Posted in Fun, vicar, tagged clergy, collective noun, minister, parson, vicar, wife, wives on 15 March, 2010| 10 Comments »
There were 115 minister’s wives at the conference I attended last week. It made me wonder what the collective noun for such a gathering would be:
And we're all as glamorous as Elisa too!
What do you think?
Posted in Fun, tagged Mothering Sunday, Mothers' Day, pedants on 11 March, 2010| 4 Comments »
From the inimitable Dave Walker. I’m just trying to get the kids to use the right terminology. I’ve given up on everybody else!
Posted in Kids, tagged Children, Literacy, reading, School, writing on 10 March, 2010| 5 Comments »
I am currently spending two mornings a week in our church school, reading with some children who need a bit of extra help. I’m having lots of fun with youngsters who are keen to learn and love to read stories. This Jessica Hagy card from her wonderful website sums up what I’m seeing in practice:
I wish I could spend more time reading with them
I had a chat with a dad recently who was asking about tutors for his young son, who’s in Reception with the Engineer. I was surprised that he thought he needed a tutor. But it was because dad works long hours, and mum (who also works long hours) doesn’t speak English and Granny, who does after-school care, speaks limited English and cannot read or write in any language.
I was impressed with dad’s determination, but so sad that noone who could read simple English was available to spend just ten minutes a day reading with the child. I can’t read with all the children in the parish!
Posted in Faith, Family, tagged bible memory, dvd, Seeds Family Worship, The Secret, worship resources, YouTube on 9 March, 2010| 4 Comments »
Those talented folk at Seeds Family Worship have got together with some other creative types to produce a dvd of seven of their bible memory verses. I can’t embed it into my blog, but I am going to get the Vicar to fund the $49.95 to order it. The seven memory verses on the dvd are as follows:
If you’ve not heard their stuff before, you need to know that they are fun, catchy and grown-up friendly. You can also download the videos individually for $14.98. I’m not sure if you can download the whole dvd though. Seeds do a monthly free download of their songs so you can listen to another sample.
A couple of the songs above are already available on YouTube as kinetic typography videos, but this dvd looks like an excellent resource. In the meantime, enjoy a video of the Seeds team singing “The Secret” live:
Posted in Garden, Vicarage, tagged Children, garden, Kids, playing, snowdrops, spring, Vicarage on 8 March, 2010| 2 Comments »
Whilst I was away on a fab conference last week, the weather went all spring-like. This is normally an indicator of sprouting snow drops and daffs, of nesting birds and budding trees. But here in the Vicarage, Spring is heralded by the chirupping of the front door bell. Especially on Saturdays.
When I answer the door, I am confronted by two, three or even four hopeful looking little faces:
Can we come and play?
And so I’m dusting off the garden rules (no one in the garden if they’ve not said ‘hello’ to me, only one bouncer on the trampoline at a time, your mum must know that you’re at the Vicarage etc) and counting heads and enjoying (usually) happy squealing. And that’s it for the next eight months or so, with brief intermissions for bad weather. Now, where are my gardening gloves?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Birmingham Bullring, Dr Linda Papadopolous, hmv, Lads mags, Nuts, porn, report, sexualisation of children, Zoo on 1 March, 2010| 12 Comments »
What with my first school volunteering sessions and tummy bugs (the Joker had it and then gave it to me – yuck) last week, posting has been a bit slack and now I’m off on a minister’s wives’ conference for most of this week. I’m looking forward to spending the next few days thinking about God and catching up with some old friends. So all the stuff I’ve been thinking about posting will have to wait a few days. I had thought I might blog from the last conference I was on, but once I was there I remembered that there’s far too much encouraging and interesting talking to do.
In the meantime, just wanted to note that a Home Office report issued last week agrees with me about Lads’ Mags (see my sidebox on the subject). Mind you, it’s funny how the Times is happy to link to the smutty mag Nuts on their webpage. Maybe they get advertising money for click throughs.
Don't shop here unless you want an eyeful
The supermarkets seem to have already clocked that these mags are unsuitable for kids and are now shielding them and placing them on the top shelves. Not, alas, the music and media chain HMV, it seems.
The Vicar and I were in their Birmingham Bullring shop recently and were confronted by a display of Zoo etc as we queued to pay up. I complained to the assistant who served us, but was rather batted off as he agreed with me but didn’t offer to refer the matter to the manager.
HMV is a shop much used by teenagers, and in Birmingham they force their customers to confront this porn – it’s not an option since the mags are right by the tills. I’ve not written to them yet, but I guess I should take the step. They don’t make it easy – there’s no customer service complaints email address on their website (rather like HMRC, but that’s another story). I like shopping at HMV, but I’ll not be able to until the porn is removed from the checkout.
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