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
