The Magpie at the window. - Coffee & Conversation

Sitting at my desk in the study one morning I had a visitor.

I don't get many visitors to my study as not many people get near that room in our house because it is not very tidy most of the time.

But that day sitting in the quiet, which I enjoy as I blog and work on things for church, a Magpie perched on my windowsill and made those cute bird noises as he watched me through the glass.

I smiled and said hello, I like Magpies and we often see them in the garden but never so close to the house except for the times they perch on the roof and then run around for a while.

There was another magpie on the grass but this one had decided to sit a while at the window with me.  We usually see the two together somewhere on the grass or fence or in the trees just on the outer side of our fence.

I took a break from the computer and just watched this brave and perhaps curious magpie, it seemed so unimpressed with anything but so contented and carefree on the windowsill.

Then a few minutes later it was off again.

I realised I had not even thought to try to take a picture of it but it probably would have flown off if I had moved to get the camera.

A break of even a few minutes can be good for us.

       
Sometimes life can be too busy or we can make each day too busy.

          Always something to be thinking about or doing or planning to do.
                    Always "What needs to be done today?" or "What's next on the Todo list?"

   Anyway

I think that little break of a few minutes was good for me.

The Simplest Easter Egg Hunt! - Xtra Special Day

Last year we had our first Easter Egg Hunt.

Yes we are not young, in fact we are grandparents yet up to now I have never had an Easter Egg Hunt.

But now we are grandparents and I decided that we were going to have one.

So I planned that I would hide them all around the back garden for Matthew last year when he was 17 months old.  He was well on his feet and always full of energy and loved running around playing with nanny, grandpa, aunt or uncle or whoever would be around when he would visit our home on a dry day.

Hence my idea was to get some eggs that were a decent size for him to find easily and some Cadbury Creme eggs (really these ones would be for the grownups) and I would hide them all around the back garden.

BUT!  It wasn't a dry day.

Plans had to be changed easily and quickly so it became an indoor hunt with eggs hidden (well sometimes almost in plain view - he was very young) in the hall, lounge, sun room, and guest bedroom.  5/6 hidden in each room some easier to find than others so that he could get some by himself and so that uncle Jonathan could help him while his mum and dad had a little sit down and catch up with social media on their phones.


In the Sun Room Matthew immediately decided he would have to get into the TV unit

then he jumped around to look behind the furniture so fast that I could hardly get a picture that wasn't blurred.

With the eggs found from that room he headed off down the hallway and immediately spied one on the little flower stand there.

We had not hidden any in Fred's Office because Matthew loves to play the drums there and might have got a bit distracted but we were surprised when he didn't even ask to go into it at all.


Next was the guest room where he sometimes stays overnight or takes a little afternoon nap.

After finding one beside the teddy bear doorstop and a few others on one side of the bed he quickly ran over to the wardrobes and found one behind a briefcase.

Now there were several more still to be found in the guest room and he needed a little help for some of them as you can see in the short video.

Then back up the hallway because he thought maybe some would be upstairs and he went so quick he missed a very obvious one

so we had to call him back.

He was now so good at this hunt that he easily found the ones in the lounge and then

it was time to make sure they were all in the crystal basket (yes I hadn't thought to buy an Easter Basket so we had to improvise).

We counted the eggs to make sure he had now got all of them and he was rewarded with a few to eat straight away and the rest were put into a bag to go home with him.

Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

It was such a simple easy hunt to prepare but such fun to watch him enjoy running round and searching excitedly for each one of those tiny eggs.  

The quick, simple, inexpensive things we do together can be as much fun as big outings or more expensive adventures - we just judge things by how many laughs and smiles we hear and see because a joyful time together is an Xtra Special Time.

Smile God Loves YOU! John 3:16 - Sunday Scripture

What is good for you?

Smiling!

So we are going to smile.

Why?

Because we know God loves us.

I have a favourite mug.
Oh, ok, if you have read my blog in other years you may well have noticed I love mugs and I do have some that are special to me but this one has always been my absolute favourite.

