Happy New Year

Just a short update today. Most people are still away on holiday so there's not much going on yet. It's been a case of business as usual, though Ruth has done a few bits and pieces in preparation for our move. We're going to be moving to a different house in the community sometime in the next couple of weeks. The new term will be starting as well, so there will be plenty to do shortly.

I've read a bit more of Art Gish's book. Parts of it are not as compelling as the opening chapter that had me so enthralled and he's advocating an even more radical manifestation of community that Cornerstone currently practice, but it's still a great read. However, there might be some topics that he doesn't comment on which he probably should. For example, there is a chapter about 'The Discipling Community' which I thought would be worth a read, what with Cornerstone attempting to be just that. It turns out that they made a pretty big proof-reading error and the chapter in question should actually be called 'The Disciplining Community'. Maybe there will be something on discipling in a later chapter. There should be.

However, his comments on authority and communal decision-making are excellent and well worth reading if you're involved in a church that has congregational government. Of course, the chances of you getting a hold of this book are very slim anyway so maybe you should just smile and nod politely as I rant away.

So that'll do for today. Have a great week ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Here's SAAANNTTAAA!

We hope that you all had a great Christmas. We were in Sydney for the festive season. You may remember that we were in Sydney once before, staying with parents of one of the couples here at Cornerstone. Well, they invited us back for Christmas. Dave manages a Christian conference centre and it was empty in the build up to Christmas so they let us stay there. We had all the facilities to ourselves. It was like being in The Shining except with less snow and more Cornflakes.

Speaking of snow...the weather was incredible. As in 'unbelievable'. As in 'it
rained a lot'. We drove to Sydney and back to Dubbo in torrential rain. It was crazy. There were a couple of very nice days when we in Sydney but it wasn't as warm as we were expecting it to be. Christmas day was very grey, just like back home. The difference was that it was still warm enough to wear shorts - but I wore a long sleeved top for the first time since winter. Apart from that it was all very nice. We're thankful to Dave and Ros for their generosity, and we've been blessed by the generosity of people here in Oz.

We had a BBQ for Christmas lunch. Prawns were included in this event, so I guess we've now had the stereotypical Aussie Christmas lunch. Reid certainly enjoyed his 'frozen prawns' as he called them.


We did quite a few nice things while in Sydney too. We visited a couple of beaches. We didn't get to Bondi, but we did visit Manly beach - which was pretty stunning as you probably won't be able to tell from the photo below.


Reid managed to get totally soaked at Manly Beach - he seems to love splashing in the waves fully dressed. Ruth managed to knock up this little number out of Xanthe's kanga, so Reid wondered around Manly looking like a tiny little Hare Krishna. He enjoyed that too. Basically, every day is a celebration for little Reidy.


We also visited Palm Beach. Now why would we visit that beach, you may ask? What's so special about Palm Beach? Well, listen up. Palm Beach is where they shoot the beach scenes for Home and Away. That's right - we've been to the beach where Alf Stuart lives. If you look at the photo below you can see that piece of land sticking out into the sea. That's Stuart's Point. From Home and Away. Even having to get out of the water because someone spotted a shark couldn't dampen the magic of being at such a hallowed place. Tune in next week to see if I can crowbar another Alf Stuart reference into this blog.


We visited Taronga Zoo which was pretty good too. We had to, seeing as we include Ruth Webb : Zoo Visitor amongst our number. Here are some photos of our day out - including the rather nice view we had while eating our picnic lunch. Bonus points will be awarded for posting "That's a nice photo of you James - no wait, it's a gorilla" comments.






I've actually enjoyed receiving a few annual newsletters and e-mails from Pommie friends this year. I'm always very keen to find out what everyone is up to now that we've left the country. I expect the quality of life in general has gone down.

I'm reading a book called Living in Christian Community : A Personal Manifesto by a fellow called Art Gish. I wasn't really keen to read it at first because the author's photo on the back of the book looked like a medieval woodcutting of a leprechaun, but I'm glad that I did. It's got nothing do with Cornerstone, but it's probably the best effort I've come across of communicating exactly Cornerstone's vision for community. I've only just started it so it might go downhill rapidly but I don't expect it to. If you wonder what's at the heart of our decision to live communally then try and get your hands on this book. If you can get your hands on the author then even better. I think he'll be forced to give you a pot of gold if you do.

I'll finish with a photo of a St Andrew's Cross spider, so called because it's completed web usually has a clear 'X' structure in the middle of it. This web is not completed and the photo is a bit blurred but Ruth was quite proud of it (bless her) so I'm putting it up for everyone to see.

