Passions Old and New

 Trying to think of a title for this latest post I came up with passions - old ones and new ones. I am hoping that this will increase my readership because people will come across it in a search engine whilst looking for something ... ahem... slightly different.
One of my passions that is about 6 years old is my church. Not a day goes by without having an enormous sense of privilege being the minister to such a lovely big family. Now into my 7th year, one of the things we have done around this time of year is a student barbecue, really just trying to promote the church among the younger residents of the area, a great many of whom are students.

 We last did it a couple of years ago and it was an absolute disaster, mainly because the publicity advertising it which should have been sent out by another group sat on someone's desk, so no one knew about it. Result was a group of about 6 students who couldn't manage the 200 - odd burgers and hot dogs we had cooked.
So I was more than a little nervous waiting for the start of this one. But I have long believed that faith is only faith when you try something and are prepared to hang yourself out to dry if it doesn't come off.
Well it was brilliant - dozens and dozens of young people came, and all but 3 of the burgers were eaten. The remaining three, I'm ashamed to say, didn't survive the journey home, which was about 5 minutes.

Well now for a brand new passion - my brand new grandchildren. The observant among you will notice a difference in size. On the right is my first grandchild, a little boy who was born in early August, and who has rapidly put on a great deal of very healthy weight. Large appetites tend to run in our family. He is absolutely gorgeous and such a delight to his Mom and Dad, and to Mrs. L. and I.

At the other end are my twin granddaughters, also irresistibly gorgeous, and born about a month after our grandson. They are also doing fantastically well, having been 5 lb and some change at birth and now expanding nicely. We can't tell them apart - identical twins - so their Mom and Dad colour code them for us so we know what each one is called. Just as a fail-safe in case they get them confused or the clothing gets mixed up one has painted toe-nails!
Yes I am a proud Grandad.

 Is this an old passion or a new one? Well I guess its a bit of both. I had two and a half days at our home in Northumberland because I wanted some time and space with God to talk about one or two rather important things, and up there I am not interrupted much. And for me the best place to talk to God is Lindisfarne (Holy Island) where Aidan, who first brought Christianity to England, decided he would set up his base too.

  

 You don't always see fishing boats operating round the island so it's always nice to bump into a few islanders who make a living from the sea. There was something really poignant, I thought, about this small fishing boat plying its lonely way through the tidal waters just south of the island.

 

 But just to lighten the mood I came across this sign on one of the village greens. Really people ought to stop and think before they put home-made signs up - or perhaps it was deliberate. Anyhow some rather interesting and not altogether wholesome images passed through my mind for a minute or two after this.

 But back to the sublime - another picture of Lindisfarne Castle, surely one of the most iconic sights in the whole of the UK, if not Europe.

 I love October - it's one of my favourite months, and in my opinion the most underrated month in the calendar; people seem to think winter has set in and batten down the hatches once September ends. This is a shame I always think, because October offers an enormous amount. One of the reasons I love Northumberland at this time of year is because of the weather - often dry, not too cold, and with fantastic light. These two photos I took just because I thought the sky was so full of creative light and cloud formations.

 You see this a lot - the causeway to Lindisfarne after the tide has come in and a driver who is sure he (occasionally she but not normally) can make it due to his incredible driving skills. This is right at the start of the causeway at high tide, and the water at its deepest will be at least at waist height. There is more than three miles of road to navigate to reach the  island in the distance. Will he have enough sense to turn round or will he become another drain on the resources of the rescue services?
I didn't stay to find out.

Now another older passion of mine - football. I played till my mid-30's and refereed for a while, but nowadays I am only a spectator. There was no premiership football this weekend so my beloved Aston Villa weren't in action, but Mrs. L. was in London at a craft fair or something similar with her best friend. So I looked through the fixture list of non-league football and noted that Atherstone Town were playing Barrow just about 45 minutes from home.It was a match in the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup, so for the minnows a great deal was at stake. Having expected to find a couple of dozen old chaps in cloth caps watching, all of whom knew far more about the game than any of the players I was pleasantly surprised to find the ground quite full. The home supporters were also letting off red flares in their stand, presumably to encourage their team who play in red and white.

