Mancunian vs. manchurian

It is now week two of my mancunian adventure. The word mancunian is not recognised by my word processor and it wants me to put Manchurian, which incidentally is not recognised my the thesaurus, who wants to replace the word with ‘manage on your own/manage without/manage to survive’. How apt I thought to myself and for those of you who know me well, I love to make up words so I am going to adopt this word for the purpose of this blog entry as it is perfect! When I first arrived, which is hard to believe was just 8 days ago, I felt rather desperate and alone in a huge (and I really do mean huge!) city. However I can now get to the basic places I need to go and back without sat nav and can breathe a little easier when driving on the roads, most of which always have three lanes! Although I pat myself on the back and think how great I am in overcoming this small hurdle, I couldn’t have survived this first week without the lovely texts, calls and cards from you lovely people. They have encouraged me to be positive, kept me amused while I wonder the streets lost looking for something I recognised, and kept much laughter in my life. With all your help I am 'managing to survive'.

On a serious note though, there were many stories on induction week of people being held at gunpoint, stabbed with dirty needles and only last Thursday a CPN (community psychiatric nurse) and a student were both stabbed whilst out on a visit. If you ever get an urge to pray for me or I randomly pop into your thoughts please pray for my protection. I stand firm on Psalm 23 but believe prayer is a powerful weapon!

I have to say one of the highlights of the week has to be the engagement of Jen and Ed!! Congratulations to you both. It was really sad not to be there to hug and scream and get excited with you (I'm obviously talking about Jen, don’t think Ed would have appreciated it) but that will come in a couple of weeks when I’m back. For now the phone excitement will have to do! Coming in at a close second is starting work and getting my own desk, drawer unit, computer, mobile and rather professional looking phone on my desk. I feel like I have finally made it now I have a space to call my own. The psychologist on the team is also from Norwich so I think he will appreciate my 'I’d rather be in Norfolk’ mug given to me before I left. Last week also included falling down the stairs and cutting my elbow, spraying my hair with sun lotion instead of heat protection spray, and a trip to see a band called Bora, which a guy from church is in. He spent his childhood in Norwich and grew up in the youth at Kings so I felt a strong urge to support his endeavours. I also visited the Christmas markets twice as they are spectacular! Please excuse the poor picture quality as they are uploaded from my phone and in the bustling crowds it is extremely difficult to stand in one place long enough capture the view. They really are rather splendid.

I have really struggled since arriving knowing what to do with my new found free time. I am starting to embrace it and see it as the luxury it is rather than believing I am wasting my free evenings lounging around not doing anything of any particular consequence. I felt a bit selfish using it for ‘me’ time but find that I can fill it rather quickly with reading, planning, spending time with God, etc. I am in the process of finally signing up for Spanish classes and looking into other community activities I can get involved in. At church yesterday the preach was about spending time with God and how much time we waste on activities of far less importance. The underlying message was no time spent with God is a waste. Sounds simple but defiantly struck a cord (or is it chord?). Instead of moaning about having too much time on my hands, a situation I can’t really ever remember being in, I should see it as a privilege.

If you fancy wasting some time with Jesus check out the preach - http://christcentral.org.uk/Groups/112277/Christ_Central/Media/Media.aspx (as I write this it isn’t uploaded yet but I’m sure it will be very soon).

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The majority of this entry was written last night but due to technical difficulties I was unable to upload it. I now know that it was devine intervention. When I returned from a hard days work today, I was greeted with a rather wonderful homemade card for the brilliant Caroline who had sent me another very appropriate instalment of the dinosaur comic. This one was themed around speech and T-Rex always getting his words wrong. How perfect I thought?! Check it out - http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1841

Thank you all SO much for the love, support, encouragement, and laughter you continue to bring to my life as I battle to become a true mancunian rather than Manchurian.

IS-THIS-IT?

Three tiny words but use them together and what a powerful statement! Before I left Norwich I used to think that a lot. Is this it? I would look at my life and what I’ve got and wonder what was wrong with me? Why am I not satisfied with this? I have a job that I trained to do, part of a brilliant church which I can honestly call family, decent salary, lovely house, loads of friends, car and other material assets, but still I harboured unrest and uncertainty. This can’t be it?

This last week since leaving Norwich I have been watching the Lord of the Rings with my family so we could all bask in the wonder of Blue-ray. I know it’s laughable but it has really challenged me as certain lines kept hitting home and making me remember certain things God has promised. There was one particular part in the third film, Return of the King, where Frodo appears ready to give up his quest when Galadriel appears to him and says “ this task was appointed to you, if you do not find a way no one will”. I read somewhere that God has assigned us tasks to do, that only we can do (sorry am unable to remember where I read it but if you want to know I’ll do my best to find it again) and I have a pressing sense of urgency about what mine could be and want to stay alert for opportunities to allow God to use me in new and surprising ways. I know God has promised many things which I am yet to see in my life, but I want to nurture a life of patience and obedience while waiting for them to come to fruition.

In The Two Towers (second LOTR), Theodan, King of Rohan was commanding an army against an attack on Helms Deep which was believed to be impenetrable. ‘Safe’ behind his walls he gloats “Is this it?” right before the one weakness of the fort is blown apart and the city is breached. How arrogant and smug these three words become when used in context. I reproach myself for taking for granted how good I had life in Norwich as I fear a battle is going to commence now God has taken me out of my comfort zone and removed my securities to prepare me for what lies ahead. I pray God blows up the arrogance in me and uses my weakness for his glory - 2 Corinthians 12:10.

