40 Bicycles

As I write this post I have a large tissue box on one side of me and a bin on the other. The contents of the former are rapidly being transferred to the latter. There has been a particularly nasty cold doing the rounds in our family over the last few days. Peter had it over Christmas and decided to share it with Purnendu and me. Mark also seems to be coming down with it. I have been struggling with it for the last few days. It feels as if all of the workers in the 'brain' department of my head have moved to the 'mucus' department. Yuk. Last night I watched the extended version of the Return of the King for the first time with Jonney and Monika, Paul, Mark and Peter. We should be watching it through again some time in the next couple of weeks. I did enjoy some of the added scenes. It was good to have Saruman put back into the third film. However, the scene is far from faithful to the book, which irritated me. I may not be as much of a Tolkien purist, but serious departures from the book do get on my nerves. This evening we will be having a time of prayer, fellowship and fun as a church, as we usually do. I should also have my own room back for a night, which is a blessing. I have been staying in Peter's room for the last few nights and this morning I observed that Peter had posted a long and detailed notice on his door about the manner in which his Lego and clutter was to be treated. It made very clear that temporary residents in the room, such as Mark and I, were barely tolerated. My granny is still with us, although she has been worsening. We never expected her to see in the New Year, although it now seems quite possible that she will. Please continue to pray for her. We had a very special time at Christmas. In a strange way, my granny's condition brought a reality to our celebrations that actually served to give us a far more memorable time. Peter has already posted about our Christmas on his blog. He mentioned the fact that we had a good snowfall (I can't remember the last time that we had a real white Christmas), but he missed much of the fun. After a second epic snowball fight, a group of us got together and built a huge snow Sphinx, well over eight feet high. Some of the bigger snowballs that were used to construct him took four people or more to push. It took a few hours' work to make, but it was incredibly fun. Late the next morning it was torn down, which didn't surprise me, considering the area in which we live. Much of the last few days has been spent following the news online. The news of the election in Ukraine and the frustrating end to the English cricket team's run of victories has been totally overshadowed by the unfolding tsunami disaster. It is hard to know how to react to such an event. The sovereignty of God is one of the greatest comforts at a time like this. For those of you who might have been wondering, from what he can gather, none of Purnendu's family were killed in the tragedy, although they live close to affected areas.