Sunday 8 April 2007

The True Story of Easter 2007

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Imo.


Once day, Imo woke up at 4am, to her cat sitting on her head. She was a little grumpy, but then realised that it was Easter Sunday, and she'd have to get up in an hour anyway. She tried to go back to sleep, but it didn't work and finally at 4:59 she got out of bed, to the irritation of the cat, who was wondering where her plaything was going.

Imo showered, dressed and breakfasted, then headed outside to await her lift. While she waited, the sky started to light up in spectacular colours. Imo took some worse than average photos of the city in the almost no light


Eventually, just as Imo worked out how to get the minimal light to be used optimally, Ruth turned up to collect her. It was now 5:50am, and really far too early to be conscious, but Imo had no real problem, having been awake for almost 2 hours now. She responded to Ruth and Jacks' 'Good morning' with perhaps a little too much energy for the time.

They took off on a trip up Huon Road and met with a few other cars at the Fern Tree Tavern, before setting off further up Hobart's little hill, that is affectionately called the Mountain, or Mt Wellington, when it's in trouble.

As they drove up and up, they saw the sky over the city starting to light up, and the road up ahead started to glow with that pre-sunrise light.

Suddenly, Jack twisted and went 'eek', and it was revealed that his hot water bottle had bitten him.

It was a race against the clock, pretty sky and sunrise, and they were in danger of losing.

They reached the top, and it was as light as day. Everyone piled out of their cars, and we headed off for the lookout platforms. Jack was mourning the destruction of his hottie, and moaned about the burnt patch on his tummy. He got very little sympathy.

It was still very early. About 6:20am.


Everyone looked out over the city, and ohhed and ahhed about the absolutely PERFECT day and sunrise. It was so beautiful, and they praised God for how perfect it was. It wasn't cold or windy on the top of the mountain, which is a rare occurance, and there was a Dawn Service happening in the lookout house. That ended, and people came out and lots of 'Good mornings' and 'Happy Easter's were said.


Everyone could see very far, and they eagerly anticipated the sunrise. While it wasn't too cold, and all were dressed warmly, everyone's fingers started to go numb, and the warmth of the sun was anticipated.

Some of the party went to the other platform to see the sunrise from there.

The sun started to come up. First it was a glow.

Then a shimmer.
Then a sparkle.
Followed by the full force of the sun as it came out to play.
Everyone rejoiced in the light, as it hit the mountain.

Suddenly, in the sunlight, it became obvious who all the people there were. (There were a few couples...)

Ruth and Jack
Liz and Phil
Pat and Mez
Mark (trying to look seriously out at the world, with Pat)
And Phil, Heather and Katherine.
Caleb and Matt were also there, but being camera shy people that they are, this is the only photo with them in it. (And what a mighty hat Caleb is displaying!)
And everyone who was there....What a silhouette... Lucky we can see the landscape around Ruth really.... :-P
There's those cloudstills.... (clouds that look like waterfalls.....)
Oh, artistic shot of what happens when Kath runs away from me taking her photo.

And those final shots of picturesque Hobart at dawn.....

What an amazing, perfect start to a wonderful Easter.

And now the sun is starting to set again. There's something extremely satisfying about seeing a whole day's sunlight, from the rise to the set. But I think it's something that shouldn't be done too often, to keep it a novelty... :-D

Merry Easter everyone!

Friday 6 April 2007

Two years to the event

This day two years ago I was in Austria, trying to solve a dilema. I was on Easter Break from school, and my school friends were going out in the evening of Good Friday to celebrate the break, and I couldn't decide if I should or not.

I really wanted to - I'd only been in Austria for a month or so, and wanted to see Altstadt at night, and go out and have fun with my new friends, but it was Good Friday, and it just felt wrong to go and have so much fun on the anniversary of the death of the most important person in my life.

I didn't go, and spent the day in silent suffering - from indecision and PMS that brought on homesickness. I guess that was one way of looking at Good Friday, but I've been thinking about it today, and I think that if I was given the chance again, I would go.

Jesus died. That's sad. But he rose again. That's happy. If he hadn't died, he wouldn't have risen again. So that makes his death a happy thing.

Good Friday is for reflecting on his death, and what it brought (hoorayness for us), and I think it's very understandable to want to stay at home and not do anything fun at all, but if you are just wasting that time, wishing you'd done something else, then it's not the best use of the time. I suspect that had I gone, I would have spent the rest of the day in much more worthwhile reflection.

So if you're going to spend time at this time of the year in reflection, make sure you make it worthwhile, and don't umm and ahh about whether you should or whether you've got time or whatever, just do it.

Anyway, that's a bit of a ramble, just a warm up to my real post really. Maybe. Probably. Prossibly. Possibly.

What's been happening lately? Not all that much really. I'm back at uni, studying ArtsLaw, with German and Medieval History for my Arts subjects. I'm loving them. For Law I'm studying Contracts and Torts (if only it was that delicious). They're kinda interesting, very applicable to everyday life, which is a nice difference from my arts subjects.

I'm currently avoiding doing my contracts summaries, which involve lots of highlighting and A3 paper. I'm so easily distracted today. Georgie (my cat) has been a great distracter all day... Later I'll go to Tenebrae, a service which celebrates the actual crucifixion of Christ, with lots of drama and candles and drums.

I've booked my flights to England, hoorah! I'll be there for Greenbelt too, which I'm pretty pumped about! I keep talking to Emma (future sister in law) on msn, which is great. She's very excited about us being there for Greenbelt too. Then I'll be off to Austria for a few days, which will be fantabulastic I reckon, looking for nice cheap flights there at the mo...

Well I'm hungry right now, need to go find some food.

Watched Bruce Almighty last night. I've seen it before, but I really like it. It's not perfect, but has some cool points to think about. Such as, what would happen if God gave us everything we 'want' ("who really knows what they want?")...