when things don't go to 'plan', for the better.

It is interesting yet frustrating how sometmes the plans you made don't work out for whatever reason. It is even more interesting, and perhaps a bit more gratifying or satisfying when in hindsight you see and understand WHY those things didn't work out! Particularly when the delay between the two is small.

Spring is coming!

 I had one of those situations this weekend.  I had planned to go to newcastle to catch up with some friends up there, and as you may have guessed that didn't end up happening! I have a little bit of a reputation at times for not being completely prepared, or for being too laid back and not paying attention to departure times of flights/trains/buses.I was out with some work friends in Liverpool on Friday night, and when I got home I thought I should probably check what time the bus to Newcastle actually left (as I had already bought my ticket). Only to discover that when I had bought my ticket, I'd accidently bought a bus ticket up to newcastle leaving at 0745 on SUNDAY instead of Saturday! I didn't think it was worth the hassle of 5 hours on a bus up to Newcastle, a couple hours hanging out with friends to catch a 3hour train back...



Lady Lever art gallery in Bebington



The gardens at Lady Lever art gallery



Mersey ferries against liverpool

Muddy Mersey

Streets in Birkenhead

So I decided to stay in Liverpool for the weekend and was rewarded in many different ways. The sun came out!! On both days, though not for the entire day. Saturday I spent wandering around Birkenhead for a little bit where I walked to the ferry point and had a look around the Mersey river from that side. I now know where Birkenhead park is but I didn't end up there this time. Apparently Hyde Park in New York is based upon it. Then I went into Liverpool and wandered all around there as well.

Bombed out St Lukes church

I learnt quite alot of things that I didn't know previously. For example, I went to St Lukes church which was bombed during the war adn learnt about life during that period. The church is beautiful, but only the outside of the structure stands. The council bought the church and it is now used as a place of peace and serenety after the destruction of the war, with urban gardening inside. You can do as much or as little gardening as you want.

Down at Albert Dock there is the Maritime Museum, the Slavery Museum, the Tate Art Gallery and a fair few other things. I only managed to get through part of the Maritime museum, so will have to go back down there again to get through some more of them as they were all pretty fascinating. I learnt that three major ships that sunk within three years originally came from Liverpool - the Titanic, the Empress and something else that I forgot the name of. There was heaps of memorabilia from the different ships and tales of life during that period, particularly during the war.

The entrance to China town

However, the main reason that it was good in the end that I didn't go to Newcastle this weekend was that I found a church! First time lucky! :) I was googling 'liverpool, church, young adults' and came up with a few different options, two of which I decided to check out. One of them, the one I ended up at today had on their young adults page, the numbers of a few of the leaders of the various groups. So I sent a msg to one of them yesterday and got a few messages back from them, which was a promising start! It was raining a little bit when I left the hospital (where I'm living) this morning. I'm currently relying on public transport to get around, which is both good and bad. If you miss the bus on a Sunday though, you have to wait an hour for the next or catch a few buses to end up where you want. Luckily for me, when I ran to the bus, it was there waiting and I got straight on and managed to find the church straight away. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming and wanting to chat which was encouraging as well.

The message though, that was what really sealed the deal for me here though (as well as the friendliness!!). I found it to be really challenging, practical and beneficial as the stage of life that I am in. And I guess just following on from things I've been reading and learning this week as well. It all just seemed to fit.

It was on 1 Samuel 17, and about facing your 'goliaths' - the things that sap your hope, undermine your confidence, intimidate you. We have a tendency to only focus on the strength of Goliath and the weaknesses in our lives and then feel inadequate to overcome it. We need to take Davids' example, face our giant, raise up and conquer it, by replacing the giant focus with a God focus.

David's immediate focus is on God - he mentions God ten times and Goliath only twice, a factor of 5:1. We need to face up to the things that pull us down, keeping the focus on God. The armies of heaven are with us.

You are my King and my God.
You command victories for Israel.
Only by your power can we push back our enemies;
only in your name can we trample our foes.
I do not trust in my bow;
I do not count on my sword to save me.
You are the one who gives us victory over our enemies;
you disgrace those who hate us.
O God, we give glory to you all day long
and constantly praise your name. Psalm 44:4-8

Goliaths try to come and steal our happiness. We need to then need to magnify God, make him the biggest thing, the centre stage, doing whatever it is to get our hearts singing again and worshipping God. (Might I add that I am missing my guitar like CRAZY right now....)

