Tag: General

Posted on

Life in the fast lane

 Life In The Fast Lane

It’s been quite a while since I posted here – not for lack of wanting to, nor for any lack of ideas, but purely because life is one wild maelstrom since we’ve moved. Don’t get me wrong that’s not an excuse, a complaint or a moan, it’s just the way it is.

And that’s the sort of thing we wanted when we moved, although we didn’t anticipate it to this extent.

So what’s been happening since I last posted (which was a bit of a downer of a post I know but it was a fair reflection of how life was that week)? Well, things have got busier and busier.

The kids all have their own lives, both within the church and outside of it. The boys are now members of the local cub/scout troops, our daughter is extremely busy with college work and they all have their own things going on within the church.

The church. What can I say about that? We’ve been so blessed in finding a great community to be a part of and at a really exciting time as well. We’ve all found our own niches and have our own activities and involvements, and we’re all loving life there. Me, well I’ve gone full circle really and I’m back doing both PA and playing in the worship team – it feels so good and it has been a huge answer to prayer.

Of course, the side effect of having such an active life is that we barely have an evening without something going on and our weekends rapidly fill up. It’s meant that all of a sudden we find ourselves with the realisation that we moved home nearly 8 months ago. It’s such a crazy thought as on the one hand it feels like 5 minutes ago, and on the other hand we feeld so well established and settled that it feels as though we’ve lived here for much longer.

So whilst it may seem like I last blogged and ice-age ago, to me it feels like yesterday. Life in the fast lane… gotta love it!

Posted on

Boxes and Brushes

boxes & brushes

It’s finally happened! On the 12th of July we actually moved from Stamford to Rugby – and the process that was kicked off 5 years ago reached its culmination. With delays occurring even up to the day of the move it proved to be a stressful and nerve-wracking time and not an experience I plan on tackling again anytime soon.

Before I go any further I have got to give a huge shout out of THANKS to everyone who helped us in getting the house in Stamford sorted, packing done, vans loaded, moving in, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, tidying, sorting out DIY etc and anything and everything else. We have managed to achieve a huge amount in the last month and a bit and it couldn’t have been done without the help of family and friends.

Since we moved in we’ve done a lot of work in getting things done – particularly focussing on the kids bedrooms which are now both decorated, unpacked and looking remarkably good. Of course, we did all the sorting out and now the rooms are looking very typical of a boys room and a teenagers room (no visible floor space and you wouldn’t believe that we’d done any tidying up or sorting out!)

Being a techie I have, of course, got some priorities right in sorting out the networking, tv’s, sky, internet and general connectivity 😀 A key focus of all my latest tech setups has been working to try and improve overall functionality whilst reducing the overall impact on our electricity bills – not always the easiest thing to balance out but I’ve at least now started a process that will hopefully allow me to meet the demands of a modern household without fattening the wallets of the power companies too much (boy do I wish there were more eco grants available for solar and wind generation as I’d willingly pop some panels on our roof and a couple of micro turbines)

I had a chat with Mrs H just before we moved and explained that it wasn’t the house I was going to miss in Stamford as it was, put bluntly, an ex-council mid-terrace house with 4 walls and an a-frame roof – what I was going to miss was the people and the places. That’s proven to be true – I really miss some of the people there even though it’s only been a month and a bit. Thankfully we’ve managed to catch up with some folks and even had the weather for a barbeque.

The new house, in contrast to our old one, is one I can see me falling in love with. The house is quirky and full of character, we’ve never seen another house like it. There’s room galore in it so that we can each have our own space and don’t get under each others feet. Everyone who’s seen it has been shocked when they see just how much room it does have as, from the front, it doesn’t look like it’s a big house at all. Quite the opposite in fact as it looks really small from the front aspect. I find myself regularly looking at different areas of the house, garden or workshop (yes, there’s a man cave at the bottom of the garden) and smiling when I realise just how good the house is – and always sending another “thank you” upstairs as there’s no way we’d have got this house without some divine nudging along the way.

The other big thing about the move has been the whole process of trying to get settled in to the area and making new friends. Thankfully God has been ahead of us all the way and there’s a family in the church who live just at the bottom of the hill and we’ve clicked quite well with them. Everyone has been really welcoming and friendly and things will get a bit easier once the kids start at school/college and make more friends and get settled in to a routine a bit more. It’s not the easiest of things for me as I’m not particularly comfortable in new groups and can easily shy away from people – once I get to know folks and get settled it, well that’s a different story… but getting to that stage is a major challenge for me and is something I’m having to try and face head on.

