The best laid schemes of mice and men...

It was all going so well.

I set off for Alton, Stoke-on-Trent on Monday morning, with a brief detour back to my own house to collect my mobile which I'd left on the sofa. No big deal.

For a week, I was part of the catering team on the LCET summer camp, On the Edge. Known collectively as 'Kitchen', we were cool, calm and collected in the face of curry from scratch for 100 people, and a whole bunch of fairly fussy eaters. It was a great week. We laughed, chopped, sliced, danced, fried, toasted, sung and ate a few too many nachos.

As I got in the car the following Saturday morning, I was making plans to get home, watch some TV, have a long bath, play the guitar and maybe do some more unpacking. So, waving cheerfully in the glorious sunshine, and honking my rather pathetic car horn, I set off for home. It really was a gorgeous day. Sunny, clear, fresh. The 2 and a half hour drive was going to be a joy. I love driving, especially on days like that. My iPod was cranked up and I glided down the windy country lanes away from Alton. And this is where things went wrong.

I came to a tight bend at the same time as a driver on the opposite side of the road. I was perhaps going a little too fast so I begun to break and move over a little to avoid an embarrassing wing mirror clip incident. But as soon as I tapped the breaks I realised I wasn't going to get around the corner. In an instant, I had hit the kerb. I felt a jolt and closed my eyes. My feet were frozen on the pedals. I remember praying, 'Please God don't let the car roll over.' I heard a thud. Then, as though I'd just woken up, I moved my feet and slammed them both on the brake pedal. The car came to a stop. I could smell soil. I could hear nothing. I opened my eyes and looked through the perfectly intact windscreen. Bushes. Sunlight. Sky. Ground. I took out the keys and took a very deep breath before I got out of the car.

After that, things went pretty quickly. A couple had seem me crash, called the police and come over to check on me. A nurse pulled up behind them and immediately came over. I was fine. Grateful and shaky, and annoyed about my car and my stupid mistake, but okay. This in itself was a small miracle. I had hit a BT pylon. It had taken off my wing-mirror but missed my car. Missed my head. I was fine. My superhero co-chefs picked me up and drove me home, via Costa. I couldn't believe that my day was panning out so very differently to what I had planned. We laughed about the cows whose field I had destroyed. We sung along to songs on the radio. I caught up with friends and family on the phone. I was fine.

After a cup of tea at home and some time in front of the TV, I headed up for that long bath - the only part of my plan I could still complete. No plug. That broke me. I cried. Seriously cried. It's funny how your body and mind respond to trauma. It was a plug that finished me off. Silly, but there it is. Now, two days later, I am a little achy, and it is the thought of buying a new car that makes me cry. I have realised that I am really not a very strong person. Perhaps at the instant something happens I am able to cope, but I am pretty sure I will be feeling overwhelmed for quite some time. Still, it could have been so very much worse. I am home, I am breathing, I am walking, I am loved and looked after. I am fine.

The CB3 Experience

When I agreed to be on the cooks team for a 170 strong Christian camp for 14-18 year olds in North Wales , I have to say that I expected 7 days hard labour, no sleep, little contact with the non-culinary world, and a headache by the end of it. I could not have been more wrong.

A normal day started with a scalding hot shower at 6.45am (a full 15mins later than I would get up on a school day!). After that, a gentle 5 minute stroll to the kitchens. Hat, apron and clean shoes on, we would pray for energy, wash our hands and set to work. I say work here in the loosest sense of the word - I would chop carrots, fry hundreds of bacon rashers, turn chipolatas in a pan, grate vast quantities of cheese or simply 'make the drinks.' And it continued - there I was thinking we'd have to eat on the fly, bowl teetering in one hand, stirring a cheese sauce in the other, but no. We sat and ate. We talked. After breakfast the 'helper' team (which I think should actually be called the Hero team) would clean up and we would all then go to a seminar. We had time to attend seminars!

After a few more jobs, we would finish late morning and nip out for a trip somewhere - usually involving tea and scones. Back in the kitchen we'd prepare and serve dinner, the helper team once again making sure we had plenty of time to rest and digest our own meals. We even got time to attend the evening talks and join in the wonderful singing and learning. By the end of the week, we recieved a standing ovation and rapturous applause - it went on slightly too long for my liking, but I'm working on it.

What surprised me most, was the way that the camp organisers had thought so carefully about making sure the helpers and cooks teams, who were not really involved in the main teaching and bible studies with the campers, had sufficient spiritual input. We bonded well as a group - never more so than in our late night jaunt to the Great Orme for toasted marshmallows and silly dances around the bbq!