It is incredible how a little bit of refocusing on what is actually important can completely change your mood. I am blessed.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

Changing my perspective

I really really don't like having nothing to do. It never seems to work out well. It was disappointing when I arrived last week to discover that nothing was prepared in terms of training or IT access, and starting on Monday (as I'd asked) would have been perfectly fine. That was hard, finding out that I could have waited a few extra days and spent more time with family and friends in Australia. An empty weekend forced me to begin to acknowledge and deal with all the changes that have occurred in the last few weeks of my life. Attempting to learn how to relax and rest, which I am definitely not good at. I've cried most days and wondered on multiple occasions whether I have made the right decision returning to England, or if I am making a mistake. I guess time will only tell. I'd like to think though, that God will use every situation I land myself in (voluntarily or not) to teach me, help me grow, change me. I've been reading alot of Ecclesiastes and I think that I'm going through a bit of a season of having to let go and just wait.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 A Time for Everything


There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

The sunshine I woke up to

I'm learning to appreciate more and more on how blessed I am, and stop focussing on petty little things. I have it really good, and I need to refocus my perspective. I have a good upbringing and education and good health and safety in the environment I am in. Yesterday morning, just when I needed some warmth, the sun came out for the hour that I went walking in the morning, and it totally made my day seeing that tiny bit of blue sky and some warmer rays. Today the sun was shining all day! God is good.

Take the Congo, for example. Women and children there are being raped by militia using it as a weapon much cheaper than bullets. NGOs believe that one in three females have been raped. One in three! And then, thirty percent of those women are infected with HIV, a condition they will have for the rest of their lives. In comparison, the things I don't like about my life are minescule. http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2009/congo/index.html

On a 'lighter' note. It am enjoying working in a hospital again, the little things that make you smile. If you've watched scrubs before, well most of the time it's a pretty accurate depictation of some of the silliness that can go on, the funny things you can overhear, the shenanigans that patients get up to... the chasing around trying to find patient notes, the patient who can't recognise the nurses who have been looking after him and think s they are all gorgeous, the patients who tell you they are eating when they actually aren't, the smile on patient's faces when you as a dietitian are ENCOURAGING them to eat even more cheese, chocolate, cream, butter, biscuits, chips... the irony of people with lung cancer standing out the front of the entrance of an oncology centre with their drip stands chain smoking...

return of the boomerang

So the last 48 hours have been a bit insane, resulting in me right now being back in England on a train heading up to Liverpool. Yes England! Like I said, crazy. I'd just come home on Tuesday night from hanging out with the boys up the road playing tennis and swimming laps to receive a call from one of the agents in the UK who's been looking for jobs for me, saying that they had a position who definitely wanted ME. The only catch... I needed to start pretty much straight away. I ummed and aahhed a little bit, had a look to see if there were any flights available, had a chat to my neighbours next door about it, and then decided to go for it, see what happens and booked a flight. My parents weren't there at the time (which delayed my decision), so they found out from a note I left on the kitchen when I went out to grab some stuff from a friends' place.

By that time it was probably about 11pm (tues in aus), and I had a flight booked to leave Sydney at 6pm on the 16th. I spent about 3 hours finishing a job application (more about that later) for an opportunity I really want, leaving me with approximately 6-8 hours to pack up everything that I owned (thankfully I dont own much) in my room and pack what I would take to England. Mum and Dad are moving back to Africa, so the house is being rented out so I needed to clear everything out, put it in boxes in the garage if I wanted to keep it for when I come back. Which will be sometime. I'm like a boomerang.

The flight over went quite well, I managed to get 2 seats so could curl up a little bit with that, but unfortunately my TV didn't work very well for most of the 23 hour flight, so I didn't do all that much. I hadn't organised any accommodation, but when I arrived here in London I got a call from my agent saying that she had sorted me out some accommodation at the hospital on campus, which is great because its cheap and right there at work so I don't need to figure out transport around the place.





Right now I am on a train from London to Liverpool going backwards through the countriside past farms and old cottages and farmhouses. It's cloudy but the sun is trying to get through, and its no way near as cold as it was when I left in December which is a very good thing! About ten degrees I think.


I don't really know too much about what I am going to be doing here, other than I am working at Clattebridge Centre in Merseyside, which is a big oncology hospital. So it will be interesting, that's for sure!

Never a dull moment

I don't think I could ever be accused of being boring, or not attracting trouble at times!! Also I definitely have God on my side looking after me hey! So blessed.

I had a great day and night yesterday catching up with Sydney friends and friends who I met in Asia and Europe last year who are currently in Sydney. I went out to a club called the Chinese Laundry. I've known about it for years and been meaning to go for ages, and it worked out that I could go last night. Unfortunately so could many othe people and the queue was insane! Had to wait over an hour to get in to the club, which by the way was totally definitely worth it. There was some UK DJ rusky or something I think his name was who was playing so there was dubstep and DNB playing and crazy dancing galore! :)

I think I'd been there for a couple of hours when I checked my phone and saw a couple of missed calls and a text message from a random saying "Hi, I have found your bag, dont stress, please give me a call back, when you can, thanks..." Cue slight confusion! I had left my bag in my car (technically my brothers car) and had all my ID on me. So I texted back asking what bag and who it was and the guy called me back again (though I couldnt hear anything for the life of me because of the music). Turns out he was a security guard at an office block on Clarence St in Sydney and he'd found my bag and had my ID (old license), credit card, medicare cards etc in it. More confusion....!

