And Here She Is.

Violet Is Coming!

Adriel is having her daughter Violet even as I speak!
This is terribly exciting for me. The last time that someone was having a child in my immediate circle I was five and not alerted to the fact until all the exciting bits were over... Nor would I have understood them if they had been, in all fairness. I did get a lot of cheap comes-with-the-bouquet candy on the next day, though, which I probably won't get this time round. Hmmm.
Now the question is - what clever, endearing, sentimental and meaningful, yet inexpensive gift should I get little Violet Joy - of weight and time yet unknown - when she is finally cut free, wiped off and breathing air? Something, perhaps, that aludes playfully to her name? Or maybe something supremely practical (like wiping clothes), would bespeak my sympathy and understanding better?
I really should have worked this out a while ago.
This is really ridiculously exciting.

American Thanksgiving.

Joel and Adriel are Americans.

So every year, they invite all their English friends and any Americans who are missing home to an absolutely massive Thanksgiving feast on American Thanksgiving. There was turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie (a phenomenon not heard of in Britain; everyone raved about the exotic dessert!), and lots of cornbread and gravy.

But since thirty people had to be fed, Joel and Adriel have been working for a week or more to get all the food prepped. We made seven pies - I got to do the part when you hold the pie in the air, and then run a knife around the edge to cut all the extra pastry off, which was very fun. Joel put the two monstrous turkeys in vats to soak in a special brine overnight to made them uber-moist and flavourful. And Adriel made a sweet potatoe casserole with marshmallows on top, which I told her was weird, but she said -'No, it's not weird, it's different. You are the foreigner here, my girl.'. My job was mostly goforing - I would go for any thing that they needed from the store, which proved challenging sometimes; my search for cornmeal finally took me to a speciality Indian food mart.

Most of the prep work was done at Joel and Adriel's flat, but the actual meal was going to be served at St Lukes, the church that we attend. St Lukes is up a very big hill. Lugging large amounts of carbohydrates up a hill is almost a legimate excuse for eating excessive amounts of carbohydrates. Almost.

But the meal was so worth it! We ate in the sanctuary of this beautiful old church lit only with candles. A lot of the people who came were not Christians; you could tell when they came in they were a little freaked out by the fact that they were in a church, but as the evening progressed, they relaxed and opened up in the warm atmosphere. That was lovely to see.

Joel and Adriel very specifically planned this as not only a time of fellowship, but of outreach. The popular conception of the Church is that it is a club of supercilious hypocrites who condemn and hate anyone opposed to them, and many people in this city have been hurt personaly in their experience of the church. So the fact that we - an oddly assorted mix of missionaries, agnostics, homosexuals, and christians and hedonists - enjoyed a lovely meal and shared jokes and anecdotes and good fellowship in the sanctuary of a church for hours and hours was a wonderful and marvellous thing, that I am convinced only God could bring about.

One of the things that Brighton needs most is unity; most of the churches don't do a lot of things together, and most view the others suspiciously. The same may be said of the people of Brighon, so this meal was especially apropos.

It was a wonderful night. But I don't think that I am tempted to start celebrating American Thanksgiving in Canada; two turkeys in one month are too much for me.

Now, the dishes are still to be reckoned with...

Gnome Culling

Today, while I was at the homeless drop-in centre called Off The Fence, just chatting and getting to know the chaps there, I met a gentleman named Steve, who is a volunteer there, and he told me about an interesting (and in my opinion, brilliant) tradition that he and his family have;

On Boxing Day in England, instead of going on a spending rampage, most people go on a killing spree. It is traditional to go fox hunting, fishing or shooting upon the day after Christmas.

It was not explained to me why this is, but really, do we need a logical reason to have a tradition?

But instead of a pheasant killing, Steve has something he calls A Gnome Culling.

In the months proceeding Christmas, he obtains as many ugly and tasteless pieces of decorative frangible - of which category the common garden gnome is a prime example - anything that unites dripping sentimentality with an obvious urgency on the part of the maker to make it as cheaply as possible within a minimum expenditure of time (in Steve's words, "An insult, a burden, and a source of legitimate rage to any intelligent individual.") - so that he can administer a small amount of cleansing to this old world by dispatching them in his back garden, with his pellet gun, on the twenty-sixth of December.

I must add that I have every intention of establishing a Canadian chapter of this tradition in my own family when I return.

Steve is a wonderful man - one of the many lovely people that I am meeting in this job. He taught me to play chess last Friday, and was so concerned that I learn the gambits, that he accidentally let me win...twice.

Rhapsodizations on the Deeps.

I love living half-a-block from the sea so much!
I walk beside it every morning while I pray, and take Matthew and Becky - the two youngest kids of my host family - for icecream quests along it.
There is always something calming, or uplifting, or strengthening, or relaxing about watching the tide ebb and flow... it's an all-encompassing restorative.
One of the great fascinations of Man, and gifts of God.
I am finding it a great consolation and prop.
There, wasn't that lovely and verging on the metaphysical?

Guy Fawkes Night

I have arrived safely, and am installed in the top garrett of my lovely host family's home. It is less than a block away from the seafront, and is in a nice quiet area of the city.
I had completely forgotten that the day I was arriving - November 5 - was Guy Fawkes night. Everyone lights huge bonfires and sets off fireworks to celebrate King James' discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. I arrived just in time to catch the celebration, which was a lovely way to spend my first night in Britain.

Last Canadian Post.

Well, here am I - ready for everything that tomorrow holds.

Wish me luck!