Christmas 2023

Christmas 2023 Harvington Final Draft (Possibly)

Happy Christmas everyone. 39 issues of year-end non-news and I don't think we've ever started there. Obviously, having retired, we have more time for gentle pondering, quiet consideration, thought-through responses and I think I'll tidy the garage today.

'There are a couple of red stoles in the vestry; borrow one of those.'

This was a church's solution to the Steve-never-having-owned-a-red-stole problem. At least it would have been if the choice hadn't been between one that the moths ate having first bathed in bleach or a worn-out tattered and faded one with bits hanging off (the better one). After the service a member of the congregation asked if she could take it home to fix it.

Rural life tip 1: look sad for long enough and someone will help

Madeira

Go to the pub with the vicar who has lived in the village for over 20 years and everyone who passes your table will talk to him. You will spend lot of time looking at your phone.

After many years of Gozoing we worked out that it was the familiarity that made it a place for a relaxing holiday in the middle of two busy jobs. No longer necessary. Having heard lots of friends big up Madeira we spent a brilliant two weeks there this summer. Because we're more traditionalist than we thought we were, we're going back in 2024.

Where is the fine line between tribute act and classical canon? We ask because we enjoyed a bunch of very talented musicians perform the music of Mike Oldfield, including the whole of Tubular Bells and it felt like neither.

Live comedy was provided by Stewart Lee and Mark Steel (who played the piano in the interval). Reminded us of seeing Spike Milligan live and he and his accompanists played jazz at the end of the show 'And we'll keep doing it til you all F off home.'

Now we live near the RSC we got to see Julius Caesar and As You Like It. Both productions entertained us although some critics were unimpressed by the directors' liberties. Maybe we're less traditionalist than we thought we were.

Ford

People of the village who are organised can take advantage of the library van (4th Friday, once a volunteer can be found), Royal Mail van (every Friday), fish and chip van (every other Wednesday) and scrap metal van (various Sunday afternoons). If you can also hold brown, green and black bin days in your head you're made.

Rural life tip 2: find the binfluencers

We have friends who would live a mile away if it wasn't for the river. There's a ford but it hasn't been used much since bridges. The friends are moving further away but that will make the journey shorter.

Harvington is probably derived from Herefordtun, which means settlement (ton) where army (here) can cross (ford) the river. Avon means river so it is the River River. Steve worked out he grew up near the Bourn Brook, which means Brook Brook. It's amazing what you learn when you have time (are a pedant - ed).

Rural life tip 3: it may only come half way up the ducks but it's still deep

We are in an area of the Vale of Evesham called The Lenches. A lench? Glad you asked. There's a Church one. A Rous one. An Atch one. A Sheriffs one and an Ab one. It means ridge. You can work out the rest for homework. There is a Lenches walking group. We joined and met a Labour Councillor, which was a surprise since a blue-rosetted skunk would get a majority here.

Liz went on a Zoë diet. Once a monitor had been attached to her arm which reported to a mobile app she ate weird combinations of stuff for two weeks. Steve now has a list of stuff she can't eat. Maybe the phone gives shock therapy if she enjoys a meal. Luckily Steve does the cooking so... (insert punchline). Liz decorated. Steve did mood boards.

Dining Room Mood Board

The genetic time-bomb went off. Steve bowed to the inevitable hearing aids. We turned the tele down. Now he removes those plus teeth and glasses at night. 'The bedside table has more interesting bits of you now'. It's not only the stoles that are tattered and faded with bits hanging off. Liz wins joke of the year but it's nice to have a repeatable one which last happened in 1993:

St: Talk dirty to me

Liz: Allotment

The number of worshippers at Abbots Morton is usually low. Steve arrived first to preach and preside. Nobody there. Church locked. Eventually a warden and a musician dawdled along, accompanied by dogs. There was a minor panic at 10.59 when a member of the congregation pitched up but we managed to cope. Uncommon Worship anyone?

Rural life tip 4: the dogs have regular pews and are territorial

We popped back to Nailsea for the fifth Trendlewood Community Festival. It was great to see the team do the biggest festival so far without our having any duties. We stopped the previous night in a slightly disappointing pub and drove home having caught up with loads of old friends. We felt relaxed.

Dining Room

This followed the Harvington Festival, aggregate attendance 499,500 short of Woodstock but a good effort by a small village.

Grandson Lowen now uses words. Steve is Grandpa-car-no-roof. Liz is Granny rain because it always does when we turn up.

RSPB cat scarers don't scare deaf cats. These require the old fashioned technique of aiming a stone at the fence just above them and occasionally missing.

Space left here for Rural life tip 5 when invented

The hearing aids were free but we spent a grand on glasses. We're fashion victims alright. Did we say Merry Christmas to all of you? We did. What a waste of words.

