Light Come On

Over the last month we have installed a light on a timer in Jack’s room. The main purpose of this light is to come on at 7 AM and tell Jack that is okay for him to call for Mommy and Daddy. This system has worked well and has been more necessary since moving him into a big boy bed. Many days it is unclear whether Jack has awoken before the light and just laid there and played or whether the light has awoken him. I imagine it is a mixture of the two. However, on most days, we hear Jack’s little voice call out routinely at 7 AM, ‘Daddy – Light Come On’ and then one of us (usually Charles) goes in and gives his good morning greetings to Jack.

Today we heard Jack make a few noises around 6:30 AM, but then we heard nothing until the 7 AM callout ‘Daddy – Light Come On’. When we went in to Jack’s room to greet him we praised him for staying in his bed until the light came on. He very clearly told us that he woke up and prayed for his light to come on, and it came on! Charles and I looked at each other and smiled – it is such a precious thought to think of Jack laying there for thirty minutes (which I doubt really happened) praying that the light would come on! We encouraged him that this was a good practice and that God does listen to prayers – we pray that God would listen to our parental prayer that Jack would grow to be a man who loves to pray.

Gift Vouchers

If anyone has ever tried to get a restaurant gift certificate in England they will have surely run into some, if not a lot of frustration. I just don’t understand how a country can be so behind in the gift certificate business. Maybe it has to do with the pride they take in non-existent customer service? I don’t really pretend to know, but I know it is mind-boggling.
Charles’s and my first encounter with this culture problem was during our first week here. We had a man at Tyndale House who helped us tremendously when buying our car. We wanted to thank him and his wife for their time with a gift certificate to a local restaurant. We were given a couple of suggestions and headed for those restaurants to buy a gift certificate. We quickly learned that the ‘concept’ is actually called a voucher. After repeatedly asking for a gift certificate and then explaining what it was, we were told that it was called a voucher, and no that they didn’t have those.

We trekked onto the next restaurant. Unfortunately, changing our word choice did not help the situation. After asking for a gift voucher, we then were asked again to describe what we meant. The manager of this place was willing to listen and then said he understood the concept and went upstairs. He returned downstairs with a calculator and a menu. He then asked us what we wanted to order for our friends. Order for our friends???? We barely knew these people, how could we know what they would want to eat on any given night. We had no idea if they were vegetarians, liked alcohol, etc. After realizing this was going to be an awkward gift, we thanked the man and said we would need to think about the order before making it. We left and never went back…

We did end up finding a place that gave gift vouchers – Chilli’s – an American owned chain I might add! Even there it was not straight-forward. The manager ended up printing out a homemade gift voucher on the ink jet printer for us. I suspected that a lot of fraud could have occurred with this system, but I abandoned my auditor hat, thanked him and walked home happily that I now had a thank you gift.

You would hope that the country would have progressed in three years in this area, but only recently I have learned that they have not. This time I was on a hunt for a gift voucher to thank someone who had given a talk at Oak Hill. Charles had told me of a restaurant that he was told did gift vouchers so I set out for that restaurant. I walked in and told the man (who was clearly the manager) that I would like to buy a gift voucher. He looked really confused and told me that they didn’t do those. I then told him that my husband had gotten one from there about a year ago. He then hesitated and said yeah but they take a lot of time and they are just really time consuming (a bit redundant, but that is all he could come up with). I felt like yelling, do you realize that I want to give you £50 right now, why are you turning my money away! I felt like spouting out all the statistics of how many gift vouchers are never used and it might even benefit him in that it would be £50 worth of profit with no reduction for the cost of food (if the recipient didn’t redeem it)! Instead I just walked out, in my mind – shaking my head for what a crazy country this is….

Jack Riding Bike

We have had a great week of weather and with it Jack has gotten some great bike riding in, which is definitely his favourite new hobby.

We never dreamed that he would be able to ride a bike at a little over 2, but one day he jumped on a neighbor girl's bike and off he went. While out walking one morning recently, I had rescued an old bike from a trash pick-up and brought it home. I anticipated leaving it in the shed for another year, but after seeing Jack on the neighbor's bike, getting training wheels put on this bike became a higher priority. Jack loves his bike and had no idea that it was viewed as trash in someone's eyes!

