More fun than it sounds

Yesterday I met a young friend for ice cream and a walk out to the lighthouse as we discussed the appalling staffing levels in the NHS (she's a newly-qualified doctor who finds herself the only doctor in charge of five wards), death, sinking dinghies and our sorrow over the death of Victoria Wood. (Our walk was a lot more fun than it sounds.)

Then I lay in the sun and finished reading Dear Mrs Bird. A lovely tale with a very real voice. Set in wartime London the narrator is a young woman who finds herself working for the ferocious and unsympathetic agony aunt (the Mrs Bird of the title) of a failing women's magazine. Because Mrs Bird has a long list of Unsuitable Subjects for publication Emmeline starts replying to the letters herself.

If I'd not read so many wonderful previews and hadn't had my sights set so high I would have given it ****. As it's very hard to live up to such extravagant praise I'll award it 3.5* But definitely recommended. 

Then it was off to Zac's where there were two extremes. One man, newly-released from prison, celebrating and praising God for being with him in the darkness, and one woman for whom life has taken a steep downward turn and who is in a desperate state.

And a reminder from Sean - and Paul writing in his letter to the Ephesians - that God's love is for everybody. That nobody is outside it and that it's not something we earn.