Closing Comments ...

Sooooooooooooooo many people have contacted me to say "Please update the BLOG" ... so here I finally am.

If you're a student who has studied at UWS in Paisley I would really enjoy hearing from you and being kept up-to-date with what you're doing these days.

I guess I should start really by saying SORRY for letting this blog get so out of date. There are various reasons for this but most of them aren't worth going into right now. For those of you who don't know my Mum, who was also my very best friend, died quite suddenly at the end of June 2010. As you can imagine this has made for a difficult time for me and one in which I've needed to concentrate on family and personal stuff. I have pasted here two of my favourite photos of my Mum and I. The first was taken in 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics; the second is slightly more recent and was taken by my Dad on one of our many holidays together.

The one thing I have been so grateful for in all of this has been my faith in Jesus Christ. I can honestly say that I have not one ounce of doubt that my Mum is now in heaven and is free from all sickness and pain. I look forward to seeing her again one day!

In the midst of all this I have been faced with other changes too and many of you will already know that after living in Paisley for 14 years and developing the work amongst international students there ... I have just moved to Gillingham, Kent (England) to work with St Marks Church doing something very similar. I trust that my experiences over the past seven years will stand me in good stead as I seek to pioneer and develop work with students at the Medway Universities.

If you want to make contact my email address hasn't changed and I'd love to hear from you. I've been blessed with a lovely new home and the kettle is always on ... so do visit.

TABLEtalk Christmas Party

It's Christmas time again!

Thirty students and twenty-three helpers & hosts came along to our TABLEtalk party.

TABLEtalk - Games Night

The Hula Hoop Challenge
is ALWAYS
a big hit at
Games Nights!!

Christmas Past & Present @ Stirling Castle

A number of us went to this Historic Scotland day at Stirling Castle. Entitled 'Christmas Past & Present' the day took us on a light-hearted journey through the history and evolution of Christmas.

Pagan Beginnings ... many of the traditions of Christmas started much later than you would have expected, but some much earlier. Learn more about Christmas from an unexpected source, as this druid explains ...

Food fit for a Queen ... What would one of Scotland's most famous monarchs have eaten at Christmas time?

What? No Christmas?! ... Were you aware that during the time of Oliver Cromwell Christmas and all its festivities were banned!!

Auld Lang Syne ... Almost all of us have either heards or sung Scotland's most famous song, written by Robert Burns, which brings in the New Year.

A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS ... A large proportion of the tales and traditions of Christmas - Christmas cards, Christmas crackers and Boxing Day - came about as recently as the Victorian period. Here Charles Dickens explains more ... And finally ... the year is 1974 ... Lava lamps are the height of sophistication, and children escape with chopper bikes and the Bay City Rollers. In a difficult period of strikes and power cuts people still managed to enjoy Christmas!

TABLEtalk - Scottish Night

Our annual Scottish night at TABLEtalk, timed to coincide with St Andrews Night, is always great fun. It's an evening of Scottish food and song and dance; and here Jack helps Samuel out with our Scottish Quiz ...

Faeghe & Gloria

Derek & Razvan

Is this a kilt demonstration?? Or is Sugu doing an impression of Gandhi??

International Weekend @ Ratagan

For the second time I joined together with my colleagues from Friends International Dundee for an international student weekend away. This time students from Dundee and St Andrews and Paisley came together for a fabulous weekend in the highlands.

Our Paisley group consisted of (from left to right) Jason, Faeghe, Joe, Xiafei, Phoebe and Sophia.

We left Paisley at 10am for a leisurely drive up the west coast to Ratagan ... taking our time to admire the scenery along the way!

With a stop at one of my favourite places 'The Green Welly' in Tyndrum for a spot of refuelling - and I don't mean the petrol tank.

We also stopped at Fort William for lunch.

On arrival at the Ratagan Youth Hostel on the edge of Loch Duich we made preparation for others to arrive. This included making several vats of chilli.

Everyone arrived safely and although the weather on route up hadn't been so great we woke to a gloriously sunny day on the Saturday.

During the weekend our guest speaker, Dick Dowsett, gave several short talks entitled 'Seeing Jesus close-up'. These talks were entirely optional for the students, though a good number attended.

Saturday held several options for the students. A number of us chose to go to the Isle of Skye - who knows when we'll next be this far north again. One route we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle which, although it was closed for the winter, was good for a few kodak moments ...

On Skye we stopped at the Aros Centre for refreshments ... before exploring the picturesque town of Portree.

Other students chose the far more energetic option of a coastal walk. Some were not so well equipped with proper walking shoes, etc but everyone stayed safe.

This is our whole group braving the rain in preparation for the journey back home.

Our route home took a slight detour to Loch Ness.

And finally ... we make a very lucky escape after spotting the Loch Ness Monster!!