Adventures of a Middle-Aged Matron

A year ago this month my mother was run over on a zebra crossing while on her way home from work. She was not expected to survive her injuries and her family was summoned to her bedside to bid farewell. When, miraculously, she awoke from her coma she was no longer the cheerful matriarch who had been planning the family Christmas. She was the terrified prey of Russian spies whom she reckoned were trying to kill her. She was trapped in a prison cell and clinging to the wreckage of a sinking ship. She hung from my neck begging me to rescue her; she wept over imaginary parties that her family had failed to turn up to. There is not enough evidence to charge the driver with dangerous driving. Instead, he is to be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention. But here's the bombshell: there is no offence in law of causing injury by careless driving. Drivers can be charged with causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving or with causing death by careless driving. Bu...

'You're not a typical vicar's wife,' says the churchwarden as I'm manipulating the tea urn for church refreshments. 'You're not a typical vicar's wife,' says the sacristan as I'm piling dirty plates at the end of a parish lunch. 'Noone would guess you're married to a vicar,' says a Sunday school mother, watching me help a brace of toddlers to bring the gospels to life with a pile of Whiskas boxes. I am coming to the conclusion that they are right. At ministerial training college, where ordinands learn to be priests, there are no courses to prepare their spouses for the fine art of being a clergy wife. Often these spouses are creatures in shock having married a banker or a publican before the Calling came. They had lived in houses of their own choosing on secular salaries, baked cakes only on their childrens' birthdays and had lie-ins on Sundays. My Vicar was already completed when I married him so I knew what I was letting m...