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Gone on the Step

15 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

I don’t know if it’s been five or six days now that Gone has been on our doorstep every morning. This morning I took the kids out to school through the back door, so we didn’t have to stop and have a long chat at that frantic time.

When I returned (also through the back), the Vicar was flustering in the kitchen. Gone had rung the doorbell four times, each time in a more aggressive way. The Vicar had gone out to chat to him and he asked for a packet of crisps. The Vicar offered him some bread and asked him what he’d like on top. He was fine with butter.

But when the Vicar brought out crisps, toast and butter Gone shouted that he’d expected beans on toast. He threw the bread into the flower border and swore and cursed. Then he apologised and prayed with the Vicar.

The cheese was a bit skimpy but definitely there

The cheese was a bit skimpy but definitely there

The Vicar began again in the kitchen, this time having said he’d make cheese on toast, and that’s when I came home. I took over the sandwich production and took it to the door.

A minute later the bell rang. ‘There’s no cheese on this,’ Gone shouted as he threw his food in the flower bed and stormed off.

I shut the door. What to do?

Posted in Vicar's wife job description | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

More Fantastic Kinetic Typography

12 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

A few weeks ago I posted up the kinetic typography YouTube clip of Psalm 55v22 from Seeds Family Worship.

A couple of nights ago I came across another one they’ve done, of Philippians 4v6-7. ‘Do not be anxious…’ A good verse to hold onto, especially when feeling rather overwhelmed by the pace of Vicarage life…

Posted in Church, Faith, Family, Kids | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Song for the Grieving, and Those who Love Them

11 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

Vicar’s wives hear many heart rending stories – on the doorstep, at the kitchen table, round and about the parish. The sorry alcoholic, the grief stricken mother, the wife whose world has fallen apart.

Molly Piper lost her baby nearly two years ago. This is a song she recommends for those who grieve, and their friends.

The Tie That Binds by Sandra McCracken

The song was written for a friend whose daughter, Amelia, had battled multiple infections of her brain after she was diagnosed with leukemia. The infections caused devastating amounts of tissue death and she’ll never fully recover. This all occurred before her 1st birthday.

The sorrow of a friend
From a long way we stand
Grief is second hand
But I’ll send my tears in a locket

Amelia smiles under lights & wires
Thorns for every flower
We number every hour
And live the days we are given

Oh, the pain
It makes you feel alive
Oh, the broken heart is the tie that binds
And I pray to God, these things will be made right

When the morning shines
On tear stained eyes
Oh we shall overcome
The Father gave the Son
To break the curse we are under

Oh the pain that no man can escape
Oh the sting of death, the empty grave,
And I pray to God where comfort has no place

When our tired eyes look through the veil
The colors are so pale but we raise high the sail
And call the winds to carry us home
Call the winds to carry us home.

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More on Cheap Inner City Shopping

9 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

Buy it round the corner, not at the supermarket

Buy it round the corner, not at the supermarket

Jessica Hagy has lots of clever graphs at her Indexed site. She posted this one today, but it’s not accurate for our parish.

Our milk costs between 99p and £1.20 for 4 pints at local shops. It’s £1.53 at Tesco’s. We use a lot of milk in our house.

I love living here.

Posted in Fun, Inner city | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Vicar’s wife job description – Part 9 – Teens and Drunks

8 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

It’s been another busy week at the Vicarage. Not only do we have Polly and the baby still in residence, but we’ve had Voice staying as well. Voice loves to lead singing in church and is on a week’s work experience with another local church. We are just providing accommodation for Voice as she’s spending most of her time with the other church, singing in services and meetings and helping out with their activities.

Voice is only fifteen, so it’s been interesting having her stay. We’ve been trying to get her to give us the inside track on being a teenager so we are better prepared to handle our gang when they hit those challenging years. Her capacity for sleep is enormous, even to the extent of being completely comotose through our jet-engine sounding shower pump going.

Gone has called at our front door three times in the last week, drunk, homeless and very sad. This morning I gave him a cup of coffee and a sandwich as he sat on the front step, waiting to speak to the Vicar. As he added more Frosty Jack to his coffee, he became more restless and abusive.

Frosty Jack

Frosty Jack

I was trying to find out about local hostels for him when he finally left. He couldn’t wait for the Vicar. The booze had made him too jittery. One minute he was weeping and admitting the mess he’s in, the next he was swearing and threatening to throw lighted paraffin over the front door.

I didn’t feel in any danger, though. As spoke to him softly, I could see the self-loathing in his eyes. And the Vicar and his elders were meeting in the study.

He probably won’t find a hostel place, though, cos he’s on the booze. He told me that he’s thinking about doing something to get himself locked up. At least in prison you are fed and given a warm bed. He’s 51, and has been told that he’ll die soon, given the state of his liver. He keeps warm by begging for a day saver ticket and then spending all day on the bus. That way he can cope with being out all night.

He needs too much help to stay with us. I can only pray and feed him sandwiches and gentle answers.

