Chicken clogs and vicars' wives

These past two mornings Jane has been full of concern for our hens. The ground has thawed out - which is good news for me, as it means it’s getting warmer, and in a way is for the chickens as when it’s freezing they stand on one leg to keep the other one warmer. The trouble is the ground is so claggy (does that word exist? If not, it does now, meaning with covered with clinging mud, especially after a thaw.) that the hens’ claws get covered with the clag, and they waddle around with ridiculous but perfectly fitting dark brown clogs. They look, I must admit, enormously heavy, but the hens don’t seem mind their web feet. Better than freezing, I imagine.

Last night, we happened too tune in to ‘Trinny and Susannah meet their match’. Their match this time were the Englsh country ladies, the two fashionistas’ ‘toughest challenge’, floral dresses and WI. Their subjects included the Rev Rosie Harper, a blond-haired but no means dumb vicar in Oxford Diocese married to another vicar. I have a feeling that her husband trained with me, getting us all singing in tune. What I fell to thinking is, how come so many vicars’ wives are so pretty (including mine)? In my experience, they often are. Is it that vicars are so worldly that they look at outer rather than inner beauty? Or is it that they marry women who are so saintly that their inner beauty transforms their outer appearance? Or is the experience of being married to a vicar so awful that God simply makes you beautiful by way of compensation? I know it’s a bit unPC to talk about vicars’ wives, especially in this area where half the clergy are women. I suppose I should talk about vicars’ spouses. The trouble is I’m ill-equipped to judge vicars’ husbands, as I can’t see what women see in some men. Anyway, Trinny and Susannah did a good job on the women, I must say, appearancewise, along with the make-up people and hairstylists - though I have a feeling they remained the same nice people that they always were. After all, a pair of mud clogs on a chicken doesn’t change its nature.