Hi all, just a quickie, I say hi all………….all, hopefully meaning there are persons out there who read this…………….is there anyone out there? If you do look at the site regularly could you please log in and leave me a comment, it would be much appreciated.

Well what a 10 days, the ships have been relentless and have just kept arriving from the other side of the horizon. We have had our first big spring tides of the year, which is one reason why it has been so busy. The ships can have a deeper draft (carry more cargo) as there is more water in the river. There have been a lot of VLS (very large ships) which are the ships I mainly pilot. VLS jobs take longer than smaller ships. And……they all seem to have been at night,

We had to chastise a Captain a couple of days ago. There are not many people in the world who can get away with “telling off” a Captain of a ship, but pilots seem to get away with it.  The Captain actually nearly did for me…………It was quite windy with a good 4m swell or so out there. The ship had made a lee ( provided a protected side of the ship for us to transfer from the boat to the ladder) I was stood next to the ladder about to step from the boat, when we started to bob up and down a bit. The bobbing got worse and I realised I was not going to get on the ladder as we started to move up and down over 4 m and waves were coming over the bow of the boat. The Captain in his “wisdom” had altered the course of the ship without telling us, and what was a relatively smooth side now had 4m plus swells and waves running down the side of the ship and I was left stranded on the bow of the pilot boat, clutching on for life!!! Hence my chagrin!!     

What do you think to the sexism row in the UK at the moment. We cannot condone the comments or the rude and lewd inuendos……………but these were all said off the air, and between two blokes who have worked together for 20 years and are also friends. I am very afraid that we are on a slippery slope when we start to pry and judge and condemn people who thought they were talking in private to each other. We are on the edge of a very dangerous precipice were freedom of speech is about to take a massive fall!!! Especially as Christians we must stand up for our freedom of speech at all costs. This row interestingly broke out a week after my last talk “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. I would encourage you to listen to it. All our talks can be found in the multimedia page of the site under audio sermons.

I popped into the nursery yesterday at school to talk about my job. Sue wanted me to dress up in my Captains uniform……4 gold stripes on the cuffs and gold scrambled egg on my cap…………clean white shirt, black tie, new niceley pressed black trousers, and, and I polished my boots!!I  was ”bigged up” before I got there and we had a chat and we showed them some pictures of ships and getting on and off from the pilot boat. At the end Sue asked if they had any questions………The arms went up and one little girl plucked up courage…………and I was ready for anything they could throw at me…………….she began to speak 

” I live in Brandesburton” ,

“ thats nice anyone else.”…..

” I live in Brandesburton as well” ….

“very good, who else has got a question for Captain Clark”        

” I do as well”………………And so it went on,  the children are only 3 and 4 years old. They all had a go at wearing some of my old uniform jackets and wearing my caps, we had a great time.

Well that’s it for now I must get down to thinking about my talk for Sunday evening………………….

Latest podcast of Sunday 16th January now in the multimedia section of the site.

January 16th, 2011.  Pat preaches on the final Beatitude, from Matthew 5:10.

The music used in the opening and closing sequences of this podcast is called ‘Frescoes’, by Alexandr Filippov.
It is released under a Creative Commons licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) and is available from http://www.jamendo.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:25 — 13.7MB)

Stop the world I want to get off!!!! Where does the time disappear too. We are already in the middle of January, how and where have the days gone too? 

You could say we were now into our second year with link!

As I write looking out of the office window over the golf course, the sun is shining and there is a bit of blue sky and no wind whatsoever. A pleasant afternoon and I should really be outside catching up in the garden and allotment. We have got our first snow drops peeking through the dead leaves from the trees on the golf course. And this morning I actually saw Daffodils in a garden in the village that are not many days from opening can you believe. It is good to see signs of life in the garden again.

Link is well underway again after the festivities of Christmas and new year which do seem a long time ago now.

Link ladies and Smartiz have started well and on Thursday evening we had our inaugural meeting of the purpose driven pint at the Dacre. We had a good evening, enjoying a few pints a big plate of chips ( with Dacre spice ) and a bowl of salsa to dip in to and of course some excellent conversation. We were discussing Elton John and his adoption of a baby from an American surrogate mother……………It provided a lot of interesting debate and I think the lads are up for an other evening. The dates are in the calendar, I am definitely next home on a Thursday on the 3rd February….although I could be available on other Thursdays, and PDP will then take place at short notice.

Momentum went well on Friday night at the New life centre Bridlington Avenue, Hull. Chip Kendall was the speaker,( formerly singer with “the band with no name”) It really was an excellent night with about 70 or so young people turning up. Next Momentum is on the 11th Feb, again keep checking the calendar for details.

Last Monday evening we were invited as link leaders to the licensing and installation of the Reverend James Grainger-Smith as priest in charge of Brandesburton and Leven with Catwick, and the Reverend Chris Simmons as assistant curate with special responsibility for Catwick.  It was lovely to have been invited and to be a part of the evening as we were able to formerly welcome them both into their new positions. It was good to get together with other Christians from the area as well and to be part of this special evening. I managed to speak with the Archdeacon of the East Riding who I had already met a couple of years ago, and the Bishop of Hull the Right Reverend Richard Frith introduced himself to us and we had a lovely chat. All in all a good evening. The service was a million miles removed from our simple little meetings in the chapel hall but we all had the love of Jesus in common as we came together and worshipped God with some fantastic old hymns.

Last night we had a full link meeting and I continued our series of talks on the beatitudes with the final one “blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. We had a good evening with 18 of us, and a fantastic time of worship led by Mike. Unfortunately Jayne could not make it as Emily was ill, so we were a man down in our worship group. We were looking forward to hearing Jayne on her Saxophone but we will have to wait until next time…………. 

I will try and blog more regularly now that we are getting back into a bit of a routine………………….do we ever get in a routine!!

Bye for now.

January 2nd, 2011.  Jayne speaks on the seventh of Jesus’ pronouncements, Blessed are the Peacemakers.  Pat covered this back in December – listen to podcast #07 to refresh your memory!

The music used in the opening and closing sequences of this podcast is called ‘Frescoes’, by Alexandr Filippov.
It is released under a Creative Commons licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) and is available from http://www.jamendo.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:05 — 9.5MB)