not so silent

About a million years ago, when I was an apprentice mechanic, a change in life happened. At the company I worked we took delivery of a new Bedford TK truck, heater and rubber floor mats optional! We climbed into and searched all over the new shiny toy, like children in a playground. Then someone asked “what’s that”? Behind the steering wheel where the speedo lived there was a large black, roundish clock. The foreman informs us in a overly smug way “it’s a tachograph”. It records everything the lorry and the driver does on a small piece of paper which is handed to the manager at the end of the working shift. At that point a driver steps into the crowd of inquisitive mechanics and apprentices and proclaims “Oh $%£* now they will know everything we do”.  On reflection the tachograph was a clunky piece of kit that began a new way of tracking; where we are, what we are doing and what we are not doing.  The tachograph was renamed the spy in the cab. It was seen very much as ...

We are committed! In the past we agreed, but now we are committed. Tickets to Johannesburg have been acquired, and seats booked (same seats as last time). We are now sorting our possessions. I am grateful to Brother Nigel (Schibald), who, many years ago first planted the seed of a simple life, living with less. Pictured are the possessions we are shipping to South Africa. Fourteen boxes that will help us live a simpler life at Mercy Air, in White River. What we are discovering is that we have so much stuff! Jesus once said something about our possessions and our treasures.   We have already made many trips to the re-cyclers, and the council tip, and there will be many more to come. In this part of the journey we are asking; ‘What do we want to come back to?’ We are moving from a 5 bedroom house vicarage with a large garden, to a small 2 bedroom cabin with a combined kitchen, living and dining room, with a massive garden (The Lowveld).         We discover...