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Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Dangers of Enthusiasm for Overseas cds

Posted in Family, Kids, tagged , , , , on 27 May, 2009| 3 Comments »

As I mentioned earlier, we ordered the full set of Seeds Family Worship bible memory song cds. They cost a bargain $65 for 5 double sets. Or so we thought…

We had a delivery slip – more to pay. So the Vicar went off to the sorting office, where we were charged an extra £14.70 = £6.70 VAT + £8.00 ‘Royal Mail International Handling Fee’.

Not as cheap as we thought - but still great value

Not as cheap as we thought - but still great value

Hrmph. According to the sticker provided, ‘Goods purchased and imported into the EU with a value over £18 (for VAT purposes) … are subject to Customs charges.’

The cds were still fairly cheap (less than £7 each) and we are really enjoying them so far, but I need to remember to factor that in next time I get enthusiastic about a US shopping site.

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Bank Holiday Monday Monsters

Posted in Family, Kids, tagged , , on 26 May, 2009| Leave a Comment »

We had a mellow Bank Holiday Monday. The Vicar mowed the lawn and papered a wall. I washed everything I could lay my hands on and mopped some floors. The big kids and the Vicar went to the park and fed the ducks. There was Lego play and art production inspired by the PS2 (you have to get inspiration where you can find it).

This is the Engineer’s masterpiece (I edited out his name in this blog’s spirit of semi-anonimity):

Monster Engineer, whose favourite meal is fish.

Monster Engineer, whose favourite meal is fish.

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 8 – PS2 Games

Posted in Family, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , on 22 May, 2009| Leave a Comment »

This picture shows the Vicar's family after being interrupted on the PS2

A picture of the Vicar's family being interrupted during a PS2 game


Why does a Vicar’s wife need to be able to wield a Buzz Junior PS2 buzzer? Well, when the church magazine editor rings and the Vicar is in the middle of an important round of Monster Rumble with the Engineer and the Joker, who has to take his place in the game?

I valiantly took his place twice in yesterday evening’s game. And even won a couple of bouts. But I made sure I was doing badly as soon as the Vicar returned. I don’t like to show him up.

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The Vicar’s Wife’s Patent Toothbrushing Method for Children

Posted in Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 12 May, 2009| 2 Comments »

I am a bad mother. It’s true. The Queen and the Joker both have fillings.

Every parent knows that brushing the children’s teeth is an excruciating experience for everyone. I loathe it and confess to having been a slacker (hence the fillings). My inner city dentist, used to the bad diets of local children, told me to stop giving them pop and sweeties but I am a bit of a food Nazi and the kids hardly ever had them anyway. So it must have been my bad brushing.

Actually, you should only have a pea-sized amount of toothpaste.

Actually, you should only have a pea-sized amount of toothpaste.

But since I started my new brushing technique the fillings have stopped. Phew.

What we do is count elephants. This is because:

  1. It makes me smile and reminds me of the Vicar’s favourite movie (where someone counts elephants to time the processing of a photograph).
  2. If you count ‘one elephant’ it lasts pretty much one second.
  3. The kids think it’s fun and it can also be done in French (or other language) or you can use dinosaurs too.

What I do is go around the mouth counting twenty elephants seven times – twenty elephants along each side of the mouth, top and bottom, with the mouth open. Then twenty elephants each side and front with the teeth together. This makes a total of 140 elephants, which is the dentists’ recommended two minutes with a bit extra to compensate for grumpy children.

It seems to be working for us, and can also be transferred to the kids as they start to brush for themselves. ‘Have you counted the elephants’ I ask the Queen when she brushes her own teeth…

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Swine flu – the view from the playground

Posted in Family, Kids, School, tagged , , , , on 1 May, 2009| Leave a Comment »

When I picked the Queen and the Joker up from school yesterday, the Queen was holding a folded blue paper towel in front of her face.

Inadequate anti-viral protection

Inadequate anti-viral protection

When I asked her what it was for she told me that it was so that she didn’t catch “the virus”. “But it can kill you Mummy,” she protested as I told her to put the paper towel away.

Her teacher had told the class about swine flu, and that they should make sure they wash their hands after they sneeze or cough.

