Martha's Marvellous Munchies

They came bursting into the house as I was finishing breakfast, with a clatter of confused explanations to my wife, and a hasty pat on the head for little Abi.  Before I quite knew what was happening, I was out in the street, still clutching my half-eaten bread roll, and being carried along much faster than was comfortable. We'd got halfway to the crossroads before I recovered enough to ask any questions.  "What...  where... who...?" I started, not even quite sure which was the right thing to ask. "The teacher!  The one who heals people!  He's at home!" puffed James, somewhere above my right ear. "Yes!  They say he got back last night.  And we're going to get you there first this morning," added Paul, twisting round from his position holding the front left of my mat, and giving me a big grin. "Too right," said Zach, next to him. He was a man of few words. "What?  Who are you talking about?  What teacher?" I had a horrible f

How do you feel about crowds? Do you imagine a concert audience singing in unison, the spectators at a sports match cheering for their team, colourful crowds in the street for Carnival or Holi?  Does the idea of being in a crowd make you feel uplifted and energised? Image: Pixabay   Or do you think of being pressed too closely, of protestors causing disruption and destruction, of things being a little bit out of control?  Would you feel uncomfortable and on edge? Image: Pixabay   Either way, we are rather out of practice at being in crowds right now. Maybe that's why, when I read Mark's gospel recently, I noticed for the first time just how crowded it is.  On every page, people swarm around Jesus - following him out into the countryside, besieging him at home, preventing him from eating, begging for his help. Mark has Jesus almost constantly surrounded by people.  Even when he tries to get away, people usually find him pretty quickly.  On one occasion, they start taking the roo

 "Per-gol" Toby said, reading the sign.  "Hey, that's a much better word than Danger.  Welsh is great!" Actually, the word is Perygl and comes out more like pear-reyg-l, but it didn't really matter - the boys had already fallen in love with everything Welsh, and were happily agreeing that all the words were far more interesting than their English equivalents. We seemed to encounter a lot of perygl on our two days in Wales.  Signs warned us against flying golf balls, steep drops, deep water and narrow roads, but fortunately we survived unscathed apart from one scraped shin (that was Theo falling off a rock).  In fact, it was a remarkably good short break, with perfect weather, beautiful scenery, and the main attraction: a big blue camper van to carry us around. Graham's friend Ben had converted the van a couple of years ago, and kindly agreed to lend it to us for the weekend at the end of half term.  After a rather last-minute search for places to park