Looking further, delving deeper.

Tomorrow evening The Rector 2B will become The Rector of this Dorset benefice. That's it then - I will officially be a Rector's Wife. I didn't think that I would end up as a rector's wife (very Joanna Trollope). Vicars and rectors do basically the same job today and the different names stem from how they were paid many years ago - I think. To our son's Australian friend, 'rector' was an unfamiliar title and so the title has been the butt of many jokes!
I'm learning about living in a rectory - people drop in "just for a few minutes" or "a quick word" - which are usually neither a few minutes or quick! As The Rector 2B is frantically trying to put up coat hooks, fix draughts, move cupboards and....tidy study before he starts officially, these visitors can be quite time consuming. The visits have also brought a couple of other problems to our attention -

1. The dogs do not like the new door bell. Chaos reigns as we try to get to the door while the dogs (led by the Collie) race to the door, sounding like the Hounds of the Baskervilles. Some visitors have been heading down the drive by the time we get to open the door.

2. The Rectory Front Door is extremely temperamental - making it a battle to shut. The property people have put a very expensive new lock on it but I came down in the middle of the night to find the door wide open. I made several attempts to slam the door shut (which must have sounded like gun shots echoing up the pitch black road) and tried some gentle persuasive shoves - to no avail. The door has a mind of its own and swells and shrinks at will. This means that the lock can be in the right position one day and not the next. The door also is very good on hot days as it well vented along the top and the bottom, through the joints and the hole in the bottom panel. I'm sure we will appreciate it when the weather turns warmer .

The walking and the weather have been fantastic - we are discovering new paths all the time. We are so pleased to find that we can reach high points very quickly, and on clear days, we are rewarded with magnificent views over the countryside towards the south coast. It seems lighter and brighter even on grey days and we feel that we are treading ancient routes - long ago used by travellers between the villages. Now we see very few people - the occasional walker or rider but mostly we have the countryside to oursleves. We pass thatched cottages and pretty churches - six of the churches being The Rector2B's responsibility. After the one in our village, the next nearest church, is this pretty Victorian church which was built at the expense of the estate owner. It is not situated in a village and only has a service once a month. It has a wonderful plaque on the tower with shields and a helmet and sword that is reminiscent of 'when a knight won his spurs in the stories of old....'

We are beginning to appreciate what a beautiful place we have landed in  - again! England really is a spectacular country to explore.

It's all very exciting!