OK - I write slowly with one hand...

but I'm only 3 days late with the Friday Five posted by Singing Owl this week
I am at a life-changing juncture. I do not know which way I will go, but I have been thinking about the times, people and events that changed my life (for good or ill) in significant ways. For today's Friday Five, share with us five "fork-in-the-road" events, or persons, or choices. And how did life change after these forks in the road?



As an ENFP making decisions is way outside my comfort zone, and often I've evaded the process by hanging on till the choices were pretty much made for me.
Sometimes, though, the moment of decion has been clear


1) I chose my Cambridge college the first time I walked through Great Gate. I had been taken to Cambridge for a weekend by a friend of my parents, whose own parents had settled their on escaping the Holocaust. We spent a lovely day exploring the Backs, and the moment we set foot in Trinity I made up my mind. I was 11, but never seriously believed I would study anywhere else from then on. The arrogance of youth, eh?


2) Buying our house in Great Rissington. We knew our family was outgrowing the terraced S London house LCM and I had moved to on marriage but had been seriously considering a ramshckle red brick Victorian villa near Clapham Common. We had many friends close by, knew the strengths & weaknesses of the local schools & were about to make an offer when we went off to the Cotswolds to house-sit for the Clockmaker's sister. One day we were waiting for a shop to open next to the local estate agents', and in the window was Lower Farmhouse...the Georgian house with an orchard I had always dreamed of. For a week or two that summer, the two possible lives hung equally balanced then we heard that the London house needed serious structural work, a lowish offer on Lower Farmhouse was accepted - and within 3 months we had left city life behind.

3) The summer that I began wrestling with my call to ordination I was invited to stand for election as a county councillor. I was stunned & flattered to be asked & intrigued at the thought of even a small-scale political career- but knew this was an either/or decision. God won!

4) When I began training I was offered a "fast track" option, based on prior theological training as a Reader. That would have allowed me to cover more ground, to study Greek, to emerge with a degree instead of just a dipoloma but it would have meant a journey towards ordination without the deep connections of a consistent peer group. For me, there was really no contest -though when I compare my theological edecation with all that Hugger Steward is exploring in his degree, I cant help feeling a tad wistful.

5) Just after I was Deaconed, Liz & Steve invited me to view their blogs...I knew that I ought to have said "no thanks...I must pour all my energy into the new life here" but, I thought, it couldnt hurt to look. Then I wanted to comment, & commenting seemed rude if I had nowhere to receive commments in my turn. So one day with a couple of hours free, I thought I'd give` blogging a go myself. So much has flowed from that barely conscious decision...