Will Dig Life

And here we are again - Vienna, my hometown, all summer long. This time we flew from Heathrow... I would choose the train again, as would the kids, but it's three times the cost for a single journey than it is to fly there and back. I just can't do that. We arrived at nearly midnight and my sister was there to let us into the flat. The next morning was Sunday, and I had already scoped out the nearest parish church, St Florian: rebuilt after the war in a modern style that I really like, though I'm not fond of the Tabernacle being placed in a random spot at the side of where the congregation sits - it's hard to know where to bow to!  The kids had a little table there and met a lovely little Iranian girl. In their little spot at the side Loving the old organ They have abandoned the big altar at the back, using an odd  wooden contraption closer to the congregation instead... Monday morning was off to dance camp - the jump-right-in experience where the kids spent every day ...

I've always been full on. My sister asked me recently: can't you relax about things a bit? My friend in college once said to me: there's nothing humble about your opinions. My housemates in Winchester had a saying: don't ask S for her opinion, because you'll get it! Always intense. I won't write that I'm ' too ' opinionated... because I really don't think I ought to apologise for who I am. But anyone who knows me, knows: I'm not ambivalent about many things. As Captain Kathryn Janeway once said when asked for her thoughts - you've come to the right place, I always have an opinion!  Frankly I do think I'm getting mellower than I used to be, certainly more humble about the fact that I may not have all the information there is - but yeah, I'm still largely either all in or all out. Either hot or cold.  As readers of this blog know, that doesn't mean I can't change my thinking...  I went vegan at 18 for the animals, was a ver...

My last post about our journey in Catholicism is now nearly two years old ( The Circle Completed: How I became Catholic, kind of again ) and much has happened. After a few recent milestones, it feels like it's time for an update, along with some more thoughts on the whole process. N(8)'s First Holy Communion - with our Priest, Father Colin. In the other post, I talked about why I returned to the Church - at that time, the children had been baptised and Mr. was in RCIA (the year of preparation for becoming Catholic).  We had already done our research, of course, so RCIA wasn't so much about learning new information as it was to get to know the parish and the priest, making connections. Another man in our group turned out to be a convert from a very similar background as us - a small evangelical church close to us, where I had taken the kids for toddler groups in the past. I already knew his wife and daughter from those groups. His wife, like me, had also been a poorly catech...

He was counting down the sleeps, just like at Christmas. When will I be seven?? It's such a sweet, exciting age. So let me tell you a bit about this boy in our family. At Legoland, where we went for his birthday I didn't grow up with boys - I have a sister and four female cousins. So to some extent, boys were a bit of a foreign territory to me... and I never realised just how full of my own ideas I was, until he came along and smashed many of them. Tender Fire That, I think, is the best way I can describe him - his tenderness of heart makes me feel incredibly protective, he takes everything to heart and is easily hurt - he's not learned to harden his heart in protective defense as I did early on. And I marvel at how straightforwardly, fiercely and openly he just loves. Me, in particular. I know I have his heart, completely and trustingly given to me; and the responsibility of that is both terrifying and beautiful. He always wants me in his life. Given a choice, he will alw...

Someone once said, try not to learn anything at all for a day.... you can't! And certainly kids learn all the time. All. The. Time. I love watching it. In our lives, kids being the ages that they are, learning is everywhere and interwoven with everything. They learn organically, there's never a day when they don't learn - and as such, everything we do is educational. My job is to provide the opportunities; their job is to marvel and wonder.  Little things... From bugs, which are D(6)'s favourite thing at the moment, to how sand feels between the toes and what it's made of, everyday activities and experiences are sources of wonder - just as much as trips to the library or figuring out the times tables. It's all learning. At the library Times Tables Trips near and far Our big travels are chronicled elsewhere - Kenya in the past, Spain, the yearly six weeks spent in Vienna, the upcoming travels to Sweden and Norway will all have their own posts. But those are big, ...