ANOTHER Calendar calamity........this time discovered whilst doing a spot of personalisation......

Hiya Everyone!
You know.............gremlins have been playing inside my computer again...............they seem to particularly love MS Word for some strange reason and the most recent one is...............Advent SUNDAY was suddenly on the following Monday - what is that about?  I can assure you all that I have immediately set to and amended the downloadable calendar affected so those who have already downloaded version 1 please feel free to download it again  here as it IS perfect as far as I know.....until someone tells me different of course................The version 2 which prints a photo and calendar per page is unaffected which again begs the question - HOW did the first version go so astray?
However if anyone HAS noticed this mistake before me...................be assured only GOD is perfect as I have said before.................it is my excuse and I am sticking to it!  So folks if anyone has given anyone a copy of this calendar in good faith you have your answer if the question is raised...........................

I expect you are all wondering HOW I found out about my latest calendar calamity?  Well it all stems from a little exercise that I had in mind and that was to print out a couple of personalised copies of the calendar for a couple of my work colleagues who each have various pets. 

You may remember that our new "girl on the block, Gracie, (as above!) has her very own pet guinea pig called "GP".  "GP", is named after a REAL guinea pig who is owned by a friend and work colleague.  It seemed a great idea to see if we could add the real "GP" to some of our calendar photos so that he too has visited our church...................so in that task I have created a special personalised calendar for my work friend which includes not only her pet, GP, but also her wirehaired dachshund, Klaus, who is still a puppy but has already won a prize or certificate in dog shows this year.

See above that I have also added our adorable hand reared pied cockatiel to the strange mix although I am not at all sure if Klaus would really appreciate having a hat named Pebbles!  GP, ie the REAL one,.....IS here......he is hiding behind Ambrose' trousers...............he is just having a little nibble of some greenery he found in the churchyard.........

I am dying to share something else with you too with regards to our Gracie.........but that will have to wait til I have more to tell and show you......................so instead I just want to share a little more with you about our rather different Christmas carol which I chose for today on our Advent Calendar (ie Sunday 20th December).

During the Summer I was canvassing far and wide for ideas for carols for inclusion on the calendar and so it felt SO right to be as international as our church congregation and clergy........hence a German and French carol for starters......although yes - I know we have, as yet, NO French person, but who knows what the future may bring.............
I was particularly keen to have something Australian because, after all, our vicar and "lady of the road, Rita, were both made by Rachel Fritz, an Australian friend of ours. So when another Australian friend suggested "Christmas in the Shrub" and emailed me the words I was, at once, most intrigued by it........my imagination ran riot imagining wallabies, wombats and kangaroos to mention a few hopping about INSIDE St. Hils.................................  Copyright was the immediate concern but I had no reason to worry as our friend knew Leigh Newton, who wrote the carol, and was able to ask on our behalf and it was gladly granted on the provision that a link was provided to their website where visitors can actually buy a CD with the carol on.  We urge you all to give the site a visit and let them know how you found them...........plug plug!

I will try to resist letting you in to my latest excited secret for St. Hils in the New Year.............all I can say is it involves our Gracie in a big way.............and, instead, leave with another photo which I personalised for GP (the real one!) and his family's St. Hils Calendar for 2010...........enjoy!

Til the next time...................which may not be too long at all as I am too excited to let you hang on for too long waiting here.............

PS If you can't see GP so well above in the wheel barrow......here he is sporting his very own Christmas hat .....isn't he SO cute.........almost as cute as Gracie's pet, GP!

PPS...........added at 17:36 GMT Sunday..........just had an horrific afternoon..........came upstairs this afternoon to find PC was switched off and dead as a dodo.............Andrew changed the fuse......we switched the power supply but nothing...........so up to PC World where an angel in the form of a tech support guy took the machine off us, opened it up before our eyes, proclaimed it needed a new power unit and proceeded to do the job for us...........then he found that the processor's fan was bust so replaced that in the nick of time because we were in danger of burning the processor out.  Talk about "God's timing" being perfect...........if the power supply had not broken we would have lost our processor completely..........
We were panicking because we had backed up - but not in the last few days..........and uploading my daily Calendar is a MUST as I don't want to let you all down who visit each day faithfully.....