How to Be a Modern Vicar's Wife

Marriage to a vicar is a science. It requires mastery of the hot water urn, for tea fuels parish life. It requires dexterity with chrysanthemums and an encompassing memory for human biology. At the church flower festival I display all of these. I swill glasses, tweak blooms and enquire after a spectrum of parish ailments. I'm balancing a spire of dirty plates when an old lady clutches my arm. 'I'm so glad you're not a typical vicar's wife,' she says. 'Fifty years ago you'd have been a slave to the parish, but you - you just do your own thing!'

The picture below is the prompt this week's 100 Word Challenge from Julia. It reminded me of my weekly rendez-vous with the church tea urn, the power behind the prayer, and, particularly, a disconcerting reaction as I toiled over the buffet lunch during last year's flower festival. 


Comments

  1. Anonymous26 June 2012 at 20:03

    I think vicar's wives did used to have a reputation for being a bit stuffy, they seemed to be when I was young! Your post reminds me of the Alpha courses I used to do and the tea urns that always posed a problem because I generally forgot to switch them on!

    CJ x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron26 June 2012 at 21:03

    I may or may not be stuffy, but it amused me that she chose the moment that I was doing what every typical vicar's wife has done down the decades to tell me that I just please myself!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous26 June 2012 at 21:52

    Makes me think of our rector's wife - aside from organizing the acolytes and making sure somebody's supervising the children's chapel, most weeks she has to run downstairs and get the big urns set up for coffee hour! Well, somebody has to do it...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron26 June 2012 at 22:17

      I regard them as essential ballast. Would feel adrift without one.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous27 June 2012 at 21:16

    Interesting how they think you do nothing, if they only thought for a moment.

    Love the picture!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron27 June 2012 at 21:34

      Actually, I can hardly claim to over-exert myself for the parish and the old lady evidently intended her remark as a compliment, but it was an odd moment to pick as I was clearing the table where she sat awaiting the pudding I would bring!

      Delete
  5. A Little Light Work27 June 2012 at 21:31

    It's like being a parent. When kids don't want to go to school and say 'It's all right for you, staying home and doing what you like all day'. Couldn't you do a little light work??!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Molly28 June 2012 at 07:34

    I can so clearly see you pouring the tea and chatting to the parishioners. What about the cake though? Where's the cake?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron28 June 2012 at 09:21

      I bake every Friday. 'No wonder he spat it out!' beamed a mother one week taking a bite. And 'Did you forget the baking powder?' said another the following week. So our church is propped up, in the main, by Bourbon Creams.

      Delete
  7. Iota 1 July 2012 at 15:51

    Did I ever confess to you that I, too, am a vicar's wife? Though Husband is no longer a parish minister, so I don't know if it counts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron1 July 2012 at 17:15

      I didn't know that, no. Bet you were a wonder with the tea urn!

      Delete
    2. Iota 2 July 2012 at 10:40

      Tea has always been my forte. Wasn't so good with people, though.

      Have enjoyed the freedom of 6 years in role of university professor's wife (ie, no role at all). Am now about to take on role of school chaplain's wife. Any tips for me (apart from the PG ones)?

      Delete
    3. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron2 July 2012 at 20:50

      I was only a school chaplain's wife for 11 months, but I think the key is to buy a big hat, wear a big smile and keep out of the way.

      Delete
    4. Iota 4 July 2012 at 23:15

      Big hat... Right-oh!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more