St and Liz

Christmas 2022

400 metres from Warwickshire

We sent a change of address card to our Christmas address list. If you missed out please email, tweet, message or WhatsApp.

The thing they don't tell you about downsizing is that even though you got rid of half your furniture, in order to move into a house half the size, the half you kept will look odd in a smaller house.

Furthermore, much as we loved our wooden former shop display cases and dressers this house is not piney. We liked them when they worked. Now we don't.

Downsizing tip 1 - start early

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. After a leaving do from the church which left Steve in need of counselling, he finally retired in January. Then, because our retirement property wasn't ready, we found ourselves renting out Trendlewood Vicarage for a few months, eventually moving in October.

This was a disappointing start to retirement but, lifting up a narrative trapdoor and finding two positives hiding away, it meant that Ben had a bit longer to find his own place (which he did) and we were able to give away our possessions more slowly. 30 years of corks found a good home.

Ben also managed to rent some personal studio space in Bristol which pleased him. Check out:

@UmargaMusic (pronounced OOH-MAR-GA)

First 2 EPs (LiBL001 & 002) distributed by @unearthedsounds

Downsizing tip 2 - get rid of lodgers and try to send them away with furniture

Liz's birthday breakfast: Teatro Lounge, Clevedon

We promised ourselves a longer holiday post-Christmas and had an enjoyable two weeks in a snug cottage in the centre of Castle Combe. It was the sort of place where tourists look in the windows but it was nice to pretend to live there.

The Church of England's Property Dept were so apologetic for taking 39 weeks over a 17 week job they agreed to pay our removal fees. We spent it on bespoke shelving and a flat-screen wall-mounted TV just in time for the World Cup. Lucky eh? Almost bought some Scooby-Doo wardrobe doors. May still. Look it up.

Downsizing tip 3 - having less space is flippin' expensive

For the six weeks after we arrived we had regular visits from the lovely Mo and his team from Leicester who supplied to the wrong specification, fitted in the wrong place, set up, set up, set up and put online our smoke detection equipment. We seriously wonder if the Property Department (who won't let us have a gas fire, steps in the garden or, allegedly, draughts) have fitted cameras now. If they have we hope they enjoyed last Tuesday evening as much as we did.

Harvington has two shops, two churches and two pubs. The best shop is a farm shop 400 metres away. Popping out for some milk can cost £20 plus if you find meat pastry products, chocolate and cheese alluring. The other shop, a convenience store, is run by a family who find customers an inconvenience.

At the Parish Church the liturgical content is undemanding with snatches of gob-smacking brilliance. Worth the wait. However 'Jesus is bord in Bethlehem' suggests the need for a proof-reader. The people are lovely. The other church is a Baptist Church and therefore wrong.

We go to the Coach and Horses. The Golden Cross has the footie and good beer but also a load of sweary men who consider people who arrived here since 1992 as newcomers not to be trusted. The Coach and Horses do stuff and chips quite well and cheaply, plus Butty Bach, Landlord and HPA.

We got back to lovely Gozo after three years to find that our friend Jason had sold Xlendi Tourist Services three weeks before lock-down 1. He is a charmed entrepreneur. Nicolette and Steve, who bought the business, are equally friendly but are struggling to get the cash flow back up. They can make more money out of short lets to large mainland Maltese families. We note that all Gozitan farm houses have a second, nastier set of chipped crockery in a cupboard for such parties. Now we don't need two weeks of sun and relaxing reading quite so much we may move on for our summer holidays. But Gozo has been a great place for us. We will return.

Possibly a Dad joke has occurred

Our grandson Lowen gave us much joy over the year. Jon and Carys moved to Frome, which suits them greatly. Everyone in Frome either opens an Etsy business or a bespoke bakery eventually. It's cool in a vegan steampunk sort of way.

We used to own three dining room tables. Jon and Carys took one. We gave one away in Nailsea and travelled with the smallest one, the one we liked the least. It was too big. Gave it away and bought a new one.

Downsizing tip 4 - having less space is ridiculously expensive

So we got here and are settling down. Liz is doing all the decorating because 'It needs doing properly this time' which, coincidentally, is why Steve does the cooking, washing, ironing, shopping and is in charge of the bins. If that joke makes the cut Liz will be ill. We have a doctor (who called Steve in because the alcohol survey suggested he drank too much), a dentist, some new friends and are caught midway between two Waitroses which is a cause of middle-class angst as well as a potential Country and Western song. Steve has a gym; Liz a pilates class. We helped out at the Christmas Fair and are now signed up to do so until the day we die because of Liz's genius at children's craft and Steve's faked enthusiasm for splat-the elf. We bought a hot composter which is cool. Until it gets hot it greatly adds to the world's stock of fruit flies. Garden birds are now being fed and cats discouraged although the one that used to live here is dead confused.

