A Magic Carpet Ride

(image taken from http://www.markfarrar.co.uk)

Where would you go on a magic carpet ride?

There was a fantastic podcast on the World Service that I listened to this afternoon which made me wonder about this. My instantaneous thought was that I would go to North Wales with my son to see my parents. But what would I want a carpet ride to be like? I'd like it to be smooth, and without me having to worry about being in charge and driving/flying it properly, otherwise I may as well get a car. I don't think I want it to be completely instantaneous, like teleporting, as I quite relish the opportunity on trains, of being able to switch off for a while (though unfortunately not so much now as looking after a small person requires some degree of awakeness!). But it would get rid of the annoyances of train travel: having to be there at a certain time, crossing London, making connections, and getting to my destination at the other end. In an ideal (to me!) world, I think I'd learn to fly a plane, so that I could walk to my local airport, and be anywhere in the UK within an hour or so (excluding pre-flight checks etc.). I could go up to Scotland and see all my friends far more regularly. But this would again throw up the problem of reaching my final destination from the airport I've landed at. I suppose that if I was rich enough to be able to fly a plane, I wouldn't have qualms about getting a taxi. And if I were continually jet-setting, I'd not be putting the amount of effort that I'd like to into my local community/church etc.
In order for this to happen of course, I'd have to divorce the tree-hugging green part of myself, so that I could live with/ignore the environmental cost of flying. I wonder what the environmental impact of a flying carpet is...
(image taken from http://www.markfarrar.co.uk)

Autumn Musings

After a rather long hiatus, I'm back. (Did you even notice I was gone?!)
It's all change in the W-F household, with first steps at nursery for W-F minor. This means I have space for a few hours, which I'm hopefully going to use to sleep, think, write sermons, get Christmas presents made (yes, I know it's horribly early, but I'm a slow seamstress!), cook and bake.
My dilemma over the past few months has resulted from trying to take on board the whole gamut of advice, admonition and general nagging which seems to come from everyone about what constitutes a healthy diet. This partly stems from trying to feed 3 people - two adults, one of whom needs to lose weight and the other put it on, and one child - a healthy diet. All three of us need different amounts of each vitamin, mineral, basic food group and all the appropriate nutrients. But nowhere can I find a suggestion of what a week's worth of perfectly balanced eating would look like, let alone a day's worth! I realise that any suggestion would need modifying, but it would be great to have something which ensures that all the basic RDA's are included. With all the whinging, nagging and finger-wagging which goes on, why has someone not come up with just one set of meals?!
Looks like I'll have to sit down and come up with it myself - watch this space!
Good things from today: W-FDH (dear husband!) having the day off, and seeing W-F minor's Godmother for tea :o)

Youth of Today...

See, I know I'm feeling old when I put a title like that(!) But I took the wee boy down to Cherry Hinton Hall grounds and went to play on the natural play area there. It was lovely, but there were post-it notes with graffiti on! They had poorly spelt threats and swearing, which wasn't particularly nice, but I couldn't understand why someone would write graffiti on post-it notes. There was other graffiti on the play equipment, but it struck me as either very timid vandalism, or is it some sort of post-modern point that someone is trying to make? I'm obviously out of touch, ah well, off to bed with cocoa.

Overwhelmed by responses

I'm quite intrigued by the number of people who have such strong feelings about what a blog should be on - both those who've commented (on facebook) that it wouldn't be right to tell me what I should write and those who've got oodles of ideas that they're happy for me to pick from. Unfortunately, due to a sick childminder, my grand plans for doing lots are on hold at the moment, as I'm full time mumming at the moment (not certain if mumming is a proper word but there you go!), so by this time of the day, I'm barely coherent. So I'm probably just going to be boring people with random streams of semi-consciousness for the next couple of weeks.
However, if I work out whether I can update this from my phone, it might be slightly more wide-ranging - it's not a posh phone, so it's probably not possible. I'll aim to put in place what I'd like to to be normal service in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, my random thoughts of the day (as I was wandering on trains round Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire) are:

1) Why on earth do people willing commute every day, just so they can get back to a crowded station and sit in a very posh car which is going nowhere because there's so much traffic?

2) How many miles of train track are there in the UK? What proportion are out of use?

First Post - what's it going to entail

I'm not really certain whether this is a good idea, as I'm probably liable to say something dodgy, libellous, something I'll regret, or possibly just downright boring, but I'll give it a go.

I've been meaning for a while to set up a site listing all the useful and fun things to do near to different railway stations in the UK, so I'll definitely give that a go.
I've also wondered about putting my sermon texts online (though that will probably result in a lot of flaming, and possibly more deep and meaningful thunks than I'm probably capable of coping with at the time of the evening I'll get around to doing things on this.
I might include recipes, book recommendations, parenting tips (aka things I wish I'd known before I got it wrong and/or learned the hard way!), and random handicraft stuff as well.

In the meantime, I've just remembered my dream from last night - I'd inherited a big American house in the town I was studying in (I've never been to the US in my life) and there was so much interesting stuff about my grandparents (who have also never been to the states), and in the cellar, I found a spinning wheel (of which I've been trying to find one for a long time, since I have 4 fleeces which have been washed and carded and which are sitting around doing nothing except being clutter!) but then someone else came along and claimed it was their house and I lost it all :o( Any psychoanalysis?!