Benny junior had a party on Saturday evening for about 12 friends as a farewell to the Cotswolds. (Though he’ll still be going to the same school after we’ve moved 15 miles down the road.) It went well, but teenagers, you can never predict them can you? Normally a dozen or so teenagers would be like a herd of locusts (or whatever the collective noun is) descending wouldn’t they? So we catered accordingly. They hardly ate anything but sat round drinking Woodpecker cider (strictly rationed!) and munched a few Pringles.
What amazed us was the choice of music. One friend of Junior’s brought an amplifier and speakers which they could plug their MP3 players into. And the music on their MP3s was all stuff of our era - Bowie, Whitesnake, T Rex, Jimi Hendrix. (Though sadly no Led Zep!) The 3 or 4 teenage girls wanted to play some of their (contemporary) stuff but thankfully the boys wouldn’t let them. So Mrs D and I sat in the lounge out of the way with a glass of wine listening to the music, while they all chatted in the garden. Weird!
We went to see the manse last week and empty it seems so much bigger (the previous people had loads of stuff.) The dining room is a bit small that’s all. All in all it’s good.
It’s only 5 weeks until we move now. I’ve not been in work today (and I finish work on Friday anyway) so have been doing some painting around the house getting it ready for out tenant. So it’s now beocming very real.
This week inevitably has been lots of good-byes to colleagues and business contacts. I went out to lunch with a colleague from Bristol yesterday. She’s a Christian (albeit by her own admission not a very devote Catholic) and she’s been very interested in what I’ve been doing. She comes from Kingswood so is very knowledgeable about John Wesley and George Whitfield. In fact she told me about a special beacon commemorating where Wesley preached on Hanham Mount. I’d never heard of it but I found out all about it on the web.
I’m dreading Friday. Not the leaving but the inevitable presentation and fuss. I don’t like being the centre of attention and being on the receiving end of thank you’s, though I am the life and soul of the party normally. I think there was something in my Myers Briggs stuff about why I don’t like being thanked. Any ideas?
