A few first impressions

Okay, so here I am returning to the UK for a 3 week trip to do some job hunting and coming with open eyes to ask God if this is the direction we should be moving in. So I do feel a weight or pressure on me, but also am just glad to be here, and to let God do His thing and either open or close doors. I'm glad He already has something planned for us; but it is faith-stretching and sometimes wearying just to stay in the day to day and trust God for the future...

Okay enough of all that, since that wasn't my aim for this entry!

A few immediate impressions that might make me and Kathryn chuckle at least!

1 - The aliens have landed!

I was at Manchester airport after a dodgy night's sleep, waiting in a long immigration line to get into the UK, and I was surrounded, for the first time in nearly two years, with ho

ards of my fellow countrymen, all T-shirts and red skin, presumably back from a winter getaway in the sun. I was struck suddenly by my first symptoms of reverse culture shock - everybody looked so weird! I mean, Dads, Moms, kids, th

ey all had the weirdest shaped faces, strange pointy noses and squinty eyes. I was wondering at this moment if they were all aliens wearing stretchy human masks (if you're a new Doctor Who fan like Kat and I, think Slitheen!)

2 - What are those green things down there?

Well, I was coming in on the plane and I'm getting close to the ground in Manchester and I see these round, green or blue objects in practically every little back garden. I also saw them on the flight to Glasgow. My first sleep-deprived thought was, "swimming pools! Every one's got outdoor swimming pools. That's a bit ambitious in the British climate, isn't it?" As I got closer, though, I saw that these strange objects materialized into - trampolines. Now, that makes much more sense!

3: Vicar of Dibley at the Rotary...

I had a very pleasant evening on Monday, with dinner and a rotary meeting at Auchrannie Spa with Dad, who is a member. He advertising the evening as "a talk on wine and wine-tasting", which certainly sounded good to me. However, when we got there and sat down at the start of the meeting, there were three, completely empty wine bottles next to the speaker's chair! So it ended up as being a lot of talking about wine, minus any actual imbibing...

It was another reverse culture moment for me, as we all took our seats and the meeting began. First, in true Slitheen/Doctor Who fashion, everyone had strange and larger than life faces to me. In addition, I experienced this complete lack of curiosity about me which is so different to what I'm familiar with in the States. I was welcomed of course, and everyone was very polite, but I think if I'd arrived with a gerbil hanging out of my nose, I'd likely have got the same lack of curiosity reaction!

I also had a momentary flashback to a Britcom which the meeting triggered. Gradually it came to me - I had been catapulted into a village church meeting with the cast of "Vicar of Dibley"! (Actually, it turned out that they were an articulate and intelligent lot, which you couldn't claim for the residents of Dibley...).