The snow has long since gone from our home in Leicester, replaced by grey skies and a cold dampness which seems to permeate everything. Christmas is a distant memory as is the glorious walk just a few days earlier through the pristine snow in the Rivelin Valley in Sheffield where we had gone to visit Ben, our son, and his wife Bethan. 
Anne and I had been looking forward to this Winter break for several months - a chance to go home, to sample seasonal food and drink, spend time with our friends and family and enjoy a ‘real’ English Christmas. We hadn’t expected the snow - that was just an added bonus.
We planned to spend Christmas Day at our house in Leicester. We can’t really call it our home; Anne and I have lived in the house for less than five months and had handed it over to our daughter Jo as her home when we left for Uganda in 2007.
On the Sunday before Christmas we attended the Carol Service at our home church of St Denys, complete with the carols we had sung a continent away just a week earlier. But Midnight Communion at St Denys began our Christmas celebrations proper – ‘good news for all the people - a Saviour, Christ the Lord!’
Christmas morning was cold and icy, but the whole family went to Jo’s church in Knighton for the morning service, returning ‘home’ to open our presents and feast on traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. It was a great meal - so much better than our Ugandan alternative: a tough chicken accompanied by beans and enya! Jo’s fiancé, John, joined us for an evening game of Monopoly.
New Year 2010 was rung in, once more at St Denys. It’s to be a momentous year for Jo and John, and time was needed to buy clothes, talk about arrangements for the wedding, not to mention helping to make the invitations. But time was passing quickly and soon we were back in Sheffield to visit Ben and Bethan again before our return to Uganda. There had been more snow, but it was starting to melt – and freeze – and melt – and freeze. But it was gradually disappearing.
Sunday 17th January – the morning service at St Thomas’ Crookes. We had planned to go out for a walk in the afternoon, but as we made our way back to Ben and Bethan’s house from church, up one of Sheffield’s many hills, we hit a patch of ice. My ankle twisted under me, I heard a snap, and gently fell to the ground. A visit to Sheffield’s A&E confirmed what I already knew and I left with my leg encased in plaster – a 6-week sentence.
Over the past 4 weeks, I have variously cursed myself for careless stupidity, regretted coming home at all, experienced intense frustration and wondered what I’m meant to learn from all this. Questions multiplied when Jo crashed her car and wrote it off two weeks ago; but thank God she escaped without injury.
We’re going back to Uganda in three days’ time, plaster cast and all. Our Winter Break didn’t turn out quite as we had expected. God moves in mysterious ways. I’m still playing ‘catch-up’, and with a broken ankle that’s not so easy!
1 comment:
Glad to hear that Jo is OK. We hope your journey back to Arua goes smoothly and that Allan's ankle will be well healed when the plaster comes off. Perhaps you'll never know why your stay had to be extended - but I'm sure that many people (especially Ben & Bethan & Jo & John) appreciated seeing more of you. Love Jan and Ken xx
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