Vicarage Garden Result!

Well, a small one, anyway. Last year we bought some very cheap strawberry plants and stuck them in a flower bed where they failed to produce anything edible. This year, however, they have given us some sweet strawberries – a whole (small) bowlful. And we’ve been able to pick them at peak ripeness. Delicious. Please excuse the shocking lack of focus in the picture. The one I took using the flash made the strawberries look purple.

We also have some small and very sour cherries, about five radishes, a handful of gooseberries, some spindly rhubarb and some snail-chewed bok choi. And there will definitely be potatoes. It’s better than last year, and if our gardening continues to improve at this rate I reckon that we might have a good harvest by the time the Engineer leaves home (he’s six btw).

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Underway with the Wall

Good news: the slow wheels of insurance, diocesan tender bidding and the sourcing of reclaimed stones have turned and this week we have a hard-working builder in our garden. He is repairing the wall that was stripped of its coping stones by an early morning thief back in October.

Interestingly, sourcing the stones was a bit of a challenge – they couldn’t find enough stones of the right dimensions. Then the builders came across a rather quirky local reclamation yard. The yard wanted to be paid only in cash and wouldn’t invoice the builders in the normal way of companies.

Recently I saw one of the millions of reality police shows on telly, about the team tracking down metal thieves, who found BT and Network Rail cabling in a yard. But only because it was labelled as such. How does a reclamation yard check the origins of the reclaimed items they buy? Noone labels their bricks or paving slabs. What chance that the coping stones going back on our wall came from there in the first place? Not entirely unlikely I’d hazard.

We’re hoping to keep these stones and thankfully, those laid last night stayed there until the mortar had set so they’ll be much more difficult to remove than the ones we lost. Our wall rebuilder told us of another vicar he has done some work for. This chap was so fed up of coping stones being stolen from his wall that he got the builders to take a grinder to them, defacing them so that they wouldn’t be worth anything at a reclamation yard. I have to say, we are seriously considering that option now, to save us from any possible future stolen-coping-stones hassle.

Our wall, the new stones and a well-deserved coffee break

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The Vicarage Garden is busted (in a good way)

Despite my desire to become Alys Fowler (including the Pre-Raphaelite hair), things in the Vicarage garden didn’t go brilliantly last summer. I planted out, but didn’t really give things the attention they needed. I was too busy fire-fighting the clutter in the house.

But this year I’m hoping for more success. I now have a cleaner, who comes every couple of weeks to help me to conquer the house. I have a schedule, which means I am strangely (to me) doing a little more housework than I used to. So there may now be some time to water and weed.

And to start us off, last week we had the gardening team from Betel in to clear the beds and get us on the road to a manageable and (hopefully) edible garden this year. The team comprised four men – one was Gav Burnage, Associate minister from Aldridge Parish Church, who is living and working full time at Betel. The other guys were members of the Betel community in Birmingham, learning to live and work free from substance abuse.

God was kind to us, and the sun shone. The Vicar and Rocky joined the Betel team. I skived off the digging, but supplied regular tea and cake. They sorted out our main beds, nuked some brambles and the evil blue weeds and left everything looking tidy and ready for planting. Now we just have to keep up the weed-free look with regular forays in our wellies. The money we paid for the work helps to pay for Betel’s accommodation and keeps this amazing organisation going. If you live in the Birmingham area and need a garden blitz, why not see if they can help you out?

 

The Vicar with the Betel team. Note the tidy flower bed (and still-absent coping stones).

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The View from my Window

I’ve just been enjoying some early Spring views from my kitchen window as the sun sets on a surprisingly balmy February day. First there was the cheering sight of the robin hopping about around the bird table that the Vicar was given for Christmas. He doesn’t seem to mind all the clutter out there in the yard.

The yard is also where the Vicar was then chopping logs in a manly way to prepare the wood for our fires for next winter. We’ve had a good haul of wood over the last few weeks, mainly due to some serious redevelopment going on in our town centre. They’ve been chopping a good few trees down and have left the wood out for the hunter-gatherer tribe, of which the Vicar is an enthusiastic member.

Watching the Vicar chop logs reminds me of Almost, who we’ve not seen for a few weeks now. Almost is from Kosovo and is once again trying to get leave to remain in the UK. Almost tells us that his 3 brothers got permission some years ago but he had to return to Kosovo with his wife and family. His wife was taken ill  (with a stroke) on the way back and died recently. So he is back here trying again. He is living in cramped conditions and occasionally comes to ask if we’ll pay him for some work or for help with his gas or electric.

When Almost was last here, the Vicar was log-chopping and was then clearing up the prepared wood before he was able to take Almost to the Post Office to top up his gas card. As he does with most visiting able-bodied men, the Vicar offered Almost a go of the axe. And although Almost is much slighter than the Vicar, his axe skills were far more impressive. We asked him if he’d chopped wood before, back in Kosovo.

Ah. Too many, too many.

I wonder if our boys will grow up with great axe skills but sighing about having to chop too many, too many.

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Unto Us a Child is Born: Seeing the Words

Following up from watching lots of Handel’s Hallelujah chorus in the form of flash mob YouTube clips over the last couple of weeks, the Vicar nabbed a couple of Messiah clips to encourage folk in church this Sunday. Here is the one that’s not the Hallelujah Chorus – For Unto Us a Child is Born, set to kinetic typography, which helps you to meditate on the words as well as the marvellous music.

