Not the Rice instead of the Barley! - A Dose of Encouragement

Two things I love to eat are homemade vegetable soup and homemade rice pudding so I always have some barley in the house for the soup and some rice to make the pudding.

Often when I am making things my mind is elsewhere thinking of the next thing I need to do, or something I've forgotten to do or I am chatting to whoever is around at the time.

So inevitably, I admit I sometimes end up doing silly things like putting pudding rice into my soup instead of barley.  

Well they did sit side by side in matching containers on a shelf in one of my kitchen cupboards and when someone is not really paying enough attention they could easily mistake one for the other as the barley and rice grains are a bit similar in size.     Yes?


Note they do not sit side by side in matching containers any longer - I learnt my lesson.



Well I did this one day because I was chatting to my husband and one of the kids and I ended up with soup that no-one in the family (not even me) would eat.

A whole pot of soup had to be thrown out.

Why?

Because I had, without thinking carefully, added the wrong ingredient to the pot.

It caused a lot of laughter and teasing by the kids of course.

Later I thought about how a conversation can be like a recipe.


Often we probably add the wrong words in a conversation because we are not concentrating properly and can end up with something that is confusing, unintelligible, unhelpful and not edifying.


Do we just say certain phrases
     because we have heard others use them,
     because they seem like they might be the right thing to say,
     because we have misheard the person
or even
     because we have assumed what the other person means.


Then what about when we try to use verses from the Bible which are not right for the situation.


Maybe we just think of a verse 
     because of a certain word we pick up on in the conversation,
     because we have been reading it lately,
     because we have memorized it at some time,
or even 
     because we know the reference for it and that looks impressive to others.



We need to listen before we speak.

Have you heard that before?

Have we honed in on the real topic or just think we have?

Do we need to make sure, do we need to ask a few questions?

We need to think before we speak.

How often have we heard that before?

Are we taking a verse out of context?

Does it really have any bearing on the situation before us?

But we also need to pray before we speak.

Do we hear that as often?

Lord help us to play our proper part in conversations.

May we think and pray before we speak to add the right ingredients into the pot.

We need to listen, think and pray before we speak!

It is always better to listen carefully to the conversation and say little but make sure that what we do say is suitable, the God inspired words and not the rice instead of the barley.

St. Patrick's Day Parade in Northern Ireland - Xtra Special Day

Where is the most appropriate place to have a St. Patrick's Day Parade?

I bet your answer is Dublin because that's the capital city of Ireland.
Or perhaps you want to say New York because you have heard of the celebrations there.

I don't agree!!!!

Last year Fred & I went to the place which we believe is the most appropriate because it is the place St. Patrick is supposed to have landed nearby and also supposed to have been buried in.

The town of Downpatrick in County Down in Northern Ireland.

We had never been to any St. Patrick's Day Parade anywhere before so this was one of our Xtra Special Days


Having arrived there we got parked outside the town and followed the crowd of people until we got to a part of the town where others were already standing waiting.  We discovered this was the end of the parade route so decided to stay here also.

Soon along came the Street Performers to help to keep us entertained until the parade could make it's way through the town to our position.

Some of them threw sweets to the children

                              and one of them came right over to greet Fred.


Well because I already had the phone out to take pictures and we were getting a bit bored we resorted to one of the few selfies we have taken, some are mentioned previously in  Does My Nose Look Big in This?

Then along came the Parade.


No, correct that,  it was only the Pre-parade of Vintage Cars.

Not really a novelty around Northern Ireland as there are quite a few of these each year now.


Very shortly after that came the real thing.




The Parade

First of course we had St. Patrick and he was accompanied by two snakes.

Poor man had to walk the whole parade in his bare feet.

Then some Roman? soldiers.



Some other highlights of the parade were:

Colourful lady stilt walker.

Was this an Irish Wolfhound?

A Butterfly!


Never heard of a butterfly having anything to do with St. Patrick, but hey we like butterflies on this blog in fact  I Love Butterflies  and  I Was Going to Miss the Butterflies  and I have butterflies on mugs too 3 More Coffee Mugs  



then there was

A Pipe band.

A "Mash Direct" bus.
This is one of the good local food companies we have and I have to say their mashed turnip is great.

A DeLorean Car?

Yes a bit after the time of St. Patrick admittedly but Northern Ireland does have a link with DeLorean too.  You know a bit like our link with the Titanic.



What could you possibly have after a futuristic car?

Some Large headed characters.

A Christian Music Float.


We were delighted to see this - after all what are we celebrating St. Patrick for?


Not the shamrock,

           nor the snakes (or lack of them)

                        but for the Christianity he introduced to our island.




