It’s difficult to know how much personal detail to share on a blog. Too much is boring to read and completely self-indulgent to write. Too little, and people could rightly wonder what gives the blogger the right to pontificate about her chosen topic at all.

So, here’s a personal note: Having found myself in my mid-thirties without anything remotely approximating a vocation, and – thanks to my long years of fidelity to vocation discernment! – also no career, I applied myself to the business of career-change/intitiation, and, after a year of hammering away at it, began a new job in a new industry in June last year. Hurray!

Eight months later, a familiar scent appeared on the air…Alas! It was the odour arising from the Drain of Disappointed Hope, which already reeked of PTSD, It’s Over, and Not This Religious Order, I’m Afraid. Then, both October and November of last year were marked by private tragedies which, unfortunately for this post, must remain private, as they involve persons who rightly do not wish to be blog-fodder. The point is that tragedy can make you oddly brave, so I did what was reckless-but-right, and resigned before I’d found another job…

…which I’ve found! And I start in Holy Week, and I’m looking forward to it, and it’s full-time, and I’ll still be able to do some of the freelance proofreading and editing that I like…and which I wouldn’t have taken on in the first place if I hadn’t been working in a horrible job that made me poor. So it just goes to show – sometimes the winding road is also the most direct route!

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If you live in London, you should go to this.

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A literary question: I read once that Enid Blyton related to children so well because she had that ‘immaturity’ (not quite the right word) that comes from being broken as a child. If this is a reasonable theory, does it also go part-way to explaining C.S Lewis, P.L Travers, Louisa May Alcott, Roald Dahl, and L.M Montgomery? And does this mean that if I look into the lives of E. Nesbit and Joyce Lankester Brisley that I’ll find the same thing?

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The other night, I accidentally sang, “Dona nobis requiem.” Oops.

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Conversation with a three-year-old yesterday:

He: Go away! Go away! I want to sit by myself!

I: You ran away from the group. That tells me you’re not ready to sit by yourself, so I’ll have to sit with you.

He: No!

I: Yes.

He: Go away! Go away! I sit by myself!

He wriggles furiously.

I: Please sit up straight.

He: I’m trying to sit on your lap!

????!!!!!????