Late news. The visit to the surgery to discuss alcohol ended with the surgery's algorithm being adjusted. Apparently Steve doesn't drink too much but 'Most patients lie; you didn't'. Don't the doctors look young these days?

We now have more time and may visit you. Be on your guard. Now, back to the footie.

Downsizing tip 5 - get your priorities right

St and Liz

Christmas 2021

Christmas 2021 from @s1eve and @LizTilley9
Trendlewood Vicarage, Nailsea

Liz: How's the Christmas letter going?

St: Oh you know, despair, hopelessness, inadequacy.

Liz: Finding it difficult?

St: No, it's finished.

We've been using the R word a lot this year. Liz R'd in July and Steve has a month to go before he R's.

Steve's Mum took #Mumwatch to the Pearly Gates in June where she is currently explaining to St Peter he looks nothing like he does on the tele. We scattered her ashes at Jacquie and Nick's place (pictured).

The Pony Bistro, Bedminster offered a cook-it-at-home Valentine's Dinner. This involved working together on a meal. We almost loved it.

We did, as presaged last year, finally talk to the Diocesan Counsellors' Group, as an example of a couple whose marriage had resilience. Then the year chose to provide us with a number of new opportunities to be resilient. Could have guessed.

Ben, expected wedding abandoned for appropriate reasons, decided to relocate to Bristol and so has been living with us since March. Sony's international releases are now co-ordinated from bedroom 5. He also has bedrooms 4 and 3 but a Sky Sports subscription makes up for it (in the eyes of one of us).

We had a holiday in Cornwall courtesy of our friends Ian and Jo. One of the reasons we enjoy leaving the country for the middle two weeks of June is hay-fever. Finding himself living next to a field of wild grass Steve did the only thing a reasonable person would have done in the circumstances and spent his holiday watching the Euros with occasional breaks to eat out in Fowey. The wander down to the ferry from Polruan was lovely. The post-prandial walk back gave us calf muscles of steel.

The house we stayed in was called Chy Lowen which we had to look up to discover was Cornish for House of Joy. This meant that we were able to be knowledgable when Jon and Carys produced our first grandchild, a boy, in September and called him Lowen. House is a funny name for a kid but we'll get used to it.

Liz's Facebook updates from empty trains over lock-down proved exceptionally popular. Viral even. One person said they didn't get out of bed until they'd read her weather report from Nailsea and Backwell eastbound. Sample of the quality of photojournalism pictured. On her last day of work her friends all went to the station to surprise-wave goodbye.

As many of you will have also experienced we started auditioning as pin-cushions in February and have now been stabbed four times each. Don't recommend getting your flu jab in the last hour of the day as we felt a bit of the nurse's desire to get home for tea taken out on our arms.

The fourth Trendlewood Community Festival was an utter joy and we topped 2,000 on site for the first time. The opening musical act scared a few people by being a bit prog-rocky but it all calmed down to village fête chic after a bit.

Street Parties were the new black and we had two. Last year's minor ceremony to switch on two streets' Christmas lights was so successful we did it again with mulled stuff and pizza ovens so obviously it's now a thing on the local social calendar.

Norfolk Broads were a new experience for us. Apart from staying in a cottage where every bit of spare wall or shelf had been taken up by a piece of driftwood repurposed as motivational slogan, it was fine. We left a little gift of repositioned letters. Never looked uphill to see boats before. The EU grant to regenerate Great Yarmouth market area has not been returned as unnecessary, surprisingly. Wonder where they'll put the plaque?

Harvey the rescue greyhound came to stay. Life is basically a lure. He camouflaged well on the sofa, on which he wasn't allowed but if you dropped your guard...

Replacement vicar has arrived so we get, unusually, to have a seamless transition between ministries. In case you haven't kept up, the half of Steve's job which involves leading Trendlewood Church is being attached to the parish next door. The half of his job that involves working with other local churches is on hold for financial reasons. The half of his job that involves being Area Dean of Portishead is likely to be taken on by two people. Makes him look pretty useful really, which is hard to bear.

Steve enjoyed his last year as Area Dean. His suggested strategy for the future is for all parishes to name their unreasonable parishioners and then they will either be shared out equitably or offered a nice house in the newly created parish of St Wedothingsourway. Not sure it has legs but it might make a good short story.

Throughout the year we stayed in regular contact with CHARM (Clergy Housing At Retirement Ministry). We found a nice house in Harvington, near Evesham and we will hopefully move there next year. Completion has taken a while because the sellers are buying a new build and it isn't, yet. Fingers crossed for 20th December when they have agreed to move out whatever. Then the CHARM gang need to make it safe for us to grow old in without having a tumble or gassing ourselves.