Happy Monday. Ours will be mainly spent phoning plumbers (frozen and burst pipes around the Vicarage) and sourcing extra warmth in the form of memory foam topper and electric blanket for Rocky the Vicar’s Apprentice, who has been so cold in the attic that his asthma has been playing up. He sees this as a part of his training for future ministry…

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This Week’s Crime: Coping Stones

Well, that’s made for a great Saturday. The Vicar was outside chatting with a kind neighbour who has been repairing our Victorian garden wall. The neighbour remarked that he’d have to get on with putting the coping stones back on the top. He’d seen that the stones had disappeared a couple of days ago and had assumed that the Vicar had taken them off since they were loose. Alas not. Someone has been and taken them! So now about half our wall looks strangely naked.

So if anyone offers you a load of cheap Staffordshire blue coping stones, let me know. At £40/m, we reckon they’ve stolen about a thousand pounds worth.

Just a small section of our poor wall

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Lighting the Fire: Autumn in the Vicarage

The Vicar's Wife likes to have warm ankles

So it’s been getting a bit chilly here and we’ve fired up the wood-burning stove 3 or 4 times in the last week. So today I’m sharing a few thoughts about surviving Vicarage cold…

Slippers

We have new slippers in the Vicarage, both me and the Vicar. Warm feet make a huge difference to happiness in a cold house. The slippers of happiness are made by The North Face. Mine are of the bootie variety, and the Vicar has mules.

Warmwear

Let's hope these are long enough...

I am also seriously considering investing in some Marks and Spencer Warmwear. M&S claim that these ‘layering pieces’…’generate heat’ and ‘act as insulation’. I’m a wee bit concerned that they might be a bit short and not tuck into my low rise jeans, thus ensuring  that I have cold kidneys and monumentally failing to keep me properly warm. Too-short t-shirts are the bane of my life in cold weather. I will try them, however, and report back. Unless any of you have tried them already…? I’m 5’10″ btw, so my back is quite long. [HT Cassie]

Scarves

Scarves are essential for warmth and I’m especially pleased with the gorgeous Black Ruffled Skinny one that Icklesis bought me for my birthday this year. Don’t be without one. But you knew that, anyway, didn’t you?

Cats

And finally… work out where the cat is and join her. She knows the warmest place in the house for certain. As you can see, it’s usually in front of the fire.

Ahhh. Toasty.

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Home from Abroad: Return to the Vicarage

Home from Abroad is that lovely poem by Laurie Lee that I learnt by heart for O Level Eng Lit. And here I am, skin not so much ‘well oiled by wines of the Levant’ as lightly tanned by Brittany sun… and rain.

I didn’t advertise my absence, though the more eagle eyed of you may have noticed a reduction in tweeting. I was a little concerned about alerting people on the internet to an empty(ish) Vicarage. As it happens, the internet was not what people were looking at.

Ha! He didn't get in.

It seems that some dodgy characters were observing a car with a roof box disappearing from our drive. And hadn’t noticed that our Ministry Trainee/lodger Happy was late back the day we left and out early the next. He had church folk over to dinner that evening and as they were leaving, there was a loud banging noise at our family room window.

Happy went into the room and was able to see at close hand a man with a hammer and chisel attempting to get in through the sash windows. When he saw Happy he seemed rather surprised. He had an accomplice with him in the garden and they both bolted off immediately.

They wouldn’t have had much luck getting in, as the windows are securely locked, so they’d have had to dismantle the structure of the window to fit through. But obviously it was pretty alarming for Happy. Thankfully, church family have been brilliant – our thoughtful Lay Reader parked her car in the drive for the remainder of our absence, and lots of folk have been phoning and calling in.

Although Happy got a good look at the chap at the window, he didn’t recognise him from our locality, and the police said the information would just remain on file.

Happy has also had Gone on the doorstep singing loudly at 6am, although he left and hasn’t returned. Not as bad as when we were on hols last year and Polly was confronted by a very nasty mess left by Gone on the doorstep, two days in a row. Our poor lodgers seem to really have a rough time when we go away.

We are grateful to God that the burglars didn’t get in, and that Happy was okay. We are also praying for our neighbourhood as crime levels seem to be increasing – this week a lady in our congregation was burgled by men who came to the door pretending to be from the council. We are hearing more and more about this type of crime. We are praying that people would be made new and stop stealing. Do pray with us.

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Vicarage Taxi?

A short tale from a recent Sunday at the Vicarage:

The Vicar was in the kitchen, talking to a weeping parishioner who was in some emotional turmoil. We were waiting for our pal Nerd to come and join us for lunch. I guess it was about 1.30pm.

I had a text from my local friend Peacock, who told me that two men were coming over to my house. Hmm. Not sure why she texted me that, I thought. Then the doorbell rang.

Need a lift? Call the Vicar!

There was an obviously drunk chap at the door. He’s been round before, asking for food or train fares. Swaying a little, he asked me if the Vicar was available. ‘No, he’s in a meeting,’ I replied. ‘Can he give us a lift to Birmingham?’ he said.

‘Errrr. Well, we’re about to have lunch, so I don’t think so.’ And off he toddled. The things people expect vicars to do…

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Harvest Time at the Vicarage

Well, gooseberry harvest anyway. After all my panicking about mould, I am extremely pleased to report that our gooseberry bush has produced masses of fruit. So: the solution to American gooseberry mildew is to catch it early and chop it off. So far we’ve had about 4lb of fruit from the bush and there’s still more to come. We’ve had gooseberry fool and gooseberry tart. – both delicious, though I say so myself. Not sure what to make next – any suggestions?

A very pleasing crop

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