Our friends Simon and Caro live and work in Perth, Western Australia. Their monthly newsletter is always full of their activities and adventures. This month included holiday in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide… return to Perth for light shows (as above)…
They conclude: ‘Go well friends, send us your news and pray that we may all have duller lives (excitement vastly overrated!)’
Yesterday friends were planning excitement… holidays, Christmas, future events… for them it wasn’t overrated!… But praying for duller lives?
Home’s dull… Our friend Kerry’s walking 10,000 steps a day for 40 days in support of type 1 diabetes. Yesterday she posted local pictures of Pakefield as she was walking. For me it’s ordinary. I see it every day. I take it for granted…
Musing… I look a second time. I see beauty in the familiar, freshness in the dull…
Snoring allegations… Sometimes, when with other married couples, the conversation gets round to how well we sleep… Allegations are made that I snore; sometimes other husbands are similarly criminalised…
We had this conversation with a friend whose husband died. Reflecting on her sad bereavement she reflected: ‘I would rather he was still there beside me snoring…’
Musing… Dull snoring allegations are put in perspective.
Bread’s a pain… We like to go out for a meal. We have one or two favourite restaurants. Our ‘daily bread’ becomes toast, a sandwich… ordinary and dull?
French sister-in-law Geneviève’s breakfast place-mats have a picture of a French loaf with the word ‘pain’… (French for ‘bread’ is ‘pain’…)
Musing… our daily bread… for many of us our daily pain… Dull, but often together…
Dull old hymns… One verse of the old Horatius Bonar hymn, ‘Fill thou my life O Lord my God’, written nearly 200 years ago, goes:
Praise in the common things of life,
its goings out and in;
praise in each duty and each deed,
however small and mean.
Musing… ‘the common things of life’… the dull things… I thank my God for ‘small and mean’.
malcolmsmusings.org 
The older I get the more I appreciate the small and mean.
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It seems to me that appreciating the small and mean starts with intentionally noticing the small and mean,
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Your friend Kerry’s images of Pakefield are actually very interesting. The sky makes them a little dreary, but that’s probably typical for the season. It would feel quite relaxing to stroll 10,000 steps through that area of Pakefield, especially if one has been stretched thin.
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Autumn has closed in on us over this last week so the sky is fairly typical of our current weather. Pakefield is a lovely place to live and walk, particularly along the beach and the sea front.
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Another “dull old hymn”: “I take thy promise, Lord”
And all the other days that make my life,
Marked by no special joy or grief or strife,
Days filled with quiet duties, trivial care,
Burdens too small for other hearts to share.
Spend thou these days with me; all shall be thine
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Excellent, Bryan. Thank you. That particular hymn is outside my repertoire, but it’s beautiful, and fits in with my thoughts.
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If your hoardings go as far back as Golden Bells, it is 315 there. I’ve not seen it anywhere else, but the whole hymn is worth reading/singing!
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I’ll check it out. Thank you!
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