Being Carnapped

If you follow my Twitter feed, you’ll have spotted that last Friday, I inadvertently parked our car in a reserved spot in a cheap carpark near to Birmingham city centre. For this minor lapse in judgement, the Vicar and I were then forced to hand over £390 in cash to retrieve our vehicle. We’d been [...]

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Come and Hope with us

This summer our lodger Rocky is marrying Bee and leaving the delights of our chilly Victorian vicarage for theological college to train as a vicar himself. When he leaves a space will open up in our attic for another Ministry Trainee (or hopefully two). Our Ministry Trainees are involved with all aspects of church life, [...]

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Faintly Hoping

We’ve had some great encouragements so far this year – new folk in church on Sundays and signs of spiritual hunger in all sorts of places. And yesterday we were reminded of the Lord’s presence and promises as we walked home from school: a fragile rainbow appeared right over the houses opposite the Vicarage. I [...]

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Cheerful Chimney Sweep

The Vicar bought some chimney brushes last year. We’ve found it a very cost-effective way of  ensuring that we don’t fill the living room with smoke too much. I think the set cost about £30, which is already less than we’d pay to get a sweep in. Our chimneys are quite easy to sweep as [...]

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Christmas, Crime and CCTV

On Saturday a dear member of our congregation, who was 91 in December, was mugged as she walked out of an alleyway close to her home. Thankfully, she wasn’t that badly hurt and some brilliant passers-by came to her aid – one chap chased the mugger down the street and was able to get details [...]

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Yesterday’s Parish Crimes

Well, the ones I was directly told about anyway: A break-in at our church school. The third in the last fortnight. They failed to get the data projector they tried to wrench off the wall. They did take the Queen’s mp3 pink player that she’d left there so her class could listen to the Creation [...]

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A Couple of Campaigns to Watch and Join

If one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to be a bit more socially active, I’d like to suggest a couple of campaigns that I’ve recently started following and have signed up for: Apparently January is sadly the most popular month for people to file for divorce. Faithfulness Matters are campaigning against companies who seek [...]

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Vicarage Recipes: Warming Sausage Casserole

One of the things I love about my Vicarage cooker (my treat when we moved here) is its small slow oven. The slow oven is a bit titchy – only big enough for one large pot or only a single baking sheet of meringues, but I am using it more and more for winter casseroles. [...]

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