Tonight Sue and I went out to our local book shop and participated in the weekly quiz. Just the two of us.

Until recently this adventure would have required a specially choreographed dance involving a trusted baby-sitters and numerous conversations with Emily to reassure her that everything was going to be OK.

We are now fortunate enough to have a son who is old enough to look after his younger sister. Not only is he old enough, but the two of them get on well enough for us to be confident that there will be no blood on the carpet when we return.

Thanks kids.

I went out to the gym this morning before starting work. I don’t shower at the gym, so got back wonderfully sweaty and just a little smelly (I seem to be sweating a lot more than I used to).

On arriving at home, I jumped into the shower for a wash. When I got out of the shower I put on clean clothes. This wasn’t a special occasion, putting on clean clothes is something I do quite regularly (too regularly for the washing machine sometimes).

We have a saying in our household: “You can tell how good a day it’s been by the state of your clothes”. Muddy clothes symbolise a great day. We are fortunate to be able to make such a statement. We don’t worry about messy clothes because they can soon made made clean again.

Just before we went on holiday our washing machine broke down and we had to rely upon the generosity of friends. Our friends were wonderfully generous, but it was still a hassle.

Now we have a new washing machine (7Kg load, no less) the hassle has been reduced significantly, but I wanted to remind myself that this situation is a luxury. So many people live in situations where such luxury is only a dream.

One of the things I love about being on holiday is that I reconnect with how big the sky is.

It helps, of course, when you are sat on a beach where the sky seems so much bigger anyway. Sometimes it’s like the sky and the ocean are merged together to form a single complete continuation. Sometimes though the ocean reflects the sky so that it forms a funnel.

While we were in France we saw some fabulous skies.

One day we went out to Chateau de Dinan which is a huge rock formation sticking out into the Atlantic. It’s only connection to the mainland is a huge stone arch. It’s like it is defiantly saying “attack me if you dare”. There is nothing between these rocks and America, other than Atlantic Ocean. As I looked out the sky felt huge.

Another day we went to Quiberon. Quiberon is a peninsula that sticks several miles out. As we traveled that day the sky was low and it was raining. Our hopes of a good day weren’t high as we sat under the shelter of the car’s estate boot for lunch. The sky certainly wasn’t big then. Being true Brits though, we stuck with it. It was still raining when we decided to go swimming despite the cold and the rain. As we entered the water the rain stopped and the sky started to expand and grow. At one point a huge black cloud stretched out in front of us like some huge space ship inspecting the small planet beneath it. At others the sun broke through to reveal the true expanse of the sky.

The other night Sue and I were out late in the Lake District with friends (that’s another story). The Moon was up and the stars were shining. We decided that there was still adventure to be had and things to be seen so we headed up Kirkstone Pass to be as far away from light as possible. The Stars and the Moon gave another view of the vastness of the sky.

When I was younger the vastness of the sky used to make me feel small and insignificant. When I became a Christian I saw the sky differently, I saw that the vastness of the sky was a confirmation of God’s great love. God could have chosen to completely disregard this tiny little planet in the middle of the vastness of universes, but He didn’t. God chose to send Jesus to this earth for this people. That makes this earth and this people massively significant.