Making Bricks Without Much Straw

Or in this case, trying to make something for supper on Tuesday night, as I didn't have very much in until the delivery arrived in the evening - after supper-time.  As we had veggies that needed using up, and some pearl barley, I settled on a veggie and barley casserole with dumplings.  Col requested an omelette instead.  In the end he had the casserole, but I have to admit it was not very good. For some reason I did not use my standard dumpling recipe, as I found one on the internet that used yoghurt as the fat. I thought it would be healthier, which likely it would, but only because you would not be tempted to eat the subsequent dumplings.

You would be more tempted to use them as foundation stones for a large block of flats.  They would be very healthy used that way as probably only a nuclear strike could bring them down,

I put the word "brick" into the search engine for Col's photo gallery and came up with the exquisite creature above, apparently called "The Brick". Don't ask me why. But "the brick" would have been an appropriate name for those dumplings I made.

Thursday was very stormy - I kept thinking of that Biblical phrase "the roaring of the sea and its agitation".  It is a wonderful sound, in the literal sense.  It is a phrase sometimes used in the Bible to refer to the restless sea of mankind, alienated from their Creator, tossed about by every current of the world.

Zoomed with a friend in in the morning, and attended the evening meeting via Zoom.  I no longer feel up to driving in dark and rain combined, and while Captain B would have chauffered me, he had just come back cold and soaked through from a day out in it, so it seemed cruel to drag him out again.

Friday - a medical day - two hospital appointments, one with Rheumatology, and one for the blood test required by Dermatology, which has to be done at the hospital. We met up with two congregation siblings in one of the waiting rooms, which was a nice surprise.

One day, I suppose, my week will be so consumed with medical appointments that I will have no time to eat, drink or sleep, and I will die.  Or the NHS will crumble away to nothing before I do.  Both scenarios seem quite likely at the moment.

Though having said that the morning went very well. I got into my Rheumatology appointment on time - on time! - very rare. They can run a good half an hour late.  Apparently it was an unusually quiet day patient-wise. That meant I turned up very early for my blood test appointment, and yet they saw me straight away. They were having a quiet day too!  

The outcome was OK, though with some alarming warnings about what might happen to me next as my back continues to deteriorate.  And the small amount of walking involved has left me in a lot of pain today - and wondering how I am to manage the exercise I am supposed to get without crippling myself.

But how would I be feeling now if I did not know the truth - if I did not have the hope of the time, here on earth, when "no resident will say 'I am sick'"?  Perfect health - something we, the damaged children of disobedient Adam, have never yet known.  But, if we listen to our Creator, Jehovah, now, it lies ahead for us.

I doubt we can imagine how wonderful it will be. But for sure, if I do have the privilege of being in the paradise earth, the more decrepit I have become in this present system of things, the more I will be able to appreciate the rescue.  That, at any rate, is the thought I am trying to hold on to.