This morning I got homesick listening to the Lost Prophets on my shower radio, which is kind of ironic because back in Cardiff no one over the age of 17 with any sense of pride would admit to liking the Prophets. I'm going to have to hear their latest album before I pass any judgement.

Last night at UWE went well, I met some great people who I'm sure I'll be seeing more of in the next year.

Although I've been back in work since Monday, I'm still battling with this illness. I'm really hoping it doesn't become a chest infection.

Last night was Alpha: "who was Jesus?" which was good fun. The best part about Alpha is meeting new people and dialoguing on these things. The more outrageous the beliefs of the people in your group the more fun!

Tonight I'm off to the UWE CU to meet some freshers and tell them about Bristol Vineyard. Sunday is the Bristol CU equivalent, but they don't let non-students talk at it, so I'm on the lookout for a willing student at BV.

The other night Claire had a dream that she was smuggling cocain and that I was trying to stop her so she shot me in the leg.

Yesterday I awoke to find, in the pile of letters on my bedside cabinet, a letter written in some foreign script. My first thought was that I’d somehow, overnight, forgotten how to read. I went downstairs and asked Steve if he could read this alien handwriting. He couldn’t, so all was forgotten until later in the day when he asked Claire if she knew anything about it.

It turns out that Claire had been cleaning in the bathroom during the week and had found the letter behind the toilet. Not recognising the writing she assumed (and this is absolutely true) that someone had been writing in tongues. Her next question was: ‘who in this household would try writing in tongues?’ And came to the conclusion that it must have been me.

Now she assumed that I would be embarrassed if she let on that she had found my ‘experiment’ and decided to sneak the letter into my bedroom so as not to raise any suspicion.

This year is going to be fun…

On Monday I went to Hull with Andrew to meet with Jeremy, who leads Hull Vineyard. Last time I visited Hull it took 8 hours on the National Express, so I was glad we were driving this time and arrived in half the time. Hull was nicer than I remember it being - although it was very cold.

27th September (Monday) is the start of term at Bristol Uni and UWE, so I'm trying to get ready for the arrival of students at BV. There's an evening service starting called 'Vineyard Late' which I'm hoping to use as a base for planting Fusion cells.

My throat is sore today, which is frustrating because I had a cold just over a week ago and I want my voice to be fixed so I can start doing music stuff.

I think that's all the news for now.

The recipe below is one that Steve has introduced me to since I've been living with them. It's very tasty.

Time is flying, although this weekend wasn't quite as fast as last. Friday evening I went to a Leaders' training session, which was fun - met some new people. On Saturday I mooched and did housework.

Today is grey and miserable outside. Let's hope it's not pathetic fallacy.

Couscous, Halloumi and Chargrilled Vegetables

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 Courgette
2 Peppers (1 red, 1 green)
4 Button mushrooms
2 Tomatoes (quartered)
1 pack of Halloumi (cubed)
1/2 Large onion
1/2-1 tsp. Harissa Sauce + garlic (to taste)
Salt and Pepper (to season)

Couscous:
300g Couscous
1 pint Vegetable stock

Garnish:
142ml Greek Yoghurt
1/4 cucumber
A few sprigs of fresh mint

Directions:
1. Heat olive oil in a griddle pan and fry garlic for 1 minute.
2. Add onions, peppers, and Harissa sauce and fry until crispy.
3. Add Halloumi and fry until golden.

For Couscous:
Place couscous in a large bowl and add the vegetable stock in stages: initially enough to cover, then fluff with a fork, adding more as required. Keep covered when not fluffing to retain heat.

For accompanying garnish:
Add finely chopped mint leaves, cucumber (diced small), salt and pepper to the greek yoghurt.

I haven't blogged for a few days as I've been out of the office. Cardiff at the weekend was great, saying Happy Birthday to Rob, seeing family and friends, and (not so great) saying goodbye to Sharon (she's moved back to Nottingham to finish her course).

Then on Monday Sarah-Lou and I went to the Fusion Training conference in Northampton, which was very interesting and allowed us to find out about running Fusion cells in our local communities.

Congratulations are in order. Llewellyn Parfitt was born yesterday afternoon, weighing in at 9 pounds 1 ounce. Congratulations Lewis and Maria!

Emotionally, life in Bristol is beginning to feel more normal. I no longer have that panicked "what am I doing here?" feeling, which really helps.

I'm also beginning to find my way around - last night I rode to the watershed cinema without the use of a map and in pretty good time - 15 minutes there and 17 minutes back (because of the hills). I was meeting Julian, a friend who was in my Politics class for A-Levels, and he showed me around a little as we caught up on the last 3 years.

