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Dangers of Enthusiasm for Overseas cds

27 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

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.

Posted in Family, Kids | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Bank Holiday Monday Monsters

26 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

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

22 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

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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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 7 – Busy Evenings

21 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

One evening this week things got a bit crazier than usual in our house. All was calm at tea time and our next few hours ahead looked like being fairly gentle. I had to take the Queen to her swimming lesson, and the Vicar had offered to help a homeless youngster move into some new accommodation, which was going to take him about an hour. Polly’s baby was beginning to get into a sleeping routine.

When I came back from swimming things were looking more frantic. Polly greeted me on the doorstep rolling her eyes. ‘Just ask the Vicar’ she said.

Keep a stash handy for callers in need

The Vicar now has a stash like this in his study (minus the radishes)

Whilst the homeless teenager was waiting downstairs, the Vicar had been putting the boys to bed. And then another visitor had appeared, asking for money for food. We don’t give money, but we are happy to provide food. The Vicar’s head was spinning so rather than grabbing a few bits from the cupboard, he agreed to take our newest visitor to Sainsbury’s after his homeless teenager rehousing run.

He didn’t get back till after 10pm. But he’d stocked up with supplies to keep in a box in his study. Which came in handy the following evening when SainsburyRunMan returned with another friend in need.

I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to half term next week.

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

Polly and the Baby

20 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

Polly and her baby are staying with us. They became homeless the weekend of the Visitors, and moved into council funded emergency accommodation for a week. It was clean but horrible – noisy, rather smelly and insecure (she could open her room by shoving on the door).

Aaah

Aaah

I’d known Polly for a while and get on well with her. She is from Eastern Europe and all her family support is back at home. Her baby is only five months old and she was exhausted. We have a whole floor of the Vicarage which is unoccupied because it’s dilapidated. I don’t think the rooms have been used for at least twenty years.

So I invited her to come and stay in the attic whilst the council sort her out with housing. Since she’s now officially homeless, we’re hoping it’ll not be toooo long. She’s going to paint the attic room and we already have the promise of a bed for her – at the moment she’s in the spare room.

So now we have two extra people to stay. So far it’s been great, but it’s also coincided with a whirlwind of meetings and people in distress calling at the Vicarage.

My head is buzzing and yesterday evening, as we passed each other at the front door, the Vicar said to me ‘See you on Friday’. (He’s not actually going away anywhere.)

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Mrs Beamish – Change in Church

19 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

My friend DoctorMum is a curate’s wife, shortly to be a Vicar’s wife. She posted this video clip on her Facebook profile. It illustrates perfectly how we all feel about change in church.

This one’s expecially for my dad, who is at one with Mrs B on the peace.

Posted in Fun | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

The Inner City Vicar’s Day Off

18 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

We’ve all heard the jokes about only working on Sundays, but in reality the Vicar works a 50-60 hour week (he knows that because he keeps a timesheet). So a good day off is essential if we want to keep going at this job in the long term. You need to clear your head and take a breath.

The Vicar takes Fridays off. This works well for us, cos it almost feels like the weekend. Saturdays are too close to sermon time and are often interrupted with church events.

It works for the kids – the big ones have a good evening with Dad after school and the Engineer, who’s still in nursery, gets to see Dad for even longer. The Vicar’s Wife likes having some child free time with her husband too.

We have developed a bit of a pattern for our days off, which worked very well in Wolverhampton, and we are now trying to replicate in our new parish. Long trips out are a bit of a no-no for us as we only have 2 1/2 hours in the morning until we have to fetch the Engineer from nursery.

So what we like to do is to go into the town. This may not seem very exciting to you, but let me explain how we manage to enjoy a morning out in a deprived and delapidated town centre.

First stop is usually the library to change books and pooch about in the quiet and elegant Carnegie library we have. Then we gae the messages in our local shopping centre (built in 1971 and partly funded by the National Mineworkers Pension Fund, with shopping opportunities that are cheap and cheerful rather than expensive and elegant – just what you need for vicars and their cash-strapped families).

Day Off treats...

Day Off treats...

The best bit of our day off, though, is the next bit: sitting down in a local caff for strong tea and a bacon sandwich. Sometimes we’ll chat and sometimes read our new library books or the paper. The key is not to talk about church. Last Friday we did this bit at lunch time. There were three of us (since we’d already picked the Engineer up) and we all ate at the Cosy Corner in the indoor market for less than £10.

What do you do on your days off?

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

12 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

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…

Posted in Family, Kids | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Playground rhymes 1: Coca cola

11 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

My kids have a strange but great selection of playground rhymes so I thought I’d share a few with you. They’ve learnt some new ones since we moved, but this is a Wolverhampton one.

So here are the Queen and the Joker reciting ‘Coca cola’ (lyrics below):

Coca cola, coca cola.
Alley alley pussy cat, alley alley pussy cat.
Coca cola, coca cola.
Alley alley pussy cat, alley alley pussy cat.

The boys got the muscles, the teacher can’t count
The girls got the sexy legs, you better watch out.
The boys go X X, the girls go ‘Whooo’

PS Please excuse me going ‘Go’ at the beginning – it’s the only way I could make sure they hadn’t launched their rhyme before I started recording.

Posted in Playground rhymes | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments »

Vicar’s wife job description – Part 6 – Visitors

8 May, 2009 by thevicarswife

We had a great weekend this Bank Holiday. We had tickets for Basil Brush on the Monday – the Joker’s fave, natch. Nanna and Grandpa, Granny and Auntie Icklesis and Uncle Trainspotter came and joined us, so it was a real full house.

There were more of us than this...

There were more of us than this...

This is one of the blessings of Vicarage life – you have the big house, so family gatherings can be, and therefore are, held at your house. But family gatherings happen mostly at weekends, when the Vicar is working, so there is a lot of busy-ness all round. Fun but a bit crazy.

Our busy weekend of visitors was made a little more manic by the addition of a  young mum and her baby who’d been made homeless on Sunday morning and ended up staying for a couple of nights too.

The challenge for a Vicar’s wife is to remain godly and gracious in the midst of the blessings and chaos of visitors. I’m not sure I did all that well so I’m especially greatful that my helpful visitors mucked in with cooking, clearing up and even helped to scale my Everest-like washing pile!

Posted in Vicar's wife job description, Vicarage | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

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