The Queen also knew that the virus was spreading all over the world. It took most of the walk home for her to be convinced that her rather original method of protection was not going to be effective.

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Accents

Posted in Black Country, Family, Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , on 29 April, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I have a terrible confession to make (shhhhh): I prayed that God would not send me and the Vicar to work in a church in Birmingham.

When he was still training, the Vicar had suggested that Birmingham would be a good place to go and work – lots of multi-cultural areas, close to many athletics meets (the Vicar was helping out with some ministry for Christians in Sport at the time) and well located between our families in London and Scotland.

But I knew better. We didn’t want our kids growing up with those nasal Birmingham accents. So the Lord was kind to us and sent us to the Black Country instead.

We love it here – it’s multicultural, close to athletics meets, well located between our families and people are friendly and wonderful. But today the Engineer said:

See the whistle I got from the boo-kit*.

The accents are here to stay. And I’m glad to be here. Who’d have thought it?

*The boo-kit is full of small plastic toys that the nursery children can choose as a prize for getting lots of ‘good tidying up’ and ‘good listening’ stickers at school.

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Seeds Family Worship

Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , on 28 April, 2009| 5 Comments »

Christian music has a reputation for being a bit rubbish, and kids’ Christian music even more so. However, our kids are great fans of Colin Buchanan (the Australian not the bishop). His music is fun, biblical and we can bear to listen to it in the car more than once. [NB Colin is on tour in the UK this summer, but rather sadly not anywhere very near the West Midlands.]

The trouble with Colin is that we have all his stuff now. So I was really pleased to come across this great YouTube clip from Seeds Family Worship:

[HT:Justin Taylor]

I’ve just ordered all five of their cds, which are priced at $12.98 each,  but you get two for the price of one. Shipping’s not cheap ($16.95 for international airmail) but we’ve ended up buying ten cds (five to give away) for just over £5 each.

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Complaining – more press interest

Posted in Family, Lads mags, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 February, 2009| 1 Comment »

In the midst of piling clothes into big boxes and hunting for missing library books, I had a phone call from the Church Times yesterday afternoon.

They’d been reading the article about my success in getting lads mags put on the top shelf in a local Asda store and were interested to know more about my ‘campaign’. I hadn’t had it in mind to start one, but somehow it seems to be launching itself.

One of the things I said to the CT reporter was that complaining to your local supermarket about the display of lads mags isn’t difficult. You can do it verbally or in writing in a couple of minutes at the customer services desk.

The supermarkets need to know that most people buying their groceries don’t want to see these magazines and particularly don’t want them shown to their children, or anyone’s children for that matter. The supermarkets also need to know that consumers are prepared to take their custom elsewhere if these displays are not changed.

It has also struck me that it is likely that far more supermarket customers  are mothers and others concerned with preserving the innocence of childhood than buyers of lads mags. Consumer power could win this argument.

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Moving – how to know it’s time

Posted in Family, Fun, Kids, tagged , , , on 16 February, 2009| 3 Comments »

It was the final two days at our old school last Thursday and Friday. The Queen wore a skirt to school. With her remaining two pairs of navy tights.

Both mornings she fell over on the way there, ripped her tights and skinned her knees.

I think it may be time to move to a new school.

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Complaining – in the paper!

Posted in Family, Kids, Lads mags, Wolverhampton, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 13 February, 2009| 3 Comments »

The success of my complaint to Asda about their lads’ mags display was written up in our local paper this week. The article was pretty fair, although I’d hardly call a five minute queue at customer services and a five line complaint a ‘battle’, as they headlined it.

As the Express and Star have an online version people have the opportunity to comment. The commentators seem to fall into two camps – the ‘good on yer’ set and the ‘you’re a prude, haven’t you got anything better to do with your time, you leech on society you’ group.

So far, all the ‘vicar’s wife=prude’ comments have been from men. Interesting, but sadly not that surprising.

Meanwhile, my friend Mrs Starcook has complained about the same thing in the Wolverhampton Asda. They, however, phoned her and said they couldn’t do anything about the position of the magazines because ‘head office decide where everything is placed’. Sounds like buck-passing to me. The Asda I went into didn’t have the same problem.

Maybe they just need a few more people to complain. Any takers?

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