I only just arrived in time, but some chap opened a gate to ease the queue at the only turnstile I could see in operation and announced "It's a fiver to get in" and then took the money off all of us who went in that way. I presumed that he was a club official, but I'm not so sure now. Still, I was in the ground, and £5 seemed quite a reasonable price to pay for the entertainment.
I was later to rate it as one of the best £5s I have spent in quite a while.
The match was really a David and Goliath affair - Barrow (the one in Cumbria) play in the Conference Premier division - that's 4 levels below the Premier League, and Atherstone are about three levels below that, so were always going to struggle.
Well it was all one-way traffic but heroic last-ditch defending kept the away team at bay for about 25 minutes, when a rather neat header couldn't be kept out by the hitherto immaculate Atherstone goalkeeper (pictured below.)

 Well he is clearly a favourite of the supporters, those standing behind the goal chanting "England's Number One." Well I know Joe Hart is having a bit of an off season, but such adulation seemed a little over the top.
This proved to be the case about 5 minutes after the first goal when he bent down to pick up the ball as it was moving very slowly towards him and his goal and ... well, perhaps it hit a bump, or perhaps it swerved suddenly, or ... errrr.... well, it kind of went though his hands, then through his legs, then almost with an apology for the inconvenience rolled sedately over the goal line coming to rest long before it got anywhere near the netting. 2-0

 

More relentless Barrow attacking followed, and two more goals in the first half, and the only real question was how many the visitors would score. In the immortal words of Bill Shankley (I think) 'It was four nil at half time and we were lucky to get nil.'

At this point my money would have been on 7-0 on the basis that the game was being played in a very good spirit, and at some point the away team would decide to have mercy on their opponents. Here they are shoulder to shoulder leaving the pitch - about the only expression of equality in the entire game.
Then the fun started.

I'd just gone to queue up for my Bovril. I should explain that if you are a Brummie and go to a football match, a cup of hot Bovril at half time is de rigeur. Disappointed to discover that they had no Bovril and could only offer me Oxo (a poor substitute in the same way that you can eat mincemeat if there's no sirloin steak available) and I understood still better why the country is going downhill so fast and has apparently lost its moral fibre.
So exuding chagrin I turned round, wondering what I would do for the rest of the half-time interval when I discovered the home supporters had laid on some free entertainment. About 30 of them had run across the field of play to launch an attack on the opposing supporters.
The artillery bombardment came first in the form of more of the red flares, hurled into the stands where the away supporters were busy gloating, and then the infantry went in brandishing fists and boots and goodness knows what weaponry in an all-out assault.
The police sprang into action - both of them and decided that another cup of tea would help them decide on the best course of action.  Now this was like football of old, back in the 70's and 80's at Villa Park when you could still stand up to watch a match, which made the obligatory scrap with any away supporters who came running across the pitch so much easier to engineer and so entertaining.
Because there was no one to intervene to break up the fighting we had three full rounds of no-holds-barred scrapping before the stewards lumbered into action with sufficient determination to separate the now exhausted fans. But what a wonderful show it had been.

 I really thought it might have been abandoned at half time, especially as the officials and substitutes from Barrow had to sit right in front of the home supporters, but to their credit they came out and played the second half.

This is the away goalkeeper whose only real problems were staying awake and staving off frostbite. And the assistant referee jogging over to check the net is ok.

Well to their credit Atherstone managed to draw the second half 0-0, though just possibly Barrow decided that if they wanted any windows left in their team bus to keep out the cold and rain they had better not score again. Amazingly Atherstone even made it to the Barrow penalty area a couple of times. The defender in yellow has clearly been taking lessons in holding opposing forwards in a way the referee can't see from the likes of Rio Ferdinand and John Terry .

 

They even created one clear header almost on target, though I think someone was offside at the time!

What a wonderful Saturday afternoon out. Hope no one was seriously hurt. Funny how the streets outside the ground were full of police but they didn't seem to make it inside. Well it was a bit cold and damp.