As we approach the end of each year, I like to look back at my New Year’s intentions, and see how I’ve done.
Only it turns out I didn’t make any at the start of 2021 (or indeed review my 2020 ambitions). In fact between February 2020 and October 2021 I wrote just 3 posts.
The reason for this is obvious, but not really visible at all in anything I’ve written, except a passing reference in May 2020 about doing a church service from home. It is of course the Covid-19 pandemic, which started in December 2019, really hit the UK in March 2020, and is still going strong two years down the road.
By January 2020 our household was getting nervous about the disease, to the extent that we cancelled a trip we had planned to Cambridge in February half-term because of the risk, and instead went away to a remote cottage in County Durham.
On the 16th March came the “work from home” order, and minimise social contact, then on the 23rd March the first lockdown was announced; and from 26th March to the 10th May the UK was in complete lockdown. Everything is closed except for food shops and healthcare, and people are not allowed any contact with people outside their “bubble”, and only allowed outside once a day for an hour’s exercise. “No person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”. Churches were closed, so church has go to online! We used YouTube, others used Zoom. Our eldest son’s high school started partially closing from the 18th March, so that he had his final day in school before the closures were announced – his final day of year 11 happened without him realising. GCSEs were cancelled, and grades issues by teachers instead. Joe Wickes kept us fit with his daily exercised, and BBC Bitesize provided home schooling!
From the 10th May we had a new regionalised system, with levels of covid determining the rules for social contact. Schools partially re-opened in June (they had been open for key workers the whole time), but it wasn’t until September they fully re-opened. Over August things relaxed considerably, and we were able to go to Cornwall for a summer holiday – but my household were in no doubt that restrictions were going to return as we headed into winter.
14th September 2020 saw new restrictions, such as the “rule of 6”, with tightening on 22nd September to a tier system. 5th November was the start of the second national lockdown (although schools stayed open), which lasted until the 2nd December, although a strict three tier situation was in place.
At the start of January 2021, the Prime Minister annouces that everyone should go back to school. On the first day of term, we enter another full lockdown, with all schools etc closed, and a full “stay at home” order.
This one lasts until 8 March, when schools re-open, and we take Step 1 of a four step roadmap for lifting restrictions. 12 April was step 2, 17 May step 3, and finally step 4, with almost all legal restrictions lifted on 19 July (four weeks later than planned).
In the meantime vaccines had been developed, and immunisations were forging ahead – natural or artifical immunity being the only route of any pandemic.
Church was also interesting. On the 17th March 2020, the Archbishops said churches should not be holding worship services in the building, and from 26th March all churches were completely closed, and we streamed our services online. The first one snuck in from Church, but from the end of March until September all our services were streamed from our homes. On the 13th September 2020, we started having Holy Communion in-person with very restricted numbers in the building, followed by two livestreamed services; one from home still, and the other from the building. In October 2020, we switched to our current pattern, of a 9am Holy Communion and a 10.30 Morning Worship from the building, both in-person and livestreamed. In the January 2021 lockdown, we were able to continue to use the building, and have a handful of people running the service.
Some restrictions have now been re-introduced (10 December – working from home advised, and facemasks mandatory) in the light of the omicron variant, and this winter was always going to be a rough ride. I am certain we have more restrictions to come in the next few days, but my hope is that come March time we will truly be moving into “living with Covid” (in the same we live with the cold, and with ‘flu), and we will have no more need for restrictions by the summer.
The above is somewhat dispassionate, on purpose. Truth it is has been an incredibly tough couple of years for me and my family, and one that has come very close to breaking me at times. We have been blessed enough to avoid any serious illness so far (but I can’t believe that one or more of us haven’t caught it, although none have ever tested positive). Truth is this time last year I was in a pretty bad place, and the last thing I was able to do was look back at my hopes for 2020 (none of which I managed, incidentally), or set any sort of ambition for 2021 beyond surviving.
Of course it wasn’t awful the whole time, and we had some really good times too. We’ve had to invent new games and rituals, discovered new local walks, and really appreciated seeing friends and family when we were able. The slower pace of life (outside work!) was a gift a lot of time. But it has been tough, and I think explains why I more or less stopped blogging and posting photos.
I can’t promise 2021 will be better on either of those two fronts, but I do know that God walks with us.
As a part of my quest to reduce plastic, and maybe save some money, I switched over to shaving with a safety razor at the end of 2019. There was also the hope of getting a closer shave, so I wouldn’t be quite so stubbly at the end of the day.
