I know, I know, we’ve all finished our holidays and everyone’s gone back to school and work. But I’ll forget this if I leave it till the right sort of time next year. And this year I really enjoyed my holiday reading, so here they are – maybe you could stick them on your Christmas list or something. Or even do some reading out of holiday time… So, in no particular order…
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym – I enjoyed this far more than Excellent Women, which was the first Barbara Pym I read, possibly because Jane is a Vicar’s wife who always looks as if she’s about to go and feed the chickens.
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford – I’m rather embarrassed I’d not read this before. It was a fun read, rather than a brilliant one, and I’m looking forward to reading some more of her books. I notice that India Knight cites her stuff at the top of her recommended comfort reads. I’m going to check out some of the other’s on that list – I’ve not read (quite) all of them…
1,000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke – lighthearted non-fiction about Anglo-French relations since William the Conqueror. Although I kept the cover out of sight as I read it beside the pool in Brittany.
The Bad Book Affair by Ian Sansom – I first came across Ian Sansom by accident, looking for stuff by C J Sansom (totally different, but excellent too). This is the fourth (I think) in the very funny mobile library series, about a North London Jewish librarian running a mobile library in the far north of the north of Northern Ireland. Hilarious characters and gentle mysteries in all the books in the series.
A Shelter in the Time of Storm – Paul Tripp – I’ve recently been using this book to help me get my devotions back on track. I’d rather lost the plot with my Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers (rather too much shirking and slacking, alas). I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a series of meditations on Psalm 27, each with a couple of thought provoking questions to take with you through the day. It’s subtitle is ‘Meditations on God and Trouble’ and I think it would be brilliant for any Christian who is low, tired or struggling, which is probably most of us…
I would really really really like to be better at organising our family life. The Vicar has a real problem with organisation. In fact, he always prays for the spiritual gift of administration, valuing it very highly, but so far the Lord has not blessed him in that department. And he has just appointed an administrator, but she’s not fulltime. Yet. And I’m not sure it’s her job to organise the family as well as the parish.
One of the things I have been looking for is a calendar system that both the Vicar and I could access from our individual (but networked) computers and also (in the future, when we upgrade our rather primitive devices) mobile phones. The Vicar currently has a Palm Pilot, but obviously this technology is now rather retro.
One friend has recently recommended cozi.com to us, which looks fantastic. However, I notice that it’s only really good with the iPhone, (that’s the only one where you’re able to edit as well as read the calendar) not other smartphones, and she uses it with Outlook and we use Mozilla Firefox. So I’m not sure about it, tho’ her local computer expert tells us it should be fine. How do you organise your family/parish lives? What is the solution, and if there isn’t one, can someone please design it? Thanking you all for your kind attention in this matter…
I’m going to a wedding tomorrow. My friend StarStudent, one of my first friends from our first parish, is getting married and the whole family has been invited to attend the big hoo-haa. StarStudent’s fiance is Sikh, so the wedding will be at the Gudhwara near to our old church. Her family are Hindu, so there’ve been all the usual Asian wedding celebrations. We were invited to three events – the wedding itself, the family farewell party tonight and I was invited to the mehndi night last night.
Nice, eh?
A mehndi night is when the bride has her hands and feet decorated with henna, and celebrates with girlfriends. Although the groom didn’t attend last night, contrary to Wikipedia’s take on the celebration. He had his own do going on instead.
So I spent an excellent evening with StarStudent and her lovely family and friends. I ate samosas, wriggled to Bollywood tunes and drank strong masala chai (didn’t sleep too well last night, but it was too delicious to resist). And I had some mehndi applied too. Just one hand, and on the back, so I could drive home. You have to leave it on as long as possible to get the dye to fix well.
I love the look of it and am pleased my dress and jacket have short sleeves so I can show it off. It’s the nearest I’m going to get to a tattoo, however much I think I should get one to fit in around here…
Home from Abroad is that lovely poem by Laurie Lee that I learnt by heart for O Level Eng Lit. And here I am, skin not so much ‘well oiled by wines of the Levant’ as lightly tanned by Brittany sun… and rain.
I didn’t advertise my absence, though the more eagle eyed of you may have noticed a reduction in tweeting. I was a little concerned about alerting people on the internet to an empty(ish) Vicarage. As it happens, the internet was not what people were looking at.
Ha! He didn't get in.
It seems that some dodgy characters were observing a car with a roof box disappearing from our drive. And hadn’t noticed that our Ministry Trainee/lodger Happy was late back the day we left and out early the next. He had church folk over to dinner that evening and as they were leaving, there was a loud banging noise at our family room window.