I blogged about it in

Another Coffee Mug  -  A Dose of Encouragement


This mug is going to be my theme pic for this series because

God thinks we are special.

Why?

Because He loves us.

When we think of God loving us there is one verse that will spring to most people's minds and that is

Sometimes we skim over it because we know it so well.  

You learnt it as a child if you went to Sunday School and even people who do not read the bible regularly can quote it  (and I hope correctly because often we are all getting too casual about the Word of God and thinking we know a verse but instead we are misquoting it).

There are so many things we could say about this verse, so many key words, so much truth and hope and promise and love all poured into it.


I always like to take verses in their context so let's read over the verses surrounding this in John chapter 3

The New Birth

3 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.   14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

In verses 14 to 18 we are focused on Jesus, the love God has for all of us and the proof of it.

Not just once do we get the message of John 3 v 16 but we have it repeated in this passage.  

In fact the message of salvation is in each of those 3 verses.  

Words are repeated and phrases repeated and if God repeats something then we need to take heed because it is very important.

Then there in the middle of it all is the reason why Jesus came to die

Then there in the middle of it all is the reason why Jesus came to die -

Because God loved us so much He wanted to make a way for us 

to be able to live and not perish, 

live with Him and be in His presence 

even though none of us could ever deserve such a privilege.

The 5 Best Organising Apps

I love to try to get organised in everything I do but I'm not saying I always manage it completely.

However I really do want this year to be my best organising year in our home and other aspects of life and to help me in this I will definitely be using

My iPad is like my diary, filo fax, novel, organiser, all rolled into one and a lot more.

It goes everywhere with me and when I'm at the computer it is sitting beside it.

There are certain apps which just have to be on the first screen of the iPad and on the dock at the bottom so that I can easily open them quickly.

These would include what I consider to be the 5 best organising apps I have.

Of course if you know me any way well you will know that I like free things and all but one of these 5 apps are free.

These 5 apps keep my everyday organised, just exactly as I want it.

Spark   by   Readdle
     FREE
They have a phrase "Love your email again".
This is exactly what happened - I did fall in love with dealing with my emails again.
You really have a look at this because it has a Smart box thing for sorting out your emails as they arrive but also it senses where you will probably want to file your emails and it just looks good.






Google Keep   by   Google
     FREE  
Great for short notes, lists, messages, I use it regularly.
So easy to slip in and out for quick note and easy to add photo.
My husband and I use it for those things we need to remind each other about "buying on the way home" or things we need to "find a day to do around the house" etc. plus keep short notes for easy access later.
Syncs great to android phone and sharing with other people and you can colour code everything.






Documents    by   Readdle 
     FREE
My favourite place to download files and Pdfs to.
Quick and easy to find and open and read through my files again.
I can move files around easily and it can deal with pictures too.







Doc Scan    by    Ifunplay
     FREE
I no longer use the scanner on my printer this is just far handier, in fact I haven't even bothered to link up my new laptop to scanning software for my printer.
If is called a PDF scanner but you have the option to save as a picture too.  Printing from it and sharing from it are simple.







Things 3   by   Culture Code
     PAID
I use it every day,  and in so many different ways.
It's a ToDo app plus so much more.
You can organise everything with this app, make all your lists, have deadlines, make projects, decide when to start work on something and check things off, have repeating todos plus have notes on your todos plus more and more.

Are you looking for the 5 best organising apps for every part of your life?

I have choice between them all and within each one so to me they are ideal for all I want to do and not hard to learn to use  -  definitely the 5 best organising apps for me!

The ABC Murders - Book Review

I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.

The ABC Murders

1936

Description

Agatha Christie’s world-famous serial killer mystery, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.

There’s a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim’s corpse the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place.

Having begun with Andover, Bexhill and then Churston, there seems little chance of the murderer being caught – until he makes the crucial and vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans…

My Thoughts

This is the 25th book by Agatha Christie and the 12th Poirot Mystery


It is one of my least favourites even though Hastings is involved with Poirot for the solving of this mystery.