The Amazing Adventures of Ruth: Zoo Tourist

First, the photo at the end of last week's blog was Reid. I can't believe that no-one even dared to have a guess, let alone get it right.

It's been another busy week. Xanthe had her first birthday (although, technically, I guess that the day she was born was her first birth-day) this week. She wasn't as interested in her presents as the boys were, but that's par for the course. Ruth worked her cake magic again. It's odd to think that Xanthe has been around for a year now.






It's been raining quite a bit here. Everyone's happy, even the boys.


What with it being Christmas soon Calvin had his end of year concert. It involved the children singing a few songs and doing some silly dances, some of which Calvin excelled at.


We're off to Sydney for Christmas. We've been offered a place to stay over the holiday so we'll head down there next week. Ruth is hoping to get a chance to visit Bondi beach when we're there, just so that she can say that we've been to the beach at Christmas time.


Finally, I managed to get into the Dubbo PhotoNews again. What can I say? The camera loves me. You'll see me in the photo above. What? What do you mean you "can't see me"? There I am. Right there! Click on the picture and look at the bottom right picture. There! Behind that table! Yeah. Yeah, that's my head. That's me. That, of course, means that I've been in the Dubbo PhotoNews twice now. My mission for this year has been well and truly accomplished. Ruth hasn't even been in it once yet. But then again, why does she need to? Watch the video below.



How can I compete with that? Have a good week.

Punishable by Death

I'm a changed man since moving to Oz. You may remember the old James, who very much adopted a live-and-let-live policy to insects. In fact, I even felt twinges of guilt when I considered taking the life of an innocent spider. I would much rather have chased them out of the house or let them be - neither option was quite good enough for my arachnophobia wife. Since arriving here I've lost all compassion for the
insect race. I now maim, slice and dice with the best of them. The insects in Australia are a different, mutant breed compared to our peace-loving UK versions. As
far as I'm concerned, a spider forfeits its right to life that moment that it grows as big as a man's face. Now you'll see me chasing a beast around the house with murderous intent. Is it in our shoe cupboard (where it's clearly been trying on our footwear)? Is it hiding behind an ornament? Who cares? It's a dead spider walking.

I've decided not to print any further photos of my fingernail. It's not looking great at the moment but soon it will be healed totally. Consider this matter closed. CLOSED, I said.


Back to an Englishman's favourite topic - the weather. We're in summer here so we've got appropriately summerish weather. There's also been plenty of rain so you could say we're having something of an English summer. Dubbo's December record for rainfall has, apparently, already been broken so everyone is pretty happy at the moment. It's working out very nicely too. We generally have very warm days (or days that are a bit too warm) and then some cracking thunderstorms in the evening / night. They're torrential. I've seen the most amazing lightning storms in my life over the past few weeks.


It's also Christmas soon. You may have noticed. It's weird here because it feels all wrong to be so hot. We've done a bit of decorating (that's one of those 'we's that refers to everyone in the family except me) and so on. Our Christmas tree is pretty small and we've loaded it with candy canes, which is something of a risk when you have small candy cane thieves moving around the house unsupervised. Still - none of our children would even be able to get away with such a crime, would they? Would they?


As a little bonus 'something to do this week' here's a photo. See if you can identify which of our three children it shows. It should take you about 0.005 of a second to figure it out. Just call me The Riddler. Answer next week.

Muster Report

Hello everyone. This'll just be short update to let you know a bit more about what happened this week during Cornerstone's 30th anniversary muster.

There were a many hundred people there (which is my way of saying that there were a few hundred - more than three but less than seven - without having to be exact). I missed the Thursday and Friday sessions because I was working, but they were primarily reunions for ex-students of specific centres. I was involved in the Saturday morning session, interviewing some of the ex-deans of Cornerstone centres through the ages. You can see me on the left with a funky radio mic. I'm so rad.

For those of you have heard of him, Colin Buchanan did a couple of songs. He was very good. The Saturday evening was a concert with various Cornerstoners (including Colin again) taking part. There were some exceptionally good acts. I missed the end because, like every session I have ever attended at any Cornerstone event, it over-ran and I had to go home.

It was a tiring weekend, but it was really good to get to meet some of the people we've heard about.