But then suddenly

2 Elvis impersonators??


No I know, we just could not see any connection here at all.
If you can think of one then please let me know.

And here come the Leprechauns - really?

This of course was clever and I hope not too heavy for the poor guy to carry along.

We also had two Mickey Mouse characters.

Okay we know they were there to amuse the children.

Another Pipe band.

And where else in the world would you get to see a POLICE TRACTOR  but in Northern Ireland?


Not even in the Republic of Ireland (Southern Ireland)  because it would be a Garda Tractor there.

A group of colourful children.

A Large Mushroom - presumably advertising the mushroom growing industry here.

Some more colourful children.

A Flower Giant.

A Blue stilt walker.

Another Pipe band.

A colourful dragon.

And no St. Patrick didn't slay the dragon - St. George the patron saint of England did that.

So a bit confused about the dragon but then realised he was followed by some dinosaurs and they didn't have anything to do with St. Patrick either so obviously we just enjoy colourful creatures.

Now we do have some folklore about a giant or two in Northern Ireland so to see a giant in this parade was not too unusual but riding a quad?

Although I must say I rather liked this guy.

Then we were coming near the end of the parade with another mini parade this time of Vintage Tractors  -  Fred quite enjoyed this bit as he was brought up on a farm and could remember some of them.

No I did not say my husband is vintage!

And some more very colourful people and children as the parade came to an end.


You could probably see from the pictures that it was a very cloudy, windy day and it was rather cold so Fred & I were all wrapped up in our heavy coats with gloves and scarves but regardless of the weather thousands of people came to Downpatrick to see the parade.


It was an afternoon out that was definitely not the usual for us and it was nice to walk back to the car with smiles on our faces even if they were getting red from the cold air.

Have you been to see a St. Patrick's Day Parade too?


Or are you planning to go see a St. Patrick's Day Parade in this year?


If so leave me a comment to say where you went or will be going, it will be interesting to see how many different places are covered.

Songs for Worship #9

Welcome to the Sunday Series

Last year from January to June I wrote a series on
Why We Worship  where I considered an attribute of God each Sunday.


At different times people mentioned to me about a song that a post reminded them of so I thought that I would now go through those attributes again with a song for each one.

I hope you will follow along with me.

                         Looking today at 

God is Merciful

Not Guilty Anymore

It doesn't matter what you've done;
It doesn't matter where you're coming from
Doesn't matter where you've been
Hear me tell you
I forgive

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

Can you believe that this is true
Grace abundant I am giving you
Cleansing deeper than you know
All was paid for long ago

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

There is now therefore no condemnation
For those who are in Jesus

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

You are spotless
You are Holy
You are faultless
You are whole
You are righteous
You are blameless
You are pardoned
You are mine

You're not guilty anymore
You're not filthy anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore
You're not captive anymore
I love you
Mercy is yours

You're not guilty anymore
Not guilty anymore

If you would like to see the post from last year that this is based on please click on the graphic below

The Secret of Chimneys - Book Review

I am trying to read through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and write a review on each one.


  

The Secret of Chimneys. 

1925.  
A Novel involving Inspector Battle.

Shelfari Description

A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds more than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail--and lead to the murder of a stranger who's been shadowing Anthony's every move. Discovering the dead man's identity means retracing his steps--to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.

My Thoughts

This is the sixth book by Agatha Christie.

I read this over a period of weeks and not days so I think that this gives you an immediate indication of how this one did not hook me in quickly.

Overall I found that there seemed to be too many characters for me to keep track of, yet in another way there weren't that many but some seemed too similar or well just confusing me so that when some were mentioned I had to think hard about who it actually was.

Normally I almost visualize the characters I am reading about but in this one this was not the case and having immediately got mixed up between the two guys at the start of the book I think I continued to get mixed up the whole way through.  
Perhaps however a good deal of this was due to not reading this book in consecutive ssessions but picking it up every 3/4 days and not reading too much in each sitting.
Then again maybe this was the way I read it because I was not so interested - not sure which way to fall on this.

The story was a bit far fetched for me, too many leaders/politicians and upperclass talk.

I would liken myself to Lord Catheral who is the owner of the grand house the book is named after when he expressed the desire to get away from all these people because they were not interesting to him and were more of an intrusion in his home, but then to each of them he would be the ever congenial host and friendly Lord.  Yes I was quite happy for the book to be finished and not have to read all the conversations.

Question I have to ask myself is:

Did the fact that it did not have Poirot or Miss Marple affect my enjoyment?

 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Shelfari
Books by Agatha Christie