Summer 2022: A Summary

 Hello!

I hope you are all well. I certainly am! I've now started my final year of university (...coming up to a month and a half ago...)

I had a reasonably busy summer - two Christian summer camps!

Also, this post is dedicated to a family friend who died recently. She was very kind and funny, and she was rather like an honorary third grandma to me. She used to send me and Karys chocolates when we were in Africa. She always liked my blogs, and she was waiting very patiently for the next one. So here it is, and I'm sorry it's late.

A family foto in Sheringham.

June

I spent a lot of time shuttling between Reading and my parents' in June. First, we had a family friend's 18th birthday; it was a lot of fun! I then spent a few weeks in Reading, hanging out with my housemates before we moved out. We also did a lot of house-cleaning. At one point, the broomstick broke and the nearest shop I could find which sold replacements was an hour's walk away. It was a fun walk, though.

During the final week of my tenancy, I helped out at a Wycliffe Bible Translators' event for children who grew up overseas, which was good.

I ended up moving out two days before the contract ended. (To my remaining housemate's consternation, I left a bunch of food in the freezer...) I also went to a friend's birthday party. The party had initially been slated for March 2020; naturally, it got postponed. And postponed...and postponed...until it finally got to happen, two years later. The party was well worth the wait, though, with lots of dancing. I'm not good at dancing, but I do enjoy it. After all, as a friend said recently, if you're giving it your all, the quality doesn't matter!

A napping kitten (this was actually taken in July)

July

At the start of July, my family went to Budapest for the weekend; it was a lot of fun. Have I ever mentioned the time I ate a pig's knuckle? In any case, Eastern Europeans have absolutely the right idea when it comes to cuisine. One thing they do well is pig knuckle or pork knuckle - a great big chunk of meat, about the size of a football. A few years ago, I went to Prague with my dad, where I ate pork knuckle - it was literally the largest chunk of meat I'd ever seen, and I couldn't even finish it. Well, in Budapest, I was able to repeat the experience - though this time, the knuckle was smaller, so I could actually finish it. (I also tried goulash in Budapest - it was amazing!) I went to a circus performance - it was fun, though I found after that I might have inherited my grandad Bob's tendency to suffer headaches around flickering lights. Another thing that happened was that my old youth group threw a social, to commemorate the departure of our main youth leader, Olly Shaw. It was fun; I enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with other alumni who were also in attendance. (Watching the younger ones partake in a water fight was also rather fun!) Later in July, I went to a Wycliffe Bible Translators summer camp called Experience. Experience was a 10-day long retreat, for learning about the process of Bible translation and the way it works, for people in their twenties. There were only seven of us; most were university freshers going into their second year, a couple were graduates, and there were three in their thirties who lost out on a previous opportunity to go thanks to Covid. Experience was very good, though there was a heatwave in the middle. One of my highlights was learning Sango in the evenings with Will and Judith Sawers, colleagues of my parents. I liked getting to say 'I eat the monkey', purely to torment Judith, who has a 'pet' monkey toy called Wriothesley. She got her own back, though - one evening, I taught everyone some Mpyemo (the language my parents translated), and Judith declared that it just sounded like I'd made it up! (The Mpyemo word for 'How are you?' sounds like 'Oh 'ello'.)

My parents went to Keswick, though I couldn't go, as it overlapped with Experience. So I got to dog-sit Pippin, who was a good boy as ever.

Night in Budapest

August

In August, Rio came to stay again! Karys went on holiday, so we looked after him. It was nice to see him again. We also visited family friends - one of those was the friend who's just died, and her husband. I'm glad I went - otherwise, the last time I would ever have seen her would have been March. I also went down to Devon for a big family reunion! In truth...the majority of the people there were people I'd never actually met, from my granny's side of the family. It was still a fun event. (Also, apparently, the Wigram lineage dates back to one minor lord in the 1700s who had around twenty children!) In other family news, my cousin, Christi, had her second child! Apparently, the birth was an unassisted one, with the baby arriving before the midwife could get there!

Additionally, I went to Forum, a Christian Union camp, which was five days long. It was a lot of fun, though I felt very out of place there, as most people there (in my CU and in others) were involved in leadership roles of some sort, while I was not. Forum involved lots of main meetings and seminars on stuff like CU leadership and making newcomers feel welcome.

Right after Forum, I went on holiday with my family to Sheringham (where we went last summer as well!) It was very fun; we spent a lot of time at the beach, and a lot of time playing games. Pippin, who came with us, was very energetic that week - more energetic than he's been in a while!

Oreo having a bath

September

In September (well, late  August) we took in some Ukrainian refugees; three children, aged one, six and nine, plus their parents. This meant I couldn't sleep in my room, as the top portion of the house was for the refugee family. Luckily, the house wasn't uber-crowded for long - I moved back to Reading around the 16th of September. My new flat-mates are nice - there's about 11 of us. This does mean that the kitchen is very crowded at supper time! Also in September, two of my friends from home got married - so I rushed home for the wedding. It was really nice to see them finally get married. (Another two friends, from uni, got engaged - very exciting!) 

Term started as well - it's going well!

A foggy day on campus

October

In October, one of my friends got baptised, which was very exciting! It was very nice to see him officially join the Church. Though I did feel a bit under the weather later on.

I've spent most of October doing work and hanging out with friends. I also went to my cousin Huw's fourth birthday, which was very fun. It was very enjoyable to see Huw opening his presents - I also had a good time helping him break in the new toys! (My favourite was a remote-controlled robot which fires darts - it looks very similar to an Action Man figure that my dad passed down to me!) Poor Huw came down with a cough, and he was quite poorly the next day.

Additionally, last weekend, I went to a CU event called SEBWA (South-East Big Weekend Away). It was very fun, and it was nice to get to know my CU better! My personal highlight was the dance party that the assembled CUs threw before the Saturday evening main meeting - dancing is fun! I am now home for reading week and looking forward to my 21st birthday.

Reading Uni CU gathered after lunch on Saturday! (Well, those of us that came...)

This summer and the start of term has had some ups and some downs. Some really great stuff has happened, like my friends from home getting married, or seeing one of my other friends get baptised. Some sad stuff has happened, like my family friend dying, or needing to reset my phone and losing a lot of memories in the process. I've been very stressed about what comes after university, and if I'll be able to stay in contact with friends. I've been in a bad place mentally lately. But I have friends, and those friends have been incredibly supportive and wonderful. There's always beauty in this world, and it's worth fighting for, even if you can't see it.