Despite not getting top billing, the fingernail saga continues. I took matters into my own hand and begin to peel off the last remaining fragment of nail. The photo above was taking during this process. I had managed to detach all of the nail bar one small corner, which was still stuck to my skin. The photo just below was taken shortly after I completed the process of removing the whole nail. It hurt and there was a fair amount of blood, but I was a very brave boy and Ruth said that I could have some ice cream. I'll write again soon. Maybe I'll have to damage another fingernail so that I can continue this section; clearly the most popular part of my blog. Have a good week.

Back by popular demand...

I've bowed to public opinion and decided to continue to finger update. Here you can see that the lower half of the nail has totally come away now, and the black scab continues to advance. I suspect that it'll all be over by Christmas and we'll be living under the glorious new regime of healed fingernail.

In all seriousness, it's little things like this that remind me how amazing the human body is. The ability to replace wounded and broken parts out of nothing? It's almost as if there were some amazing kind of mind behind it all...


Also back by popular demand - Eddie! This photo was taken by one of our freelance journalists (me) about a week ago. I have no way of knowing if this is the original Eddie or a scaly imposter. There's no real way of knowing at this stage. Or at any stage to be honest. I mean, how do you tell lizards apart anyway?


This weekend will be Cornerstone's thirtieth muster. The muster is an annual gathering for the current Cornerstone students and staff to mark the end of the year and commission people for future events. Because Cornerstone is thirty years old this year it's going to be a massive event with ex-students and ex-staff invited too. It's predicted that there will be around five or six hundred people present, which is only a fraction of the total number of people who have been linked with Cornerstone over the years. It should be good.


I'm writing this on Tuesday 27th November, which is Calvin's fifth birthday. He's been very excited by events. Plenty of presents and a nice birthday party, and Ruth worked her usual birthday cake magic. He did cry when he didn't win musical statues though. I think that when it's your birthday and you're the centre of attention you probably expect only good things to happen. He was fine by the end of the party, of course, but it's always a traumatic thing for a parent to be at a birthday party and your child is the only one crying. Especially if it's his party. Double especially if he's crying because he isn't winning every game that you play. I blame the parents.

Next time I'll write I'll be able to tell you how the muster went. Have a good week.

In Memory of Alf Stewart (Who's not actually dead)

This is a photo of a Galah, the fabled 'flaming' bird that has nestled itself into our subconscious thanks to Alf Stewart's (of Home and Away) legendary catchphrase. I was unable to take a photo of a 'hoon' but if you look on YouTube you'll find a few. NSW has just introduced legislation which means that dangerous drivers can have their car confiscated, crushed and a video of this event put up on YouTube. That's the kind of proactive policing I'd like to see more of in the UK.

Back to the bird. It was in our garden and showing a marked reluctance to leave, even when a two-legged beast flashed a camera at it. We think it may have fallen out of a nest, or have injured itself. It couldn't fly very well. Don't ask me where it is now. I don't know.

We've finally had some news about our plans for next year. We'll be in Dubbo for at least half the year (but maybe longer) and then heading off to a first-year centre. We originally thought that we'd be at Swan Hill in Victoria, but it's been suggested that we'd head of to Canowindra, which is still in NSW and a couple of hours nearer to Sydney. We're open to things changing in the next six months or so anyway, and this would depend on sorting out course and visa requirements.

We're hoping to have a few visitors next year - both sets of parents, other assorted family and friends. If any of you are looking for an excuse to come out to Oz and see what all this sunshine is about then here we are!

Yep, we're getting closer to Summer here. It's still Spring, but it's lovely weather. We've been taking advantage of the swimming pool here.

I suppose it's time to tell you about Foodbank. Foodbank is a charity set up to support other charities. Foodback collect donations of food and other goods from supermarkets and sell them on at a super-cheap rate (sometimes they give them for free) to charitable organisations like Cornerstone. Admittedly some of the goods are past their sell-by-date (hence how they end up at Foodbank) but a lot of them aren't. We've managed to get our hands on all kinds of things at great prices, such as essential items like cans of Coke and boxes and boxes of Kinder chocolate for a few pounds. It's great for people like us who have no money! Viva la Foodbank.

Finger Update

This is just a quick update to make sure that all you know that I haven't forgotten you. I'm beginning to think that more frequent small updates might be better than infrequent big updates, so this is a kind of experiment in that direction.

The big news today? I wouldn't call myself a 'traditionalist' as such but they've started putting Splashe cola in plastic bottles instead of glass and it just doesn't feel right.


