The Pickled Vicar

Some time ago I had an idea to build a dollhouse. A church actually....an old English church.

There are many of these churches in England that have long since been abandoned. Many of them get put up for sale and are renovated into private homes...something I always wanted to do.

I have seen others get renovated into mini shopping malls full of little craft type market stalls.

And some get renovated into pubs.....like mine. And the idea for the Pickled Vicar pub was born.

For the Americans reading this, Pickled, is an English term for drunk :-)

I started to convert one of the tab and slot dollhouses but was not at all happy with it and Mick decided to help.

The whole house is somewhat of a saga so I won't bore you with all the details but somewhere along the line we went from a little church to a cathedral type of structure...whose roof beams had been precisely calculated in terms of size and angles to hold the weight of a typical roof for this period. I'd love to tell you how but don't remember...something to do with vector forces if my memory serves me right. Don't ya just love engineers lol.

Then we moved from MN to CA and the whole project got put on hold.

I am sure it will be built. When, I have no idea, but it is such a part of us now that I think we'll do it one day. We have the plans almost completed so perhaps I'll just see if someone can build it for me.

This is a rough idea of what it will look like.

Here are the infamous A frames.

The pub will be set in the late 1970's England. The alter has been converted into a stage and there will be a hippy / folk band playing. Mick is going to set it up so you can hit a switch and real folk music plays :-)

I have collected lots of stuff for this already. After a long search I even have urinals for the men's bathrooms...which will be in the bell tower section of the church.

Anyhow all this waffling brings me to the reason for this post.

I now have my pickled Vicar.

Debie from Piskies and Poppets made him for me. Isn't he just wonderful. You can see her blog post and more pictures of him here

I was really aware of how hard it would be for me to convey my ideas for his character, in words, that she would then get the same image in her head.

But, I have to say she has got him even more perfect than I had in my head. The face, the wobbly legs, the comb over...just perfect.

He is the first doll I have ever owned and I just love him. As does Mick. Hopefully this will get him moving on finishing the plans for me.

So until he has a home, he is quite comfortable on my bookshelf. Given that he is drunk, he needs something to lean on :-)

Eventually he will get a mate. She will be the village slapper. Far past her prime but still trying to pull the men. Unfortunately her reputation precedes her and no one is interested...except the vicar. They are two peas in a pod and as bad as each other.

A match made in heaven.