enjoying special times with special people

This last month has certainly been one of our most relaxed and exciting for a long period of time. What we hear you cry, 'weren't you on sabbatical for most of 2015 and your current work and lifestyles enables you to both travel around the world together which must be exciting and to visit new places sounds relaxing and exciting to me', well some of that is true but even though we have worked and travelled together since we left our 'normal'/'regular' lives way back in September 2008 we have really enjoyed spending some downtime together.

sunsets over Quainton Hill

After arriving back from our near on six month working trip to South Africa, Uganda and Madagascar we have been staying with our great friends Trefor and Mandy who have made us feel very welcome at their amazing home in rural Buckinghamshire. This is once again providing us a wonderful base to catch up with friends and family from a very central location.

Notts beat Surrey at Lords

Whilst we were in Madagascar we made the huge decision to put our family home on the market. We have owned that home in the beautiful village of Whitchurch since we were married in 1988, our boys grew up in that home, in fact Maz' Dad grew up in that home too as it was built as a farmworker's cottage for Maz' grandparents in 1939. Our current tenants were keen to purchase the home from us which has enabled us to buy a house in Bristol which, once it's been renovated, will provide a home for our eldest son and his young family. All of this had been a bit of a challenge to undertake from afar but we are excited for the future now we are home for a short while.

Josh and Dan celebrate their upcoming weddings!

You may be aware I (Tim) am celebrating my 50th birthday this year, August 13th to be precise, so we have been trying to do some special things, such as trekking with mountain gorillas when we were in Uganda, and during the last month we have undertaken some further exciting days so if you'd like to find out where and when then please continue to read on.

Josh and Honi

I joined our middle son Josh, who is getting married in September, and his best friend Dan on a day out at the One Day Cricket final at Lords in early July. It was a great day where we (my Dad, brother-in-law and nephew included) saw Alex Hales play a wonderful innings to set up a win for Nottinghamshire against Surrey at the home of cricket.


The following day we had the chance to catch up with lots of our family with two events with both sides of our family, the main event was the celebration of Maz' Dad's 80th birthday which had been held back since early June to coincide with our return. It was wonderful to spend time with some of our favourite people who we really miss when we are away.

Pixies turn back time

The following week we travelled back to London to spend three days in Notting Hill, sleeping at our nephew and niece (in-law) home allowing us to walk to Hyde Park where we enjoyed two afternoons and evenings watching and listening to some of the bands who were performing at the British Summertime event under clear blue skies. We had booked the tickets with the desire to see one of Maz' favourite bands 'Elbow', however I wanted to see the 'Pixies' after following their music for years and missing the chance to see them in Cape Town earlier in the year.

The Killers keep us entertained

The crowds were huge on both days with 'Kings of Leon' headlining on the Thursday, however 'The Killers' were the biggest draw on Saturday and rocked the night away with their hits 'Mr Brightside' and 'Human' to name a couple of their sing-along tunes that got the whole crowd of over 60,000 dancing.

Benjamin Booker

I was somewhat surprised to find one of my new favourite artists 'Benjamin Booker' playing on an outside stage, I had no idea he was going to be there so we really enjoyed him as he played songs from his new album 'Witness' as well as some from his first album. We also enjoyed listening to another newish band called 'Sloes', go find them on Spotify as they are both big recommendations from me!

Sloes

We spent a wonderful day with our son, Josh, and his fiancee, Haddy, on the Sunday at their new home in London, before returning back to our base with Trefor and Mandy, completing some small jobs for them before our friends from Holland joined us on the Thursday.

English summers evening with our Dutch friends

Eveline and her boyfriend Bart had spent 10 months and five months respectively with us in South Africa back in 2010/11 where they interned as students from the HAN in Nijmegen. Eveline was studying Social Work and she helped Maz in the children's unit at the Village of Hope, Bart was studying Sports Management and was a key member of our daily sports outreach team who worked with the children in the local townships.

enjoying a traditional English Indian meal

The reason that these two very dear friends had joined Eveline's father, Henk, on a trip to England in mid July was to attend the Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone. It was the first time I had attended since 2008, and being my 22 Grand Prix I was full of excitement and expectation. It was however Maz' first Grand Prix weekend experience and one that she assures me that she really enjoyed.

Lewis wins!

Unfortunately the balmy weather we had been blessed with the weekend before had left us and we endured a freezing Friday and Saturday at free practice and qualifying and although race day was slightly warmer it wasn't the summer party atmosphere that I had been wanting. That said the result went according to our wishes with Lewis Hamilton taking a well earned win with all mayhem breaking loose behind him as the Ferraris of both Kimi and Seb suffered late problems with their tyres.

beautiful france with family

If you've never been to a Grand Prix then you will never understand the real appeal of the event, that being the incredible speed that these ultra machines reach, especially through the tight and twisty sections such as Maggots and Beckett's sections of what is a super fast circuit. The governing body takes steps to slow the cars down each year with restrictions on engine size or body style but year after year the amazing engineers find ways to make the cars go faster and the technology developed in this sport is then used in the cars we drive on our daily runs to school or to the shops.

happy sunflowers

The Dutch guys left us early on the Monday morning and by the Tuesday morning we were making our way, with my Mum and Dad, Sister and Brother-in-Law and Niece around the M25 towards Gatwick airport and a week in France.

evening sun over our french house

Flying into Toulouse airport we picked up our hire car for the week and travelled north west into the Midi-Pyrenees to stay in a wonderful 12th century house owned by Haddy's family. The home is stunning, set in rolling countryside with fields of smiling sunflowers who seemed happy to welcome us back to spend another week chilling out, walking, running and swimming in what was slightly inclement weather for the time of year.

lazy days playing games!