Well, I know you've all been waiting for the update on my finger so here it is. As you can see from the photo the black scab has moved up my finger, probably signalling its future decay. On the plus side you'll be able to see that the bottom of the nail has come away and revealed underneath brand new shiny fingernail, so I'm hoping that this kind of overlap will occur for the whole nail meaning that I am never without nail protection. Isn't the human body amazing. STAY TUNED FOR THE LATEST UP-TO-DATE COVERAGE.


Calvin had his first day at 'big' school today. In Australia you can decide whether to send your child in the January when they are five or six, so they stay at home longer here than in the UK. Calvin's been ready for a while - he was dressed in 'uniform', hat and shoes by 6:30am. He'll be going for one morning a week for the next month as part of his induction into the school. Here he is in his uniform. He was very excited. The day went very well indeed.

I'll let you all know how my finger is getting on shortly.

"Thank You, Big Oz"

I'm going to start with a little reflection today. I remember a time back when I was a lad and we had - as a family - gone on one of our infrequent outings to Milton Keynes to wander around the futuristic dystopian shopping mall of Buckinghamshire's favourite new town. My parents bought a tape (this was back in the day when you didn't have CD players in your car unless you were Dr. Who or some other time travelling rascal) tape that purported to contain Colin Blunstone's Greatest Hits or something like that. Except it wasn't. It was Colin Blunstone's Greatest Hits 'tributed' by someone else. I guess mum and dad should have heard the alarm bells when they saw that the cassette declared that it starred "Paul Bean and His Amazing Wurlitzer". I remember dad putting it in the tape player and being extremely disappointed to find out that not only was it purely instrumental but that it had been done by someone on a Casio keyboard for a GCSE music project.

There is a reason why I sharing all this nostalgia with you. This tale came to mind when we were in Target today and I was tempted to be a CD called Synthesizer Greats for $2. I know I should have been warned off by the fact that it said 'Instrumental' down the spine and had the name L'Orchestra Electronique on it, but I went against my better judgement. Actually, it's turned out to be a pretty good purchase. The nature of synthesizer music means that it's not hard for a tribute band to reproduce the exact sound of the original, and the fact that it's 'Instrumental' doesn't matter either because tunes like Chariots of Fire and Oxygene are not renowned for their lyrical excellence. Oh, I also bought a proper CD - Dystopia by the Midnight Juggernauts who are an Australian band that Terry would like.


When I was on the mat run yesterday I held the door open for an endearing aboriginal gentleman who said, I think, "Thank you, big Oz" as he went by. I've never heard that expression before but assume it's a generic greeting for a tall male fella who looks like he might be Australian. Mind you, as I said, there was something inherently endearing about the man so he could have said "Thank you, ugly troll" and I probably would have felt just as pleased. Having things like this happen to you is just one of the minor benefits of having a job like the mat run. The biggest benefit is, of course, that your forearms smell of rubber all the year round.

Xanthe has not been well recently. She's had an ear infection so has been on antibiotics for a week. They've been helping her ear, but no-one warned us about the horrible side effects! Her hand has swollen to the extent that it's now as large as her head!


The clocks go forward tonight, and they go back in the UK so that means we'll go from being 9 hours ahead to being 11 hours ahead. I put that information in for family members who might not be aware of the chronological changes.

I've been doing this for a while now - at least one blog a week for 38 weeks. I'm thinking of cutting back to a fortnightly blog simply so that I can maintain the quality that I know that all of you discerning readers demand. So this is my way of saying that there might not be a blog posted next Saturday (but there might) and if there isn't then one will be along in another week. Have a good week/fortnight!

Happy Birthday to Roo

On Monday of this week we celebrated Ruth's thirtieth birthday. She had a really nice time and the community went to great lengths to make it a day to remember. We had our fellowship group meeting at the Volkofskys and Penny had created this amazing four course meal that we all really enjoyed. After this we went to the lounge for a party of sorts. We had some more great food and a great time. There was supposed to be an 'English' theme to the party so we had plenty of tea to drink and a few special guests, namely Dr. Who, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and a random Englishman in a peaked cap. We felt very honoured by their presence. Kind of.


You may remember that a few blogs back I reported that I had crushed my finger during the fateful trip to Swan Hill. Well, the fingernail is still black and ugly but doesn't seem to be doing anything. It's neither healing nor dropping off. It's like it can't decide whether to be dead or not. It continues to live, function and grow in a state of undeath but it's definitely not being 'normal'. It's my undead fingernail; my zombie ungula. An ungula, by the way, is another word for 'claw' or 'talon'. I looked it up on the Internet when I was searching for another way of saying 'fingernail'. So now everyone who insists that it's only a good blog when they 'learn something new' should be happy.

