We're Going To Scotland

I don't know how I've got this far without mentioning it, but we are going back to Scotland. B & I lived in Seamill in 2003-2004, working with Youth With A Mission at the fabulous Seamill Centre, a training centre for Christian missionaries. It was a watershed time in our lives, and we use it as a reference point for so many things. Like G, we came home 3 months pregnant with her, and gave her the middle name of a nearby island. Not the Isle of Man, in case you were wondering.
Vintage Gardeners Go To Scotland

We're heading back in roughly 6 weeks, leading a group from our church. We're going to garden with the Environmental Group in West Kilbride, just a short little walk from Seamill.  It's definitely exciting, but right now all I can think about is how the preparations are consuming me-I've  just spent 10 unsuccessful minutes on hold with the visa support people. The call costs $3.00 a minute, and the 10 minute wait was just in order to put my credit card number down. I finally hung up, so it cost nothing, but it doesn't bode well for future tries.
The really irritating thing is that this isn't the way I meant to write about our trip. There is so much that is lovely and hopeful and exciting about going back to a place we love: bringing our kids, hiking once again on Fairlie Moor and up Goatfell's misty sides. I can't wait to sit on Tarbert Hill with the group amidst the gorse and close-cropped grass, listening to sheep's baas, looking up the Firth of Clyde into the beginnings of the Highlands.
I can't wait to stand once again on Great Cumbrae and introduce G to great Scottish cuisine-like the tomato and cheese toasty and the Knickerbocker Glory Sundae at the Ritz. Above all that is the hope that God will be working through us as we tend the soil of a village that struggles with teenage alcoholism, drugs, vandalism and unemployment.
I am hopeful about all these things, and trying to remind myself as I wade through the morass of paperwork and websites for these visas. (Properly known as a Tier 5 Charity Worker Visa, for those who are thinking of doing the same.) Please pray for us!
And thanks to Neal B for introducing me to The Social Services, a band from Glasgow. I was just listening to 'Electric Brae' and it made me happy......

From the Darkness: A Morning Prayer

O gentle Christ, ever thanks to thee,
That thou from the dark hast raised me free
And from the coldness of last night's space
To the gentle light of this day's grace.

O God of all creathures, praise to thee,
As to each life thou hast poured on me,
My wish, my word, my sense, my praise,
My thought, my deed, my fame, and my ways.

from Poems of the Western Highlanders, translated from the Gaelic and taken from Alexander Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica.

Our darling bud of May......is one year old today

Well happy birthday to our youngest, little Mr. Hecho. He is one year old today and is a sweet little guy, with red hair and blue eyes, six teeth and inordinate fascination with my cell phone and the shower drain.
I will also brag that he is really the most easy-going little guy out there. Today he sat happily doing whatever came his way, cooing and gibbering to the adoring throngs & horking birthday cake with great alacrity.
We had his birthday party down in our driveway, which worked really well, and a sweet time was had by all. It was really just a small family party, but since it was in the driveway, with B's latest hair-brained scheme (100 balloons forming an floating barrier from the road-it actually works!), we got a lot of drive-bys, horn honks and shout-outs. The whole day was scented by the wafting sweetness of the climbing 'Cecile Brunner' rose as well as the massive vase of David Austen roses  that were dropped off as an anonymous May Day donation. But I think I figured it out! In the morning I snuck off to the UCSC Farm & Garden Plant Sale, to which I trek bi-annually as a rule (spring and fall). I missed  it last year, on account of a little thing called childbirth. I took Eleven, who started a veggie garden this year and has been texting me all sorts of random questions ("Do I want a bucket of ashes for my plants?" "Can I plant now? How about now?") I got a lot of stuff for the Abbey Garden: Camp Joy tomatoes, 'Ancho' chiles and many many little flowers. The highlight was getting to talk for a few minutes to Orin Martin, one of my favorite gardeners, and a former teacher.I always feel a little gawky and star-struck around him, which is silly really, when he is so mellow and laid-back, Santa Cruz personified.
Lots of love and thanks to family and all the adoring Hecho fans! In closing, this song. I had it in my head all day. Take it away, Innocence Mission!