Did we mention that our R-word financial manager was called Richard Whittington? He's just told us he's retiring. There's a complex punchline there for someone to find.

May all the stuff of the thingy be yours in large dollops. We're off to a business meeting with live entertainment, buffet food and the odd game. 

St and Liz

Christmas 2020

Christmas 2020 from @s1eve and @LizTilley9 (@tilley_liz has been archived)
Trendlewood Vicarage, Nailsea

Hands up if you’ve had a good year? Hmmm. What’s been the matter? All that time moaning about needing space and time and then you complain about it. No pleasing some people.

Of course that was insensitive but none of the readers who have died will be bothered. Especially Liz's Mum. She went early so we could fit the wake in. Passing away on Liz's birthday was mean but it was nice to inherit those whiskey tumblers. St Peter about to be introduced to canniness.

After the post-funeral party we worked out it was one of the few occasions when all the Bill side of the family were together in one place; thus the photo, with thanks to the competent photographer on the other side of the family (cheers Jac). Liz is now the matriarch. Comes as a shock to those of us who thought she always was. Steve met a previous girlfriend at the door of the church and managed to pull off a failure to instantly recognise her and lament a lost alternative life, with some style. Sadly, having written it up, all is lost. That was the high-spot of the year until Ben and Shona had some news. 

We have been invited to talk to the Diocesan Counsellors' Group, who spend a lot of time with clergy having marriage difficulties. They wanted (don't laugh) an example of a couple whose marriage had resilience. Tempted for only one of us to arrive, holding a bloody bread knife.

Who makes the bed in your household?
Whoever gets up second unless Steve gets up first.

Zoom Chapter, Webex Church Council, online Synod. It’s all a bit much. We’re with the worship-leading vicar who lost his screen-share when changing vocal mic, lost the vocal mic when he restored the screen-share, then said FFS not quite sotto voce enough into the mic that was still functioning. ‘Thanks for being human’ was the sort of forgiving feedback a bishop would give. She did.

Our elderly neighbour suggested the fence needed work. Liz offered to pull all the overgrown ivy off it to make life easier for the eventual fencers. She did. The fence fell down. Neighbour got five quotes and said she wanted to go with the most expensive one because she’d used him before. Diocesan property department found this concept hard to grasp. Fence is propped up, a visual aid of impasse.

Retail year. Half of it furloughed. The rest spent trying to explain to the Lakeland demographic why you should keep your mask on during the till transaction. Not easy. Still, Lakeland takings are up and Liz's job is secure as long as she wants to be a call-handler in Windermere. The train journeys to Bath are quiet these days. Except for her stalker who finds a woman in beanie, glasses and mask singly alluring. Platform announcement 'The customer standing by herself on Platform 1 requires the 7.29 to Bath Spa. The man she wishes to avoid is in carriage D.'

Some years ago we divided our world into projects and decided who was in charge of each of them. This worked well until Liz had more time. Now-at-home she began re-organising Steve’s various areas of responsibility leading to the top three conversation starters in the house:

Where did you put the...?
What happened to the...?
Is there an area of kitchen work surface I can use for supper?

Our home life now embraces sour-dough starter, lino-cuts, landing-based pilates classes and a study door with a sign for when recording is taking place. Credit to Liz though (grudgingly offered, obviously) for becoming a food-bank volunteer and then a community buddy.

Clearly this was a dress rehearsal for retirement and one of us needs to order a shed. Anyone got a house they don’t need we can put it next to?

Who makes the supper in your house?

Whoever gets home first unless Liz gets home first. 

One joy this year has been getting to know our local streets a bit better. Every footpath has been trodden, all mountains climbed (see 2019) and all byways followed. No dreams discovered, sadly. Walking for an hour a day is good for bad backs. We knew that. Needed a global pandemic to get us out (into a very beautiful valley which we have under-appreciated).

Our little local community of Vynes Way and Crewkerne Close formed a lock-down WhatsApp Group which led to a VE day socially-distanced street party, a stay-in-your-front-garden Act of Remembrance and a ceremony to switch on our Christmas lights. Being a vicar of two streets is about Steve's level. Liz has re-merchandised the window of our front room but the new outdoor lights worked once then gave up. We know how they feel.

West Brom won promotion but it was hard to get emotional in July without a crowd. Anyway Steve knew what was coming next. Maybe they can emulate the Villa and, due to VAR failure, scrape 17th. 'Sorry, none of our six cameras, the ref or the lino could see the obvious goal. Have a point. Oh, it was what you needed to stay up. Good.'

Lock-down can go two ways and after several months of both working from home in a one bedroom flat Ben and Shona got engaged. Whoop! Rarely seen exclamation mark makes an appearance. 22nd October 2021 now ringed in diary.

