Having managed to have two separate incidents of "oh crap, we've forgotten to order Advent candles" this year, I have been very impressed with the speed of delivery.

He's great. After being extremely sceptical of the whole concept of HE - we had some huge rows when I wanted to go to uni - his 3 kids now have 7 (soon to be 8) degrees between us, and he finished an OU degree last year. ("If you kids have all got them, how hard can it be?" lol)

I appreciate my Dad's approach to the fact that all his kids are living lives that are pretty much incomprehensible to him. Whenever someone shares an achievement he says "I'm not sure what that means, but does it make you happy? Then I'm really pleased." And he really is. Pleased and baffled.

They really are! They don't (yet) snuggle up together, but they love playing together and often just like to hang out near each other, either awake or asleep.

Very true. And don't they know it!

Here are my best cats (in fairness, they are also my only cats).

Somebody said "you would't even fit in the cupboard with your name on" and before I hed properly engaged my brain, I heard the words "yes I would" coming out of my mouth. So then I had to prove it. Obviously.

Nobody ever expected me to get into it! Although I did once, just to prove to my youth group that I could.

When I was a parish youth worker, most of the church kitchen cupboards were labelled 'plates', 'bowls', etc. Except for the one that was labelled 'Ruth' 🤔

Struggling to think of how crumble could be *not* quick and simple?!? Isn't that just... how crumble is? (As with 90% of my cooking I don't use a recipe for crumble, so maybe there is a whole world of slow and complicated crumbles out there of which I am blissfully unaware.)

Unspeakably grim. Truly, I do not know how any of us summon the strength to go on, in the face of such grimness.

Jonathan Tallon 'Affirmative: why you can say yes to the Bible and yes to people who are LGBTQI+' is an excellent and very accessible book.

Well now I am pondering which zoo animal would be appropriate to represent various prominent Anglican theologians...

What a lovely round Daphne. Here is a long Daphne.

It's a lovely idea! Methodist Ministers do have a set length of book shelving to which they are entitled in their Manse, but even that doesn't come with a yearly increase.

Sadly we do not (if only!)

(Full disclosure: I am the 'friend' who drew Mike's attention to this (mis)use of his work by FAOC. And now that I have seen this powerful response, I am very glad I did.)