Saturday, May 20, 2006

Gardening Leave

WonderfulVicar has been doing his sums, and worked out that I've been rather bad at taking my leave allocation, and as a result is madly crossing through days in my diary and telling me to go away and relax. Since TeenWonder is in the middle of exams, and school continues as normal for LoudBoy too, actually going anywhere isn't madly practical, but I'm still going to play for the next few days. Off to see OnePedestrian later today (and I don't have to hurry home for church tomorrow) then the dogs should do quite well for exciting outings,- and, if it only stops raining, I might actually get to spend some time in the garden.
Oh dear,- gardening leave? Is WonderfulVicar trying to tell me something?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps as a gentle training incumbent he is trying to say " you should be developing the self-discipline to do this kind of planning for yourself as all too soon you could be working on your own and such lack of time off will gradually diminish your ministry ".
I can say this cos I am enjoying my monthly weekend off (evening and two day break)- even though I know that there is masses to be getting on with in the parish. Perhaps this a priority for the rest of your curacy to learn this? A tired diminished priest is no use to anyone - and there are too many of them. Just having a "day-off" when you get up (late!) and do what you want to do, rather than what you "have to do" is good for you even if family life continues as normal. Blessings

Anonymous said...

Oh hurrah! "Me-time" may be overemphasized by some sectors of society, but the Church often goes to the other extreme (without even meaning to). So enjoy the time you have off and pamper yourself with good books :)

Kathryn said...

Point taken, Tom...though this is WonderfulVicar's own Achilles heel.
But the current situation was certainly not intentional, and I promise I'll try harder to spread time off sensibly through the year.

Anonymous said...

Gardening leave sounds like a wonderful idea, K. I intend to build it into every future employment contract!

For me, that is.

Rick