The Flowerpot

Of course, this isn’t really a flowerpot, it just looks a bit like one from the side. Actual flowerpots aren’t nearly as interesting as this one anyway, because this is full of baked goods – or it was, up until I scoffed them all just before this photo was taken last night. There was a mini biscuit, flapjack, scone (complete with cream and jam filling) and brownie, and I have the two ladies of the cloth handing them out to students to thank. As luck would have it, I’m still boyish enough to pass as a student, so they never suspected a thing. The treats came inside a paper bag that had “have a snack on St Paul’s” scrawled on it, and they’d thrown a little leaflet on top for good measure, in addition to a sachet of Galaxy hot chocolate. None of that changed much for me faith-wise, because I’m still firmly an agnostic, but you have to hand it to the Christians. They’ve always seemed to grasp that the way to my heart is through my stomach. Yesterday, when I needed a sugar hit and a nugget of motivation, I got both – and free of charge, too.

Maybe He does answer my prayers after all?

Mason

The Old And The New

New Year’s resolutions, as we all know, are tough things for anyone to keep. Say you’ve opted to give up chocolate for a month – or alcohol, perhaps as part of Dry January. It might be that you sail through successfully without so much as a second thought, but for some people, mere hours will pass before that next morsel or drop touches their lips. When that happens, they’re straight back to square one, retreating sheepishly from their broken oaths with their tails between their legs. Whilst I can’t recall personally making any major resolutions in recent years, I would be very surprised if I haven’t been guilty of something like that at one time or another. With this in mind, I have decided that the two resolutions I have made for 2019 will stay between me, myself and I – and will not be widely revealed until further notice.

You might have guessed that this is simply because I will not have to face the embarrassment of breaking either resolution after having loudly announced it to everyone. If I pursue them, and they are resounding successes, I can tell you all about them with pride and no shame. If they don’t work out, I can tell you, but I won’t feel quite as much of a numpty if I do so without having made a fuss beforehand. That’s the strategy I’m going to follow – it is likely to provide me with some future blog material, if nothing else. It means that for now, I’m going to be cryptic. One of my resolutions will be a blast from the past that might be familiar to some of you, and the other is something new entirely – but both will be anonymous until I decide otherwise. Who knows? I might actually get around to doing something I’ve told you I’ll do!

Mason