So now it’s time to put down some roots, get settled in, and get ready for whatever we’re called to do. Rugby – you’ve been warned, the Hartleys have arrived! 🙂

Posted on

A legend lost, a legacy remains

Senna

The 1st May is a date etched into the memory of all F1 fans who watched the sport in the early 90’s. It was the day when a freak accident robbed us of the greatest driver the sport has ever seen.

I don’t need to document the events of that day here, there are plenty of in-depth recollections online from people who were there or who knew Ayrton. If you can, go and google them and read them – and then watch the beyond superb docu-film “Senna” that came out a couple of years ago.

I was 20 at the time and I can remember watching the events unfold. I can remember where I was. I can remember Steve Ryder doing an amazing job, handling the situation with a sensitivity that was beyond anything seen before. For 5 years afterwards I couldn’t watch the sport, except for the odd race, and even now there are times when I’ll see or hear something during a race that’ll bring back the memories.

Last week there was a segment on the F1 Show on Sky F1 that featured both Bruno Senna and Nicholas Prost. It was scary just how much they resemble their uncle and father respectively. It was like looking back in time and it brought memories flooding in. Races where we saw sublime driving and competition, underhand tactics that would change F1 forever, politics and strategies that made Kasparov look like an amateur and where we were witness to the best driver at one with the best that motoring engineering could deliver.

Today is a day that leads me to pause in sadness, but also to smile at the great memories I have of watching Senna drive. It’s a day that reminds me of a JPS Lotus t-shirt from 1985 (and as an aside – tobacco sponsorship never made me want to smoke) and the love for motoring, for petrol, for engineering that was birthed.

The greatest legacy left by Imola 1994 – which, we mustn’t forget, also saw the death of Roland Ratzenburger and the horrific crash for Rubens Barrichello – could be argued as being the fact that we’ve not seen another driver fatality in Formula One since that day. But then I listen to others speak about Senna, I see the tweets of people who share their memories and how he inspired and changed them and I wonder if he didn’t leave a deeper legacy. Oh, he wasn’t a saint – don’t get me wrong there… he could teach Schumacher and Vettel a thing or two about dirty racing – but he was an inspiration and an icon.

Tragically we’ve seen fatalities in other areas of motorsports, and there’s still a need for the lessons and safety technology to be embraced by lower formulae, but motor racing today is massively safer than it was 19 years ago. Let’s hope that we can go the next 19 years without any motorsport tragedies.

Ayrton Senna: Sorely and forever missed – but never forgotten.

Posted on

On the move…

On The Move

Back in July 2008 I posted on these very pages that we were being called to leave Stamford and move. It’s been nearly 5 years in the making (crazy I know) but it looks like we are now definitely on our way – we’ve sold our house and had an offer accepted on a house in Rugby. So, barring any unforeseen bumps in the road, we’re now getting set for a major step in the life of our family.

When I first announced the move we believed it was to Peterborough, but that proved to be part of a process where God was gently lifting our roots up and shaking away the excess before preparing to plant us where He wants us. There has been a lot of heart-work done over the intervening years – getting us used to the idea of moving, of leaving the area (Mrs H and the Kids have always lived in/around Stamford), of moving away from friends and family, and coming to a point where we could genuinely say “Here I am Lord, send me” (Isaiah 6:8)

There’s also been the odd false start, where we felt God was saying “GO” and then it didn’t happen. I’d be lying if I said that I knew why and that it wasn’t frustrating – we don’t fully understand the delays (maybe we never will) and it was frustrating, especially as we’d been telling the kids we were going to move and I really don’t like messing them around.

But that is hopefully all in the past now. We’ve got a buyer for our house, and they are good buyers so there shouldn’t be any problems there (hopefully). We’ve found a great house in Rugby and there’s no chain involved there so hopefully that shouldn’t be complicated. We just need to pray for all the final pieces to fall into place; mortgages, solicitors, surveys and timescales. We also need to pray for schooling and the right provision for the kids. A winning lottery ticket wouldn’t go amiss either 😉

The house we’ve found is a big surprise to us as it’s not something we would ever have normally considered. It needs some work to freshen it up a bit and modernise some of the decor, but it’s a house with character galore and with so much space you could almost lose yourself in it. The garden is a great size and there’s a huge (and I mean *huge*) workshop/shed/man-cave at the bottom of the garden with workbenches and all sorts (even a dust-extraction system that I thought was a hamster run!) so all those DIY projects and ideas will have a home to be started and then gather dust (only joking dear – I *will* try to get projects finished!)

