eeny, meeny, miney....moh?

Today C is driving across the country to Ely (Cambridgeshire) to attend his Bishop's Advisory Panel conference—the final, pointy end of interviews, discussion and written papers of the selection process for ordination training in the Church of England.

This marks the 'near' end of about 16 months of interviews, discussion and written papers (as well as prayer and reading) which has been the road so far. This may seem very convoluted and drawn out, but we are really thankful that the process to date has been without anxiety and problem—and in fact surprisingly enjoyable! For this, many thanks go to C's Diocesan Director of Ordinands who has guided him well.

The Conference is 3 days long and in about a fortnight we will hear as to whether C has been given permission to begin study this September. And then the real decision making will start!
"Permission granted" will mean that we will have to decide to 'go ahead' (or not), choose a college to study at for the next 2 years, sell our house in Sydney (or not), buy somewhere to live in whilst we are studying (or not), and work out how to financially provide for ourselves for the next couple of years...amongst a whole lot of smaller decisions.

Hmmm...

We are reminded and comforted by this, this, this and this!
We hope you are you too.

New experience 2

It's been cold (yes! even we admit it and there is evidence—C has been caught wearing LONG sleeves).
Despite this, we took a few days out to go camping. This is what we missed back 'home' in SSJ:




I almost sympathise with the spring flowers trying to establish themselves amongst all that snow. However, we were camping remember?



It looks quite civilised, doesn't it?

Well, it was. At least it was until the sun went and the temperature dropped to freezing. Never has there been two of God's creatures more pathetic as they shook and whimpered in the cold. (C was fine...we're talking about the spaniel and A).
This was despite C's mammoth fire-building exercise. Is it some latent Australian thing that he felt compelled to build a bbq to babel-esque proportions?





And what is with the English describing this as a beach? Pebbles everywhere! Where's the sand? In my opinion, it must be mighty uncomfortable to get pebbles in your swimmers after a long day in the surf.








That said, the spaniel did seem to enjoy it...



Now we back home with some big decisions to make, and be subject to...watch this space.