Chris is coming down today and I'm hopefully having lunch with him tomorrow, which will be fun.

We're driving to London in an hour to pick up Andrew.

On Sunday we went to a Greek place called Yia Mas, which is on Park Street. It was a kind of restaraunt-come-bar-come-club and there was standing room only as the DJ played the best of cheesy european house. Very fun/ny.

What a ride the last week and a bit has been - and the internship hasn't even begun! I'm beginning to get used to Bristol and its people and the idea of being here for the next twelve months.

I start at the office tomorrow. It'll be good to be busier, to have a routine and to begin (or continue) exploring what lies ahead.

This weekend has been great. It was Zoë's 20th birthday and we went out in Bristol on Sunday night to celebrate, along with some of the Cardiff gang (Mark, Rob, Sarah-Lou and Sharon). I realised once again what a great bunch of friends I have in Cardiff.

I'm here!
So I'm sat in the Bristol Vineyard office catching up on a web-free few days. Saturday was moving into the 'pink house' and getting unpacked, which was all done within 2 hours.

Emotionally things have been a little weird the last few days. I guess you realise how close you are to your family when you're living away from them (even if only 45 minutes away). Reading Zoë's blog is pretty hard to do without wanting to cry. It's her 20th Birthday on Sunday, so she and some of the guys are coming over and we're going out in Bristol, which should be fun.

Yesterday I went shopping on Park Street and managed to find How to Read the Bible Book by Book, which I've been looking for since Gordon Fee spoke at the Leader's Conference back in March.

This week is flying by. Seeing a variety of friends every night is great fun but the experience is tempered by the fact that we're saying our goodbyes. At least I'll be seeing most of them in the course of the year.

Next Saturday I move to Bristol. This week I'm getting rid of my old cardiffvineyard.org and ntlworld.com email addresses and getting a new address. If you haven't just received an email with my new contact details in and need them, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I'll email you with the details.

I won't be publishing my new address on this website because I'm determined to keep spam at bay!

Sing a new song to The Lord?
I just had a look on the CCLI website to find out the 25 most popular songs sung in churches in the UK this year. To be honest I was astonished at the results...

1 Shout To The Lord - Darlene Zschech
2 Be Still - David J. Evans
3 Lord I Lift Your Name On High - Rick Founds
4 Knowing You - Graham Kendrick
5 Come Now Is The Time To Worship - Brian Doerksen
6 Shine Jesus Shine - Graham Kendrick
7 How Deep The Father's Love For Us - Stuart Townend
8 The Servant King - Graham Kendrick
9 Once Again - Matt Redman
10 There Is A Redeemer - Melody Green-Sievright
11 We Want To See Jesus Lifted High - Doug Horley
12 I Will Offer Up My Life - Matt Redman
13 All Heaven Declares - Noel Richards\Tricia Richards
14 The Power Of Your Love - Geoff Bullock
15 Faithful One - Brian Doerksen
16 As The Deer - Martin Nystrom
17 I Will Sing Your Praises - Ian Smale
18 Give Thanks - Henry Smith
19 Jesus Is The Name We Honour - Philip Lawson Johnston
20 Refiner's Fire - Brian Doerksen
21 Majesty - Jack Hayford
22 Celebrate - Patricia Morgan\Dave Bankhead
23 Be The Centre - Michael Frye
24 To Be In Your Presence - Noel Richards
25 Only By Grace - Gerrit Gustafson

One of the things that really stood out to me last week was something Mike Breen said in the last evening talk I recorded. He was talking about how we communicate the message of Jesus to our present culture. The thing that really stood out was this...

"we live in a culture that is high tech and low touch, surrounded by people who long for low tech, high touch relationships."

As you can probably see, yesterday was spent decluttering the sidebar of my blog. For some reason I'm having issues at the moment with blogger, gmail and the settings on my computer.

This morning my New York Lock arrived, weighing in at a hefty 3.8kg. It's definately a beast of a lock and should keep bike theives away, but I'm not sure if the weight is a little excessive (it's about half a stone for those of you on different measurements). I might exchange it for the New York 3000 D-Lock (pictured right)...

Today Mark and I cycled up to Castell Coch, in Tongwynlais. As we rode up the hill, who should pull up but the Turrigianos on their first visit to the holy land. How surreal that we'd be in the same place at the same time.

Sharon is now blogging.

I'm back! I know I said I'd be gone 2 weeks, but I've discovered that when it comes to the conference/festival thing I'm really not all that hardcore. One week at New Wine was enough.