So we left the club and went back to meet the security guard and get my bag. I was thinking over it as we were walking, because I had definitely locked the car (I'd double checked) and I figured that the only way my bag would be OUT of the car was if it had been broken into. Which in itself was an issue because a) it wasn't my car and b) the car's insurance has run out.... so if a window had been smashed or anything then I was in trouble.

I didn't really mind about the bag, my main concern was the fact that I'd left my computer in the car, along with my hard drive and USB drives (I have a few). That was my only concern because I had no money in the wallet (except for maybe 5-10 pounds, but I may have used them up in Czech Republic) and pretty much everything of importance/value is on my computer with no backups...

First I checked the car and obviously someone had used wire to unlock the car because the windows were all intact (thank goodness) and the doors were all unlocked. Luckily I had hidden the computer under the seat and that was left untouched. So, nothing was stolen except for my bag. Which is really weird.

Anyway, when we went to meet the security guard to get my bag I was trying to figure out how on earth he had managed to get my number to let me know my bag was missing. I had some documents from England in my bag, and apparently he said he called london to try and figure out who I was!! Not quite sure exactly who he called though. He was saying that he wasn't sure about putting any of the USBs in the computer in case they were corrupted, but ended up doing that and found my mobile number on my resume. Good thing all my documents are organised, but still it would have been a search to find it because it would be under various different folders.

So I'm happy to inform you all that there are still honest, genuinely helpful people out in the world and I've been very blessed this weekend because of that! :)

Post wedding (not mine)

Well it is now a week after Ilana's wedding, and the change in weather could not be more dramatically different! The weather in the week leading up to the big day was the high 40s and this week has been low 20s and right now it is raining.

The wedding itself went well. There weren't any hiccups actually getting up to Newcastle (2 hour drive from Springwood) in our 12-seater minibus and there happened to be a little bit of a breeze where we had the ceremony on the beach. Unfortunately it did just get hotter and hotter over the night so the reception in the surf club was pretty hot!

It was really good being able to catch up with family and friends over the weekend, as we had a house up there till the Monday. I do love my family (both sides)! :) 

I actually didn't take any photos myself because I was otherwise occupied as a bridesmaid, but I've copied these off some other people (not quite sure who) so I'm not in anyway claiming copyright!!!! 

A week of challenges

 The last week has been full of challenges, pain and questioning. However, even with all that it has brought me closer and taught me to rely upon God more instead of my own strengths (weaknesses) and (in)abilities.

Do not be anxious about anything, but by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus - Phillipians 4:6-7


For God cn use sorrow in our lives ot help us turn away from sin and seek salvation. We will never regret that kind of sorrow. But sorrow without repentance is the kind that results in death. 2 Corinthians 7:10


Always be joyful, keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful for this is Gods will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16

I'm not sure exactly how or why, but (at the moment) I feel at peace about everything that has happened. I don't know what the future brings, only God does. I'm learning to trust him more, because with Him I know it will all work out somehow.

4x4 on the roof of the car - only way to do it!

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In the cave under the waterfall

I find that because I grew up in Australia, I sometimes forget that it is a bit of a tourist destination. It is beautiful here. I'm also learning not to take things for granted and live life to the full regardless of my situation. Yesterday I went 4x4 and bushwalking with some friends in the bush to get to a waterhole. It took us an hour and a half to walk, fall and tangle our way down the gully to the creek to find it. We all came back with war wounds - scratches all over our legs from brambles, bumps and bruises but it was definitely worth it. I do love summer in Australia!

Dubai and Hatta (Oman)

I've just spent two weeks in Dubai, very much enjoyed the sunshine and warmth after Europe!! Lots of days were spent at the beach lazing in the sun. Initially the hotel shuttle took us to Jumeirah Beach Park which costs 5 dirhams to get in (about 1 pound), then we discovered that there was a free public beach right next door which became our new beach haunt! The shuttles were good, and the first hotel was about 2-3km away from both the beach and the mall if you missed them! The second place we stayed at had a rooftop pool so we used that instead.

I found a CS event to walk around Old town which we joint up with and really enjoyed. We saw the fish markets, Gold souk , caught a dhow boat across the creek, went to the Dubai museum which I think is the best local museum I have ever been with, especially for the price. In the fish market the men were trying to sell me squid, fish, and lobsters and then in the gold souk I got hassled about buying gold, watches, fancy handbags, slippers and all sorts of things.

