Following in the vein of my last couple of posts I will once again try and catch up with this blog. This may not work as well in practice as theory but then again stranger things have happened…

For the Christmas period I was in fact back in the homeland – enjoying the joyous cuisine of mince pies, Cornish pasties and all things British.
As I had booked a fairly early flight out from Newark airport I was slightly concerned that I was going to sleep through my chorus of alarms and miss my flight in spectacular fashion but in fact all was fine – admittedly on the plane I somehow managed to spill milk in my face and choke on my coffee but apart from these near-catastrophic instances all was well.
Being back in a medium sized British town was reassuring in some ways but after being in NYC for six months it was quite hard to adjust to the quiet nature of it all – in the past I’d always seen myself as someone who wanted to settle down for the longer term in a smaller town or city but when comparing the small town to the buzzing city it seems, at least for the time being, that the city is where I’d prefer to be. That said it was great to see the family again and to catch up with old friends.

Once back in New York after some rather intense airport security it was back to work for a few days before the New Years holiday.
New Years in New York was certainly a pretty sweet affair. I had originally been tempted to frequent Times Square with the famous ball but on consideration of how cold it would be and how many people would be there I changed my mind fairly rapidly. Instead I went to a far warmer and far more enjoyable party up in the Bronx. It was a great shindig with plenty of snow-chilled beverage action and conversational fun. It certainly made me feel privileged to be able to spend New Years with such a great crowd.

Since I arrived I’d been looking for opportunities for some hiking but until a couple of weeks ago this opportunity hadn’t arisen. Thus, on MLK day three of us set out upstate to a ‘city’ called Beacon to climb some nearby hills in the name of fun…
Although I love the buzz of the city it was entirely pleasant to be able to get some fresh air for a day. In addition there was still a large amount of snow and ice around which made the surroundings pretty spectacular and because of the low temperature, perfectly produced ice crystals had formed themselves around much of the foliage making it seem like we’d accidently stumbled upon Narnia.
However despite the spectacular beauty that this ice and snow had created it did cause problems, especially for me, as the slippery surfaces meant that I lost my footing more times than I choose to remember. The most concerning times were those when I fell on an incline and started to slide, not being completely sure of when (or if) I was going to stop…
It was a fantastic experience nonetheless, complimented by the views from the hilltops overlooking the Hudson river which were nothing short of breathtaking.
We also found the ruins of a casino on one of the hilltops which struck me as a little weird.

Following on from my previous attempts to seem a little on the cultured side I went to see a production of As You Like It recently. Being directed by Sam Mendes I was expecting big things and fortunately I wasn’t disappointed – not being an expert on the aforementioned play (I’d read a couple of summaries the day before…) I couldn’t give any kind of authoritative opinion but the simple fact that I was kept entertained throughout was a good enough result for me.
I also found myself attending the Romeo and Juliet ballet recently. I was a little concerned that in doing so I would irrevocably be damaging my masculinity and almost felt it necessary to grow my beard, put on a deeper voice and carry a crate of beer around with me just to assert to the world that my masculinity was still intact. However it turned out that there were plenty of other men in attendance and in fact because of the fantastic Tchaikovsky score it was actually pretty good.

I’ve also been recently excited by the fact that my church is, as of tomorrow, starting a new church plant downtown. The boldness and determination of such a gospel-centred move really encouraged me. It can be very easy for me to be content with being settled in church and not wanting to be outward in my faith for fear of disrupting the status quo so the opportunity to be a part of this plant is a real blessing.