Previously I was using disposable razors, either the Gillette type ones where you change the head (Mach 5, or whatever) or the bog standard supermarket 10 pack of twin blade razors, with shaving gel that comes in a squirty can. The disposable razors are 10 for £1, and same price for a can of shaving gel, which probably does a month or so?
Anyway, I went for a Hill and Drew Double Edge Butterfly Razor and Case, which at the time was only £10 from The Shaving Stack. This turns out to have been an absolute steal; it’s a great razor, and should last me for many many years.
I also bought a badger shaving brush (which is more or less essential if you’re not using a squirty can), which was £15, but again should last many years.
I did try shaving soap, but didn’t really get on with it, so switched to Talyor of Old Bond Street Shaving Cream. This does does come in a plastic pot, but one pot lasts me probably 9 months of shaving every day, which is pretty good. They’re not cheap at £10 a tub – but better to recycle than the squirty gel. You could probably make them go a bit further than I do as well – you really do only need the tiniest amount to lather up your whole face.
Than there are the razor blades. I use Astra Superior Platinum Double Edge Razor Blades, which I bought in a pack of 100(!) for £12 delivered. They even come in little cardboard boxes of 5, and wrapped in waxed paper.
In terms of usage, I gather it’s best to change the blades every couple of days, but I tend to use them for a week, with one day off shaving a week. This is about the same as the disposable ones, which I also usually made last a week – sometimes two.
So, objectives achieved?
Well, definitely less plastic. The only plastic I generate now from shaving is the empty pot of shaving cream once or twice a year. This contrasts with maybe 30 or 40 plastic disposable razors, and 5 or 6 shaving gel cans.
There is no doubt the shave is significantly closer (especially the first 2 or 3 with a new blade).
Cost? Well, there was an upfront cost of £25 to get going, and ongoing costs of 50p a month for blades, then £1 a month for shaving cream. The disposable ones are probably slightly cheaper than this, and the shaving gel comparable. Clearly if you use a Gilette disposable or semi-disposable then the Astra’s are a significant saving. So probably not much in it either way in terms of pounds of pence, but you’re not not really comparing like with like.
More qualitatively, shaving with a safety razor is a completely different experience. For literally the first 3 months I cut my face every day!! I was so used to dragging the disposable razors over my skin at any old angle – you have to be much more careful and precise with the safety razors. But on the other hand I find it a more enjoyable experience – it shaves so beautifully and easily if you do it properly, and is so much closer. The whole lathering up is quite fun to. I’ve always enjoyed wet shaving, and it’s even better, in my opinion, with a safety razor.
Actually speaking of nicking oneself, I also use an alum block to stop the occasional little cut which still happens. The alum stick also doubles up as my deodorant. That takes a bit of a getting use to, as you still sweat, but it doesn’t smell. The alum kills off the smelly bacteria without blocking up your pores (which is what normal anto-persperant deodorant does – and of course that usually comes in yet more plastic too).
I did briefly flirt with the idea of the full cut-throat razor, and the whole stropping thing, but decided (a) I wasn’t brave enough, and (b) it was probably just a step too far.
First, as is perhaps often the way, an “off-topic” comment of his struck me, and partially inspired this post. I paraphrase from memory.
I always think that we have a limited number of keypresses in our life, so I want to use them well. If someone asks me a question, I blog the answer so that the keypresses live on. E-mails are where keypresses go to die.
Anyway, aside from the stuff I learnt about WSL, there were a couple of other gems in this talk which I wanted to flag up.
This is a flat / peer to peer VPN topology built on top of WireGuard that looks really nice. You connect all your devices (PC, server, phone, docker container, EC-2 instance) to your Tailscale network, and they are all visible to one another with static 10.x IP addresses.
I haven’t had a play with Tailscale yet, but I did set up WireGuard on a raspberry pi, and put the client on my phone, so I can now access my home private network from my phone even when I’m out and about. It could barely have been easier to set up (did have some fun and games with some of the dependencies on the pi, but reddit saw me good). My use case is probably more allowing my kids to play Factorio or Minecraft together even when they’re not in the same house. Obviously there are many other ways to solve this problem, but this one is essentially free.
Tailscale looks even nicer – my reading is that is is essentially adding a management layer to WireGuard, so all your devices can automagically join the network without needing to know all the other devices certificates and IP addresses ahead of time.
Windows terminal basically brings the command prompt up to date, with multiple windows/tabs, configurable menus, and so on.