We've finally got some idea what we'll be up to next year. We think we'll be staying here in Dubbo for the first part of the year (probably anywhere between three and six months) and then being sent to a first-year centre. At the moment the favourite seems to be Swan Hill, but we'll see. Things can change in the course of a month. While we're here in Dubbo we'll be finalising things like our visas and how much of the course that I haven't yet done I can get away with not doing.

It's really hot here. It must be mid-thirties. And it's still only spring.

Calvin has been pestering us for a pet for a while. He's tried to convince us that a goldfish wouldn't be much work but I don't believe him. Or maybe I should put it this way, I believe that a goldfish is not much work but the point is that Ruth and I would be the ones doing it. Well, OK, mostly Ruth. However, we have now acquired two guinea pigs and they sit in a bird cage on our front lawn. The guinea pigs are sisters (I hope they are anyway because I gather than guinea pigs don't have the same qualms that we have about brother/sister relationships) and the boys 'possess' one each. Calvin named his little pet 'Sydney', which is quite a good name for a female Australian guinea pig. Reid showed a little less sensitivity but just as much imagination by naming his 'Spiderman'. So we have two new additions to the family - Sydney and Spiderman. Hmmmmm. I made it clear to Ruth that we could only take them on if I was not expected to have anything to do with them. I failed to get a similar understanding in place when Xanthe was born so I wasn't going to get caught out this time.

Have a good week. See you in a week and hopefully I'll have something worth saying.

Bored of the Flies

The photo above is how I looked before the Australia/England rugby game last week. There is no photo of how I looked during or after the game, but be assured that I definitely looked happier that I do in the photo above. The game against France is being shown at 4a.m. tomorrow morning. I think I'll be giving that one a miss. I'll have to check the score when I wake up in the morning.

Open Week has finished here at Cornerstone. I think that it went very well and it certainly seemed to make a positive impact on many of the the people who visited us. I enjoyed talking to people and hearing their stories - it's fascinating to hear how God is and has been working in people's lives. I also really enjoyed the first game of soccer I've played since arriving in Australia. Of course, regular fellow-players will not be surprised to learn that I dazzled the entire nation with my silky skills. However, I did discover that, despite the exertions of the mat run, I seem to be a bit out of shape. It also showed me that I do miss the games I used to enjoy as an integral part of HHBC FC. Maybe I can remedy that situation in the near future.

I've found that, pretty much without exception as far as I know, people who spend some time living here in community at Burrabadine are generally attracted to what we are doing and experiencing out here. Cornerstone is far from perfect, but the heart of what it is about is focused on mission, discipleship and whole-of-life spirituality. The general response from Christians who spend enough time here to get over the 'radical' nature of things can see the advantages and blessing of the way that we're doing things. I think it can be quite hard to be confronted with the example of a different way of living, especially as people can see that there's a lot to be said for it. There are things that could be a lot better here; things that other organisations will do very well, but I think that Cornerstone has made a genuine difference over the years and will keep doing so as it continues.


Eddie is back! No, not really. I haven't seen him in many months so have to assume that he's long gone and maybe been eaten by something. Possibly Reid. This lizard was spotted outside our house a couple of days ago in about the same spot that Reid saw the lizard with the black tongue a long time ago (I mention it in a previous blog, continuity fans). When we drove to Bourke was saw a few lizards just sitting on the road, sunning themselves. There is a lot more variety of reptilian activity here in Oz. We are not known for out scaly wildlife in the UK.


Speaking of which, the flies. THE FLIES! I've already mentioned the veracity of the flies here and I've been suffering for the past couple of weeks. Just stepping outside of the house is an invitation to be set-upon by a swarm of The Buzzing Death. They are either very brave or highly stupid as they seem to have no sense of self-preservation. They sit on your face until you try to kill them and then...then they fly off for a nanosecond before returning to your face. I'm surprised at how well I've adapted to them so far. Annoying as they are they don't bother me as much as they used to. However, I have a feeling that when the summer finally kicks in I'll be longing for the days when they only attacked in groups of ten. I have to say that I don't think I'll ever get used to the terribly horrible position of getting in the car and setting off only to find that you've trapped three flies in with you. You're totally at their mercy then as any attempt to swipe them away, open the door or even shoo them out of a window can result in sudden veering and / or potential death. You just have to sit and bear it as they proceed to lay eggs in your eyelids. Still, I suppose that life can't just be fun all the time.