Sunday 21 November 2010

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!)

Thursday 24 June 2010

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!

Wednesday 26 May 2010

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.

Saturday 10 April 2010

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!