From Devon to North Yorkshire, via Munich - it's been a long road home

And she is not a natural Tory voter.

She is also priest-in-charge of four parishes on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

So she freely admits this combination "challenges her thinking".

But she has also come to this picture-postcard world with an open mind.

"I hope people in the parish will also have open minds and that together we can talk through the issues which concern us," she says.

Because Mrs Nelson is delighted to be in the heart of North Yorkshire's rural community.

This is the job she always dreamed of.

And she says she could not have had a warmer welcome since taking up her first full-time post for the Church of England in February.

Mrs Nelson, who is 52, looks after the four parishes of Kirklington, Burneston, Wath and Pickhill.

She lives opposite the beautiful old church in Kirklington and every day counts her blessings to be in such wonderful surroundings.

But the road to Kirklington was a little long, often hard and yet always interesting.

She and her husband, Ernest, have spent most of their married life in Tavistock in Devon, where Mrs Nelson was always involved with the local church.

In the late Eighties, she decided to study theology at evening class.

"I was asking a lot of questions about my faith," she says. "There had been problems in my life and I was trying to make sense of it all.

"It was the best thing I ever did.

"If the church had ordained women a long time ago, I might have offered myself for the ministry much earlier. I had a strong sense of vocation but that road was closed to me."

When she learned that women were being ordained as deacons, she started to think.

And when she approached her parish priest with the suggestion he said: "At last you have realised."

Mrs Nelson began training in 1992 - just before the big vote on women priests.

"That changed everything," she said, deciding to go for three years of non-residential training.

"This threw everything into question. Anyone who does not have doubts at this stage is not opening themselves to the challenges which come from the course."

She was ordained as a deacon in 1995 and the following year became a priest.

Because moving was not an option, she spent six "very fulfilling" years in Tavistock, serving the local church. She worked as a curate and then as an associate priest.

As her three children were growing up, she began applying for jobs which would not involve a move.

"But the door kept shutting in my face," she said.

So when Mr Nelson got the chance to work in Munich, off they went.

Mrs Nelson immediately got involved with the Episcopal church of the Anglican communion in the German city.

She worked as associate priest for a small stipend and even helped to start a new church in Nuremberg where monthly services became popular and she was known as "the vicar of Nuremberg".

She enjoyed the demanding urban work, applying the same principles of pastoral care as in rural Devon.

But she continued to think about a full-time, paid post, which could not happen in Munich. And she was a bit homesick.

"I felt I was being called to an English parish ministry and this gave me confidence," said Mrs Nelson.

She took advice and applied for the Kirklington job.

"It felt so right when I came here for interview," she said.

That was last September. By February, she and her husband were in North Yorkshire.

"Ernest had worked for the same firm for 26 years and decided this was a chance to do something else," said Mrs Nelson.

She says the parishioners have been fantastic.

"They had been without a priest for 16 months and were thrilled to see someone appointed," she said.

She is the only priest in the parish, working with lay support she describes as wonderful.

She arrived in the middle of preparations for a series of Lenten lectures, which have become hugely popular in the area.

The last one for 2004 was delivered by former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken to a packed church just a few weeks ago.

"All the organising had been done by the time I got here," said Mrs Nelson, adding that she intends to continue the scheme.

She wants to develop the lay ministry, feeling the days have gone when the minister dealt with everything.

"We have four churches and for one person to do all the work is impossible," she says. "In any case, lay people have discovered great gifts in themselves and I want to encourage that."

Local church schools will also get a lot of attention from the new priest-in-charge. Well-established links will continue, she says.

The question of teenagers is another matter.

"This age group is a problem faced by all churches," she said. "I have 16 young people coming up for confirmation and that is encouraging. I hope it will form the nucleus of an ongoing group for youngsters."

She also wants to help attract younger members for the Mothers' Union, particularly hoping farmers' wives might get involved. And she is keen to establish a regular choir.

Getting to this job, she says, has been hard because she is a woman.

"But my gender is not an issue here - or so it seems. There has been no resistance to the idea of a woman priest."

Her parish is everything she hoped it would be.

"But the countryside is having to rediscover itself in relation to the church and I want to explore that," she says.

"Kirklington has lost its post office, school and shops, but still has its church and village hall and a pub. If we lost any more I do not know how we could be a community anymore.

"The church is about being part of the community in all respects."

And to underline the point, Mrs Nelson wants to work on the possibility of restoring facilities, such as getting back shops and post offices.

Born in Coventry, she went to Durham University - her introduction to the North.

Her husband comes from Shipton by Beningbrough and Mrs Nelson says he has had a feeling of returning to his roots.

"But I also feel that in many ways I am coming home," she said.