Posted in Family, Fun, tagged blether, bling, Fun, jewellery, MuchTooFun, necklace, peely wally, Scotland, Scots, Scottish on 9 June, 2010| 2 Comments »
I saw this today and thought it perfect for some of the paler skinned inhabitants of the Vicarage, given their Scots heritage.
It’s actually a necklace available from MuchTooFun. They also do other Scottish bling:
I think this one would suit me
[HT India Knight]
Posted in Church, Fun, Vicar's wife job description, tagged charity, Christian Aid, Church, donations, envelope collection, fire engine, monkey, surprises, Vicar's wife job description on 25 May, 2010| 5 Comments »
The Rector’s Wife is a regular commentator on this blog, and recently she made an aside remark about her experiences collecting charity envelopes which made me want to find out more! I asked her to send me the whole story so I could share it with you…
You know how when you knock on someone’s door, then you sometimes see a little face peeping out through the window to see who is there? Well there I am, knocking on doors to collect Christian Aid envelopes, and I see the vertical blinds at the window twitch and there’s a little monkey. First of all I think it’s a toy but then I look a the arms pulling back the blinds and I think – hey it is a real monkey!
Fortunately for my sanity my 8 year old, Thomas, was with me, and a boy he knew from school was playing on the street and chatting to Thomas, and it turned out he lived next door.
So I asked the boy if there was a monkey living at the house – and he said yes, also two porcupines, a snake, a pig… and I think there were some others. Apparently they own a pet shop.
Strangely Thomas wasn’t bothered about the monkey, but he thought it was pretty yuck that they had a pig! But at least he could confirm to my husband that I really had seen a monkey (unlike the camel in a field story, when the Rector didn’t believe me for weeks until he saw it himself, but that’s another story, not related to churches or vicars or anything like that!).
I also discovered that one of the houses down the road has a fire engine in the front garden. Which I had never noticed before (although to be fair the house is tucked away in the corner, with high hedges.)
So there you have it – the joys of collecting. And maybe an interesting incentive for visiting the parish door to door. Not seen any monkeys around here though. Plenty of Staffies, yes, but definitely no monkeys. Or fire engines, come to think of it.
Posted in Fun, Politics, tagged Cameron, Clegg, coalition, Con/Lib, Conservatives, Dan & Dan, government, LibDems, Liberals, Politics, Tories, YouTube on 24 May, 2010| 3 Comments »
Whilst searching for the YouTube link to the Daily Mail song for a friend I came across a new clip by Dan & Dan, entitled Dan/Dan Coalition. Cheer up your Monday morning by watching.
I think I’m Home Secretary in the Vicarage (definitely i/c loo rolls), but thankfully not Chancellor (although responsible for the tax returns…).
Posted in Food, Fun, tagged basics range, cheap, frugal, low fat yoghurt, low price, Sainsburys, shopping, yoghurt on 19 May, 2010| 7 Comments »
We had Sainsbury’s yoghurts for pudding yesterday. Too tired even to make Easy Peasy Elegants. I bought their Basics yoghurts as an experiment on my last expedition to the Savacentre. They offer 2 strawberry and 2 peach low fat yoghurts for 15p. Yes, 15p! I reasoned that I could afford to throw them out if they were inedible.
But they weren’t. Astonishing. And they can’t be made in China. It’s too far to transport them. So those will be going in the Vicarage trolley again. Just thought I’d share the frugality wisdom. So you can spend the spare change on chocolate or gin or something.
Cheap AND edible. Brilliant.
Posted in Fun, Inner city, tagged beating the bounds, exercise, Inner city, parish, rogation sunday, vicar, walking, walks on 18 May, 2010| 1 Comment »
We don't go this fast...
I’ve recently started a new routine: evening walks a couple of times a week with my pal Beauty and her mum. In an Anglican sort of way, we began the day after Rogation Sunday, just over a week ago, when Vicars are traditionally meant to ‘beat the bounds’ of their parish ie walk around the boundary.
