Vicarage Recipes: Speedy Sponge Pudding

This week we had a quiet Sunday lunch at the Vicarage – it was just our family: Rocky had an invitation to lunch out and I’d been disorganised about having folk over. So for pudding I decided to trial a recipe I saw on 22 Words a while back. It’s a chocolate sponge speedily cooked [...]

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Drug dealers – Slow Burn to Justice

Thankfully, since police installed a CCTV camera opposite the church yard a few months ago, our local druggies have been getting their supplies elsewhere. It got very frustrating last summer, with drug deals taking place almost daily under our noses. The police had a few near misses with catching the dealers, too. On one occasion [...]

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Theological Words (or not)

We had an interesting discussion at Sunday lunch with our kids on the meaning of ‘Calvary’. As well as its primary Christian meaning, it’s the name of another congregation that meets in our church building and they were interested in the origins of the word. The Joker thought it was a brand of chocolate. Then [...]

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How Government Money is Wasted

Today in the Vicarage we had two reminders of how our  tax money gets wasted by the government itself and by individuals in our society on behalf of everyone else. Firstly the Vicar had his PAYE Coding Notice come through from HM Revenue and Customs. This was corrected from the erroneous one we received two [...]

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Worried About Your Clergy Tax Code?

Never fear – HMRC have made a teensy slip-up. They’ve posted PAYE notices with erroneous tax codes to ‘most stipendiary clergy’ according to the CofE. The Vicar’s tax free allowance had almost halved! I thought it might dip a bit, after we spent less on gas and electricity than we anticipated last year (clergy have [...]

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Sunday Lunch – Vicarage Gammon

As I munched on yummy leftovers for lunch today, I thought it was time to blog my roast gammon recipe. Although it’s not all roasted – mostly it’s boiled, which ensures that it’s moist, whilst the roasting (with a glaze) sets in  a little crisp sweetness. Gammon is an excellent Sunday lunch joint – no [...]

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Calvinist Pick Up Lines: Because We Were Meant to be Together

Caught this clip the other day – there are some very funny lines, although the delivery leaves a little to be desired(!). Having made some v tasty date and coconut slices today, I particularly enjoyed the line about the dried fruit. [HT Abraham Piper]

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Some 2010 Statistics on The Vicar’s Wife

So I got an email from WordPress about last year on this blog. I’m not sure how they gauge some of this data, mind you – they seem to think my Blog is ‘Wow’ healthy. The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about [...]

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Sandwell Schools and Burst Pipes

I notice this afternoon that ten schools in our area are closed because they have had burst pipes. In the holidays  (28th December in fact) I had a phone call from a concerned parishioner who had noticed water gushing from our school’s boiler house. Obviously a burst pipe. She’d phoned me as she wasn’t sure [...]

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Vicar’s Wife’s Essential Kit: Sugar Shaker

Thought I’d share with you all what I consider to be an essential piece of Vicarage equipment: my sugar shaker. I know that it’s another year until you can add this to your Christmas list again, but at £3.05, I reckon you could sneak this in with a cup of coffee and an almond croissant [...]

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