We joke that Jack can pedal and go really fast but still needs to work on his steering - which has proven to be just a bit of a problem at times. His bike only has a hand brake and Jack's hands are too small to reach it so he has successfully learned how to jump off the bike when he wants to stop or pedal backwards enough that the bike slows down.

I have included a video for you to get a glimpse of what he and his new bike look like. Enjoy!

I have been to the sea (and back thankfully!)

I had a foot down day yesterday. It wasn't bad per se, just felt like a lot of unfortunate things happened. My parents used to tell me that these are days that build character, or something like that. Well if I wasn't a character before yesterday...I think I am now!

I had a client to meet yesterday that was located in Clacton on Sea, which is on the English Channel (I think). All I know is that it is two hours by car from London and two and a half hours by train. Therefore, it seemed like a no-brainer to me to take the train which was reinforced when I looked at the weather forecast to see that it was suppose to be a very English day - with pouring rain. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised when I woke up to see just an English day (as opposed to a very English day) with overcast skies. The day looked so promising to me that I set off for the underground station without a coat.

The beginning of my train ride was rather uneventful. It wasn't until I got off at a tiny train station called Thorpe le Stoken that the feet starting pounding down on me (or more accurately the rain). I departed the train and quickly headed off the platform to where I was told there would be a taxi stand. There wasn't. Apparently taxis don't run on rainy days in Thorpe le Stoken. I quickly called my staff and asked them to hire me a taxi. They said they would. I called back a few minutes later to let them know that I had found the only dry spot around - the inside of an obsolete telephone booth which was still freezing cold. My staff assured me that the taxi would be there soon and thankfully mentioned that the taxi was headed to Clacton on Sea - which is not where I was (foot down). I quickly reminded her that I was at Thorpe le Stoken not Clacton on Sea. She panicked and then told me that she would cancel the taxi and send another very quickly. My phone vibrated a couple minutes later. It was my staff informing me that the managing director of the company was on his way to get me and that she had told him that I was standing in the telephone booth. I felt only slightly like a fool when the managing director, whom I had only met once before, drove up and I hopped out of the phone booth and into his car...soaking wet.

I spent the day at the client which was pretty productive considering it consisted of a long three hour meeting (groan...). The managing director then insisted that he take me back to the train station after I pleaded that we just call a taxi. Before I knew it, the managing director was in his car honking because he was afraid that he wasn't going to get me to my train in time. I hopped in (dryer than before) and we were on our way. The managing director dropped me off and told me that the image of me in the phone booth was one of the funniest he had seen in a long time. I smiled politely and wished him a good day. I then ran up to the platform to wait for my train that was suppose to arrive in 2 minutes.

A train pulled up which I believed to be mine since it was 'right on time'. However, it said Colchester on the sign which caused enough confusion that I thought I should ask the driver before getting on because I knew mine was suppose to go to London Liverpool Street Station. After trying to yell through the train window a couple of times, the driver finally opened his window for me to ask 'Is this the train to Liverpool'. He then curtly told me that Liverpool is in Lancashire and is five and a half hours a way. I once again smiled politely and said, 'I'm sorry Liverpool STREET'. He smiled and said 'Your train is over there my love'. (foot down - Oh those times when I wish I didn't have an American accent!). I turned my head to see the train with a huge London Liverpool sign in its window pulling up on the adjacent track. Whoever knew that Thorpe le Stoken was such a popular train stop!

I got on my train and headed back to London. I switched from the national rail train at London Liverpool Street to the underground and headed back to North London. I had already called Charles a couple of times that day to tell him about all this activity. I guess I had moaned enough about being freezing cold that he offered to come get me with the car. I was two stops away when the underground train conductor announced that this train would be terminating at the next stop and all passengers needed to exit the train (foot down). I got off the train and stood once again on a very cold platform waiting for the next train to take me one stop to my final destination. Ten minutes later and still freezing cold (foot down) that train arrived.
I remember coming up the escalator from the underground and seeing Charles and Jack standing there. Boy was I glad to see them (thumb up!). What a day...building character is tough work!