Sun 1 Reading a good passage from Tom Wright's popular commentary on Romans 1-8 in the Paul for everyone series. This is going to be the first sermon with powerpoint so I'll give a few thoughtws on that later.

Stayed up watching Jools Holland yesterday. I honestly thought that they'd decided not to put Kate Rusby on given that they had all those stars performing but she got her song well into the second hald but I was in bed by then.

Good Radio 4 serive this morning based on a Mozart theme. It might be a good idea to do something ourselves along those lines.

Wed 4 Actually there was another good Radio 4 morning service the other day, Monday I think. They used Tim Hughes's Light of the World and usually it's a kind of BBC Singers plum in your mouth vocal style but this time it was ordinary singers - no histrionics - with a tasteful soft rock backing. Very imitable. They didn't do so well with Angels from the Realms of Glory.

Nearly everyone you meet has got this cold at the moment. Mine is still there but not too intrusive so I might risk a visit or two later on today. Otherwise, I need to try to cancel my subscription to BTOpenworld and look at some preaching possibilities. I think a series on Ephesians or even Romans is very likely on the back of that Tom Wright book. It's a long time since I went through Romans, the last time being with the homeless people in Toulouse, perhaps even with Eric Han Kwan although I think that was probably in the church midweek evening meeting rather than in the day time with the homeless.

As for that BTOpenworld subscription, I phoned up the bank yesterday and went through all the security rigmarole only to be told that I could'nt cancel the payment because it was, what was it? a repeating card payment rather than a standing order or a direct debit.

Thu 5 Got the new internet connection here and it's just a Tesco pay as you go. Just to update this, really I think.

At the moment there are seven yes seven Western Power people outside and on the church grounds repairing an underground cable and this is the second day or third if you count Monday night when they came to troubleshoot. We've also got the people working on the cables inside the chapel in connection with the new PA etc. Plus five of us were busy this morning moving pews into the balcony and doing a fabric stewards' recce. Such a lot of activity!

Sun 8 Lots of people again at coffee pot yesterday and Celia came in to help for the first time. A nice surprise for me: I had been thinking about getting a permanent diary for people's birthdays etc but I was going to wait until the sales. Eileen came in and gave me a beautiful hardback diary from Past Times. Thanks, Eileen.

We went to Abertillery in the afternoon and I went for a long walk up around the back of Cwmtillery church. It was sno

Fri 20 Oops - we've lost quite a few days somewhere in the ether. Sorry about that, folks.

The Raglan Festival continues to be interesting. Our next planning session is tomorrow morning and we'll be reviewing some of the CDs we've been sent. One interesting possibility is that BBC Radio Wales want to do some more Celebration services with us and have suggested the date of the last evening of the Festival so there is probably a good tie in there.

I'll be going up to London at the start of February as a contestant in the Counterpoint music quiz with Ned Sherrin so the audition was OK. It's in the early evening at Maida Vale and should finish by 9 so that's not too bad. It looks as if we're out of memory or something.