Speaking of retirement; my husband Brian and I have decided that, when I am old enough to receive my state pension, we should move to a bungalow. He says that it is a sensible thing to do with his arthritis, so that he doesn’t have to struggle with the stairs and so that we don’t have an upstairs to keep decorated. I agree that we should live in a bungalow, but my reasons are that I keep going upstairs and can’t remember what I have gone there for. So it’s logical that if we don’t have an upstairs then that won’t keep happening . . .

Recently I was reminded of one of my favourite authors’ poems, ‘Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit’ by A.A. Milne. It’s a children’s poem, but it started me thinking of our life journeys and how there are times when we find ourselves metaphorically halfway up or down the stairs and we stop and sit and wonder, what are we going this way for? And in that instance it is good to just stop and think, to pause and wonder if we are going in the right direction before we actually get there and have forgotten what it was we went there for.

Travelling and living without a sense of direction can be wonderful, living for the joy of being alive. Jesus said: “I have come that you might have life in all its fullness” (John 10: 10). I love that verse. But life following Jesus also contains purpose, a sense of direction, in our personal lives and in the church. Sometimes we perhaps need to sit and ponder, which way we are going, and whether we are following Jesus on that way.