I’ve been using at work this week, and it is just a much nicer way of managing the varioius command prompts I usually have open for Docker, Git bash, Powershell, SSH, etc. Possibly my favourite thing is the ability to add the Visual Studio command prompt as a menu item. While I hardly ever use it, it alwys seems to take me ages to find it on the Windows start menu.
Apologies for radio silence – it has been a super super busy couple of months; starting a new job, finishing my curacy, getting work done on the house… and that’s before the ongoing covid excitements.
I do have a backlog of photos to upload at some point – I haven’t given up on it all together!
The Bishop of Leeds is pleased to announce the appointment of The Revd Dr James Handley, currently Assistant Curate of Harrogate St Mark, as Associate Priest of Harrogate St Mark in the Ripon Episcopal Area.
The licensing will be conducted by Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley on Sunday 25th July 2021
I received the letter today from the Bishop signing me off – my initial ministerial education is complete.
Like the rest of the world, the past 12-18 months have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced or could have expected, and I don’t think I can even start to do it justice in a short piece like this. But I did want to mark the occasion.
The massive thing about my curacy for me has been the discovery of Self Supporting Ministry as something other than Stipendiary-Lite, and this is a journey I am still on. “There is no one way of being a priest” (++Rowan Williams)
As for next steps – I am going to become an Associate Minister (SSM), and continue to explore workplace ministry in my new software job, and hopefully continue to publish my theological thoughts and reflections along the way.
For now it is celebration and a sense of achievement, and enormous thanks to all those who have walked alongside me on the way, not least of whom is my wonderful wife and children.
I’ve just noticed a little milestone has come and gone.
On the 9th May 2011 – i.e. ten years ago – I posted my first ever 365 photo, which was (I think aptly enough) a signpost:
Since then I have posted 2,006 photos (so picture 2,000 was another milestone I guess), clearly not 365 a year (more like 200), but still pretty good going I reckon.
I really enjoyed the Lent Challenge, with a word to inspire every day, and I am now doing an ABC challenge, where each week is inspired by a different letter of the alphabet.
I do have some other (good) news of a more personal nature, but that needs to wait just a little bit longer…
As I have now entered the fourth, and hopefully final, year of curacy, I thought it was about time for an update (seeing as this blog is supposed to be a record of my curacy journey)!
As I posted in the September last year, I have been trying to think and reflect a lot more about Self Supporting Ministry, and reading as many books as I can find on the subject (and there aren’t an awful lot). Part of the upshot of this was a realisation that I needed to give my day job (and ministry there) more respect – it isn’t something I can just fit in on top of a leadership role and parish ministry.
So my final year of curacy is going to have a somewhat different shape – instead of working 4 days a week in paid employment, and then spending on day a week at church doing parish things, I am rather going to continue in my 4 days a week at work (albeit different days), and then have the other day a week to build in some time and space. To be honest, curacy has been a real struggle in terms of my own head-space, and I have found it really hard not having time on my own to process stuff. I guess the final straw came for me when I realised that I wasn’t giving my best at work, or behaving in the way I wanted to towards my colleagues, because I was essentially running on empty.
I’m anticipating that this change will allow to me to be a bit more intentional in both resourcing and exploring what (priestly) ministry in the (secular) workplace might be about.
In practical terms, it means I have now stepped back from parish ministry and being a member of the staff team at church (which has been an interesting experience in itself). I am very much still a licensed member of clergy, and continue with leading services and preaching – these are things which I believe are at the heart of the ministry God is calling me to. However I am no longer particularly involved in the pastoral and occasional offices, or indeed any specific area of ministry, or church governance (except that I still serve on PCC and Deanery Synod).
Of course, this beautiful new plan was all pre-covid19 – and while I have indeed stepped back from parish ministry, it has been replaced with a perfect storm at my paid job, and home schooling on my days not at work, as well as supporting my wife as a front-line worker. The picture since the start of term in September has been slightly better – work has calmed down, and I have had a couple of Fridays to myself; but to be honest life is still pretty tough in our household, as I know it is for lots of households.
My “365” project has had a fresh lease of life recently, since I started almost entirely using my phone camera. It hugely simplifies the workflow (as the photos are auto uploaded from the phone), and also means I’m not lugging around my DSLR.
It does mean that the photos are more like snapshots, and perhaps less considered, but I’m quite enjoying the freedom of not really having many options around aperture, shutter, etc. It’s kind of the instagram philosophy I guess.