Miss Christie used a similar method by the murderer in this story as is Curtain and that is almost a spoiler which is unusual for me to write.
Perhaps that is why both those books are among my least favourites because I particularly do not like that kind of evil. 

Then there is another trait of the murderer that is also very evil so when the culprit is unmasked the reader has no sympathy for them at all.

She writes it full of red herrings but yet even among these all the clues are there waiting to be picked out and pieced together.  

This is one of the books that I would definitely recommend to be read before seeing the TV adaptation of it.  In fact I am a believer in any book being the real source of the story and so should always be read first but in this case I feel it really matters.

If you would like to know more about this book then click on the title or picture above.

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



If thinking of reading this book in the future why not pin this pic to go back to later.

Is Your Child Safe? - Coffee & Conversation

What is the most precious thing for a grandmother?

The answer is in the question.

A grandchild!

Our family do a lot of travelling so we have little tips we have picked up from our experiences along the way. We have lived abroad for two periods of time one in the US and one in Belgium hence giving us some regular travel and experiences with certain companies.

Up until 4 years ago we were a family of 5 - Fred and I and our 3 grown up children. Then in 2013 we became 6 with the addition of our daughter-in-law, 2 years ago we grew to 7 when our grandson was born, last year we added our son-in-law to make 8 and then 2 months ago we celebrated the birth of our granddaughter and now have to think of 9 people.

Last August we rented a house in Cornwall (south of England) to have all the family together to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary - the first time we have all spent a week together.

This meant co-ordinating travel from Banbridge and Belfast in Northern Ireland, Leeds in North England and Seoul in South Korea, not the simplest of things to do.

Flights were booked eventually and then hire cars had to be sorted out which included 2 child seats and specifics had to detailed because different ages and heights are taken into consideration for the right seat to ensure the safety of each child.  So we got our son Daniel to get all the info right for booking the car seats along with the hire cars.

Unfortunately when we got there HERTZ did not have the right seats for us and one of the seats they were giving us was partly broken.  We suggested they ask the other car hire place beside there's to help out with a seat but they didn't have any suitable either.  This was on a Saturday afternoon and the Car Hire was closing down soon and we were stuck.

In the end we had to drive to our destination (over an hour away) with the two seats they had for us putting one seat in each car and have someone sit beside each child.  The arrangement then was that on the Monday Daniel and Fred would buy a new seat and drive back to the airport to return the two seats from the Car Hire and get one replacement seat.

Then after the holiday was over we had the job of trying to get the proper refund and compensation for what had happened and that was not easy or quick.

Although we had booked the right seats with the original reservation, the Car Hire company either could not be careful enough to get the right seats or just didn't know it really mattered but to us our grandchildren really mattered.

Are your children important and kept safe by others?

So to parents and grandparents
Please watch out if you are travelling and need child seats in your hire car to ensure that the ones they are giving you are right for your children.

And to the Car Hire Companies
Please train your workers to know more about child safety and to show concern when there may be a problem because we did not see any evidence of those two things from the employees we spoke with.

A Good Kind of Fear - A Dose of Encouragement

I have never forgotten that day.

The day when I asked the question and my mother didn't really know how to answer me.

Have you ever been afraid?

I was lying in bed supposed to be going to sleep, younger than 9 years old (but not sure how much younger), when I decided to call her.

In my memory it was not dark in the bedroom because she didn't need to put the light on when she opened the door, so it must have been springtime or summertime when it stays lighter later in the evenings in Northern Ireland even up until 11pm.

So darkness had nothing to do with my fear.

It was a simple question I wanted to ask her but she did not find the answer so simple.

I was the youngest in the family, although in saying that there were only the two siblings, my sister and I, and she was 10 years older than me so I was always referred to as the wee one and often (I felt) not taken too seriously by my parents, sister and grandmother who lived with us.

You see that evening as I lay there I was afraid, there was something I just did not want to happen, something I could not imagine happening but I needed to know more about it.

I was thinking about death,

but it was not "death" that scared me.  