Happy went into the room and was able to see at close hand a man with a hammer and chisel attempting to get in through the sash windows. When he saw Happy he seemed rather surprised. He had an accomplice with him in the garden and they both bolted off immediately.
They wouldn’t have had much luck getting in, as the windows are securely locked, so they’d have had to dismantle the structure of the window to fit through. But obviously it was pretty alarming for Happy. Thankfully, church family have been brilliant – our thoughtful Lay Reader parked her car in the drive for the remainder of our absence, and lots of folk have been phoning and calling in.
Although Happy got a good look at the chap at the window, he didn’t recognise him from our locality, and the police said the information would just remain on file.
Happy has also had Gone on the doorstep singing loudly at 6am, although he left and hasn’t returned. Not as bad as when we were on hols last year and Polly was confronted by a very nasty mess left by Gone on the doorstep, two days in a row. Our poor lodgers seem to really have a rough time when we go away.
We are grateful to God that the burglars didn’t get in, and that Happy was okay. We are also praying for our neighbourhood as crime levels seem to be increasing – this week a lady in our congregation was burgled by men who came to the door pretending to be from the council. We are hearing more and more about this type of crime. We are praying that people would be made new and stop stealing. Do pray with us.
A short tale from a recent Sunday at the Vicarage:
The Vicar was in the kitchen, talking to a weeping parishioner who was in some emotional turmoil. We were waiting for our pal Nerd to come and join us for lunch. I guess it was about 1.30pm.
I had a text from my local friend Peacock, who told me that two men were coming over to my house. Hmm. Not sure why she texted me that, I thought. Then the doorbell rang.
Need a lift? Call the Vicar!
There was an obviously drunk chap at the door. He’s been round before, asking for food or train fares. Swaying a little, he asked me if the Vicar was available. ‘No, he’s in a meeting,’ I replied. ‘Can he give us a lift to Birmingham?’ he said.
‘Errrr. Well, we’re about to have lunch, so I don’t think so.’ And off he toddled. The things people expect vicars to do…
One of our favourite tv programmes used to be Goodness Gracious Me. This clip is one I only came across fairly recently – a very appropriate Vicarage theme.
Last week we got back from the Edgehill Pathfinder venture. We’d stayed in a boarding school in Devon with our kids, a brilliant bunch of leaders and 65 11-14 year olds. We had loads of fun (3 wonderful beach trips, fantastic crafts, excellent games and some lively humour, which included the consumption of delights such as oven-baked tarantula). We made lots of friends (even us mummies who were caring for kids whilst the dads led activities). And we heard the gospel told afresh. The Queen, the Joker and the Engineer were old enough to attend the sessions alongside the Pathfinders for the first time this year and they (aswell as their teenage friends) were gripped by the lively and faithful teaching.
The head honcho, Tim Ambrose posted this thanksgiving prayer letter on his blog last week:
Sorry not to have posted these results before. Somehow it’s harder to find time to do things in the holidays… Anyway, here they are:
Technique
Votes
Percentage
Colouring/quizzes
23
21%
Books
21
19%
Other (see below)
15
14%
Extensive pre-service briefing on loving ones neighbour by not distracting them
13
12%
Breadsticks or other healthy snack
12
11%
Threats
8
7%
Cuddly toys
8
7%
Sweeties or similar
7
6%
My kids always sit nicely, I don’t know what you’re talking about
1
1%
Other Answers (all 1 vote each)
Participation
taking time to answer all questions about what’s going on and being said
Get them to play in the music group!
OH actually tries to get him to follow the lesson and sing the hymns!
cuddles, sitting on knee and talking about what is going on
Participation in the worship
Quietly talking them through what’s happening.
Training
Teaching and training parents in how to develop their kids’ attention level
Extreme
Gags
taser
Distraction/other
wandering round with them so they can focus on something ‘more interesting’;
Not always possible but don’t take them until they want to
“What’s Daddy doing now?”
Have child-focused services and a creative vicar
Just letting them be
i dont have kids!
So the recommended techniques seem to be a combination of activities (including participating in the service), food and working on expectations (both children’s, parents’ and congregation’s – the latter was mentioned more in the comments).
It’s a tricky area for us all I suspect and I guess we need to encourage one another to persevere. We want those kids to be real church family members now as they will be the core church family of the future, God willing.
This subject is ripe for future polls, so watch out for more once the summer hols are over and my thinking head is less distracted by screaming kids beating each other up. We like to set a good model of Christian family life here in the Vicarage.
I know, I know, we’ve all finished our holidays and everyone’s gone back to school and work. But I’ll forget this if I leave it till the right sort of time next year. And this year I really enjoyed my holiday reading, so here they are – maybe you could stick them on your Christmas list or something. Or even do some reading out of holiday time… So, in no particular order…
The Vicar's Wife 