Enough of the serious stuff, but I do wish to emphasise that the above is in no way an attempt at some rich theological discussion, but the humble observations of a simple mind. I should however thank Emma Colthup, who I greatly admire, for her assistance in naming the LOTR characters - her knowledge of these three films is incredible!

Onward and upwards

Quite literally as I have now travelled North West and am situated in my new home. I’m sure it would amuse you to know that when going to the supermarket after arrival I got very lost and ended up driving round for an hour as I hadn’t taken my Sat nat. All I had to do was go back to the main road and turn left, go straight for a couple of miles and then I would be there. Lesson learned, don’t leave home unprepared without satellite navigation.

Already I have had incidents of Southern friends not understanding my accent during phone calls and I fear it will get worse. I have decided to do a small glossary for you of words people have struggled with thus far:
Cob = bread roll/bap
Nesh = referring to feeling the cold
Mardy = sulking/having a tantrum
Chuntering = moaning under your breath
Snap = food, predominantly one’s lunch
Spice = sweets/candy
Frock = dress
Lass = girl
Dough = money
I have always wanted to be bi-lingual.
Anyway home provided the usual comforts of home cooking, such as stew and dumplings ( good northern grub) and being called duck and flower by strangers. Thanks to all who have text, emailed or called and incorporated this into our conversations.

A very dear friend said to me recently, “ends are always sad, beginnings are always scary but it’s the middle part that really matters“. As the first two have already proven to be very true I endeavour to make the middle part of this chapter of life matter. I am about to retire to bed and am nervous but excited about what the first day of the rest of my life holds.

Before I do though I have to leave you with a picture of the rather bizarre 'park’ across the road from my new house. I wasn’t sure what to make of it to start with but I’m finding it rather funny!

Home Sweet Home

Firstly I feel I need to say a huge thank you to my wonderful friend Caroline for creating this beautiful blog for me. As yet I do not really no how to use it and not sure what to write so please forgive the written ramblings of my very bizarre mind and the inevitable spelling/grammatical errors that come from growing up in the North! After being bullied for over six years now for being ‘Northern’, when I am actually from the Midlands, I can look back and see it was God’s preparation for me so I would never get too comfortable in the South. 

After an unexpected public display of uncontrollable emotion, I departed Norwich permanently yesterday with my car crammed full (driving vision not impaired though) with the rubbish I have accumulated over the years. Without the help of Calli, Ruth and Sarah it would have literally been impossible as I was unable to pack things sensibly and completely underestimated the volume of my Corsa in comparison to the bags and boxes I need to get in it! Miraculously it fitted and is now safely situated in the conservatory at my mums house until I can bear the idea of sorting it out, probably a job I should have done in Norwich. Upon arriving home there was a pan full of homemade stew on the hob and a cup of Charlie waiting - ahhh it’s good to be home. After a cup of tea at my aunties house this afternoon with all the relatives I feel like I have never been away and can even sing along with the ‘King Carpets’ radio advert which is still exactly the same after all these years!

You often hear people saying ‘Home is where the heart is’ and I really can’t agree more. I call here my home and Norwich has been my home for the last six and a bit years and I’m sure in time Manchester will also become home. It’s hard to imagine Norwich not being a big part of my life when so much of it is still there and most of the people I hold very dear. As my leaving date has been creeping up on me it became increasingly more difficult to pretend it wasn’t happening which all came to a head when in the creative writing session I used to do at work we were exploring emotions and I wrote a “poem” (not really sure what you would call it) about Love. I got thinking about Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

After some analysis and reflection upon this it really got me thinking about all I would be leaving behind. Shakespeare is saying true love always perseveres despite obstacles that arise and that it remains constant even though people and circumstances change. Love never dies, even when someone tries to destroy it. Rather than being something that comes and goes, love is eternal and unchanging – so much so that Shakespeare compares it to the North Star, which never moves in the sky and guides lost ships home. He even stakes his own reputation on this definition, boldly claiming that if anyone can prove him wrong, he’ll eat his words. That is to say, if this idea of love turns out to be wrong, then he’ll take back everything he wrote and it’ll be as though it never existed. Furthermore, if this specific portrayal of love is somehow proved to be the wrong one, then nobody, as far as the he is concerned, has ever loved at all.

Thanks to the amazing works of Jane Austin (a wonder I share passionately with Anna Caffell) this Sonnet has always been close to my heart but I never really understood it. I have always heard it used in a romantic sense, which I love, but I feel I can confidently say I have and will continue to share this kind of love with many of my friends in Norwich. You guys have supported, loved and softened me through many highs and lows and I can never thank you enough. At this time in my life I find it hard to think I will ever find friends I love, trust, admire, and can be completely myself with anywhere else. I trust that God has great plans for me ‘up North’ and it is exactly where he wants me for now (I still strangely desire to live in Exeter for some reason and am waiting for Matt Kettle to plant a church there as he too once said he would like to live there). For all the friends I leave in Norwich and it’s surroundings please know you can not and will not be replaced and I hope you know how much you mean to me.

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangements of things, the greater part of life is sunshine." - Thomas Jefferson (given to me by Emma Colthup).

Welcome!

Drumroll please...and put your hands together to welcome Miss Marson to the blogosphere! As she leaves Norwich for pastures new she has decided to start blogging, so that all of her friends can keep up with her antics and be up to date with the Marsonic Moments that occur in Manchester.

This is a little test post for me to check that everything looks pretty, vintage, floral and effortlessly shabby chic before unveiling her blog for her approval and subsequent public consumption!

Please read, follow, enjoy and encourage. Happy blogging!