I was fascinated by bits of graffiti around Scotland & France. I do think it is wrong to do, but I am often intrigued by the messages people put on places & also what an interesting statement it makes when you have a monument that will last a thousand years, with a message on it which will last maybe a month & probably only hase a weeks relevance to it.
Anyway, here is some graffiti…

This one will stay relevant for some time I suspect.


This was my favourite. I am not sure what it means, but it is pretty cool!
What do you think of Graffiti?

I know there have been people asking for them, so here are a couple of the pictures from the wedding.

Do I need to point out anyone or anything? We are on Fort St. on the Mountains side of the Bridge.

This is my fave shot of Shona. She has such amazing teeth!

The Bridge has a cliche element to it, but you have to take at least one of these in Sydney to be legally married right? I also apologise for a kissing photo. Deal with it…

The first is another take of the tree @ Stirling Castle.
The second picture is of one of the fables “Highland Coos”. Good looking little fellas. This guy looks particularly healthy, because he gets to live next to the Glenlivet Whisky Distillery!

So we are back and we are safe.
The flights were just fine. 7pm flight from Paris, 11pm flight from London, midnight flight from Hong Kong, then 6:20 arrival in Sydney. Let’s just say that I was a little worse for wear most of yesterday. By 4:30 we just couldn’t function, so Shona & I went to bed.
This, of course, means that I woke up at got out of bed at 2:30 this morning!!!
So, from 6ish I have been here at college, catching up on emails & trying to return my world to some semblance of order. We’re getting there.
You better believe there will be more photos, but for a taster, here are a couple from our time OS.
TCG.>.

This is a shot from Stirling Castle. You can’t see, but just past that tree & castle is a 100 meter drop down a cliff. It’s a pretty awesome spot!

Nobody knows what Rodin’s “The Thinker” was thinking about. I was thinking “How good is it to be in 30 centigrade days, when it appears to be frigid in Sydney!” That said, I am loving the cold now that I am back.

The Eiffel tower. Shona & I decided to walk up the tower, rather than catching the lift. It meant a shorter wait in line, plus it delivers a nice view. Of course, it also helped burn off some of the obscene amount of French pastry we’ve been eating. ‘They’ are right, the French really do know how to make good pastry!

This is the view from the second story of the Eiffel. Well, the view from one direction. Man, you can see EVERYWHERE from there!
So there you go. More to come… but not ultra-regularly, because now I am dependant on the internet when I am at college…

Waiting.
Waiting.
Delays to our flight. What a hassle.
We’ll make it to Paris eventually.
Thankfully we have stories of good times with Stu & Suse to chat about, good times spent with Tim & Maret, plus a crazy week in the Highlands.
Oh, and I just scored a free food voucher. £5 is nothing to sniff at!

I guess there shouldn’t be big expectations of me blogging a lot on my honeymoon, but I should at least let you know what is happening & that we arrived safely.
Our expectations were that we were going to be pretty hammered by the jetlag, but we have both been feeling pretty good and are on top of it. The fact that we didn’t sleep too well coming up to the wedding itself probably helped us acclimatise.
My expectation was that Shona & I would be eating lots of Pub meals while we are here. This has been largely true, but a couple of nights ago, Shona & I got to go & eat at one of the fanciest restaurants in Edinburgh thanks to Cate, Dan, Eliot, N8, Amy & Kirty! Man, it was fantastic food & I got to eat Venison, so that was really exciting. Certainly unexpected & a lovely thing to do.
My expectation for the weekend was that I would be hanging out and spending quality time with Tim & Maret (Shona’s Bro-in-Law & Sister), but yesterday, they took us out on a drive & we got to visit “Campbell Castle”, which I hadn’t been to (Don’t confuse it with Inverary Castle, home of the Head of the Campbell Clan) & it was really fantastic. A dramatic position on the top of a steep ravine, a beautiful castle & awesome grounds.
I don’t know what to expect over the next week. We pick up a car tomorrow morning & then head off into the highlands. It should be a great time & I hope to get some lovely pictures too. Whatever happens, even if we get a lot of the rain that we have avoided for the most part so far, I expect it will exceed expectations!

