amidlifechristis

I don’t want to get all morbid on you – but today I am writing a will. For one reason or another (admittedly most, if not all of the reasons could be filed under the same general heading of “procrastination”), I haven’t made one before. Ironically, now that we have less than we have ever had – I get round to writing one…. – sorry kids.

I got a D I Y Will pack from W H Smith and, for some reason best known to them they had a deal on which meant if you bought two you got a third free! Can’t resist a bargain, me. Didn’t really go in there looking for three will kits, three being exactly two more than I actually thought I needed but well, they’re almost giving them away. Not all of Smith’s offers make sense. The photo which will hopefully accompany this post was taken when I was in Smith’s just before Christmas and which I still can’t get my head round…..

Anyway, the DIY Will Kit includes a booklet full of useful notes to help you fill it in correctly. One of its star tips is the suggestion that you should not write your will in pencil.

Brilliant advice.

I’m tempted to use a wax crayon.

It also says that a blind person is barred from witnessing the signing of a will.

There’s nothing quite like writing a will to remind you of your own mortality – and also to focus in on the fact that we inter-connect with others and our responsibilities for others lasts beyond this life.

On a different, but which at the time felt like it might be related note, there is a long list of things you don’t want to do at 3 in the morning. High up my list is calling an ambulance. I had to do that this week though as Ella had woken up very ill.

Proper ill, like a woman – not like a man. Although I maintain that most, if not all my illnesses are far worse than anyone else’s I don’t do being sick and passing out nearly as well as a woman can.

Ella helpfully woke me up using ill sounds. Having got no sensible response from my (albeit limited) range of helpful medical tests such as lifting her head up and putting a towel underneath it and the ever useful first aid advice of shouting “Can you hear me?” several times with increasing volume I phoned for an ambulance. They arrived within 5 minutes which was impressive and I yelled what I hoped were encouraging words over my shoulder as I left Ella lying on the bathroom floor, unable to move and throwing up every few minutes in order to run down and open the gates that they couldn’t get through outside.

The main thing that they discovered was that Ella is a super finely tuned athlete (something I’m not entirely sure she has always suspected). A normal resting heart beat for an adult is anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. A top athlete will have a lower rate, possibly even down around the 40 beats per minute mark. Although she wasn’t convincingly looking like an Olympian at that precise moment, heart rate-wise Ella was in the superhuman realms – down to just 32. The paramedic was impressed and decided we needed a print out of that and so started fiddling with buttons and dials on his machine.

I was sure that that sort of thing would be much better done whilst hurtling through the deserted streets of Worthing en route to the hospital rather than taking up what might be valuable seconds by very much not hurtling through them but he didn’t go any faster with his fiddling with electrical nodes and long bits of printout paper in spite of all my “encouraging” him to shift it.

A trip to Worthing General Hospital followed where after some injections and monitoring all was pronounced good and after a sleepless night for both of us I enjoyed a lovely courtesy breakfast by scoffing Ella’s as she wasn’t really up to eating it.

Having billed Ella with a clean bill of health they wouldn’t give us a lift back to the flat so we had to get the bus. It’s a rock and roll lifestyle and no mistake.

So it’s not being a boring week. A little bit hectic really. Plus, we fly tomorrow (actually, we fly today now as we went out for a farewell curry last night and I didn’t get round to posting this yesterday) and I’m hoping that my deep-held philosophy on life that “If you leave things til the last minute – they only take a minute” will hold true as there are still a fair few things to work through on the “To Do” list.

I’m not sure which direction the blog will take once we leave the UK. Our intention on setting it up was purely to chart our movements during the 6 months we actually spend abroad – as a document of the people we meet and the experiences we have – and to see God at work in parts of the world we wouldn’t normally see, and to try to be consciously open to His informing and inspiring the next step of our journey to hopefully continue serving him whilst living among others.

We’re going to try to be a bit more interactive by responding to comments that people are kind enough to add. (Well, so far, so kind). Hope there will be things on here for you to enjoy – some to make you think and some to challenge.

It’s now Friday afternoon and we think we’ve done everything we need to do – (I think), so head for Heathrow shortly. Best get this (b)logged.

Chocks away.

See you on the other side.

Of the equator.

And if anyone wants a brand new D I Y Will Kit please get in touch.