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Posts Tagged ‘Vicarage life’

An Old Hat Life

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 2 March, 2021| 5 Comments »

It’s been a struggle to write this blog, this Lent, this #lentowrimo. Last Lent the pandemic had only just started, lockdown was looming, and then began. There were things to speculate about – what was going to happen, how the world was going to cope. There were new things to negotiate – social distancing, online church, finding a source of flour, developing a sourdough starter, advanced baking, homeschool protocols.

This Lent, it’s all old and wearying. We’ve had more than enough of homeschool. We’re fed up of not hugging people. I’ve not made sourdough for months, despite having enormous bags of flour stashed away. It’s been winter for months and months, and I still have toothache.

I had things to talk about last year. But I’m struggling this time around. Life is mostly all old hat.

An Old Hat (Photo by Yulia Rozanova on Pexels.com)

The more interesting things I’m doing are non-bloggable, as often seems to happen in life. I don’t write about everything, you’ll be shocked and amazed to hear (not). One of the dangers of our online lives is the way we curate them. We only tell part of the story – to protect ourselves or to shield others, to present ourselves as we want to be seen. But as we’ve lived so much more of our lives online of late, I’ve seen more of that part telling going on. I’ve done it myself. I’m more than the sum of my blogging and my Twitter feed. I am truthful online. But I don’t tell everyone everything. It’s only a glimpse of Vicarage life. So there are other stories here, but I’m sorry to say that they are staying here.

So tonight’s post is just me saying nothing much, because there’s nothing much that I can say from my small quiet life online and in the Vicarage. Thank you for listening in to me saying almost nothing though. Maybe I’ll find something a bit new hat tomorrow.

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Rainbows, Hope and a Trombone

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 9 April, 2020| 1 Comment »

Tonight we made a rainbow for our rainbow shaped window. This Holy Week is the week we especially remember the hope that we have. We are joining with EasterMeansHope.com to share the hope of Christ with our neighbours.

Paper rainbow and 'EasterMeansHope.com' in arched window

We had the window ready for this evening’s #ClapforOurCarers, and the Joker joined in with extra noise tonight – a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his trombone.

The Joker, wearing black t-shirt and beige shorts, flipflops, plays his trombone outside the Vicarage, using a black music stand.

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Holy Week, Hobbling Along

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 7 April, 2020| 2 Comments »

I didn’t manage to finish a blog last night – the first #lentowrimo post I’ve missed. My brain just wasn’t functioning – the third week of lockdown has felt exhausting and overwhelming. We were meant to be on holiday this week – at Word Alive with thousands of other believers. But here we are, still in the Vicarage and not in glamorous Prestatyn, hearing helpful Bible talks and meeting up with dear friends.

We’re here serving the parish online and over the phone, helping at the foodbank and wrangling Zoom with people who struggle with technology. We’re here following the way of Christ. We’re here, looking to our Lord, who trod the way of the cross, exhausted and overwhelmed. So this Holy Week, I’m hobbling along, aware of my fragility, like the daisies which have bloomed in the Secret Field this week. But the blessing of Holy Week is that it goes through the cross to the resurrection. The perishable becomes imperishable. The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

[Text on yellow disc over picture of white/yellow daisies on green grass] For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’

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All the Families

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 10 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

black and white htwb-01

There’s something very beautiful about studying this passage in a small group with people with Punjabi, Irish, Iranian, Scots and English heritage, all together. And reading it aloud in English and Farsi.

We are blessed in Christ – in forgiveness and in the promise of eternal life. And we are blessed in the families of the earth coming together in the red room in the Vicarage – marvelling that those promises to Abram are fulfilled in us today, so far distant in time and place.

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Storms and Phones and a Bit of Old News

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 February, 2020| 1 Comment »

Storm Dennis decided that the Vicarage needed a bit of break. So our phone line stopped working two weeks ago. The winds had whipped around the Vicarage and dislodged the wire precariously attached to the side of the house as it makes its way into our junction box and wifi hub.

The phone fixer chap arrived this evening and made some interesting observations:

  1. We had two defunct cables hanging off the house.
  2. The current cable had frayed as it swayed in the wind – which is why we had occasional wifi but no phone.
  3. The wires to the house have been there for about 40 years.
  4. The wire inside the junction box was of a type made during the First World War – the insulation is a giveaway apparently.

Our ancient wire

The information about the wire reminded me of a snippet I read just the other week in a bound collection of church magazines I found in the churchwardens’ vestry. These magazines were published in 1925, and so I can tell you that the first phone line was installed in our house in October 1925. Don’t forget our number: West Bromwich 172. Sadly, our telephone number, unlike the wiring, has no continuity with the original. And I doubt the Church of England will give you advice if you’re moving overseas either. And alas, we have no choir, for ladies or anybody else, but any offers of help in the matter of church music would still be most welcome.

