Well, after spending the past week coming back down to earth after camp, today was a great way to finish it. The sun was blistering, the skies were clear and blue and the temperature soared. Spent some of the afternoon wandering around Hounslow high street doing my chores and generally relaxing.
In the evening, a few of us went to Black Park (between Slough and Uxbridge), Sarah had brought some ice cream, and we just chilled, chatted, kicked a football around and played frisbee. When it got dark, we moved on to the Airport Bowl and carried on where we left off, with the odd interruption of a round of ten-pin bowling and maybe some pool.

There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.
Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Drove to work this morning playing around with the air conditioning to see if I could get any cold air out of it. Just to check my sanity, I got Andy to have a look at it as well, and he confirmed my fears – it really has stopped working – just after the service strangely enough.

Anyway, took the car to back to Heathrow Volkswagen to have a look at, whilst remarking on the remarkable coincidence of the failure with the service. They denied any connection between the service and the air conditioning failing. After inspection, they said the system didn’t have any gas in it at all. (Weird given it was working on Sunday). Given the options, I asked them to recharge the system with the intention of sorting out blame later. Alas, when I returned to collect my car, everyone had disappeared except for the lowest ranked pawn in the set – any chance of negotiation was scuppered. I was left to pay the bill for the recharging, and left the garage feeling rather numb, albeit with cool air blowing around me.

Spent the rest of the evening with some friends, discussing wide ranging subjects from apocalyptic theology to the history of the motor trade. At least the evening ended well. 🙂

Well, at least I have my car back. It’s now had its 80,000 mile service, a V-belt change and a cam belt change. I can’t say I’m particularly happy with the cost, but at least it’s done now. Only another 40,000 miles before the next cam belt change.

Only niggling point is that I’m not sure if the air conditioning is working now…

Took my car, a VW Passat, for its 80,000 mile service and cambelt change this morning at the local VW garage. All seemed to be routine as I handed over the keys to the service desk and got a lift into work with Dave. After a couple of hours, I received a call from the garage saying my car was ready and could be picked up. Great I thought, but then I thought – two hours is a little quick to complete the service, especially as it included a cambelt change. At this I phoned the garage back and asked if the cambelt had been changed – good job I did. It would appear that, even though VW say the cambelt should be changed every 40,000 miles, when you take it in for an 80,000 mile service, you have to specify you want the cambelt changed – it’s not part of the service in any way. Whilst this seemed odd to me, I then asked if the cambelt could be changed as well. After a short check by the mechanic to see if the parts were in stock, he agreed to carry it out. Just out of curiosity I thought I’d see how much it would cost – I almost fell out of my chair when he told me! However, I wasn’t willing to take the risk of a cambelt snapping in the near future and destroying the engine, so I told him to carry on. The story continued to twist, as just before I left work, I received a phone call from the garage saying they’d carried out the cambelt change, but in the process of putting it all back together, the drive belt had snapped, they didn’t have a replacement in stock and that the car was not in any way fit for use(!) All in all, I’m feeling a little non-plussed about the whole thing, and depending on whether I receive the car in a working state tomorrow, I might reveal the cause of the chair instability.

Anyway, had another interesting game of four-a-side football this evening, although I think the sides weren’t quite even as the side I was on won by quite a considerable margin. I’m now without a car until tomorrow, so Eamonn kindly gave me a lift home.

This morning’s sermon was on the Fruit of the Vine. Just as a vine bears grapes, so a Christian should have spritual fruit – love, joy peace, etc. (Galatians 5:22,23). Just as the branches are connected to the vine, all Christians are in communion with Christ. Just as the farmer prunes the branches of the vine to increase fruit yield, so God removes the dead parts of Christians to increase their fruitfulness. It is essential that Christians stay close to Christ in order to be fruitful, just as a branch needs to be connected to the vine to bear fruit. Indeed, Chrstians must rely soley on Christ and not on themselves in order to bear fruit.