I dropped by to see Drew about a problem he is having with his computer. While I was there, his young son, Callan, appeared and asked me if I wanted to see something "fabby". Never being one to turn down an opportunity to see anything "fabby", I said I did. Callan, made me close my eyes, took my hand and lead me through to his bedroom. Once we got there he said "Open your eyes. Look, new blinds".

When was the last time you were so happy about new blinds ?

Remember when some things used to make you so happy that all you wanted to do was show everyone and tell everyone ? Like back to your younger days when you got new shoes and all you wanted to was walk around all day looking at your new shoes. Or football boots ? I wore my first pair of football boots to bed, for three days running. Never made me any good at football though. Or when I got my Clarks Commandos, shoes that had a compass in the heel. We al had them and playtimes at school were spent hopping around and navigating your way around the playground using your compass. It was a simplistic joy that you got from having something new and exciting, or even just something new to do. Last week I went shopping with Rhonda and as we meandered through the aisles looking at everything from King Prawns to screwdrivers I came across a display of gentleman's underpants. Not something I usually look twice at but this time they caught my eye because they were brightly coloured and stripy. Just like the underpants I had when I was wee. That was it, it was a done deal and I proudly headed for home with two pairs of new underpants, never mind the bread, milk, eggs, butter or sausages, I had new underpants. I have been so happy with my new pants that I have been taking every opportunity to show them off. "Check out these bad boys" I'll say and with great pride expose the top inch or so of my stripy wonderfullness. I'm not quite sure why I like them so much, maybe it's the bright colours, maybe it's because they are new but I think it's because they have shown me again how much joy you can take from the simple things in life.

Talking of simple things, today was a Sunday school day and I'm always amazed at just how quickly the well thought out plans can turn in to chaos. Today's plan was simple, it was to be all about how Jesus loves children, regardless of size, shape or colour, he loves them all. It was a great plan, we would hear the story, sing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" which I had been practising on my guitar, then we would make a huge collage of pictures of all different children and to finish off we would take some digestive biscuits, decorate them with different colours of icing sugar and make faces using sprinkles and chocolate beans. Everything went reasonably well, we made some pictures of children, I discovered that my guitar playing still has a long way to go before it's fit for public consumption and then we started to make biscuits. Let's just say I picked the wrong day to wear a new shirt to church, there was icing sugar everywhere, I was elbow deep in food colouring, the chocolate beans had been kicked over and were rolling around the floor. It was mayhem. Then I noticed that there were no biscuits being decorated and as I turned to find out why I saw that rather than smearing the icing sugar over the biscuits, the kiddiewinks were eating it straight from the bowls. Lesley and I did manage to rally the troops and eventually get enough biscuits decorated to make it look we had been successful and had the kids hand them out to the congregation.

Despite all the madness it was great fun. I think everyone had a good time, I know I did and I think it's back to the stripy underpants syndrome, taking joy from the simple things in life.

Some days you get the bear and other days the bear gets you. Someone famous must have said that at some point so I'm saying it again. Friday was a get the bear day. It all started some time back when a kind of cryptic message arrived from Finland asking for some help about weddings. It turned out the Tiina, one of the girls who had visited Luss when the Youth Project was on the go, wanted to come and be married in the church. Now arranging a wedding can be stressful but try doing it when there is both a language and a distance barrier. Then add in the fun when there is a time difference and the occasional confusion brought on by gender. I mean, come on, how was I supposed to know that a chignon bun was not the wedding cake ?

Anyway, many phone calls, pleads for help and arrangements later, the big day arrived and it was wonderful. Tiina looked stunning in her dress that had survived the journey from Helsinki and Sami just loved wearing the highland dress that Gillian had lent him. For a foreigner, he looked great in a kilt. The wedding service was beautiful, only 10 of us were there but it felt so much more personal and it was a pleasure to be part of. Afterwards many photographs were taken, lunch was eaten and then I took Sami and Tiina, still in their wedding outfits to the Winnock hotel in Drymen where they were staying on their wedding night.

When I reached home I sat and told Rhonda all about it (she couldn't get time off work to be there) as she had spent quite a bit of time helping find hairdressers and beauticians. It was a lovely day and one of those days that just fills you full of happiness and contentment.

Did you know that TV presenter Bob Holness, the host of Blockbusters, played the saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street ? Or that David Bowie invented the game Connect 4 ?

I would love to say it's true, but it's not. It nearly was true, in fact those two "facts" have been quoted and re-quoted so many times that they were accepted as the truth. The trouble was that both were the invention of music journalist and radio presenter Stuart Maconie who invented them to fill a column he wrote for the New Musical Express but so many people read the column then passed on this information that slowly but surely they became accepted as actual facts. They have even popped up in quizzes and TV shows. It's a good story and one you may find your self using when someone tries to convince you about Bob Holness or David Bowie but more interesting is how they became to be accepted as facts. It is in our nature to accept things at face value, we generally don't expect people to lie to us and when someone tells us a fact we take it as just that. When the subject matter of the "fact" seems to be slightly dubious we can be convinced by conviction and repetition. If the person telling us speaks with sincerity and speaks often enough we put our doubts aside and believe in what they are saying. It's not a new thing, we have all heard of con men or confidence tricksters who play on this, salesmen use it and if I have to brutally honest, the dog didn't actually eat my homework. How many times have you heard a politician repeat the same statistic over and over again until you can repeat it yourself "Under a Labour/Conservative/Democratic/Republican Government seasonally adjusted localised unemployment is at it's lowest point ever" and my granny was a cowboy.

We find it all too easy to believe someone who speaks with confidence, in fact sometimes we are in awe of this confidence. If you take a committee, whoever has the confidence to speak first will usually end up as the chairperson. Whoever has the confidence to propose the first idea will more than likely find that idea adopted as the best way forward. I could go on but I'm sure by now you get the picture.

What about the rest of us ? All of us who sit in the background biting our tongue, not having the confidence to speak up, even when we know what we have to say is important and relevant ? What about the times when we know what is being said is incorrect, or unjust or just plain wrong ? Maybe we don't know the big words or can't put over the conviction we have, but does that makes us lesser people ? Does it make our opinions not worthy of being heard ?

No, Jesus loves us all equally, he has taught us many lessons about lost sheep and widow's coins. Hopefully these parables will ring true with those who have the confidence to speak and give them the confidence to listen.

And if I turn up on a Sunday and keep telling you how my granny rode out with Jesse James, don't believe me, she was a seamstress.

I read a book the other day, I know another book, and it was about how our mind can play tricks on us if we are not careful. It started off by explaining how and experiment was conducted to see how aware people were of things going on round about them. A group of people were asked to watch a video that had two teams of three people passing a basketball around. One team was wearing white shirts and the other black shirts. The task was to count the number of passes that the white team made. Simple.

After watching the video, the people were asked how many of them saw a man in a gorilla suits walk though the players, beat his chest and walk off again. Very few did. When the video was played again, most folk claimed that it was a different video as there, plainly in sight was the gorilla. After quiet a bit of discussion in the book, the explanation was that because we are paying attention to one thing, we might miss other things that are happening around us. If you want to see the video just search for "invisible gorilla" on YouTube. Many more examples were given showing hos some times we can be guilty of what might be described as a kind of tunnel vision brought on by concentration. I have to say that I'm guilty of it, if I'm concentrating on doing something I don't hear people talking to me, often I've finished working and discovered I'm the only one left in the room. Sometimes I arrive at my destination and have little recollection of the journey. It's not deliberate, it just happens. So if in the past you think you've been neglected or ignored, please don't take offence, it might just have been me looking for invisible gorillas.