Nailsea made the national news three times in June. Firstly, while our Bristol neighbours were chucking Colston in the Floating Harbour, someone 'vandalised' our statue of Adge Cutler by putting googly eyes on him. Outrage. Then a bus got stuck under the railway bridge. It was a new bus and not in service. Destination display pictured. Thirdly, the local racist community covered some shop windows with 'It's OK to be White' posters. Maybe they felt threatened by our town's 3% ethnic minority population.

If you want to make a donation to Children in Need do it on the mobile account your husband pays. He won't mind for he can cope with all manner of abuse as long as he can write jokes about it. He won the Nailsea Community Group weekly joke competition twice. He wrote the newest twenty years ago. Maybe you could work backwards from the punchlines: 1. Fission chips. 2. A weigh-in in a manger.

Why are you looking at me like that? What are you doing with that knife? You'll have to write next year's letter and you'll probably lose our reader. Go on, give it to me, gently now...

Happy Christmas to you all from the grieving widow

Christmas 2019

Christmas 2019 from @s1eve and @tilley_liz

This has been going on for 35 years. Ta, if you've been with us all the way. There's a blogged archive should you feel the need. Google it. There was a really good joke around 2003.

We have been in Nailsea for thirteen years now. Unlucky for some.

Lovely local guy (LLG) has just finished fitting a new carpet on the stairs and landing. It is making us happy. The previous carpet had made several determined efforts to kill us and was looking more coffee coloured than its manufacturers intended back in the, oh we don't know, say 1890s and, as LLG put it, 'They don't make that underlay anymore, it disintegrates.' The new rule is that coffees must be taken upstairs on a lipped tray but this plays havoc with the Liz left Steve right rule to make sure we get the right kind of milk. Cos' she bought a circular lipped tray, that's why. Why would someone do that?

Many fine things have happened this year and we are in extraordinarily fine spirits. No, it's no good, we can't keep that up but backs recover, teeth can be refitted and lost make-up bags and watches can be found in places like the fridge and the washing basket. Plus, if any GWR executives are found dead we will only be two of about a quarter of a million suspects.

Back in January we went wassailing for the first time. Our conservative evangelical friends (to avoid ambiguity, the word 'friends' is technical term) will now be praying for us vigorously. In fact it's quite a laugh, a cross between a panto and a low-key exorcism with mulled cider. The evil spirits have now left the orchard (oh no they haven't).

That month it was a privilege to be guests at the Nailsea Mountain Rescue Team's annual dinner where a new motto was launched - Liberandum non est bonum. Steve takes his duties as chaplain to this organisation very seriously and often spends longer preparing his address than his BBC Radio Bristol thoughts for the day. Don't tell Breakfast with Emma.

A glance back at the diary shows that if it ever falls into enemy hands translation will be an expert job. Have a go at IME for TIs (Wells). Or perhaps LMG EP (NMC). Not forgetting CTINAD. Also ADMPG (Saltford). Liz's diary is easier beginning each day, as it does, with 'Try to catch train to work' and ending with vodka. She is still sort of running Lakeland Bath from a defensive midfield position without the captain's armband.

Liz's Mum hit the bucket (beat) list quite hard and went to the garden centre on the back of a Harley having died (beat) her hair red. We are impressed with the idea of growing old disgracefully. Talking of which we saw Clive James in Cheltenham shortly after 9/11. He offered the wonderful thought that any man with sense would trade 72 virgins for one woman who knew what she was doing. Amen. RIP. One other RIP was D Wayne Love of the Alabama 3 (there's at least 8 of them and they're from Brixton) who, quite unexpectedly given his apparent lifestyle, made it to 59 before croaking. Off to see the band without him soon.

Wells Palace

Trendlewood Church reached the age of 30 with a bit of a do and a cake. A quiz with one question for each of the last 30 years is available. Steve fell into the car boot whilst loading stuff in and this pretty much wrecked the next four months. Mind you, it's much easier getting out of a gig if you have a stick. Also no church meetings end with table-stacking. Plaudits to TCMT for carrying all the luggage across an airport four times. She struggled with the idea that her husband started to feel better after the fourth one.

Steve discovered that although Church of England clergy are not allowed to take weddings off church premises this rule only applies in England. Registration is a devolved matter and so it was brilliant to conduct our friends Dave and Pam's wedding in a hotel in Ballynahinch. Standing in the middle of the room between the Protestants and the Catholics he suggested that in previous years this might have made him uneasy. After a short pause the laughter came as a relief. Our Belfast friends Ali and Graham hospitalitied us for the weekend to a very high standard. Good craic, as they might say.