We made a friend on the CS walk who invited us the next day to drive out to Hatta (Oman) with him and his sister which we did. I have never seen mountains anything like these before! It looks just like someone got a wheelbarrow full of dirt and tipped it over in piles!! We drove out to the Wadi (dry river bed) and had a bit of a look around. I probably would have gone for a swim but there were a few local guys sitting above watching with their camera phones and I didn't particularly want to end up on youtube, so passed on that offer.Very arid area, but beautiful in its own way.

The taxi drivers were often quite chatty and good to find out information about the city. One guy told us about the "fake grass and fake flowers" everywhere, and how they put it down overnight, put chemicals and water ontop, leave them for a few weeks then pull out and re-do. I'm assuming that is because of the harsh environment that they don't last that long. They were actually real! Another driver explained one day how there were so many fancy cars around, but no one paid cash, the bank always pays (with loans).

Ever night between the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) and Dubai Mall there are fountain shows, that change every 30 minutes between about 1800-2200. Managed to see all of 2 shows, and then bits and pieces of a few others. We didn't realise at first that they had different music for each show! One of the shows we saw was choreographed to Michael Jackson Thriller!

Dancing Fountain below Burj Khalifa

The malls in Dubai are insane they have so much to do and see (or shop if you're into that sort of thing). Dubai mall is so big it even has an ice rink and an aquarium in the middle of it!! You can see more of the aquarium from the outside (it is 3 levels high) but by going inside you get to walk through the tunnel and go through a bit of an underwater zoo. They had all sorts of fish and water - born creatures including a bunch of penguins, a big burmese python we got to hold and even massive piranhas in an open tank - OH&S health and safety hazard perhaps??!

Attempt of panoramic shot of the aquarium in Dubai Mall

We did alot of walking around Dubai, partially to save money and partially because it made sense because the layout of the roads often meant that you had to drive 5km out of your way to turn around and go in the direction you want. Even though taxi’s are quite cheap (about $2-5 per trip on average) it does add up after a while. Right at the end we began to use the metro and found that to be extremely worth while. To get to the airport (about a 30 minute trip) cost about a dollar!

Burj Al Arab 7 star hotel

The most notable walk that we did however, was definitely the 7 hour walk we did early on in our visit. We didn’t actually intend to walk that far, but discovered by accident that every single map available in Dubai is EXTREMELY out of proportion!!! We thought that it would take us about 2 hours when we looked at the map.We started out with the thought of walking down to the palm to see what that is all about and if we could see the islands from the mainland (you can't). Turns out that the palm is just all residential apartments, hotels and private properties. We then ended up walking to the Emirates mall (circled) and after dinner caught a taxi home. I think it was at that point that we realised just how far we had walked as it took aaaaaaages!! The emirates mall is where SkiDubai is - a massive indoor snow centre. I forgot to take a picture of it though, and in the end didn't give it a go.

Dubai map (not to scale) of where we walked in 1 day - 7hrs

On the last day in Dubai, we put my pack in a locker and wandered around the Mall, looking at shops, playing with all the toys in the toyshop.  We were going to watch more of the fountain displays except they were cancelled for the night because of high winds. I accidently threw out my locker receipt with a pile of other receipts at the end of the night. I only realised I had done this while having a coffee just before picking it up!! I was a bit worried, but luckily they did give it back after showing my ID and describing it and showing my signature!

Playing with toys in the toyshop

It is an interesting place, but I doubt whether I will return. I think it was good to see what it was like, but I found that I got bored quickly as once you explore the malls (and there are MANY malls in Dubai), see a bit of the cultural aspects, there isn’t a huge amount to do unless you have lots and lots of money to splash around.

Apparently it is nothing for an individual to spend 400 dirhams a night (at a pub/club) which is roughly about 80 pounds. It was interesting speaking with expats from various nationalities living in Dubai. The majority of the time, it seemed that money was their motivation for being there, to get a bigger car, a bigger house, fancy clothes, fancy bags. I’m not really a shopping person and malls tend to get boring after a while. Seriously, I got stressed out one day when we were trying to buy some thongs/ flipflops/sandels as I didn’t want to spend more than about $5 and couldn’t find anything below $20-30!! Not a shopper. Just seems like a waste of money most of the time.

The flight back to Australia went relatively smoothly. A bit of turbulence, but other than me not being able to sleep, the flight being 25 hours with 2 stopovers in china it went pretty well. I was getting pretty antsy by the end of it and stood in the aisle alot! Anyway watching probably thought I was a bit crazy because I could just not sit still any longer!! It is a long way. But I made it.