Between Visitors!

The visiting season, it seems, has begun!

I've always enjoyed visiting friends, and receiving them in return - I'm just the sort of guy who likes sharing his favourite places I guess - and compared to most people, I'm rarely in a position to afford expensive holidays, so exchange visits is a useful means of getting around. Gosport - where I lived from 1995 until recently - was one of those places that not everybody wanted to go - understandably, as it's fairly workaday; and takes hours to get in and out of on acount of its' awful transport infrastructure!

Edinburgh on the other hand, is a rather different matter! This is one of those places that almost everybody wants to come to! (One lives in hope they want to come and spend time with me too, not just see the place...).

My friend of some years standing, Angus (no, he's not Scottish, despite the name), was my first visitor last weekend; and he helped me redecorate my living room, and so proved to be worth his weight in gold, as I really don't do heights! As soon as the stepladder starts to wobble, I've passed out - and if it's near the window I'm even worse, living as I do on the top floor of a tenement building!! Mind you, I did find that once I'd set my mind to it, I was able to emulsion the walls myself with one of those telescopic rollers - it is now a nice fresh shade called 'Jade White', and I even managed to sand and undercoat most of the gloss paintwork before his arrival. But he did the ceiling and cornices for me - three coats of paint; as well as the edges, which I couldn't do to save my life; and the higher parts of the glossing. I have a few doors left to do myself, not to mention the kitchen - but at least I now have a better idea of how to go about it!
Angus left on Tuesday, so spend a couple of nights with other friends he has in Edinburgh, and is now back home in Bristol...

My next visitor arrives later today! I tend not to categorise friends - all of my friends are my best friends in different ways, but this one has been quite a special one for many years. Years ago, we went to the same church group in Portsmouth, and we just got talking, and soon found we'd a good deal in common - not least that we were both emotional wrecks at the time!! He's one of those guys who doesn't tend to keep friends, on account of spreading himself too thinly and earning a somewhat unreliable reputation - and indeed, there have been many times when even I've wondered whether he really is worth all the effort. But then I promised very early on to be there for him no matter what, because I could see that's what he needed, and if anything he still has that need - probably more than ever.

It's one of those hidden costs of being a Christian - at the end of the day, you've little option to concede that no matter how much somebody lets you down (and boy, he's better at it than most), you can hardly call yourself a true follower of Christ if you call it a day and leave to struggle on alone - because the fact of the matter is, Jesus wouldn't do that - not ever, or in any circumstances...

Even at the moment, I'm in no small turmoil over this friendship! He was the one who'd said, in response to the news I was moving away to Scotland, that we might actually get to spend more quality time together, as he'd have to make time to come and visit me; and indeed it had seemed that at last, he was keeping to his word, as he'd originally said he was staying until Thursday. I was really looking forward to this - being able to take him to lots of the special places I've discovered over the past few weeks, and not being in too much of a hurry; but of course, he's taken a slice of the time he'd pledged to spend with me and offered it to somebody else, whom I can only surmise has made him a more interesting offer! So he's leaving Tuesday instead and to be honest, I do feel rather hurt by this eleventh-hour alteration to our schedule - I am only human, after all. But then he is a politician - yes, a real one, albeit only within local government at the present time - and well, robbing Paul to pay Peter - and not admitting it until absolutely forced to, is what politicians do, isn't it...? I guess I'm supposed to feel grateful he's coming to see me at all - but for the moment, the jury's still out on that one as yet again, he gets all his needs met and I have to just make do with a few crumbs...

I guess this is how Jesus feels all the time though - and while I'm sure God doesn't want me to suffer just for the sake of it, perhaps he feels I'll be a stronger person for knowing exactly what this feels like. I generally find that even if there's no obvious reason for life's occurences, God does tend to use them for what lies ahead - as invariably, I find myself drawing on past experiences - very often in order to support others going through similar issues in their own lives...