Entertainment provision this year by Wildwood Kin, Adrian Younge, Easy Star All Stars, Metronomy, Vervain. Also Masterchef, The Repair Shop (could someone take England in), Dicte, Line of Duty and His Dark Materials.

We will brush over the Villa play-off semi-final victory on penalties. Well, 50% of us will. The dreadful EFL on Quest has to be watched on an ipad because the TV signal is rubbish.

This football's awful isn't it?

Yes, and the programme lasts so long.

(Woody Allen did that joke better)

Steve reached the age of that Beatles song. Untruths in it include:

• I could be handy, mending a fuse...
• Sunday mornings go for a ride...
• Doing the garden, digging the weeds... 

Barney

Barney came to stay a couple of times. He labrador, black and delightful. He had a bit of a breakdown when, having seen Steve walk out the door, he heard him on the radio some minutes later and ran round the house trying to locate the voice. Barney was with us last Christmas and got the 'I've never had anything to eat, ever' look pretty much sorted. He also kept the occasional feline visitors to the garden on their toes. Diesel popped in for one night only. His owners have relocated to Devon.

We went to Dulverton on the edge of Exmoor for a pleasant spring week and Eardisland in Herefordshire for autumn. Both delightful places, the latter a converted stable in the grounds of the Old Vicarage. Arrived in this job 200 years too late. Went to Morning Prayer in Eardisland where there were no Bible readings, which makes wassailing seem positively Christian. Summer involved Gozo, reading, eating, swimming and rehabilitation. 

Us, to Jason (Gozitan travel agent): If we've left the EU by June?

Jason: If we're at war with Britain by then, come and be on our side.

It turns out that, for a small country, the Maltese know a lot of people who can have you done over, so it's not a bad ploy.

Gozo

After Gerry Adams tweeted how long it took him to get round his house turning off Christmas lights, @realnannysheila replied 'Surely you know someone who can fit a timer?' Tweet of the year award.

Just paid the bill and found out that LLG is Tom. Man who can make doors shorter is Adam. Until he comes the bathroom is open plan.

And so, as Steve embarks on another journey to enquire of local shop-keepers if their boutique was where Liz left her watch, purse, make-up bag and memory cells we sign off and wish you the best of everything.

Let's get this Brexit started, oops, we mean done.

SWMBO and HOS (initialism solutions will be available at Epiphany)

Christmas 2018

Christmas 2018 from @s1eve and @tilley_liz

'So I found you on your back in the bedroom, eyes wide open, bleeding from the head and apparently deceased?'

'So you say.'

'And you'd like me to start the Christmas letter with that?'

'It was important.'

'But I should make it amusing?'

'That's what you do, word-god.'

OK folks, this conversation never happened involving two separate people, but it happened in Steve's head and that's close enough.

If you've had the flu and haven't eaten for three days don't try to get up in the night to go to the loo. Unless you're absolutely certain that bouncing off the wardrobe door and landing on the bedside table will wake your husband, sleeping in the next room to avoid catching the flu. Big up to the BRI A&E. You guys know how to staple a head.

Happy ending. A brain scan revealed one, cuts heal and flu passes. Next.

'Were you really sad when you thought I was dead?'

'Er...'

'Not fast enough. Back to the spare room.'

This year's Christmas letter is sponsored by GWR. We say sponsored. The money goes in the other direction, quaintly. Without their jaw-dropping incompetence Liz would have no after-dinner stories. Anybody want a reserved seat in the part of the train that is too long for the Nailsea and Backwell platform? Fancy moving. Don't expect there to be a door between coach F (too long for Nailsea) and Coach E (Just right). Everyone coming home from Christmas shopping in Bristol? Two carriages will be enough surely? Leaves? Don't get her started on leaves. GWR is run by the wrong kind of people. If caught out by the inability to alight at Nailsea we recommend the Railway Tavern at Yatton as a pleasant place to pass 45 minutes.

Last year we announced that Steve had accepted limited responsibilities under the heading Assistant Rural Dean. At a training event for Assistant Rural Deans, Rural Deans, Area Deans and Assistant Area Deans Steve's Rural Dean colleague announced she was leaving. This led to a rapid escalation to Acting Rural Dean followed by a request from the Bishop to become Rural Dean and then a change of title to Area Dean (keep up at the back). Then, after a fortnight of relative stability, two further local clergy announced they were leaving so, to cut a long story shortish, do any of our clergy pals want a job in Backwell, Nailsea or Long Ashton? On successive nights in February we saw Macbeth at the Tobacco Factory, Reginald D Hunter at the Everyman in Cheltenham and had an enhanced Synod. Tragedy, Comedy, Deanery.

Continuing the theme of confusion varying with the rate of change of nomenclature, the Lay Chair of the Deanery Synod was renamed Lay Dean although every time we say that we are compelled to repeat it three times and sing 'I'm begging of you please don't take my man.'

