Aussie 13 August Amazingness

A much sunnier day with the Opera House displaying itself much more appropriately against blue sky, then a dark night sky and nearly full moon, and a trip on the Manly Ferry (there used to be a Manly Girls’ School but it no longer exists, can’t think why). We bought enormous ice creams and ate them as we marvelled at the surfers doing their amazing Manly thing on the waves. It would take more than the promise of adrenalin to get me in the sea in this season. Interestingly, there seems to be no graceful way of finishing a successful surf: you just arrive in the shallows and fall off ignominiously. From super-cool to so-not-cool in a few short seconds. Dismissals are so important. It was a timely reminder of the image I had when we first started on our Messy adventure: that of clinging on to a surfboard and being carried by God to who knows where. I am perfectly happy in theory to end up in an ignominious heap for the greater glory of the kingdom, when my surfboard comes to the shallows, but I hope the Lord finds it in him to be merciful about who’s watching at the time.
Judyth had kindly drawn together team members and some friends who had visited us in the UK and we spent a very pleasant evening with her and her family, eating Italian outside (outside! In midwinter!) against a quarry cliff face in the characterful Rocks area near Circular Quay. Somehow Judyth herself has managed to avoid being on the photo below but she was definitely there!