Coffee Morning Chats

On Thursday mornings, I organise a coffee morning in our church hall. I try to invite all the mums from the school gate, but in practice there are a regular group of about ten who come almost every week. They are a great bunch – friendly and chatty and fun to be with. I bake [...]

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The Vicar: Unlike anyone else

Our local paper has just published a piece about the arrival of Happy, our new ministry trainee. I love the line where the Vicar is described as ‘unlike anyone I’ve ever met’.
As the Express and Star have commented, the diocese is struggling to find clergy for vacant posts. We are praying that God would guide [...]

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Happy in Sandwell

Happy is our new lodger. He’s also the Vicar’s new apprentice (aka the ministry trainee). Yesterday he went to a training event about our area. It was laid on by diocesan missioners with input from speakers from the local council and other taxpayer funded bodies.
We live in Sandwell, one of the most deprived boroughs in [...]

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Some more thoughts on warmth

Cold vicarages seem to be a hot topic for discussion. Since I posted last week I’ve also remembered a couple of other techniques that we use to keep the frostbite at bay.

Our electric blanket. Not yet on the bed but absolutely essential for later in the season. With cold feet I cannot get to sleep [...]

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Dealing with Drugs

So the kids are back at school and everyone is busy catching up on the local gossip. The neighbourhood drug dealers are a popular topic of conversation. Chattychap thinks that some of the teenagers in the area are being recruited to make the actual drug deliveries. This distances the dealers from the deals. And sadly [...]

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 11 – Post

I thought I’d share with you this morning’s post bag of seven items. I quite enjoy opening post, so this lot has fallen to me since we’ve moved in. Today’s haul fell into two categories (neither of them involving cheques, lovenotes or cards for the family):
Real church business

An invoice from the vestry photocopier supplier [...]

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Does the CofE need Vicar’s Wives?

There’s been a bit of a debate started over at the Cranmer’s Curate blog about the role of a Vicar’s Wife. If you’re one of my Vicar’s wife readers, why don’t you join in? Most of the early posts seemed to be from Vicars, not their wives.

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DIY Holiday Club – A Great Day Out

At our previous church, the Vicar and I were involved in regular holiday clubs. We’d have around 25 kids from the church and church school attending and a team of about 10 from church leading and helping. Most of our holiday clubs lasted just a day, although we sometimes did a three day one. They [...]

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Mrs Beamish – Change in Church

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.

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 5 – More on the phone

My first post in this little series on the job description for a Vicar’s wife was about phone calls I answered early on in our time here in the Vicarage. The first comment was from rtpeat, who advised getting a separate phone line installed.
The thing about that is that the Vicar would then have to [...]

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