Month: June 2015

One Colour Short of a Rainbow

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It’s very busy in the vicarage this week. So many jobs to do in preparation for the vicar’s ordination to the priesthood on Saturday evening. Added to this it’s transition time in school so we have been backwards & forwards all over town for extra meetings & inductions.

Anyway! Lots of niggley jobs have been completed so far & I’ve made the most of the ridiculously hot weather to finish painting the kitchen chairs that I started last autumn! I would have a full rainbow except for the fact that I’ve run out of primer so the blue chair will have to wait for another day.

[EDIT: At this point there was mutiny in the vicarage from several of the younger members & I ran out of steam to write any more hence my abrupt stop! I have since spent the evening sweeping leaves, hemming suit trousers, wrangling frogs who will insist on climbing into the wheelie bin & rescuing washing & my freshly painted chairs from a freak hail storm that came from nowhere! Life is never dull!]

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Psalm 46

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God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

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Sunday Gingerbread

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The kids had fun in their groups during church this morning decorating gingerbread people. Above we have Joseph, in his technicolour dream coat, a person dressed as a ghost & what was meant to Bee Mario but who, to quote the creator, turned into a Bikini Babe (!!) because Bee Mario was too difficult!!image

And here is another version of Joseph with his rainbow coat in magnificent jelly tot glory, with some of his brothers. They enjoyed the creativity of the project & were very pleased with their efforts. Now that we are home, everyone is enjoying eating them. Delicious!

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An Abundance of Green

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The weekly grocery delivery arrived this afternoon & I have just unpacked it. It seems that I forgot to double check my order before the cut off time because I have three huge bags of spinach & 200g of fresh basil as well as an abundance of courgettes!! I must have clicked the items more than once without realising they’d been added. It was no small task to fit everything into the fridge I can tell you! Good job we love our greens eh?! 😉

We are very lucky to be blessed with so much good food to nourish our bodies.

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First Fruits

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Humble beginnings, but we are mighty pleased with our home grown produce! The birds have been eyeing up our berries so I was a little enthusiastic in picking the two gooseberries! I learnt quickly from my mistake & left the others on the bush. I’m really pleased with the gooseberry bush as it survived being in a pot for well over a year as well as a cross country home move! Our gardening friend said it couldn’t bear fruit in a pot but to her surprise, it had! Now it’s thriving planted out in a sunny part of our garden with the fence to grow up. Aah! It’s like the being on The Good Life. We just need a couple of hens & a goat……. 😉

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Picnics & Peonies

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Wednesdays in the vicarage are always busy. It’s the day the Vicar & I lead a group of mums & their preschool kids in bible study. At the moment we are using the Play Through The Bible resource by Alice Buckley alongside Tom Wright’s Luke for Everyone commentary & bible guide. This may seem an unlikely mix but it’s working really well & is a LOT of fun!

today we couldn’t use the church centre so we took our bible study out to the park. As the topic was the feeding of the 5,000 we decided we would take a picnic with us. It was a good time, although we didn’t really do much studying! But the company & conversation was uplifting & the fresh air was reviving. (I had to come home & have a nap afterwards though!).

Tonight, whilst buying kale, watercress & spinach for tea, my daughter suggested that we look at the flowers. The peonies that I was eyeing up a few days before but had rejected due to the price were now significantly reduced! So we bought a bunch & I added two buds from our garden to the vase. I’m a little bit excited that we have flowers in our garden that we can cut! (I didn’t want to cut all the flowers, hence the bargain purchase).

And now I am off to supper with the Bishop’s wife! It all seems a bit posh…. I am now questioning my decision to wear jeans & a top. I’ve no idea of the etiquette for these occasions! 🙂

EDIT: needn’t have worried- lots of other jean wearers there tonight!

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Summertime

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We are blessed with a very delightful mature garden here in the vicarage. It’s been sadly neglected over the years but it’s wild, ramshackle look doesn’t make it any less beautiful. June has often been very dull this year but today it is scorching hot & the birds are singing in the trees. I think I can even hear the neighbour humming away as she potters about too. I do love sitting quietly outside & listening to the sounds of summer.

This morning I went to my usual physio Pilates session which is lovely as there are only four of us plus the physiotherapist. Despite the hard work with the physio balls this morning I came back home quite invigorated (who knew hanging upside down over a giant ball could do that!?). The Vicar had an early afternoon meeting so I wanted to make the most of his lunch break & decided to make courgette & watercress soup. It was very quick & rather delicious to eat alongside toasted tofu (much blander than I remembered) & tomato salad. We ate outside, of course which was rather perfect!

Now that the Vicar has gone to his meeting I have been joined by two enormous inquisitive pigeons! There are swallows swooping overhead too. I am loathe to go inside on such a lovely day but I have some prep work to do ready for tomorrow’s mums bible study. Perhaps there is time for a relaxing cuppa first…..

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Good Food

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Food experiments are a huge part of life in the vicarage. Tonight’s tea was a delicious mix of baby kale, spinach, pea shoots (my fave!), watercress, wild rocket, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, red pepper, an assortment of seeds, makerel & homemade lime dressing. It was delicious!

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The Cross

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This morning in church we watched Billy Graham’s film The Cross instead of the usual sermon. I found it very powerful listening to the testimonies of the two people on the film, as well as hearing Billy Graham speak as he is now (aged 95 at the time of filming) as well as seeing archive footage of him preaching over the years. I’ve never heard him speak before which is funny because my husband became a Christian through Billy Graham’s Mission England crusade back in the 80s. The imagery of the carpenter making a rugged cross is special too.

if you fancy watching the film yourself have a look here http://myhopewithbillygraham.org.uk/programs/the-cross/

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