I last posted a while ago. While my Facebook page was opened for the Notes function which Facebook decided to discontinue in October 2020, I can still write the blog posts. Other than that, I have been weighing the pros and cons of keeping my page open. Also, my interest in social media has significantly decreased. I use Twitter these days, for current information which concerns the affairs of the world around me.
So, in the meantime, I have aged another year. There have been ups and downs, but we keep our eyes firmly on Jesus and keep going. The rolling stone does not gather moss, and we have been on the roll.
I have managed to walk some - in the company of my daughter, incorporating a healthier work-and-life balance into my daily life. We have visited some eating places and been to some new locations nearby.
We had a river cruise to celebrate my aging. The riverboat took us from Richmond to Hampton Court Palace. There was not enough time to explore the grounds, but we could have a peek. We also visited Hampton. Hampton is namely a village in the furthest corner of Richmond upon Thames, and it has a decent solid church. The church is good, but I understood that the journey there which involved a longer stroll, was not for me. I celebrate its presence in our Borough, but the Chiswick commute is a lot easier. For Chiswick is a livelier place which has a London feel, while the Hampton walk took us to some quite remote places with no benches where a weary traveller could sit and rest for a while. So, Hampton is off the list.
There are other places which have been intriguing me, like the gatherings at Chertsey with William Mitchell whom I know from my Chiswick days. But he is currently ministering in South Africa, and it is not the easiest to find a suitable route to make it to Chertsey from my remote tiny London village.
I have been resetting my metabolism by a tried and tested German miracle invention, called Almased https://www.almased.co.uk/your-plan - and yes, it works. So, I am already past the first stage with Almased only and have entered the second stage which introduces one hearty home-made meal. It has improved my cooking skills, and I dare say - I am a more confident cook these days. This time I shall try to push my willpower to its limit, if need be, and stick to it. It is going to last the rest of my lifetime. (To my Estonian friends - I see a great business opportunity to promote a healthy lifestyle.)
In the meantime, the world has been in a turmoil. I with my one and only COVID vaccination do not entertain much hope for any international travel. Somehow it came out that I missed my chance and although I later went and asked from a local branch of my GP practice, it came out that they did not provide the vaccinations, and neither did my local high street pharmacy. But my daughter found another pharmacy which provided her third booster shot in our village, so she is fully covered, and she is also the one who commutes regularly to work in Central London, Dominion Theatre where Hillsong church has its meetings, and elsewhere.
Today I read from My London News that London has been named world's most expensive city to live in, with only Rome - the capital of Italy - beating it. According to this, after Londoners pay all their bills, they end up in an average of £1,071 worth of debt per month, as opposed to the inhabitants of Rome who rack up £1,196 of debt per month after paying the cost of living and renting prices. Thank God, we have not been exactly racking up a debt these days, but it tells something about the London life which makes a typical Londoner opt for less expensive ways of entertainment which has been a deciding factor also in our case. Besides, it would be a shame not to make the most of all the green spaces and opportunities to walk around and explore our neighbourhood which includes the Richmond Park and the Bushy Park, and the Kew Gardens, and Ham Lands and much more.
So, now I have also visited the Bushy park - although after a longer abovementioned Hampton walk to a church which was at the outer extremity of the westernmost village of the Richmond upon Thames Borough, I found myself scorched in the sun and unwilling to explore more of the park, apart from its one corner. - Later we found that the deer were cooling down in the nearby lakes which I could see but did not manage to visit this time.
We planned a later visit, which I had to postpone, for I managed to pull my back muscle, and it felt unwise to venture out for a longer walk. But, as opposed to the beginning of the first lockdown, there are plenty of green spaces for lovely walks here.
We also visited a jazz event which was held at our local bookshop. I never made it to the Polo Club, which is around the corner and then some, at the other end of the village - next to the Ham House. But there is still time. Polo season has only begun in May and will last until autumn. Also, the local and only London Polo Club has its jazz evenings besides its regular Polo events.
So, that is the recap of the happenings in the Wilder family life, which is understandably not too interesting to every reader but might capture the interest of a random reader in their midst. I used to be like an open book, not withholding anything as taught in the past, but this was something I had to unlearn. When wrong audience gets a hang of things which are for more private use, the information can be used against us. This was the life lesson which Joseph learned. And yours truly managed to learn it too when Holy Spirit pointed out on one Good Friday (it might have been in 2014) that someone had taken bits of information and pieced it together in her way, using it in prayers against me. That was a revelation, as I had no idea, but I certainly had felt its effect in spirit, asking myself what it might have been. Then Holy Spirit told me to look at a certain social media post. And when I half-way looked, half-way shrugged it off as a random thing, He told me again, this time more authoritatively. LOOK AT IT! And then I had a look. We can look, and not see (which was what happened at the first time). And we can look and see into the depth of things (which happened when I looked the second time with Holy Spirit revealing the matter to me - it was someone I did not even know in real life, and had zero interaction with, so it was a bit surprising to have merited such interest in my person). But this experience which I allowed to become temporarily a more prolonged one (by having too much of a look at it which managed to take my eyes off Jesus for a while - remember what happened to Peter, also what we look upon, tends to increase in our life, if we focus on darkness, darkness increases) taught me to be less of an open book and more selective of my audience when it comes to sharing certain things.
In the other news, my dear friend has experienced a misfortune, and needs all the help he can get with this. As it is related to another, I shall keep his concern under wraps. It is for him to disclose (or not). But there are real troubles in the world around us, which keep people on their toes and hurting. None of our concerns has been as challenging. Our life is stable, and thankfully together, and has been going in upward direction - whether we feel we can afford splashing out bigger sums on more cultural entertainment or not. A house deposit is still a far cry, but there is a steady movement in this direction. We have not won a lottery - but from what I have observed over the years, it takes a step after another, and then God will step in, if there is a need. He can bring the right property and provide what it takes.
Ah, and I also managed to give a bit of an advice to a BBC journalist whom I met in December 2020, right at the eve of another lockdown which was announced when I was waiting for my appointment at the BBC Nero Cafe, effective from that very night. This programme is available here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017cjb and its summary is here: https://www.propastop.org/.../heres-what-happens-when.../
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