As we approach the end of each year, I like to look back at my New Year’s intentions, and see how I’ve done. Only it turns out I didn’t make any at the start of 2021 (or indeed review my 2020 ambitions). In fact between February 2020 and October 2021 I wrote just 3 posts. The reason for this is obvious, but not really visible at all in anything I’ve written, except a passing reference in May 2020 about doing a church service from home. It is of course the Covid-19 pandemic, which started in December 2019, really hit the […]

As a part of my quest to reduce plastic, and maybe save some money, I switched over to shaving with a safety razor at the end of 2019. There was also the hope of getting a closer shave, so I wouldn’t be quite so stubbly at the end of the day. Previously I was using disposable razors, either the Gillette type ones where you change the head (Mach 5, or whatever) or the bog standard supermarket 10 pack of twin blade razors, with shaving gel that comes in a squirty can. The disposable razors are 10 for £1, and same […]

I’ve just adding a plugin (“WP Twitter Auto Publish”) which I think will auto post my blog entries to Twitter… So this isn’t a very imaginative one, but gotta test it somehow! Update – All seems to work. I’ve deleted the tweet it generated now.

Quick shout out to Scott Hanselman, who recently gave an ACM tech talk on running Linux Apps on Windows, which I would recommend. First, as is perhaps often the way, an “off-topic” comment of his struck me, and partially inspired this post. I paraphrase from memory. I always think that we have a limited number of keypresses in our life, so I want to use them well. If someone asks me a question, I blog the answer so that the keypresses live on. E-mails are where keypresses go to die. Anyway, aside from the stuff I learnt about WSL, there […]

Apologies for radio silence – it has been a super super busy couple of months; starting a new job, finishing my curacy, getting work done on the house… and that’s before the ongoing covid excitements. I do have a backlog of photos to upload at some point – I haven’t given up on it all together!

The Bishop of Leeds is pleased to announce the appointment of The Revd Dr James Handley, currently Assistant Curate of Harrogate St Mark, as Associate Priest of Harrogate St Mark in the Ripon Episcopal Area.  The licensing will be conducted by Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley on Sunday 25th July 2021

Well, my curacy has finished! I received the letter today from the Bishop signing me off – my initial ministerial education is complete. Like the rest of the world, the past 12-18 months have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced or could have expected, and I don’t think I can even start to do it justice in a short piece like this. But I did want to mark the occasion. The massive thing about my curacy for me has been the discovery of Self Supporting Ministry as something other than Stipendiary-Lite, and this is a journey I am still on. […]

I’ve just noticed a little milestone has come and gone. On the 9th May 2011 – i.e. ten years ago – I posted my first ever 365 photo, which was (I think aptly enough) a signpost: Since then I have posted 2,006 photos (so picture 2,000 was another milestone I guess), clearly not 365 a year (more like 200), but still pretty good going I reckon. I really enjoyed the Lent Challenge, with a word to inspire every day, and I am now doing an ABC challenge, where each week is inspired by a different letter of the alphabet. I […]