Friday: Finish exams.
Sunday: Last Church service for a month.
Monday: 8am, meet movers in Dural. Move a bunch of stuff to our NEW FLAT. Clean for most of the rest of the day & move a little stuff from College too.
Tuesday: Move some stuff from Shona’s & then do a couple of trips to College. Sim & Bec came before lunch & did a lot of setting up stuff with Shona in the house. Sim makes a fabulous lunch! That evening, swing into college, planning to pick up more stuff, and end up taking everything, cleaning the room & being officially OUT OF COLLEGE.
So that is me at this point. I am sitting at the college internet cafe, typing in a blog before I head “home” where I get to sleep for the first night. It will be quite different being there all by myself. At the same time, it’s all very exciting. This time 4 days from now, I will be a married man.
This time about 6 days from now, timgoldsmith.com will go back to a short stint as a travel blog!

1: God is Cool. He gives me strength when I feel like I have no idea about things, so exams are coming along OK. We have plans for the wedding that just fall into place and generous people who pop out of nowhere & deliver the very things we need to feel secure.
2: My friends are cool. It takes someone with an awesome sense of perspective to be walking to lunch with you and say “I really enjoyed my exam this morning when I remembered that I am writing about great truths.” and can follow up with “I am not sure I passed the exam, but I know I learned a lot from the course”. Nai is cool.
Matty is also cool. Involved in putting together my bucks day. It should be a hoot (Mexican, Wii, Barefoot bowling and Pub food!) plus he gets to stand next to me in a week and a half.
3: My family is cool. It was fun to be at C’s third birthday on the weekend. Always nice to see my immediate family & also a pleasure to see the O’Briens, my brother’s inlaws who are awesome & treat me like family too. Phil, as usual, is always enthusiastic & happy to step above & beyond the call of brotherhood, helping out with bucks stuff, invite stuff & lots of other little things he probably doesn’t have time for, but does anyway.
4: My fiance is cool. Well you know she has to be patient to go out with me in the first place, but she continues to put up with all my eccentricities as we spend more time together. She’s thoughtful in a hundred different little ways. Weddings are supposed to be this gigantic stress that tests the mettle of any relationship. If that’s true, I think we could be on a good wicket. I know it has been stressful & incredibly busy (I’d say moreso for Shona) but it has been great for us. I am sure the next 10 days are going to be even worse, moving house & final prep & all that jazz, but I’m also sure we’ll get through it OK.
5: So there you have it. Life is cool. I have to say though, if I am enjoying exams, being in marriage limbo, and having too many things to do with too little time. How good is it going to be in 11 days, when wedded bliss and Bonny Scotland arrive!
I hope you’re looking forward to some photos!

After all, I am getting ready for a wedding. I also had sermons & bible studies to write before getting some essays out of the way too!
Still, I know I should be doing better than this. I’ll try & get some posts up over the next couple of weeks. All I have in the way is three exams & then moving house!
Dude, two weeks till I am married (actually under!)!!!! Who’d have thunk it.
Well, there really isn’t much I can do to fill you in on all the crazy happenings over the last month. Dinner with Nic & Pete, Lunch with Ads & Dan, lots of fun times in between. A birthday party (for Ads again) & a whole pile of stuff I can’t even remember. I had several ideas for blogs, which all got cut off when I invested my emotional energy into either church or college.
I haven’t even taken that many photos over the last month. I did take some after the last week though. Please enjoy some more “people shots” portraits of one sort or another.

A cute kid is always a great way to start some pictures. This is my gorgeous little “C” at her 3rd birthday party. Tell me she isn’t adorable & I’ll call you a liar!

Ads had his birthday last week & we went in for a surprise dinner at the “Lowenbrau”. Ads is a holy guy, so I was keen to give him a Halo. One that is actually advertising beer is even cooler!

