Post Christmas Break

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In the Church of England, after all the demands of Christmas, clergy are expected to take a week off work immediately after Christmas in order to rest and recuperate.

In our case, superman the Mhinisteir decided to take his holidays at a later date in order to allow the assistant curate to go away on their post Christmas break. I have often wondered why the assistant curate always gets the first choice when it comes to holidays🤐!

Anyway, the good news is as of today we are officially on our post Christmas break. Later this morning, we are leaving for our usual hideout and hope to be away for a few days.

I have yet to decide if I am going to continue blogging during this period but if there is a lapse you will know why!

10 days worth of newspapers

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When we got back home from our holiday, the first thing to greet us was a huge stack of newspapers! In case you are wondering if we had forgotten to stop the papers during our holidays? No. We knew full well that this will be the sight that would greet us on our return!

The Mhinisteir still lives in the dark ages where he doesn’t like reading newspapers online even though our newspaper subscription allows us online access. Unfortunately I too have joined him in the dark ages. I just love holding the physical paper.

We now have a selection of the Telegraph, FT Weekend and The Sunday Times to peruse. There is also our weekly local paper, the Church Times and the Private Eye plus the daily papers that continue to get delivered!

From the Vicarage Library | The Other Side of the Coin

The is the book that I took away for my holiday reading.

It is written by Angela Kelly who is the Senior Dresser to Her Majesty the Queen. It took me just 2 days to finish reading this excellent book. This is the second best book I have read this year! The first was this.

The book is full of colourful photos mainly of the Queen wearing some of the outfits from her extensive wardrobe, usually designed by Kelly herself. It also contains photos of some of the most precious jewellery that the Queen owns!

This book is basically about Kelly’s work as Senior dresser to Her Majesty the Queen. She writes extensively about her close working relationship with the Queen without divulging Royal secrets! It is definitely not a kiss and tell book. The book is well written and DOES NOT contain cheap gossip. It has been personally endorsed by the Queen herself which I think is quite a big deal.

A little snippet from the book…. The Queen does her own makeup! The only time that a makeup artist is involved is when she is filmed for the Christmas speech.

There is only one slight disappointment. Kelly refers to The Queen as the Head of the Church of England. She is wrong. Her Majesty the Queen is the supreme governor of the Church of England. Christ is the Head!

If you are royalist or simply interested in the Queen’s wardrobe then this book is for you!

Out of Office

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As a lady of leisure, I usually don’t get to use “Out of Office” so it feels wonderful to even type it out!!!

As many of you might have already guessed, we are on holiday! Yay! We are away for 4 nights. I was hoping to continue blogging when away but have decided against it so that I can have a complete break and return to the blogging world rejuvenated!

All being well, normal blogging services will resume next week!

Bank Holidays

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For as long as I remember, the Mhinisteir has always worked on a bank holiday. For those who don’t live in the United Kingdom, bank holidays are public holidays.

I don’t know of any other clergy who actually works on a bank holiday but according to the Mhinisteir, Vicars ARE NOT entitled to bank holidays.

Fast forward to August 2021, an email arrived for the Mhinisteir reminding him of all the holidays that he is entitled to and It was in bold print that clergy are entitled to bank holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!

I feel like weeping when I think of all the bank holidays that we have wasted missed!!!!!!!!!! No matter. There is one on the 30th of this month. Yay!!!

Penn Club, London

If you are looking for a B&B in London, then the Penn Club might be for you.

I came across this advertisement in the latest Church Times and decided to spread the word.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid by the Penn Club to promote them.

Our Wee Getaway

The Mhinisteir was keen to go away for  a short break.  He was tired and needed a break but I wasnt keen because of Covid 19.  When you are a Vicar, holidaying at home is not an option.  We have tried it before and it just doesn’t work.

