Thanks all. It's so good to be able to come and talk to you here. It has really made a big difference to me over the last 6 months or so.
Nickel - the girls already go to Guides and Brownies, but that's here in the town where I live. They meet in the church hall, but actually have relatively little to do with the church itself (probably because when they do organise church services and things no-one turns up - one year my dd was the only one who turned up for Remembrance Day, which used to be a 3-line whip when I were a lass...!).
Thanksa - I think if it were just me I'd do a bit more 'church shopping', but dd2 so loves the cathedral now that I'm reluctant to try to drag her to different places. Maybe I should just do it on the odd week when she has something else on, or is ill or something. (She was ill last week, so I 'treated myself' to a lie-in and went to the 11.00 service instead of the 9.15!)
I do think maybe I'm being a bit too 'fussy' (and perhaps have too many fixed ideas about what I do/don't like/want...). I really like to take communion when I go, so I've been put off churches that have communion only once a month or even once a fortnight. But actually perhaps I could live without it. I feel self-conscious with more evangelical/charismatic forms of worship, but maybe I should get over myself a bit! And maybe in time I'd 'warm up' to it a bit. (Admittedly, this seems unlikely, but I am aware that I have a really lively and active and popular church on my doorstep, which I am shunning because of my dislike of clapping, which does feel a bit sad when you write it down like that...) And Mary, you have made me think a lot, too, about the more Anglo-Catholic end of the spectrum. I get quite sad when all you hear about the Church (in the news and such like) is about the disagreements over the ordination of women and practising homosexuals, as if the Church were somehow only about sex(!!!). I still feel a bit uncomfortable about being a part of a church that overtly proclaims that people of my gender are somehow 'second-class citizens' who necessarily (rather than by choice) have to serve God in different ways from men, but it's obviously not just about that.
All of which leaves me not much further forward, except that I am happy to be thinking all of this through (hopefully constructively), and I do feel confident that the right path will be opened up to me eventually.
Hope you are all well. Thanksa... has the snow melted yet? Mary - rest your knee. Nickel... love the crocheting story - sometimes people are slow on the uptake!