Snap is my friend, also a new vicar’s wife. This the story about how life at the Vicarage started out for her:
The day before Rev Snap’s induction the Bishop just happened to be in the area and called in for a cup of tea. Rev Snap was in the middle of putting up the shed in the garden and so was in his scruffiest clothes. He’d taken a break to go to the bathroom to produce a urine sample to take to the Doctor’s as requested at his new patient check up the week before.
Snap had to leave for the Doctor’s to deliver the sample before the Bishop left. She went into the bathroom to collect the wee pot assuming her beloved would have left it there for her when he heard the front door bell go. But alas the pot was still in his pocket.
Her beloved knew that Snap was leaving, and that she knew where the pot was. But was this the right moment to let the Bishop in on such intimate details? Husband and wife were able to silently communicate: ‘Let’s leave it till later’.
But then Snap Junior came running into the kitchen having filled his own pot. He proudly held it aloft and asked his mum to put his name on it. Looks like the Bishop is already getting to know the family inside out.
The Vicar's Wife 
Tell Snap not to worry. I think the clergy are obsessed with waterworks! When my father was a rural dean back in the late 70s/early 80s he regularly held deanery meetings at our vicarage. Inevitably the meetings would go on for several hours allowing plenty of time for visits to the bathroom. After every meeting the Dictionary of Symptoms, which was one of about 30 or 40 books in the bathroom, would fall open on the chapter detailing problems with men’s waterworks. After a couple of years the pages were so blackened my parents had to buy a new Dictionary and moved it to the upstairs bathroom to prolong its lifespan!
Hope you are settling in well in West Bromwich.
Hi Tim. Good to see you at the Vicarage again. You’ll have to send me some more of your vicarage stories to blog. We’re enjoying life in WB. I have a pile of stories to tell already but am still unpacking…