That is three very niche jokes in three paragraphs. Only Anglican, railway-using country and western fans will get all three. Or the well-read. Our money's on Stephen Lynas (@bathwellschap - great virtual company).

Steve did a Speed Awareness Course. What a strange collection of people in a room with only one thing in common that is. Friend of ours is proudly boasting he is the first person to get on one in a electric car. Still, learned something, not least that Liz has been on two, not that she's competitive.

Welcome back Baggies v Villa which seems to be a fair fight these days. That said West Brom drew by cheating, which upset the claret and blue half of the marriage. The biggest mistake in the World Cup (controversial this) was using that brilliant free-kick routine for one of the unneeded goals against Panama rather than a much needed one against Belgium or Croatia.

Got a new car. Noticed it was RV 18 VKR. May keep that. Slight improvement on previous MF 15 NYH which we recalled in a different way.

Field Music, Calexico and The Blockheads entertained us both. As did an excellent Backwell School production of Chicago and several fine acts at our own little club Nailsea, Cafe Create. Steve went alone to enjoy The Vryll Society, Dan Reed Network (less hair these days but still stormingly, singalong rocky) and, a while after the last time, Keith Christmas, at Nailsea Ring 'O' Bells rather than Birmingham Town Hall supporting Ten Years After. Got a gig programme signed 47 years too late. He also saw Wave Pictures with junior.

Liz had a school re-union which filled our house with love and laughter at breakfast and then filled National Trust Tyntesfield with a load of badly-behaved 62 year old little girls. Steve played 'Here's what you could have won' but declared himself satisfied with his original prize. Which was probably wise given previous conversation.

Gary became a family friend. Gary is a heating and plumbing engineer who chased a leak around the block a couple of times and changed every tank and pipe in the house. Then Steve found the leak in a toilet mechanism. Anyone outdone by Steve's DIY expertise should resign in shame but Gary is knowledgeable about music and good company so that's fine. Gary and apprentice Harvey win the sugar consumption award this year

Steve's Mum made 90. We had a party for 90 minutes until she told us all to get lost. Liz's Mum fell over and broke things. We went on a pre-retirement course where we learned to be afraid of the deadly qualities of tea cosies and slippers. We also met Richard Whittington who helped us sort our finances. Insert own punchline. To settle a dispute we both had hearing tests. Liz says she won, not that she is competitive or would mock the disabled. Spare room?

For ten years we have been writing to every newcomer on the estate welcoming them on behalf of the church, with a response rate of zero. In fact minus one if you count the letter which was scrawled on and sent back. So we decided to give newcomers a cake instead of a letter. It works. Liz, embracing traditional clergy-wife responsibility after 34 years, makes them. Drizzle my lemon baby. We partnered up with CAP (Christians Against Poverty) to help people in debt. Also the local Foodbank. This in a wealthy parish in 2018. Disgrace, not joke.

Liz is still at Lakeland Bath four days a week. After months of being in charge because nobody was (a family trait) she inherited a store manager who she is training well (a family trait).

Our great friend Mike decided to move on from Morecambe and we looked forward to him coming a bit nearer. He got a splendid new job in Beverley which is six miles further away. Met former curate colleague Alison at his induction service and had a great catch up. I should probably call her Bishop Alison now, 'cos she is. Also had first former youth-group member made archdeacon. The fruit of youth work takes a while.

Interesting items that didn't make the cut this year include Brummie Curate, Gozo, Diesel, Nailsea Beer and Cider Festival, Prodigal Arts and Bible Book Club. Enquire if interested.

GT of C & J from St and TCMT

Christmas 2017

Christmas 2017

Thirteen weeks sabbatical and I still do the letter two days before posting deadline. Is bone-idleness genetic? Only deadline panic really helps.

'You know what I have loved about your sabbatical?' Liz speaking now. 'It's spending the evening with you on the sofa zzz zzz zzz snort.'

It is advent. Christmas music is playing in the cafe where this is being begun. I hate joy at this time of year. There is a very ugly dog tied to a radiator. No idea how long it's been here. Could have been months.

Am really in the café to dodge the cleaners who come on a Wednesday. This is where my middle-class angst has delivered me; hiding from people who are being paid to make my life better. Did I flush all the toilets before leaving the house? I'm sure I did.

So we have begun to come to terms with being in our sixties. OK, we have set out the terms. We will not use our Christmas letter to:

Moan about the many bits of us that no longer work

Anticipate retirement

Discuss rail cards or bus passes

Remoan or Trumpet

Liz is enjoying her part-time work at Lakeland Bath although having taken this option in order to reduce her working hours she is frequently up at 5.00 a.m. to get to the shop in time to take in an early morning delivery which has been cancelled without telling her. The good news is that as this is now somebody else's fault it no longer stresses her out.

