New kid on the block . . .

This is a bit of a name-check post!

Thanks to Elizabeth of Sussex for her comment on Mac's blog Mulier Fortis in which she recommends this blog by Charlie J.

It's called Chasubles and Chalices. Go and check it out.

It's the first blog of its kind that I've seen by anyone under 21. Great blog, Charlie!

That's all I wanted to say, really.

Just musin' . . .

Firstly, apologies both for the lateness of yesterday's posting and its length.

I think it should really have been two separate posts but I was having such a battle with our Internet connection that I was just relieved to be able to finally publish it!

In between waiting for the router to decide to connect us with the Internet and pulling my hair out, I began thinking about blogging in general.

Why do I blog and who is it for? . . . I think the answer is really that I do it for myself.

I began this blog as a sort of online diary mainly aimed at family living overseas as we have a lot of family spread over different continents. As some of them found it difficult to cope with the password system I had set up to keep the blog fairly private, I decided to 'go public' as it was the only way they could read it. This changed the nature of the blog somewhat as I am not comfortable posting photos of our family that are open to all or writing about them in ways that would easily identify them. (I should add, members of our family were themselves also not happy about this).

Gradually, the blog seemed to take on a life of its own and I found myself talking about my faith and referring to parish events or the Catholic Church in general. I have never pretended that this is a serious Catholic blog. If you like, you could say it is a Catholic blog, merely because the author is a practising Catholic.

Sometimes, however, I have found myself discarding a topic that I was going to blog about in case someone disapproved of it, or even feeling that I really ought to write a few lines about something that would be particularly relevant to Catholic readers. I don't want to feel under any pressure to either write or not write in a particular way so I think what I'm trying to say is . . .

This is my blog and it reflects who I am. If you like to read it, great but if you don't think it's serious enough; is too serious; is too miscellaneous in content; is not Catholic enough or is too Catholic for your taste then that's fine too.

I won't be offended if I am removed from anybody's blog roll. I'll continue to read blogs that interest me and comment when I have something to say.

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Another take on saving the planet . . .

I saw this on Matthew Warner's blog Fallible Blogma today. He makes a good point, don't you think?

Well, I never! . . .

Someone gave me an award! Thank you very much Breadgirl over at Last Welsh Martyr for giving my little blog a Sunshine Award. It may not be the Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar or an Oxbridge First but it's very much appreciated nevertheless.

We all need encouragement and things like this really pick you up.

Now comes the hard part; it's payback time and this is what I have to do now:

The rules are as follows:

1. Post the logo on your blog and/or within the post.
Check!

2. Pass it on to 12 other bloggers.

Not quite so easy; I follow lots of different blogs but it's not always easy to tell who'll appreciate light-hearted things like this so I hope I don't offend anyone by nominating them. I hope they'll also consider it as much of a compliment as I did.

3. Add links to these 12 bloggers within your blog.
Here goes;

Mulier Fortis

Mother's Pride

Catholicmumof10militant

Libera Me

Time for Reflections

Catholic with Attitude

Veni Sancte Spiritus

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Mrs Pogle's World

The Eyes in Which I See the World

Drawn to Catholicism

Campionist

4. Let them know they are receiving the award.
Check!

5. Share the link of the person from whom you received the award.

Check! Good, all done, now I can relax and bask in the knowledge that I've done my bit and that it's comments that make the blogosphere go round.

Fr Ignatius - an E-book . . .

I hope from time to time some people pop into some of the blogs listed in my sidebar. That, I think, is one of the main purposes of listing other blogs.

If you've ever visited Victor's blog, Time for Reflections you'll be familiar with Fr Ignatius. This fictitious parish priest, a creation of Victor's, is a gentle, wise and often humorous priest. He has a starring role on Victor's blog and his escapades are followed by many.

Recently Victor has published a collection of stories taken from his blog in the form of an E-book. It's free to download and you can do so here. These brief and gentle stories are very easy to read but always have an underlying message or sometimes relate to Church teaching. If you haven't yet made Fr Ignatius' acquaintance why not pop over and say hello.