It was a tense day yesterday, waiting to see if our offer was going to be accepted and then finding out that we were up against another family and having to go to a “sealed bid” situation. In the end though we won out and things seem to be clicking into place.

I keep joking with Mrs H about “Does it feel real yet” as there’s been so many hiccups and delays it’s almost a case of “I’ll believe it when I see it”. It also feels really surreal in a strange way, at points it has felt as though we’re just passengers and at other points it’s just been so much work and craziness that I almost gave up on the whole idea.

We’re not there yet. Until those contracts are exchanged, and the money wings its way through the ether to the relvant parties, there’s still scope for challenges – but this has the real sense of Gods timing to it. Our house sold in an amazingly quick time and our “new house” has come at the right time and offers so much more space than we had expected. There is a compromise in the number of bedrooms (3 rather than 4) but as the smallest bedroom is larger than our current largest bedroom we aren’t going to be short of space or storage room!

At the end of the day, all we can do now is provide the info that the solicitors etc request and pray that God smooths the rest of this journey so that we can move without any headaches (but probably with a few tears) and with a sense of excitement about the road that lies ahead. So please pray for us – as I said above we need prayer that solicitors, surveys, mortgages, deadlines, schools etc all fall into place nicely and that’s something that definitely needs a divine touch (as anyone who has ever moved house will no doubt agree!)

By the way – when we get a date we’ll probably come grovelling for help in moving… you’ve been duly warned 😀

Posted on

To Infinity and Beyond!

There are moments in history that are the “where were you when…” moments. Earth-shaking moments that write themselves into the human psyche. Sadly a lot of them are tragic moments – 9/11, Diana, Elvis, Senna. There are odd moments though that celebrate human achievement and the biggest of those was undoubtedly the moon landings in 1969.

I wasn’t around then (despite what some folks would have you believe) but I’ve seen the footage on numerous occasions and it gives me goosebumps every time I watch it.

Coupled with the NASA footage of Armstrong bouncing along the moon, are the black and white images of families huddled around their TV’s – kids on the floor, mum and dad sat arm in arm and grandma and grandad sat watching with wise eyes seeing what science and technology could deliver for good after seeing the destruction they brought in two world wars.

Over the past 10 years or so it’s felt like humanity has put the world into reverse with Concorde being grounded, the Shuttle being retired and plans for manned missions to Mars being scrapped. In fact it’s almost felt like we’ve settled on exploring the microscopic rather than pushing ourselves in ways that expand boundaries and take us to another level.

But there’s something about the human spirit that defies economic woes, that isn’t fulfilled by the minutia. Something within us that wants to see us going further, faster, higher or bigger. There’s that pioneer spirit that saw Columbus and Polo et al explore this wonderful planet we call home. There’s that conquering spirit that saw Everest and said “I can climb that” or sees the North Pole and says “I can walk there”. There’s the adrenaline fuelled mentality that see people strapped to rockets with wings, wheels or keels just to go faster than anyone has gone before.

It’s the human spirit.

It’s not always driven by logic (if ever) and it doesn’t always have a great benefit to humanity but without it we might easily still be sat in ignorance of the world around us, in fact we might well still be sat in caves doing nothing.

On October the 14th 2012 we witnessed another of those great moments as Felix Baumgartner floated up to 128,000 feet and the jumped from the edge of space to become the first human to break the sound barrier without any form of propulsion or vehicle.

In this instance there are genuine benefits to science, aeronautical safety and more but it still ultimately comes down to that innate human nature that wants to do it because no-one has done it before or to prove that we can push ourselves to beat previous endeavours.

What really cemented the moment as one of •those• moments was sharing it with my brother, sister, mum, dad and all of us. We started watching it on the laptop before switching it to the main TV and by the time the pre-jump checks were starting we had all gathered round the television with people sat on the floor, the sofa and each other. It was one of those moments when we collectively held our breath and where we all applauded as Felix walked back down onto land as if he’d simply jumped from the bottom step.

 We all felt nervous, excited, exhilarated, tense, inspired and amazed.
 I sincerely hope and pray that this isn’t the “moon landing moment” for our generation. I desperately want to be sat watching man step foot on Mars.
The human race is amazing. We’ve been created with a natural curiosity and desire to explore and I just love it. When we can all push towards something greater, something bigger, something that shows just how amazing we are and how awesome creation is.