a certain age enticed into the title story's Umbrellas of Hamelin, through the equally lonely inhabitants of Disraeli Crescent where even their dreams are mundane and clichéd; the wonderfully incisive if gentle satire of the illogicality of ex-pat casual racism in The Martian Goes to a Party... (author's apology not necessary!); to the much longer disturbingly surreal Rainy Day House where the protagonist is enticed to sleep and dream her way through the seasons, leaving us to doubt the future she draws for herself, her partner and unborn baby, Sue Knight leaves the reader with a disturbing sense of the disconnect between what is said and what is actually happening. Klook and Plukey, the least surreal of all the stories, also features a classically unreliable narrator in Anita/Kate, the self-acclaimed star of the class of 1966, who seeks to confirm her superiority while interviewing her former classmates 30 years later, and finds her self-image start to unravel through the insights of Klook, her teenage nemesis.

Till They Dropped completes the selection with its nightmare dystopian and totally surreal vision of being trapped in a self-perpetuating, all encompassing yet rapidly disintegrating consumer world of the Mechanism from which there is seemingly no escape.

A highly original collection, complete with author's notes along the way and well worth the read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196073058-the-umbrellas-of-hamelin

I hope it is funny too, and will make you want to keep turning the page.  The last story Till They Dropped (as in "They shopped till they dropped") - the world as a giant shopping mall run by AI machines - was written before I had begun my Bible Study with the Jehovah's Witnesses who called. At that time I did not know of God's promise, recorded in Revelation, that He will "bring to ruin those ruining the earth" - even though I had had an intensive religious education.

But at least I saw that the way we were going we would ruin it, and that no human solutions to our problems had worked.  What I did not know then, and am so grateful to know now, is that we, the children of Adam, are not abandoned to this.  And I do keep trying to pass that wonderful news on to others.

Ministry School (and a flare up)

I had the 5 minute Bible Study part in the Ministry School on Thursday night. The point I was working on was Effective Conclusion. It poured down with rain on Thursday, so that my HH did not come over as planned to practise this - she would probably have had to swim - and we practised on Zoom.

Those Zoom cameras! IF my new book should turn out to be a bestseller I will be able to hire Kate Moss to be me on camera. She could not look bad if she tried.

Anyway this was the script we enacted on the stage:

S. So, as we come to the end of this chapter, How you can get the most out of the Bible? we’ll go through this summary as a reminder. It tells us us that to get the most out of the Bible,we need to schedule time to read it, pray to understand what we read, and prepare for our Bible study sessions. Now would it be fair to say that scheduling time is difficult for you?

HH. Definitely. This commuting is wearing me out, and it looks like I will be having to do it for some time.

S. I understand, I remember my commuting days. Exhausting. But did anything in this chapter help you to see how you might be able to schedule some time?

HH. Well, I remember the little video we watched, all those young people saying that they too had found it difficult to find the time to study.

S. Yes. It's not easy for anyone in this stressful world is it - and there are so many distractions.  But do you remember how one of them said that they prayed to Jehovah to help them make the time and also to motivate them to want to study?

HH. Yes, and I remember one young lad saying that it helped him to think about the four directions we could consider when we read Bible verses. They were: to look up, that is to think what they tell us about Jehovah, look down to think what they tell us about his purpose for the earth, look to ourselves to see how we can apply it, and lastly to think how we might be able to help others with it.

S. Well remembered! That was good wasn’t it? I am going to try to apply that too. And I thought we might just look again at Psalm 119:34 Would you read it?

FHH Give me understanding,
So that I may observe your law
And keep it with my whole heart

S. That is a powerful reminder that we can do exactly as the Psalmist did. We can ask Jehovah to help us to understand his law and to obey it. And He will.  So just to look briefly at the review questions here: What will help you to get most out of the Bible?

HH. First would be to make time to read it regularly.

S. Yes. So following on: When can YOU set aside time to read and study the Bible?

HH. Actually I was thinking about this, and I am wondering if I couldn’t use part of my train journey in the morning or evening.

S. That’s a good idea. . And I think you might be surprised to find how refreshing that can be. And lastly, why is it worthwhile to prepare for your Bible study sessions?

HH. Clearly I am going to get so much more out of them if I do.

S. Absolutely. This is Jehovah’s loving message to you. The more you can take it in, the more you will benefit. So with that in mind I am wondering if we can both set a goal for next week - because the subject of the next chapter is: What will help you to keep studying the Bible? Can we both make time to look up all the cited Scriptures, and think about them in the light of those 4 points in the video - consider what they tell us about our loving Creator, what they tell us about his wonderful purpose for the earth, how we can apply them personally and also how we can use them to help others. If we do that, don’t you think we will both benefit even more from the very important study chapter coming up?

****

In harmony with that when I look at my Daily Scripture, my plan will be to use those four points.  For example, Saturday was:

This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.​—John 17:3.

So that tells me firstly that Jehovah is the only true God and that the one he sent forth, the promised Messiah, is Jesus Christ.  I was schooled in the Trinity Doctrine - a different thing altogether.  The verse tells us that Jehovah's purpose is to give us all back the life our first parents so tragically lost. It reminds me that I need to exercise faith in both Jehovah and Jesus if I want back the life, the perfection, the paradise that was lost (and I do!), and that I need to try to tell others about this, so they too can come to know that God is offering them back what our first parents lost.

Though I am having to tell people by letter, at the moment as I am having a very painful flare-up, right foot and ankle.  And am only just able to hobble to the loo. I am hoping it will not get worse.

The pic is of daffodils in Lobbs Wood - a reminder of Jehovah's purpose that the whole earth will become paradise, and also a nod to family and friends in Oz who are just heading into Spring as we head into Autumn.

One Aussie friend, Marcin, is embarking on a move - a fresh start for Spring. And I have a card and a copy of Umbrellas all parcelled up for him ready to be posted as soon as I hear he is safely at the new address.