Monty’s starting to say the same prayer at our morning devotions:

“Thankyou God for Mummy, Daddy, Poppy, Barty, aeroplanes, spidermans, combine havesters, dinosaurs, Bob the Builder and my norman shoes. Amen.”

Great.

S.

It’s the end of a special weekend with our American friends Joy and Nate... castles, stories, chilling out, walks by the sea, Poppy’s dancing (the live show) introducing them to the village and sharing great times over Sandra’s incredible food. It was also great having them come to our little church today and introducing them to the vicar, Father Timothy.

Yesterday we all went to Arundel Castle and had lunch in a restaurant that dated back to the early 1100’s. I always appreciate our history when I see it from the perspective of my American friends.

But they fly home to Nashville tomorrow and we’re all going to miss them hugely. Poppy couldn’t get to sleep tonight because she was so upset about them leaving. I explained that we’ll be seeing them sometime over the next 6 months (probably) but that wasn’t enough for her... she wanted them to stay another day and was trying every possible idea she could think of to make it happen.

I know the last 6 weeks in Europe has been a life-changing experience for our dear friends but the time we’ve had with them at the end of their grand tour has been so precious for us too.

Pls come back soon,

S. 

We've Joy (Williams) and hubby Nate coming to stay with us at the end of the week... needless to say we're all looking forward to it... no one more so than Poppy who's given Joy's 'New Day' her own personal song of the year award (in true GMA Week style).

Here's a taster of how much she's enjoying it...

S.
 

Can someone please make me one of these?

S.

I’m sitting on my bed in a hotel in Potenza, deep in the south of Italy. I’m on City business, visiting the operations of an oil company I’m profiling for the financial markets in London. It feels very grown up. But it’s been a crazy couple of days, having been picked up from Rome airport by a driver in a black S-Class, cruising through the Italian countryside after a brief presentation in the company’s HQ in the center of Rome and then visiting one of their rigs offshore (the GH Galloway in the Adriatic Sea). Tomorrow we look at some more kit before a roundup and flying home.
 
Can’t wait to be back home but I must admit this has been more fun than I thought it would be. Highlights were:

• Being lifted by crane to get on and off the 50m (150 foot) rig – that’s me in the white CSI lookalike uniform
• The first espresso each morning
• Catching up on some American TV shows on my iPod
• Getting to actually finish the latest Seth Godin book in one go
• Whizzing past some amazing landscapes with poppy fields and vinyards on our tour
• Italian food (it’s all just wonderful), and
• Feeling like I’m making some progress with this project.

Looking forward to getting back to Sa and the kids. And my day job. Even tho every barrel of oil these guys produce is another $100 in the bank for them, the songs I write with my wonderful cowriters are worth a million times that to me.

S.

"When it comes to the origin of the world (creation vs evolution) the discussion is not about the facts – we are all looking at the same facts. It’s just different interpretations – two different starting points (axioms/presuppositions).

If you start with man’s interpretation you are not going to end up with God’s truth. That’s why it’s important to start and end with the Bible."

Extract from Simon's notes from Ken Ham talking about 'From the goo to you via the zoo', 4th April 2008, London 

S.

So, according to George Soros, total subprime losses are running at US$1trillion? That’s more than the GDP of countries like Australia, Russia or India. It’s not far off 10% of total US GDP.  Huh.
 
What amazes me is how easily US$1trillion could be 'created' in the first place. You could feed the whole world with pizza for that. Maybe for a month or two. How about that... world pizza day courtesy of Goldman Sachs. Nice

City Editor, Simon’s blog.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present my guest blogger:

Mr Tony Wood.

S.

+++++

Hi y’all, it’s Tony here. I had to come across the pond to escape the jibes and somewhat justified charges from my writer colleagues that I don’t blog. Guess I wanted to do it over here first in calmer waters to see how it feels. In a safe place if you like. Because, well, no one reads Simon’s blog right?

Today I want to talk about being a father of girls. Because if you ever see a man with a resigned “ok-ok-if-you-feel-THAT-strongly-I’ll-buy-it-for-you” look on his face, the chances are he is a father of girls. And I should know. I have four. Don’t get me wrong, they are all wonderful and I thank God each day that they are who they are. But sometimes I walk past the mirror hanging in our hallway and see that exact expression on someone’s face and wonder ‘who in the world is that poor soul?’. Then I realize it’s me. So I thought I'd write a song about it (sung to the tune of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot).

Chorus:
Gi-ii-ve me, your heavy wallet
Come on Daddy - buy me more clothes
Gi-ii-ve me, your heavy wallet
I’ll spend it all before we go home

I looked over Target, and what did I see
Come on Daddy buy me more clothes
A band of boyfriends a-runnin’ after me
Come on Daddy buy me more clothes

Repeat chorus

If you get to the check out before I do
Come on Daddy buy me more clothes
Tell my sisters to come along too
Come on Daddy buy me more clothes

There we are. A song for all fathers of girls. Or maybe it's more for all girls of fathers. But thank you Simon for letting me hang out in your space for a day. That was fun. My invoice is in the post.

Think I might try Belinda's tomorrow.

Yours,

Tony Wood.

Let's see if this works:

Well so much for my predictions of having shaken off winter. I’ve never had snow on my birthday. After Christmas and Easter you’d think that spring was a dead cert. But after my birthday breakfast today the heavens opened and sprinkled a blanket of white snow about 2 inches thick across Felpham. We wore wellies to church for the first time, made a snow man in the garden and threw snowballs before my birthday lunch. Just crazy.

In many ways it made it the perfect day… there’s something wonderful about seeing your children playing in the snow. It will be the way I remember birthday 2008.

Thanks everyone for the emails, snail-mails, cards and presies. If you want to know how old I am just ask Moo. He tells everyone. The number is about twice the age I feel.

S.

This week has been nuts. Think we’ve all finally shaken off our assorted bugs. I don’t know if it’s because it’s spring but there’s a feeling of hope returning to the south coast… like, maybe the worst of the winter storms, colds, horizontal rain and grey skies might be over. The other three seasons are generally wonderful here. Especially summer.

I went to see one of my all-time heroes speak in London on Friday… Ken Ham, CEO of ‘Answers In Genesis’… the organisation behind the $27m Creation Museum in Kentucky. We went there last summer a couple of months after it was opened and they had already beaten their annual budget for visitors. It’s an amazing place.

And last night Ken was on fire… and I actually got to meet him afterwards. It was in Westminster Chapel, where I once sang in a memorial service for another Bible teacher who I know would have applauded pretty much every word that Ken spoke last night. Here’s a taster…

“Isn’t it ironic that Charles Darwin is buried in the foundations of Westminster Abbey, when he has been one of the people who has done the most damage to the foundations of the Church?”

And it continued like that.

Wonder if I wrote down enough song ideas to deduct the train fare?!

S.

When I worked in the City we used to joke about 'bug season': the time from September thru March when everyone caught colds. Bug season was believed to be the net effect of covert germ terrorism... like, Saddam put out germ A that was countered by the British government putting out germ B that was countered by ... etc. You get the picture. The London underground (the tube) was where each side was supposed to let their respective germs out into the population.

Now I know there are a million reasons why this is just silly. But you can't help thinking there might be something behind it.

So why oh why, now that we're living miles away from the theatre of operations (London), does the whole of the Hawkins household have some sort of ailment? And anyway, it's APRIL! Of course Sandra and I have the worst. All of us have been to the quack, although Pops and I are the only ones with trophies (antibiotics).

So, does this qualify me for an afternoon snooze?


S.

P.S. thanks for the email/other responses to making it work... I'm beginning to think there's a book in there somewhere!