I have met a wonderful group of genuine, funny, caring, interested, normal people (and some crazy crazy mentalists!) and my sides still ache with laughter. I have learned that my identity is secure, positive, purposeful and eternal in Christ. I have been reminded that suffering for Jesus is normal, fighting for purity is hard and that Christian community is absolutely vitally important. I feel blessed, privileged and blown away by this week. Praise God.

And I will never fry 150 rashers of bacon ever again!

All Change Again...

It's the last Tuesday of this school. The last Tuesday I will teach in Year2 in DeHavilland. The last Tuesday I will have to walk into my classroom and desperately try to remember what it was like teaching in Key Stage 2.

All of these things feel good.

In a few short weeks (not too short, I hope, as I have to fit in summer camp, Bulgaria and a healthy amount of loafing) I will be moving on up to Year 4. Aaah, back in my comfort zone. Sure, I have to move classroom again. Sure, I have to plan a whole new set of units and lessons. Sure, I have no display stuff ready or any idea about the children in my class.

None of these things worry me.

This year has been, well, horrid. It started well and got progressively more stressful, painful, confusing, tiring and pointless. Okay, not pointless. I have learned a lot about my ability to cope under pressure. I don't really have one. I have found out just how emotional I can be. I have discovered that I respond with neither the fight or flight reaction. I just throw in the towel and lose interest. I stay up until 3am watching films. Or worse, watching interviews with celebrities at press junkets on YouTube.

So, with 3 'sort of' days left of term I fully intend to allow my class to enjoy themselves. We will paint, play, sing, draw pictures, watch films. I will give them an end of term present. I will expect nothing in return. And when the school day ends at 2pm on Friday afternoon, I will breathe a tremendous sigh of relief, sign off my computer and drive home. Smiling. For the first time in a long time.

A Poorly Written Blog About A Girl

It occurs to me that I probably could have made something of this blog if i'd written about something interesting. For example, my year as a trainee teacher. My year as a first-year teacher. It could have been called The Staff Room. Or Confessions of an NQT. It isn't.

This blog is called Barefoot in the Dark because, for reasons best left to the pages of history, I have learned that it takes me a while to settle into anything. I flounder and grope about, my brain chews over and over, my heart sinks and rises. Finally, when it fits, I'm content. I have also learned that very little about this life is permanent. In fact, very little about this life lasts for more than a year. Situations change, people come and go, feelings alter. All very philosophical i'm sure. What I'm getting at here is that it's not easy to maintain anything other than a regular rate of respiration.

Here I am again, getting all thoughtful on the verge of a new year. Those little proverbial digits will tick over 00.00.01 and we will all be expected to shout "Hoorah! Happy New Year!" and I forget why we ever celebrate this thing. I should be nothing but grateful, humbled and hopeful as the new millenium becomes a decade old and '09 becomes '10. Why, then, do I still feel distinctly flat? New Year's Eve - the greatest anti-climax in the calendar year.

Tonight I won't be thinking about the new year (365 days is a long old time!). Rather, I'll be considering the spring term. I've a lot to do. I wonder what'll happen.

Declaration

I'd like to declare: love is weird.

It's a wonderful thing. It doesn't make sense to anyone but the two people involved. It overcomes image, ability, status and occupation. It inspires creativity. It lightens. It darkens. It lifts up, guides, supports, pleases, glorifies and humbles.

I'd like to declare: walls are nasty.

Walls are unkind, unnecessary, unatural, uninviting and unpleasant. Walls are a way of making everything about me. Walls are a way of saying, 'You don't belong here,' and 'We are different.'

Men make walls. God makes love. I know which one I want to be building.

You? x

It can be...

Life can be dreadfully sad.

I have no words, really. You watch these things unfold and the media speculation sometimes gets it right, and sometimes there is just no way to possibly imagine people acting like this towards each other.

Life can be dreadfully uncertain.

My thoughts and prayers are with Alan Johnston's family. I can't imagine the sleepless nights, and the jolts with every ring of the telephone. I can't imagine being told my son is dead by one person, and being told to hope he will come back by another. I can't imagine not knowing like that.

Life can be dreadfully unjust.

This is just one incident. Stuff like this is happening all over the world and never makes international news. And for what? I don't understand it. Freedom of speech and freedom of belief must still be new a idea.

Life can be wonderful.

Because this was recently printed in The Daily Telegraph, in plain view of thousands of readers,

'In all this, two things must be kept in mind: that the crucifixion is inseparable from the resurrection, and that the sacrifice of Jesus once and for all is brought to bear on us in the celebration of the Christian Eucharist.

By whatever image they are described, Jesus's death and resurrection reverse the fall, blot out sin, destroy death, make all things new, deliver mankind from slavery, reconcile us with God, make us his adopted children, let us participate in the very life of God the Holy Trinity, allow for our repeated forgiveness, and open heaven to us.

And because it is true.