Possibly I wasn't really old enough to consider how people died and that there may be tragic events or illnesses to lead up to their deaths because none of that was on my mind.

The fear I had was not about my body but about that part of me, that part inside, the part I could not imagine ever not being in existence.  You know the part of me that was actually doing this thinking. The part that could experience this fear.  The part that could understand some things but not all things.

When I asked her what would happen to that part of me when I would die she was quiet with no immediate reply. Then she told me not to worry about anything to do with death because I was "too young" to be thinking about it.

Now I don't remember all the details or how much time elapsed from then until the time when I knew I wanted/needed to get saved but I do know that my sister always got bible notes to read each day and she decided to get a children's version so that she could read the bible passage to me and then the notes.  To make sure that I was paying attention she would then ask me questions about the passage.  However even though she was taking care of a need I had to know about Jesus and read God's Word she also declared I was "too young" when I told her I wanted to get saved.

Thankfully I was not overcome by this fear of what would happen to what I felt was the "real me" after death, however it was always there drawing me in to ponder over it.

We need to be thankful for the fear that leads us in the right direction

I may not even have known to pray about this but God knew the "real me" and He was in control and not too long after this He led me to the night when I was not told I was "too young" but instead I was encouraged to pray asking forgiveness and accepting that Jesus had died in my place so that I could live.

Yes me the "real me" could live forever.

I was afraid when I was young, but I didn't remain afraid, God has taken that fear away.

I still do not understand everything about what it will be like after death but I have no need to fear because I know for a certainty that the "real me" will remain and be transformed in the presence of Jesus.  Because I have come to realise that not all fear is bad.

I came to realise that not all fear is bad

We need to be thankful for the fear that leads us 

in the right direction

 because

 it's a good kind of fear.

Everyone's Irish on March 17th

Who can forget St. Patrick's Day?

I was brought up in Northern Ireland and I wouldn't forget it.


Of course I knew all about St. Patrick!


He was the guy who drove all the snakes out of Ireland so I was happy about that as I absolutely hate snakes - I Don't want to Pet a Snake

He was the Patron Saint of Ireland and the missionary responsible for bringing the Gospel to the country so I was also very happy about that.

He was ....., 
                      He was .....,  
                                            He was .............

      Well to be honest I actually wasn't too well versed on 

                                  St. Patrick himself.

     I had always heard of him and knew that the shamrock was somehow associated with him, there were cathedrals named after him, and people outside Ireland thought that everyone was called Paddy because of him.

The Shamrock

     I didn't really need to know too much about him when I was young, or maybe I just didn't pay enough attention.


     When I went to University in Belfast in the late 70's I realised that St. Patrick's Day was used by a lot of people as an excuse to go and have a "Good Drink?" but that didn't interest me either.

In 1992 we moved to The US to live in the state of Delaware for 3 years due to my husband's work.

All I had known about Delaware before that was the song "What did Del-a-ware Boy" that I had often heard my older sister play when I was a child.  But because we were going to live there we soon learned some other things about the lovely second smallest state in America and its great location between places like Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington DC. so people would have places to go when they came to visit us.

We loved all the new things we could experience in America, the snowy winters, the hotter summers, and the American accent.  In America our children were always being referred to as the Irish kids but after our return to NI our daughter was referred to as the American girl because she had picked up an American accent.

While we were in America we just couldn't believe the reaction of everyone to us - even strangers in the supermarket who would come up to us and say

"Oh I just love your accent, say something"

what were we supposed to say?

"Hello" ?

                                                                                                           and then what?

People would make all sorts of statements about loving Ireland and wanting to go there,

  

or tell us they were half or a quarter or even a sixteenth Irish themselves

or ask us if we had been to various Irish pubs yet

                                   

While we lived in America we heard about the St. Patrick's Day parades in New York and Boston.

They seemed to be very elaborate and of course our children were hearing all about St. Patrick's Day from the kids at school.  It was rather surprising to us that Americans would be so excited about the day of the Saint of another country.  We also realised that it was much more commercialised than back in Northern Ireland.