I must confess that another reason why I was reluctant to go away was that some urgent Church related matter has a habit of cropping up whenever we go on holiday.  The truth is even days off are like that.  There have been times when we have had to delay, cut short or completely do without holidays.  Maybe because we are in a multi parish benefice so more issues and people to deal with but then a Vicar’s job is 24/7 contrary to belief that Vicar’s only work on Sundays!

Anyway, we decided to go somewhere nearby just for a couple of days.  It’s a place we know well.  We were at our holiday destination within an hour.

I personally did very little apart from reading.  However, on our last day, I managed a little shopping and I was pretty chuffed with myself.  I like to browse antique shops and so I was absolutely delighted when we found an antique centre.    We bought an Onyx Barometer.  The Mhinisteir also discovered a household store where I bought an electric bug bat.  Since then the Mhinisteir has put it to the test and it is working marvellously well.  Just a shame that we now have to wait patiently for a fly to enter the Vicarage.  Previously they would be arriving in multitudes!!!! Maybe they got the memo!

Bug Bat

Onyx Barometer

Chinese Vase from Oxfam

We had a lovely few days despite it bucketing down on Day one.   No holiday is complete without a little ecclesiastical drama!  This time it was someone getting in touch with the press to complain!  Thankfully it was a non story.  You might be interested in reading Guilty Until Proven Innocent!

Green Flag, how dare you?

Back at the garage, we had a bit of a wait before our car could be examined. It was very good of our garage to even bother giving us a slot. About an hour later, the Mechanic came in with the dip stick and asked ” Who did this”???

The Mhinisteir was horrified as the dip stick was covered in duck tape!!! It later transpired that the Green Flag Mechanic had not only broken the dip stick but had also tampered with some of the wires!! To add salt to the injury, the Mechanic said that this was a minor problem that could have been solved at Heathrow!!!!

At this point, I regretted giving the tenner!!!! The Mhinisteir asked me if we should report this matter to Green Flag. I said no because all I could see was that sadly someone chose to be an instrument in the devil’s hands and so why waste time reporting it. I would rather God dealt with the matter. It is so much easier.

The garage didn’t have the spare part so they put a temporary stop to the problem and sent us on our way. We were so thankful to be able to come back to the Vicarage in our own car even though we were dog tired.

The Wheels on the Tow Truck goes round and round….

The good news was Green Flag arrived promptly just after an hour of wait…. the bad news was it wasn’t a flat battery but something to do with the fuel pump and so the car had to be towed either back to the Vicarage or to our garage both of which would take at least three hours!

There was no point in towing it to the Vicarage and so it was decided that it will be towed to our garage which was about an hour’s drive from the Vicarage.

So what about us? It was agreed that we will go on the tow truck too!! How exciting!!! Not!!!

Anyway, the tow truck arrived soon after and we started our journey to our garage. It was quite a pleasant trip but I was shattered by the time we arrived at the garage….. We gave L, our Tow truck driver a tenner and parted company.

My Airport Coronavirus Drama!

The Mhinisteir and I came back to the Vicarage this week after a fortnight’s holiday. As usual, our return was not without drama.

After we landed in Heathrow, we went to pick up our car from the carpark. The car wouldn’t start. I was quite relaxed about it as I was very tired after the long flight and was convinced that it was a flat battery so the Mhinisteir phoned Green Flag.

Midway through his conversation to Green Flag….. he began to explain to them my health situation. Strange I thought….. why does Green Flag need to know my health condition???? It’s the car that is needing looking at.

It was only after the Mhinisteir rang off that I realised that the overly enthusiastic call operator at Green Flag put two and two together and completely got the wrong end of the stick!

She assumed that I was showing symptoms of the coronavirus!!!!!! Boy oh boy!!! Why on earth would she think that????

All because we had just gotten off a flight and the Mhinisteir had mentioned that I wasnt feeling great!!!!! Oh help!!! Me feeling not great is the result of my long term condition nothing else! Anyway, the operator rang again and agreed to send help.