We note in passing that her old South African holding company employer (the people who owned Cargo) took over Poundland, changed the pricing structure (restoring 'How much is it' to the status of non-silly question), reported a massive loss and saw several senior management arrested in the far east. None of them would be likely to be women.

First Great Western try their best on the stressing out front. Cows on the line (a recent problem) may not be entirely their fault although they tell me fences are an excellent precaution, but late departure due to missing driver has cropped up more than once this year. As has cancelled train due to platform widening.

'This train consists of two carriages' might be one of the most depressing sentences either of us has to listen to week by week.

Returned electrical goods cannot be re-sold to the public due to safety regulations. They are sold off to the Lakeland staff by auction and the money goes to charity. We got a Vitamix. It is a blender gti. Leave it on for ten minutes and it makes house bricks into soup, warming the house the while. If the lead was long enough we could make frozen lake sorbet.

So, sabbatical leave - a three month break from duty this autumn which has been a privilege not many occupations offer. I have written a few new pieces which will be off seeking a publisher shortly (let me know if you are interested, especially if you are, in fact, a publisher). Also tested the welcome in a lot of local churches. Written reports available for a fee.

We try to avoid talk of bereavement round here (the dear, departed Roger would understand) but The Barn at Wraxall closed. The finest drinkers' pub we have ever had the good fortune to live near simply curled up and died last month. Tragedy. Strongly considering trying to buy it. Saturday lunchtime footie and the Guardian will have to be relocated.

Also Maitreya Social shut up shop– a magnificent veggie restaurant in Easton. Is it us?

At least the Pony and Trap at Chew Magna continued to be wonderful and we have an anniversary gift voucher still to spend there. A pre-starter course called 'snack' is a delight.

The local churches once again made a good fist of the election hustings and my colleague James chaired an evening with four of the five candidates. Sadly the missing one was our MP, the International Trade Secretary. He increased his majority from 13,000 miles. I swear if he jumped off a cliff he'd be elected unopposed on the way down. Not many Guardians sell round here.

Trendlewood Church contributed hugely to the third Trendlewood Community Festival. For a population of 2,250 it was pretty impressive to get 1,500 through the gates and an unexpectedly large profit for charity. Steve got to play keys with Rachel Taylor-Beales and even to cover for her as she remembered half way through the tune that she had not put on her harmonica. Liz got to check the temperature of a couple of thousand burgers. Vegetarians love this sort of thing.

Trendlewood Church was granted its independence and there followed a year of doing everything independently for the first time. Including spending our own money. The vicar is more to blame than he used to be although he delegates it when he can.

Whilst not paying enough attention Steve was appointed Assistant Rural Dean. Anxious to avoid tiresome admin and awkward questions about things he knew nothing about he wrote his own job description sticking carefully to things nobody else knew anything about. That said the deanery now has a vision document.

Gigs included Josie Long, David Sedaris, Stewart Lee, Laura Marling (supported by the excellent Ethan Johns) and a particularly strong Tobacco Factory Othello. We also enjoyed another 5x15 where five people speak for 15 minutes on matters on their heart. We enjoyed historian Matthew Green who explained that the advances of seventeenth century thinking were due to disgusting coffee and The Canary editor Kerry-Anne Mendoza (nothing to do with Norwich City and not for those of a right-wing disposition).

The honorary chaplaincy of Nailsea Mountain Rescue Team continues to be undemanding apart from the need to write an amusing after dinner speech annually.

Steve also saw Ghostpoet and, along with Jon, Mercury Rev and the Northern Symphonia. The band seemed happier about the orchestration than the orchestra were about the band. They looked, to a person, as if they would rather be anywhere else. They might have run for it save for the fact that moving the gig from the Colston Hall to the O2 Acadamy delivered more people onto the stage than usual at such venue. The percussionists had to crawl under a keyboard to get in position.

The event of the year was our ruby wedding anniversary. September 10^th marked forty years since Liz walked down the aisle, heavily made up to hide the fact that her cat had slashed her face first thing in the morning. This developed a theme of our marriage as felines were variously shoe-horned into our relationship and then out again due to lack of love from 50%, soon to be 25%, of the hosts, plus apparently fierce dogs and the sound of asthmatic sneezing. She was to get knotted to a man who looks like it was a couple of years before he could get parental permission to marry.

We celebrated by my having the last day of church duties for three months. This meant Liz going to a hog-roast harvest lunch. Vegetarians love this sort of thing.

Curate coming next year. Yabadabadoo. Welcome to Nailsea; a town that swamped a small village in the 1960s is moaning about new housing. Pass the Daily Mail.

HC2U from S and M (Oops) L