We’ve all heard the jokes about only working on Sundays, but in reality the Vicar works a 50-60 hour week (he knows that because he keeps a timesheet). So a good day off is essential if we want to keep going at this job in the long term. You need to clear your head and take a breath.
The Vicar takes Fridays off. This works well for us, cos it almost feels like the weekend. Saturdays are too close to sermon time and are often interrupted with church events.
It works for the kids – the big ones have a good evening with Dad after school and the Engineer, who’s still in nursery, gets to see Dad for even longer. The Vicar’s Wife likes having some child free time with her husband too.
We have developed a bit of a pattern for our days off, which worked very well in Wolverhampton, and we are now trying to replicate in our new parish. Long trips out are a bit of a no-no for us as we only have 2 1/2 hours in the morning until we have to fetch the Engineer from nursery.
So what we like to do is to go into the town. This may not seem very exciting to you, but let me explain how we manage to enjoy a morning out in a deprived and delapidated town centre.
First stop is usually the library to change books and pooch about in the quiet and elegant Carnegie library we have. Then we gae the messages in our local shopping centre (built in 1971 and partly funded by the National Mineworkers Pension Fund, with shopping opportunities that are cheap and cheerful rather than expensive and elegant – just what you need for vicars and their cash-strapped families).
Day Off treats...
The best bit of our day off, though, is the next bit: sitting down in a local caff for strong tea and a bacon sandwich. Sometimes we’ll chat and sometimes read our new library books or the paper. The key is not to talk about church. Last Friday we did this bit at lunch time. There were three of us (since we’d already picked the Engineer up) and we all ate at the Cosy Corner in the indoor market for less than £10.
What do you do on your days off?
The Vicar's Wife 
Hi
I stumbled across your blog and its great! My husband gets ordained as deacon on 5th July, so i am soon going to be a curates wife! we are going to be just outside Northampton and will move there on 19th june.
We also have three children, we are currently in Cambridge.
Thanks for the insight, any tips appreciated!
Jane.
Hi Jane. Welcome to the Vicarage and thank you for your encouragement. Great to hear that you’re going to be a curate’s wife so soon – I pray that God would bless your ministry in the coming years. We used to live in Cambridge in pre-vicaring days and loved it. Where we are now is very different.
We had a great time as Curate and wife. Some of that was due to a great relationship with the Vicar and his wife. So pray for that relationship, but also be prepared for difficulties. It’s a very intense working partnership and after training to lead a church it can be hard to be number 2.
If you have any Curate’s wife’s stories once you get there, let me know and I can post them up here!
Will the Engineer be full time in September? That would give you a bit more of a chance for trips out.
Hi Ros. Yes, the Engineer will be full time in September, so we may change our pattern then. But I do quite like just popping into tow-wun. Weekly trips to Birmingham city centre might get a bit expensive.
I was thinking more of drives out into the country.
Hi Ros. I’m hoping that’s an invitation! Country trips will definitely be on the agenda once we have more time. But I am fond of city visits, with posh coffee and interesting lunch options (the other week we went into Brum and ate at a Malaysian restaurant).
Yes, of course! You clearly have the best of both worlds on your doorstep in West Brom.
Hi,
I have been following your blog for a short time now. My husband is a new curate (well about to be priested) so we are a year in! Its great to know that others go through the same things that you are going through.
We are in Chester diocese and have been enjoying it here despite the challenges of the church and the area.
Days off for us swap around a bit between a thursday and a saturday- if my husband has a thursday we normally pop out somewhere cheap for the day. Take the dog for a walk etc. Then after school time he steps into daddy! If its a saturday he usually takes our daughter swimming in the morning and then we do something as a family in the afternoon- game, film, park etc, and then in the evening we either chill out together or seperately depending on what we want / need to do.
Great blog- really enjoying it- thanks. Emma
Hello Emma.
I’m so pleased you’re enjoying the blog. Your days out sound lovely. We try to do family stuff after school on our Fridays off – when we had a LoveFilm contract we often watched a dvd together and ate popcorn.
As our kids are getting older, our family times on days off seem to be changing too. Last week we went off to a soft play area. The Vicar and I read and chatted and the kids got red faced on the slides.
As an occasional lurker and a single male vicar I don’t know if I’m qualified to even read this site let alone leave a comment, but I thought I’d just affirm that I too go into the city on my day off. Being in rural ministry the urban centre is refreshing. I now go to the gym and swimming pool as well as wander round the shops, and finish off with an exploration of the offerings at the shrine of St. Tesco.
And I enjoy it.
Hello Richard. I’m very pleased that you’re reading – welcome to our inner city vicarage. St Tesco often sees us too on a day off – we have what we think is the oldest and scruffiest one in the country, in the local shopping centre I mentioned above.
I have just come across your blog by chance – was looking for something Black Country and good old google brought your blog up.
I agree with you about the Tesco store in the shopping centre you mention. I am not sure which cafe you mean in the market as there are two one in the food hall and one in the general market – if you haven’t been to the latter trheir hot pork sandwiches are the best I have tried anywhere.
Will be visiting again and may even add you as a blog I read on my blog
Regards
Hello fatprophet. Welcome to the Vicarage. We haven’t tried the hot pork sandwiches yet but they are going on the To-Do List immediately. Thank you for the tip.
If you want to be really adventurous try a trip to Great Bridge and sample the fish and chips at the Black Country Chippie in the main street – they are some of the best I have ever had.
Days off – also a Friday – must get out of the house, even if it’s only into the garden. After years of days off going everywhere via the tip, I’ve now refused to visit the tip again on a day off, so he has to build it into his diary for the week if we need to get rid of/recycle anything!
And food – even if it’s only a cheap lunch at a Wetherspoons (£2.50 each)!
Hi admin and welcome. Getting out of the house is a total must. I laughed to see your comment about the tip – we seem to be there almost permanently.
I can recommend seeing treasure as a day off activity – the Vicar and I accidentally were some of the first people to see the Staffordshire Hoard the other day. But it was too expensive to eat in the museum cafe.
Enjoyed your blog. Calling myself Bogof because some people think a Vicar’s wife is ‘buy one get one free’ anyway and also because I’m now exploring vocation myself (yes, I know I must be mad!!!)
My Vic has been ordained for 18 years and was a latish entrant so we started with pre-teenagers (!) and are now at grandparent stage (great!).
I was in teaching for some years so we are lucky enough to have a ‘bolt-hole’ for some days off..a flat on the sea front about an hour and a half away.
When we can’t get over there we just like to mooch around the shops or sometimes spend the whole day in our dressing gowns. That feels really decadent, everyone should try it! Of course sometimes we get invaded by the next-generation-but-one then we have to stir ourselves a bit (but at least we can give them back)!
Hi BOGOF and welcome to our Vicarage. I like the sound of your days off – especially the dressing gowns. Not sure I could pull it off at the school gate tho’. Looking forward to the days when I can stay in my pjs…
yeah, sometimes at the flat we just watch the tide come in…go out….come in. You see-if you didn’t watch would it still do it? You’d never know. So we watch in case. I’m sure that’s helping God.
We’re bonkers, by the way.
And the tip’s no fun any more….now there are professionals sorting it all over and selling it off. When our kids were little the vic worked in the NHS pre-ordination. So we were even WORSE off! All their bikes came from tips.