Counting sheep or praying the Rosary . . .

I haven't been sleeping very well recently - too many things on my mind and the PF is away on business.

I know I'm not the only one but it was an odd coincidence to discover that a fellow sufferer at the moment was also someone whose blog I've only recently come across thanks to a link from Catholic and Loving It! Saintos is a Catholic cartoon blogger. Go on over and have a look at Drawn to Catholicism if you haven't done so already.

Interesting too that Saintos also turns to prayer in the middle of the night. I usually pray a decade of the Rosary. Another coincidence - he's a convert too.

I also find counting sheep backwards works for me. I don't know why but I find if I begin with 200 sheep (imaginary ones, we do live in the heart of suburban Surrey, after all!) and count down slowly I never remember getting further than about 80 before I've nodded off.

Oops! . . . Nearly got more than I bargained for . . .

Being Saturday afternoon and having a few minutes to spare after the exertions of watching the Ladies' Singles final, I thought I'd catch up with some of the blogs that I look at from time to time.

On trying to open 'Catholic and Loving it!' from my Favourites list, I got an error message from Google directing to me to try a search for www.lovingit.co.uk.

This happens occasionally with blogs and I don't know whether it means that the blog authors are currently updating the blog, or what.

Anyway, having followed the Google link I was giving a list of possible sites as usual.

The search engine is obviously working well as James and Ella Preece's blog was right there at the top of the list . . . but look what was at number three on the list?

Just as well I hadn't mistyped lovingit.co.uk or I could have ended up with a little more than I'd bargained for. It just shows you how easily one can be led astray!

Wow, I'm a sidebar 'non-ebrity' !

I think it's a shame when a blog just disappears into the ether. I noticed the other day that Fr John Boyle has resurrected his blog, 'South Ashford Priest', or at least, was considering doing just that so I decided to post what I saw as an encouraging comment.

Lo and behold, the next time I looked to see if he'd taken the plunge or not, he'd very kindly added this little blog to his sidebar. Now I'm sure I don't deserve to be up there with the 'great and the good' and the likes of Fr Tim Finigan himself, but thank you, Fr John, for the thought.

I'm new to this blogging lark and whilst I enjoy it immensely, I'm never quite sure where blogs like mine 'fit in.' Yes, I'm a practising Catholic but I only refer to my faith from time to time on the blog and it originally started out as more of an online family newsletter.

I suppose that if you're trying to live your Catholic faith, it should and does permeate all aspects of your life so it's almost inevitable that references to your faith will 'creep' into your blog. I've certainly noticed it happening to me more and more, this blog seems to be developing a life of its own!

'Lame excuses' ... pardon the pun!!

I wouldn't claim to know very much about football but I do enjoy watching it sometimes, especially the national team. If you follow the game at all you will be aware that there is a 'friendly' international this evening against Germany (long time football rivals!!).

It would appear that Fabio Capello is struggling to field a team of 11 players looking at the long list of injured players. There is also the ongoing debate about 'club versus country'. You can understand that the clubs don't want their star players injured in a friendly match and be out of action for their club for weeks to come.

However, whichever side of the fence you come down on that particular argument, I was amused to read the following additional reasons for players' unavailability on Robbo Robson's blog on BBC's football page.

Theo Walcott (his dog's poorly); Joleon Lescott (certified hopeless); Gabby Agbonlahor (cheese allergy); Gareth Barry (needs to take a jumper back to M and S cos his Mum bought him the wrong size); Jermain Defoe (he's got a Pilates course Wednesday night) Ashley Young (eye test); David Bentley (brylcreem removal)....

I would say Robbo was getting a bit fed up with some of the probably genuine reasons why certain players were unavailable to play for the national team this evening.

As a footnote, I heard on the news this morning that Theo Walcott doesn't need to worry about his 'poorly dog' as he managed to dislocate his shoulder in training yesterday so is out of tonight's squad anyway!