Dean and Paula in Blighty, autumn 2025
Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering
Our beloved Palace - FA Cup winners 2025
The Gathering
Baptising in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Leaders preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen
Soup Kitchen Xmas lunch
Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng
Thankful Thursdays.JPG)
HOPE Home Based Care Team
Gathering Ground
The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Today is Youth Day, a public holiday here in South Africa in which we remember the senseless slaughter of over 100 children and the thousand plus who were injured in Soweto by the apartheid regime as the kids protested against the then new law forcing them to be taught in Afrikaans rather than their own indigenous languages.
Sadly this day is barely acknowledged in the Western world and the first time we heard of it was in 1998 when we were in Tanzania, where today is celebrated as the International Day Of The African Child. Personally I prefer this more internationally minded celebration of the day, it feels more positive and more outward looking.
Whether you pick this book up because your magpie instincts are drawn the joyously attention grabbing cover, or because the subject matter piqued your interest; be prepared to enter a London you know little if anything about. A London that is riveting, absorbing and at Tom's hands, totally accessible, even if in reality most of it isn't.
This popped up on the socials, and eleven years on it's funnier than ever.
Quite how they could claim that "the bible guarantees it" is a mystery given that Jesus himself said "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven".
This billboard was plastered in the middle of the Helderberg for months, but funnily enough it disappeared very shortly after 21 May 2011.
It got truly spectacular as the rising sun just clipped the top of the moon on its way down making for some stunning views of it all.
Riding along the beachfront promenade is always a pleasant ride, but when there's such an amazing natural spectacle adding to the beauty of the place it takes on a whole different level of spectacular.
In fact they went even further and declared that Cape Town is "the greatest city in the world to visit right now". High praise indeed!
However, Cape Town wasn't ranked as the #1 city due to its appalling murder rate, which was one of the criteria taken in to consideration for each city considered.
I'll just say it up top... this was my best A to Z Challenge yet and it was for one simple reason; I had a plan for the whole series of posts which took so much pressure off.
The other thing that made this a lot more fun than previous years was that I had all my posts scheduled to post well ahead of time. In fact the closest I ever got to being close to the actual posting date was with Y & Z both of which were completed just two days before posting.
Now I'm not renowned for being the most organized person on the planet but having a clear plan & schedule really helped me and I would heartily recommend it to anyone else participating in the A2Z Challenge.
Arthur Gould Lee wrote the book based on letters he sent to his wife Gwyneth Ann, and diary entries he wrote whilst stationed in France in 1917 serving as a fighter pilot with the Royal Flying Corps (R.F.C.).
Subsequent to the war he was able to add in previously classified information and together this gives the book an amazingly in depth but humane account of what it was like to be on active service at that time.
Well done to all the A2Zers who made it this far.
Ω (Omega) is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, so there's no cheating going on here.
I've been after Paul Simon's The Rhythm Of The Saints on vinyl for ages, it seems to be quite hard to find and the only previous copy I had seen was missing its original inner sleeve. I'm quite particular like that!
The wait was worth it because the album did not disappoint and it's just as good as I remember it being back in the day.
As a sport it is about as old as men's boxing but it has been derided, ridiculed, marginalised, mocked and banned in most countries for far too long. The boom in the sport as we know it today really began in the 1990s in the USA as women were becoming more prominent in other sports such as baseball and basketball. It's quite difficult to find any serious reportage of women's boxing prior to this because it just wasn't taken seriously and was often a sideshow at traveling circuses or conducted in less than salubrious venues.
I've now placed steel plates along the length of the door and made sure they're as tight to the floor as possible.
On the corners I've bent two separate plates to fit with a flap sticking out to prevent any attempts at limbo by the mice.
I think I can say with confidence that I've won the battle here, and if they do chew through they probably deserve to be there.
Vasily Lomachenko (Loma) is a double Olympic champion and three-weight world champion who has been described as the best pound for pound boxer of all time, and I'm not in a position to argue with that. I love the guy!
The unorthodox stance actually applies to any stance that isn't right handed, so it covers any other stance including the southpaw stance, but today most people in boxing would understand the term to mean a southpaw or left handed fighter.
The mice come in through the shop next door's storeroom at the back, but they don't realise there's a problem because they have a cat which keeps the mice pretty invisible on their side.
Quite why the mice bother coming through to our premises, and what it is they find so exciting is a mystery as all our Soup Kitchen foodstuffs are in plastic tubs as is pretty much everything else, so the pickings for them are quite slim.
Despite this however, things are getting out of hand for both ourselves and for the launderette next door.
So this post is a rant for Coach Cris whose most recent fight was wrongly declared as a TKO win for his opponent.
Hold on tight because this is a disgraceful story in which certain players should hang their heads in shame...
Sparring has to be one of the most fun things I've ever done.
It took quite a while from first stepping in to the boxing gym to stepping in to the boxing ring, but the minute I did I was hooked.
The very first time I stepped in to the ring was with Coach Cris who was very gentle and patient with me and helped me to control my temper, it's natural to get angry when you've been hit!
Paula went out and as she did so I was about to get in the shower when I heard a strange hissing noise. Initially I thought it was coming from her car, so I quickly threw my clothes back on and went out to check all was OK, but Paula had long gone, but what was that noise?!?
Respect is earnt goes the old adage, and whilst there's an element of truth in this, it also suggests that there's a time for disrespect, and I'm not so sure about that.
One of my proudest achievements as a Dad is to have raised two sons who understand the power and significance of respecting others, and I love that throughout their entire school careers we had endless comments from teachers about how respectful they both were. I've drilled my sons on respect and they know that respect is given, whether it is earnt or demanded is irrelevant.
