Backyard Harvest

The apple tree is behind the chair. At the end of the season we can store the apples outside. The birds don't peck them and the ants don't find them.

In the center: the apple known as The Cannonball. I put other things around it to give some size perspective. But my camera has a wide-angle lens and makes it look smaller. Believe me, it was massive.

We have a mess of an apple tree in the backyard. It hasn’t been pruned in who knows how long. But it still produces apples. Tons of them. Some of them the birds eat. Some drop off the tree and the ants get them. Or they rot on the ground. 

But some make it all the way to being ripe, whole, not picked over. So we pick them,  try to store them, and turn them into applesauce, apple pies, and apple butter before they spoil. 

We got a couple of boxes of apples this year, including what we called “The Cannonball”. This was an apple so large, that it wouldn’t fit into the long-handled apple picker we borrowed from our landlord. I had to balance it on the top and lower it gently so I could grab it. It managed to stay unnibbled and whole because it hung precariously from the end of a branch that was far enough from other branches so the birds couldn’t reach it. It grew and grew. Well, it was an achievement to grow so large, and arrive perfectly on our table. 

And then we ate it.

Let’s see what happens next year.

Protest and Small Vacation

We tried to look large and protesty on the street opposite the Iranian Embassy. We did what we could, but what effect did we have? The Lord is the one who can save life and bless obedience to the death.

Here on the backstreets of Knightsbridge is a quaint house and a hot car. Makes you curious who lives there, doesn't it?

It was nice to have a place like the Catholic Cathedral to sit in with cool air and seats.

This happened back in September. I had heard about the protest to be made outside the Iranian Embassy for Pastor Nadarkhanni, who was on death row in Iran for not converting to Islam. I was going to meet a friend in the city later on that day anyway. I decided to join the protest.

It took me a while to find the Iranian Embassy. I came up a bit late for the start. But I prayed and sung hymns with the rest of the small crowd. It was a cloudless, hot day with the shady trees of Hyde Park behind us. Nicky Gumbel from Holy Trinity Brompton came, spoke through the bullhorn, led us in a prayer and benediction.

Then I set out to meet my friend, but I had some time still, and I used it to get utterly lost. I had been very weary of my schedule, with no real time off to lie fallow and get some perspective. So I used the time to wander and look around me and do nothing except take pictures when it moved me. I walked backstreets in an expensive part of London, way off the tourist paths. I went into the Catholic Cathedral right next to Holy Trinity Brompton, sat down, and prayed for a while. I even went to Harrod’s and looked at things too expensive. Like a museum.

Then I met my friend and we had a good talk. We turned a corner, even, and went from being okay acquaintances to being better friends.

God is so good to give times of rest and relaxation in the midst of work and burden.

A Birthday With Love

Joanie begins cutting the birthday feast.

Our friend Alexandra invited the family to her place for my birthday. She cooked, we talked together, we had a wonderful family time. Then we had to get going to be home in time for the prayer meeting.

Alexandra is almost like a mother to us. We really appreciate having family away from home. 

A Day At Osterley Park

We parked the car on the lane outside Osterley Park and walked in to the house.

The front of the house is impressive, but you enter through a little door in the cellar on the right side of the house.

An attendant in purple explains the Chinese junk model to the girls.

My sweethearts took a break on a bench in the stairwell. The strain is already taking its toll on the young ones. They are bored.

On our 25th wedding anniversary we received from some people in the church a year’s membership in the National Trust. They preserve and manage historic homes and other historic sites so that people can see what it used to be like in Great Britain. 

We went on a short visit to a nearby property, Osterley Park. It’s a mansion remodeled by Robert Adam in the 1760’s. It has one of the largest open spaces in west London. The main advantage was that it is near our house. Some family members were unenthusiastic about such a field trip. If it turned out to be unpopular we could get home quickly and do something else.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and cool. There weren’t many people around. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Nice attendants explained the function of the various implements in the kitchen, the objets d’art, the paintings, and the furniture in the rooms.

I guess the message of the place is: Some people had a lot of money and lived pretty well, until the money ran out. It makes one think about how temporary this life is. Better to have an abundant entry into the eternal home. Which has to be better designed and more beautiful. Something to really look forward to.

It’s fun to see a place like this, though, and enjoy it on a beautiful day with people we love to be with. 

Bass In The Office

There's no way to really get a sense of how big this bass is.
The neck is like a baseball bat.

When Joanie went to the Surrey Arts Instrument Hire to pick up a cello for Katie, she saw a plethora of violins, violas, and other string instruments, stacked on racks to the ceiling, and leaning in corners. “My husband would be very interested in those double basses you have,” she told the young supervisor.

“Tell him he can loan one out for free if he wants. That would do us a favor and reduce some of the clutter here,” he said.

Bass. What a cool instrument. And how expensive to get into. Not an impulse, midlife crisis thing to do, go buy or even rent a bass. No sirree, Bob.

I was very interested. 

So we went down to the Instrument Hire and picked up a bass for free. I guess they’ll call me if they need it. I was told this was the second bass he’s loaned out in three years. And he got a call from someone who said they’d opened a closet and found two more stuck away.

I guess I’m safe for now.

Now all I have to do is play it. No easy task. I know the notes, but the scale on a double bass is longer than an electric bass. You have to finger differently. And it takes STRENGTH  in your hand to play a note. Those jazz guys you see playing double bass so easily, no problemo, must be able to rip into bank vaults with their bare hands. Me not there yet. In fact, I could probably accelerate arthritis if I don’t take it easy and get the strength together slowly.

But what a cool instrument. Thank You, Lord.