There was so much talk about the St. Patrick's Day parades and events in America yet we had never been to a St. Patrick's Day parade but that wasn't surprising as there was not a lot of information or advertising of any parades in Belfast or Dublin before we went to live in America.

When I did some research recently I discovered that there have been parades in 

Boston and New York for many, many years. 

It is believed that the first St. Patrick's Day Parade in Boston was as early as 1737

and the first in New York was is 1762.

St. Patrick's Day Parades old and new in New York

Click HERE & HERE for more info on St. Patrick's Day

However as far as I have been able to find out St. Patrick's Day Parades have only been held in Belfast since 1998

In Dublin they started in 1931 but they were simple parades 

and the First St. Patrick's Day Festival in Dublin was in 1996.

Please let me know if you have any other information that would indicate earlier parades - I feel that there may have been some smaller ones perhaps not nearly as elaborate as the ones they have now

Belfast (left)     and     Dublin (right)

Since our years in Delaware we lived back home in Northern Ireland for 9 years and then went to live outside Brussels in Belgium for over 6 years.

In Belgium it was almost like being back in the US when it came round to March each year.  Suddenly everyone was telling us about any connections they might have with Ireland and there was lots of talk about St. Patrick's Day, the Irish, and

"GREEN BEER"

After Belgium we returned to Northern Ireland but moved to the town of Banbridge in County Down this time.  

Also in County Down is the town of Downpatrick which contains the burial site of St. Patrick.

See a map of the area here

 Banbridge is not too far from Downpatrick and it is also not far from the city of Armagh where I remember many years ago when I was a child spending a lovely summer's day seeing the two beautiful Cathedrals there named after St. Patrick.  

A few years ago Fred & I finally went to our first St. Patrick's Day Parade and where better to go than to the one in Downpatrick, although I did not have the opportunity to see his resting place at that time my husband, son and I did drive back one day last year to do just that. 

Downpatrick Parade

See more info & photos of the Downpatrick Parade here

So no matter where we go in the world we meet someone who claims to be Irish, 
                   
or that their great great great grandmother was Irish 
                                      
and they also think they know more about the Irish than the Irish people do themselves.

We always hear others talking a lot about St. Patrick's Day and now everywhere I go on the internet, especially at the moment on Pinterest and hosts of US blogs there are recipes and greeting cards and crafts and printables and clipart all with more than a "Hint" of GREEN  


But there seems to be so much confusion between St. Patrick's Day and some myths about Ireland with lots of rainbows, pots of Gold, and leprechauns appearing in the parades and crafts and printables. 

These things make it more commercially appealing; but at the same time a lot of the St. Patrick's Day things are now omitting the man himself and the reason he is our Patron Saint, he brought the Good News of God's Salvation to the country of Ireland.

See more info on St. Patrick here

 But how can anyone forget 17th March?

Banner Thanks to Free Downloads from InstantDisplay.co.uk

Well not even Commander Chris Hadfield could forget it while up in space taking and tweeting all his great pictures of the world.  He took a great shot of my home town of Londonderry and of course he had the "Touch" of GREEN as well.

Commander Chris Hadfield & Londonderry

I had never seen a greeting card for St. Patrick's Day or buns (cupcakes) with green colouring added to the icing etc. specifically for St. Patrick's Day until I became a blogger and now it is hard to miss them with such a variety of ideas for crafts and recipes.

My husband suggested I add my own St. Patrick's day recipe but really he was just thinking of his favourite "wee green things" which is his name for the Peppermint Chocolate Tray Bakes I make for him.
I have to admit they are so yummy that they are quite addictive even for me and I am not usually keen on mint. 

If you are interested in St. Patrick and would want to learn more you may find some interesting books Here on Amazon

And even some books for kids about St Patrick  Here on Amazon



Oh, and just in case you still don't believe me that everyone is Irish on March 17th then what about this

Caption found in A Guinness Storehouse

Disclaimer:
I am NOT an Amazon affiliate so do not benefit from anything bought there from the links above.