“J” shows us one of the 9,500 cans, or general foodstuffs that were collected by our parish (some from us, lots from the local community) for our annual food drive today. It goes to Anglicare to help people in need over winter.

I’m ending with Dylan (or “the Canadian Hobo” as I call him at college) who is looking up at all those photos that have come before. him. He gets a lot of photos these days because he is expressive & always happy to get photographed. What a dream combination!
OK, back to study for exams. Let’s see if I can resist the temptation to post a picture of my study stuff like I have done every semester over the last 2 1/2 years….

As you all know, I have been at college now for almost 2 1/2 years.That means a very long time without any serious form on income. This, in turn, means that there is great potential for stress as a guy moves closer and closer to being married. Rather than feeling a sense of responsibility being met, I am keenly aware of how I am going to be dependant on my (soon to be) wife for the next six months, while I finish of my studies.
As we look into our future, “concessions” is the word that seems to ring in our (or at least my) ears. Do we choose to live in a dump because you can’t afford a nice place, you don’t have much rental history and you only want a 6-month lease? Do we try & get some furniture when we have so many other things we could be getting? What about whitegoods.You need a fridge & a washing machine etc, but what do you do if you plan to move overseas next year & fridges & washing machines are just going to spend most of their warranty in storage?
These are all things that can weigh on the mind of a couple.
Or to put it another way, they were all things that could have weighed on our minds…
But fortunately, God is a good. Stresses have melted away as God has answered our prayers. Let me just run you through a couple of the blessings.
1: Finding a house: What a stress! We have to have a place that is handy to either my college or Shona’s work. The places near here are not nice at all, the places near Shona have 20 or more couples going for each one!
Enter Nici & her two friends. Nici tells me that her friends are going to Bali to be missionaries & are looking to rent their place out. I make a quick phone call to them. One week later, we have a lovely place that is 10 mins walk to Shona’s work PLUS with Nici and Jeremy living in the same block. I can carpool to college! God is good!
2: Furniture: We have been doing some marriage prep with Fergus (the minister) as we started off the first night in the church lounge room, Fergus notes how it is a little crowded with too many couches. 10 seconds later, Tim & Shona have a new (used) couch! Nice!
3: Whitegoods: I am staring into the mail room at college, hoping for some mail-love, when Allan walks up behind me.
“Hey Tim”
“Hey Allan”, I reply.
“You don’ need a fridge do you? It’s not that big, but it’s not too small either. It’s a spare that we lent to T&C, but they don’t need it anymore & now it is just sitting in our garage”.
“That would be awesome!”, Tim responds with unbridled enthusiasm.
I know Allan & his wife & I like them both, but we’re not the closest of friends, yet they are thinking about my situation & actually approaching me about how they can help me!
4: Furniture (part B): I am reading my email & I notice I have one from the “Capt’n” who is living with his lovely wife in England these days.
“No.2”, emails the Capt’n. “how are you going for furniture in your new place? We’re about to put some stuff in storage from our house in Sydney. Could you use some?”
The captain, like Allan & Fergus, is a thoughtful, Godly and considerate man.
1:My good friends at college, thinking about me & seeking to help out. To be expected.
2: My minister, who has a thousand other worries on his mind, still keen to look for solutions for Shona & I. Something you would hope is the case in the church, yet are pleased when you find out it really is a reality.
3: Fellow students. In a different year of college, largely in different social circles, yet still looking out to serve. Unexpected. A great example of how and why Christian community can be a fantastic thing.
4: A friend, 12,000 kms away, yet right there with you in spirit. Thinking about you, praying for you and, even from that great distance, offering thoughtful and practical assistance to his brother and sister in Christ!
People ask me how I am handling the stress of all the things on my plate. Essays to write, Sermons to preach, exams coming up, followed by a wedding.
I have to say I am feeling pretty good. Certainly not because I am that organised or thoughtful. But, when houses, furniture and fridges get offered to a couple who are praying about how this kind of stuff will sort out, you can’t help but feel confident that God is in control.
God is in control.