It was my parents first time to the house and therefore that part of France, they were very impressed with the 'frenchness' of the area, the little hill top towns are such unspoilt and still maintain that sleepy feel.

more sunsets!

We are now down in Bristol with the Grandchildren, we've visited the home we have had an offer accepted on and are feeling truly blessed to be able to enjoy this time together.

home is where the heart is.....

stunning sunset setting

it's really hard to know how to start this latest blog post as much of what we are going to be updating is basically normal life that we knew prior to us moving out to South Africa in 2008 and although we have been blessed with annual trips home it has to be said life in England has moved on and feels different to that which we left in 2008.

since arriving back from the Caribbean last Friday we have had the opportunity to catch up with some friends and family and so we hope that this post will give you a flavour of the times we have enjoyed back in our homeland.

maz and mandy enjoying some tidy up time

our base for this part of our journey has been with our good friends Trefor and Mandy who, with their family, have made it very easy for us to settle back in, their laid back approach to life certainly helps to give us the space we need to get our heads around some of the bigger questions that our filling our thoughts and they continue to be the blessing to us as we take this time of reflection and planning. it has also been great just to muck in with some daily tasks, such as a bit of gardening, but with the freedom to come and go as we please and we are truly thankful for their ongoing support.

marianne pampering maz!

There have been many highlights during the last week, from the opportunity to meet up with some old friends who we shared life with via our home groups that we led prior to us taking up God’s call for us to set up and run the Village of Hope to us having chance to enjoy one of the traditional English staple foods which we so miss when we are away….what food we hear you ask? The Great British Indian takeaway of course!

man on a mission

We enjoyed a quick trip up to London for a meeting and had the chance to wander down to Marble Arch and the West End of Oxford Street and Maz was also able to get her haircut, the first since we left South Africa in February, hasn’t she done well.

It was a blessing to visit our friend Marianne who pampered us for the morning at her beauty salon and even a visit to Milton Keynes shopping centre was not as bad as we had both feared.

perfectly braiied ribbetje

On Thursday evening I (Tim) was able to share my braai (think BBQ but over a full evening not a flash on a gas grill and run into the house to escape the cold and wet English weather which so many English people think is a braai) skills which were honed in Grabouw. Dave and Suzanne had visited us with their family a couple of years ago and were keen to bring back some good memories of just chilling, maybe even ‘Liming’ (see previous posts here!), around a fire, cooking food (including some lamb ribbetje, inspired by Jannie Wiegman Easter Braai a couple of years ago )and enjoying each others company. We were blessed with some unusually warm weather and a long twilight which eventually turned to darkness about 10pm.

liming at the braai....

alternative route for walkers

Whilst Maz enjoyed being pampered at the hairdressers I had the chance to take a longish walk in the beautiful countryside which surrounds our home town, the Chiltern Hills are such a haven of peace and it was great to spend some time with my Dad just walking some of the old paths that we’d enjoyed in my youth. In fact we walked part of the ancient path called the Ridgeway which is claimed to be Britain's oldest road.

We had to laugh at a signpost which announced that it was an ‘alternative footpath for Walkers only’, that certainly speaks into our lives at the moment!

emma's home!

The week ended with a visit to see Emma Podmore at her stately home (she is currently enjoying a much needed break with friends at Stowe School which shares the same design as Buckingham Palace), Emma, like us, gave up her secure job in England to follow God’s call to come serve with us at the Thembalitsha Foundation, Emma is such a blessing and we enjoyed spending the afternoon with her walking around the stunning gardens and having a bite to eat at the National Trust restaurant.

huffing and puffing

Over the weekend we were able to celebrate Maz’ Dad’s birthday a couple of weeks early as we will be away on the day and then spend the evening watching one of the most traditional English events, yup 'The Eurovision Song Contest', this surreal musical event brings back so many memories of our childhoods that we couldn't resist the chance to really immerse ourselves into the 'Euro culture' we have missed during our time in Africa. well done to Sweden who won for the sixth time, with a catchy song however we don't feel that this act will go on to replicate their 1974 winners success, ABBA, remember them? at least the entry from Great Britian got a few votes and beat those from France and Germany, but finished behind the Austrialian entry (we thought this was supposed to be an all European event!)

On Sunday afternoon we were joined by our middle son Josh and his girlfriend Haddy, amongst others, for a wonderful meal which was cooked by Trefor and Mandy 

selfie with josh and haddy

Finally at the end of that long list we must say that our week has been a total blessing with little to get up for and the opportunity to relax together, this was highlighted one afternoon as we got onto the trampoline (which sits in the garden) and took time to be still and stare into the sky, which at the time seemed so still and empty, however the longer we looked up the more activity we noticed, the sky was simply full of things buzzing around, huge aeroplanes either starting or ending their flights into the International airports of Heathrow or Luton, smaller planes and helicopters travelling more locally, Swifts and Swallows gliding and screeching above the stable yard, Red Kites and Kestrels hovering and then diving over the hills, tiny bees busying themselves with their pollen collection, and the sky filled with majestic clouds of all shapes and sizes. We have entitled this post ‘home is where the heart is’ and it must be said that England is a hard place to beat……

…..’to be in England in the summertime with my love’.