Whatever happened to 2011?

It hardly seems possible that it is a year today since I last posted anything. During that time I have also been only a rare and occasional visitor to Facebook and Twitter - if I have any online friends left, they probably think I'm dead! My only excuse is that a lot has happened since I dressed up as a schoolgirl for Children in Need 2010!

December is, of course, always a busy time for a Vicar, but things usually calm down a bit in the New Year. This year was different! Roger was very unwell over Christmas, and diagnosed by two out of hours and emergency doctors with asthma. After the holiday his regular GP decided that he needed an ECG; he was ordered to hospital immediately and fitted with a pacemaker a few days later. Complications meant that he spent nearly three months unable to drive, so I had to fit the role of chauffeur-cum-nurse into my vicaring. It is still scary to think what could have happened if if his GP had been no more astute than her colleagues.

Because the hospital was desperately short of beds, he was allowed home over the weekend while he was waiting for the operation - but only on the strict condition that he did absolutely nothing. It was this weekend that I received an email from the Rector in the neighbouring parish to say that he was moving back to the north of England. This had particular significance, because it had been agreed a couple of years ago that our two groups of parishes would merge when one became vacant. So, while I should have been keeping Roger stress-free and concentrating on delivering him back to hospital in one piece, I had to break the news that we would shortly be looking after nine churches instead of three!

By the time my nursing and chauffeuring duties came to an end, my colleague was saying his fond farewells to the churches of Upton-upon-Severn, The Hook, Ripple, Earls Croome, Hill Croome and Strensham, and the parish secretary and I were planning the date to move the office stuff. The office move was necessary because the diocese wanted to sell the large, old, cold Rectory and replace it with something more suited to the 21st century. Moving the office, however, wasn't the only move I had to undertake.

To help with the workload, I gained an extra part-time colleague, and it was agreed that the most practical arrangement, for all sorts of reasons, was that he should move into Hanley Swan Vicarage, where we had lived for the past 10 years. Since it takes time to sell one house and buy another, we have moved into a house that the diocese owns a few miles outside the parishes that I'm caring for. It's a lovely house in a very nice village, but long-term I do need to live on the patch, so this is only a temporary place to lay our heads.

The office move was also only temporary. A small space had been created in the Church Rooms, but it was little more than a storage area and we still had to find some suitable premises. We now have a shop in Upton High Street, which sells Christian books, gifts and fair-trade items, as well as housing the office. It gives us a much more visible presence and makes it easy for everyone to find out what's going on in the churches. There is a Baptist and a Roman Catholic church in Upton as well, and we are working with them to make it a genuinely ecumenical venture. Now, if we could just get the phone sorted out............

I'm fortunate in having a fantastic team of lay and clergy colleagues, since no-one could manage five parishes and nine churches single-handed, but as you can see I haven't exactly been idle, wearing hats ranging from nurse to shopkeeper. Perhaps my schoolgirl outfit last year was the preparation!

Role reversal at school

To raise money for the BBC's Children in Need appeal, the children of St Gabriel's with St Mary's Church of England School challenged me to come to school dressed as a schoolgirl, and they all came dressed as vicars.

Guess who!!!

The RE co-ordinator looking the part!

Two holy dinner ladies.

The staff were a great gospel choir!

The head in the guise of an altar boy??

Rev Pudsey, our first ordained bear and..

our first woman bishop??

Two reverend gentlemen

Lots of fun and....

lots of cakes!

(I made 250 and they were all gone by the end of the day!)

Country life

This picture of me at the Diocesan Rogation Service a few weeks ago appeared on the Worcester Diocesan website recently. It's not exactly flattering, but was so great for my street-cred (field-cred??) as a rural vicar that I couldn't resist asking for a copy to put on the blog.

My life is still being ruled by Thea. She is getting bigger every day and is now very strong! We went to the first of series of training classes on Tuesday. She wasn't any worse behaved than most of the puppies there, but she was BIGGER than most of them, which made it very noticeable!

We're enjoying the beautiful weather here in rural Worcestershire and the farmers are all busy getting their hay cut - which means you can't drive very far without meeting a tractor and trailer. On narrow country lanes this requires a whole different set of skills to driving on the motorway!

Another traffic hazard is that the Highways people are re-surfacing the road through the village. I think that, at the moment, most of the villagers would have been quite happy if the scheme had been a victim of expenditure cuts!! What I can't work out is why it takes two people to operate the swtich on the traffic lights - especially since there is also a convoy vehicle sheperding us through them. Every time I go through, there is one man talking on a walkie-talkie, presumably to the convoy driver, and another one standing watching him!

The latest member of the family!

Some people have been asking why I've been spending less time online lately. This is the reason - she thinks that working at the computer is a waste of good playing time!

Her name is Thea (short for Theodora Episcopa, who may have been a woman bishop in the early Roman church). She is now twelve weeks old and very lively.

Easter Flowers

We have very talented people who arrange flowers in all our churches, and this Easter those in Hanley did us especially proud with a wonderful display at St Gabriel's Church. The lilies are paid for by people who generously give donations in memory of loved ones - or just to ensure that we have a lovely display.

Easter Garden

The Easter Garden at St Gabriel's Church, Hanley Swan, celebrating Jesus's Resurrection.

Is it the Mad Monk?

No, it's just our Deputy Churchwarden and Bellringer, John Boardman, ringing the bell to call the faithful to Church!