We don’t quite beat the bounds, but we do a good half hour loop within the parish, past houses and the metro line and through a local park. We go at about 6.30pm, whilst the Vicar puts the kids to bed.
I’ve found I’ve been sleeping better already. I’m not sure we’re walking fast enough for it to help much with my waistline, but so far I’m loving the exercise, the open air and the chats. I’m hoping we’ll keep it up in the weeks to come. I think it may prove to be a good source of blog material too, given the encounters we’ve had so far.
As you’d expect in our parish, you get to see interesting sights on a walk about in the early evening. As we set off there are normally some squealy kids on scooters and bikes in the churchyard. Sometimes we have a chat with them as we head off past the metro stop. The first time we walked we spotted three dodgy looking chaps in a patch of woodland. Local police confirmed that that area was being used by drug addicts, now that they’ve cleared away from the churchyard.
Another night we spotted the local drug dealer with his new car and last night there was a whole cluster of dubious characters hanging about on the street when I got home, including a druggie I recognised. I think they’d been collecting their doses. But the oddest thing yesterday evening was meeting the Russians.
As we passed one of the metro stops we walk by, there was a group of people looking like puzzled tourists. Not a normal sight in our post industrial town with nothing to do. When we chatted to them, they were trying to work out the best route to the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in the morning. As we made suggestions about possible routes (it’s not entirely straightforward from here) we got chatting. It turns out they were from a manufacturer of printing presses based in Moscow, who were over here for a trade fair. They were staying in a local hotel and had ventured out to see if they could have an evening out in Birmingham. Hope they had fun and managed to get to the NEC on time this morning.
I’m loving my evening walks. Can’t wait to see what we’ll come across next time we’re out.
Posted in Family, Fun, tagged camera, cheeky, Family, Fun, Kids, photography, smug on 5 May, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Sorry about the lack of posting of late. Today I thought I’d check through my recent photos to prompt some of the creativity that’s been lacking. And I found all sorts of alien shots which indicate that persons other than myself have been out and about with my Fuji FinePix.
So I offer you one of them today, cleverly taken in the mirror in the hall:
Smug or cheeky… or both? Posted in Family, Fun, Inner city, tagged Fun, Inner city, Kids, multi-cultural, snapshot, sunny afternoon, sunshine on 22 April, 2010| 5 Comments »
A few things I saw on my trip to the local shops just now, 4pm on a sunny Thursday afternoon:
How are you enjoying the sunshine?
Posted in Fun, Politics, tagged Alistair Thompson, Billy Bunter, Conservative, Frank Richards, Fun, General Election, humour, Labour, lookalike, Owl of the Remove, Politics, PPC, Tom Watson, Tory, West Bromwich East on 7 April, 2010| 4 Comments »
Now that Gordon Brown has finally called the General Election, I thought I should share this with you. Grumpy Grandpa sent me a pic of a third candidate whom he thinks will be standing in our local constituency at the General Election. The decision about who to vote for is getting even more difficult.
The Remove Candidate (Bunter)
Watson (Labour Candidate) and supporters
Tory candidate (Thompson)
Posted in Fun, tagged Belbin, Church commissioners, clergy tax, completer-finisher, tax on 6 April, 2010| 2 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago the pink form arrived from the Church Commissioners. This is the form that heralds the arrival of the new tax year, which begins today. I loathe doing the tax – we both have to fill in the forms and I am not a Belbin completer-finisher so I often start it in time and am then frantic at the last deadline as I’ve not quite got it ready.
So here’s a great sketch about doing your tax:
[HT: Bishop Alan, who blogged Dan & Dan’s Daily Mail sketch]
I might ask the government to stop subsidising local councils in their production of pointless glossy brochures.
Posted in Fun, tagged Alistair Thompson, constituency, General Election, lookalike, MP, Tom Watson, West Bromwich East on 26 March, 2010| 3 Comments »
I noticed recently that the candidates for the two main parties who will be standing at the next general election for our local area don’t seem to have much to choose between them:
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The Vicar's Wife 