IMG_20200228_183303853

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Gone Autumn News

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , on 18 September, 2015| 1 Comment »

Those of you who follow the progress of Gone, our friend who’s been long term homeless, will be sad to hear that he’s back in prison for a stint. The good news is that he managed over four months in the hostel up the road from us and they’re happy to have him back when he’s released. Sadly, he was in a bit of a state after our two week holiday, which coincided with hostel staff leave. That was when he managed to get himself arrested and we weren’t looped in so couldn’t help at the magistrate’s.

Prison will also be an opportunity for him to dry out a bit in preparation for another go at living in the hostel. We are still optimistic that he will be able to tackle life from his place near us, and we’re praying for him and planning for his release. Do continue to #prayforGone. God is working in his life, and in ours.

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A Bear in the Churchyard

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , on 17 September, 2015| 3 Comments »

Today I snapped a photo of an unexpected churchyard visitor. No idea how he got there, although flytipping is a popular local pastime. He rather looks like he’s been on the sauce, although I think it was milkshake in the bottle next to him. I’m not entirely sure what we shall do with him, as he’s too large to go in our wheelie bin. Still, makes a change from the beer cans.20150917_112508

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Gone Going?

Posted in Church, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 9 October, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One of the lovely things about the Midlands Women’s Convention last weekend was the opportunity to catch up with friends from around the region. I was able to have a good chat with another vicar’s wife from the Black Country who has been sharing with us the unusual experience of having Gone sleep under the garden hedge.

Mrs Very Benevolent and her husband live in another Sandwell town, just a few miles from here. She told me that Gone has been supplied with a sleeping bag by a local Food Bank and has camped out in their garden for the past few weeks. Another vicar nearby sometimes allows Gone to use his bathroom to spruce up. So he’s surviving. As usual.

Mrs VB is finding that Gone is alternately awful, abusive, threatening and foul and then repentant, sweet, thankful and charming. Same mix as ever. But the good news in all this is that the local police have decided that enough is enough and have demanded that the local housing office sort it out. Since Gone is without doubt the most vulnerable person I have ever met, I am thankful that at last some people in authority are taking responsibility.

My friend said that the first option will be to get him to Betel, although we all know that Gone struggles with trusting others, so the Betel community may not prove to be the best place. Whatever happens we are praying for a good solution for him. But at last there seem to be people in the ‘system’ watching out for Gone and there will be other options if Betel doesn’t work out. Keep on praying for him – we would love him to to feel secure in a home.

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Some Things This Week (it was Busy and a bit Random)

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 September, 2012| 3 Comments »

So, this week

  • The Queen started secondary school. We are all quite enjoying the early mornings but are considering investing in coffee producers and matchstick makers. She is having fun meeting lots of new people and being all grown up and responsible. She has not missed the bus nor lost her phone. Yet.
  • A house for sale about 100yds from our front door was raided by the police. They found it full of cannabis plants. The police took the plants and left the pots outside the house. Might see if we could use some!
  • Our new Ministry Trainees, Radiohead and Sweet Tooth moved in. They have survived so far – even with the children bouncing around all over their attic home. We are very much looking forward to getting to know them as they serve in the church and experience Vicarage life close up.
  • The Vicar spent a long time at a Deanery Standing Committee and nearly everyone on Twitter suggested that those meetings would be a lot better (ie shorter) if the committee did stand and not sit.
  • The Queen has been asked to give a short speech at the local library when they officially celebrate their refurbishment. The mayor will be there and everything. We are just waiting for permission from the school to come through.
  • We played tennis at the local courts. All the courts were being used, something I have never seen before. It was the last day of the holidays, and sunny, but I also suspect an Olympic/Paralympic effect. Good for Lord Coe.
  • Our friend Nick Barr-Hamilton was featured in a post on Archbishop Cranmer’s blog. You should read it.
  • Gone has not been seen here for nearly two weeks now. So we have thrown away the mouldy and smelly blankets he was using to keep himself warm when he slept under our hedge. I expect he’s either in prison or has managed to find some housing (a housing person came to the door and spoke to Rocky a few weeks ago, looking for Gone, but we don’t know anything more than that). It’s rather strange to have someone so much in your life, but no real means of finding out what has happened when they go. Do pray for him.

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Home From Abroad Again: Part 1

Posted in Abroad, Fun, Holidays, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 30 August, 2011| 3 Comments »

What do you think about as you return from your holidays? As we drove away from the Channel Tunnel, heading back to the Vicarage, last week I was remembering (as always) a poem by Laurie Lee that I learnt by heart when I was at school:

Home From Abroad

Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways,
My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant,
I set my face into a filial smile
To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent.

But shall I never learn? That gawky girl,
Recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts,
Becomes again the green-haired queen of love
Whose wanton form dilates as it delights.

Her rolling tidal landscape floods the eye
And drowns Chianti in a dusky stream;
he flower-flecked grasses swim with simple horses,
The hedges choke with roses fat as cream.

So do I breathe the hayblown airs of home,
And watch the sea-green elms drip birds and shadows,
And as the twilight nets the plunging sun
My heart’s keel slides to rest among the meadows.

Kent was certainly beautiful to look at. Our front drive not so much… (and more on this tomorrow too).

Rocky tells us this was originally left blocking the drive

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