Posted in Alcohol, Teenagers, vicar, Vicar's wife job description, Vicarage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

A (Rather Shallow but Still Good) Reason to Live in the Inner City

5 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

There are lots, of course – the closeness of community, the terrific range of ethnic cooking ingredients available locally, the way that people are real, the great public transport, the wonderful places to eat bacon butties and drink strong tea…

But today it is the value of the shopping experience that I’m chuffed about. I know it’s shallow, but I was very pleased to get these summer strappies yesterday afternoon.


They cost £2. That’s a quid each. I’m tempted to become Imelda Marcos. I now think it would be perfectly possible, even on a Vicar’s stipend.

Posted in Fun, Inner city | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

The Vicarage Garden – Help needed

2 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

I am a gardening ignoramus. I know nothing about plants at all. And now I am (jointly) in charge of an old-fashioned garden with proper herbaceous borders filled with pretty flowers that are coming out in an impressively sequential manner. I don’t know what any of them are and I think it might be good to know. At least if I know their names I might feel like I was vaguely in charge.

So here are some pictures of some of the current garden beauties. If you can tell me what they are I’d be very happy.

Posted in Vicarage | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Lads Mags, Porn and WHSmith

1 June, 2009 by thevicarswife

I’m wondering whether I should stop shopping at WHSmith. I’ve recently discovered that what I thought was a respectable family store is actually a peddler of porn.

Not as respectable as I thought

Not as respectable as I thought

On one of my first visits to my local Sainsburys, I had a discussion with a chap stacking the magazine racks. The lads mags were being placed at knee height, as usual. Sainsburys were very prompt though. The chap I spoke with went straight to his manager, who got him to move the mags immediately. And then he came and found me and told me

a) that he’d moved the mags and

b) that the shelf stacking plan came from WHSmith, who supplied the magazines.

And then this weekend, I had to go to our local newsagents for emergency milk (another bumper crop of visitors). When I asked him why he had so much porn on his shelves he told me that

a) when they took over the shop WHSmith supplied them with that amount and

b) there was a market for it.

I told my newsagents that his shop was bottom of our list, because of his porn stock but it sounds to me like WHSmith are dictating the marketing of porn and pushing it. Should I start a boycott? Will it do any good and would you join me?

Posted in Family, Lads mags | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

DIY Holiday Club – A Great Day Out

29 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

At our previous church, the Vicar and I were involved in regular holiday clubs. We’d have around 25 kids from the church and church school attending and a team of about 10 from church leading and helping. Most of our holiday clubs lasted just a day, although we sometimes did a three day one. They were lots of fun and a great opportunity to teach kids about God and bless parents with some child-free time.

We would have around three clubs a year, depending on other church events and energy levels within the church family. You can do five days of 4 hours without Ofsted having to inspect you (oh the joys of government control). And you can do 2 hours as many times as you like.

The church here has a weekly Kids Club, but hasn’t really run Holiday Clubs before. It’s one of the things on the Vicar’s To-Do List, but not at top priority, as the church family are already really stretched by the regular activities.

But at Coffee, Cake and Chat, the coffee morning I recently started for school gate mums, there was a suggestion that we all get together with our kids in half term. People don’t have lots of space in their houses or gardens round here. If you have a few friends around it gets really squashed. And we mums like to be together as well as the kids, so the Church Hall is a perfect venue.

So I proposed a DIY Holiday Club. I volunteered the Vicar to do games and a talk type thing. We all agreed to bring food for lunch, and noone needed CRB checks as they all came with their own kids.

So yesterday, from 11am-2pm we had nine kids aged 4-9, 3 toddlers and about nine grown-ups (some came and went). It was terrific fun. We learnt a memory verse, we played relay games in the churchyard (thank you Vicar), we sang loud songs, we made bedroom door labels and those folded paper ‘fortune tellers’ (but with kind Christian sentiments…mainly), we ate a wonderful lunch and enjoyed ourselves enormously.

I think the kids were even happier than this

I think the kids were even happier than this. The mums certainly were.

I am so grateful that we’ve landed up here, with such a great and energetic group of mums. And a holiday club sorted with minimal effort. The next one is now high on the To-Do List.

Posted in Church, Holidays, Kids | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sunday Morning Viewing in the Vicarage

28 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

Our kids don’t watch much telly. In fact, we don’t even have a TV licence, though we have a whole cabinet of dvds. They watch it in the mornings at the weekends, and in the holidays (and sometimes play PS2 now instead).

On Sunday mornings, they watch something Christian before church. So far, the viewing has been mainly VeggieTales (we love those show tunes) and Colin (very funny with good music). I think we pretty much have complete sets of both of them.

The kids have watched those dvds tons, so we were pleased to find a new series of Christian dvds recently. It’s called Torchlighter ‘Heroes of the Faith’ and the dvds are cartoon stories of various Christians through the ages.

Inspiring Sunday morning viewing

Inspiring Sunday morning viewing

We bought ‘The Gladys Aylward Story‘ a couple of weeks ago. It made me weep as I watched. The kids loved it so much they watched it twice in one sitting.

We’ve ordered four more as a set, with the stories of Eric Liddell, John Bunyan, Jim Elliot and William Tyndale. I’m looking forward to seeing them, though I shall make sure the tissues are handy.

Posted in Family, Kids | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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