Friendship

You can't stay in your corner of the forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes....so says winnie the poo...and he's quite right of course, so baring this in mind, Saturday we drove up to Northampton to see me mate Doug for the day, in fact it turned out to be only 3 hours or so. Still, it broke up the day and it was good to see him, even if he did watch the footie throughout our stay!
We had to get home early 'cos the missus was off to a PTA run School quiz night, and they say rural life is a baron waste land, tut...while I stayed in and ran through the 5 porn DVD's me mate Doug thrust into my sweaty palms as we were leaving his house earlier that day.
Sunday, strangely I felt tired and weak, but managed to get myself to the boozah for a constitutional, then to Tesco's for some carry-outs, 2 Huge bottles of Kronie, in a bag, attached to the back of the buggy.
We get home and as the missus takes the baby smasher out of his buggy, it tips up, smashing one of the bottles. Well, I stood there frozen to the spot, hoping that the crashing and smashing sound was inside my head, but as the beer ran over my shoes I realised it was a little more serious than that...

Don't worry says the missus, seeing my mortified face, I'll go and get you a replacement...15 minutes later I spy a mini can of Stella in the fridge, ermm...love, where did you go for the beer "replacement"?...Oh, the local shop...right, you didnae go back to Tesco's then Obviously!!! (i say in my head) working out if I could be bothered to go back myself for a proper replacement a: To show her that was wasnae best pleased and b: to get me my proper replacement and not put up with a mini Stella alternative..ah the little things...decided, for a quite life, so go for a sleep and sulk instead. it's for the best.

Monday, she gets her eyes laysered. no problems so far. early days mind.

History teaches us that history teaches us nothing!

Over a year ago now, I had my eyes laysered, this week my left eye has been giving me gip, could it be true that after a year the effects of the operation? On Monday I'll be taking the missus down to Optimax to have hers done, I say to she, look love, mine still hurt, I get floaters that drive me mad, I get blurred vision at times and feel the need to sleep often...if I were you, I'd not go through with it, given your eyesight isn't that bad...but, she's determined to go through with it..

I suppose it all started in 1998....

So, the "wedding weekend" is over and I'm still feeling it's effects on my body. Friday, home from work and I'm on my first G&T of the evening while the missus gets ready. She drives us to St Albans where we park up outside this really rough old boozah, we head in 'cos she wants to change into her battle dress. I order the drinks while she's wolf whistled all the way into andout of the toilets. nice.
Get to reception and Niges mother stumbles into us pished as a fart, bless...Booze and food laid on nicely, while, and I have bring this up, Nige launches into the longest, and I have to say dullest, speech I've ever heard at a wedding.....
Luckily, for me, I knew the lengths and depths Nige can go to, to hold onto his audence when he's in full Nige mode, so I ducked in and out to the bar whenever my pint empties (yes, it went on that long)...
Jerry Springer would've ben proud at the emotional pitch Nige grappled with towards the end, as he sensed his audience attention levels were dropping, as people talked amoung themselves, increasingly, so Nige would send off a salvo of emotionally charged declarations of unbounded love for his new wife....as the audience oooh-ed and arhhh-ed, cooo-ed and applauded this, he'd drop back into his ramble and the audience would drift away from him again.

At one point he lost the plot...where was I? he says aloud, looking through his notes...On page 17! I shout out and once again the crowd perks up with life for the final push towards the end. When it came, we all sighed a huge relief...some struggled with a clap or two, some woke up their partners, others headed off to the toilet or bar to slag off Nige. myself included. His brothers speak was much better though, far superior.
Home for us, via a £45 taxi!!!! (£25 to get there mind, how odd) where my sister was fuming at our lateness, not our fault we cried, it was Niges speech!!

Toms wedding day. It took 2 hours to drive there and 2 getting home, we got slightly lost see...but it was a good night.

me mate Neeeek, on his seventh pint of Stella, me? I stuck to mineral water the entire evening

Toms wife Pippa and Canadia Rich...thinking about it, mebbe I shoulda got a "Tom and Pippa" photo instead of this one...ah well

Nige is getting married. horrah.

I can't believe it, me mate Nige is finally, inevitably? getting married today and I've been close to tears all morning.
He's the last, well, last but one, of us to get hitched and he was always, for me, the last of the gay bachelors. I would look up to him and imagine what my life would've been like had I not got virtually hitched at 24. The travel, the women, the nights out, the career, all a world I'd never know and now a world Nige is leaving behind.

If this is about me in any form or way, and I think it is, in some ways then, how can I not be disappointed? I ask you, I ask Nige, what have I done to deserve this?

NTL - get out of my house!

Finally, I managed to get rid of NTL outya my house and outya my life!
Sunday right, nothing on TV that evening, we knew that but we decided to forego the pleasure of standing with the other scum in our local video emporium, jostling for the latest Jackie Chan DVD or whatever, and order an "On Demand" film from NTL instead.

So, picture us, Sunday night, kids in bed, G&T in hand, relaxing after a hard day with the kids and I click on the "On Demand" button, but what's this? No service available, please call Customer Services, OK, I'll call, Oh, Customer Service is not available over the weekend, please try again Monday!!...Right, fuck this for a service I tell ya.

Monday I'm on the phone alright, Customer Service? yes, please come and take away your box, I've totally had enough of your terrible service!. So, next day, man comes. gone. Smasher comes back from School...where's the TV gone daddy?..oh,...jesus, er...a man came and took the box son, there's no more Nick Junior TV anymore son...(cough)... Q screaming fit...
actually, he took it rather well.

I decided to get Freeview instead, so I bought a box that offers Freeview AND records programs on it's hard disc! amazing, it's da future I tell ya...OK so I'll miss The Simpsons, Star Trek, Nip/Tuck etc but that's the price I'm prepared to take for my principles...and it's the price my family will have to pay too.

Arthur in his school uniform, first day...we all cried

Smasher number one, this summer, riding da rails innit

Me and Fred, knackered, I tell ya!...he fell off evenually, I gave him a little nudge to see if he would, and he did....and he screamed and screamed!! won't do that again in a hurry!

High society - Low down bums

I experienced the underside and upper crust side of society this weekend, Saturday we went to Amersham to a wedding reception. One of the missus's old school mates getting hitched to an ex-public school fellah, bloody nice chap actually...All his mates were chinless wonders, tall, lanky uncoordinated horrah's...barking jokes at each other. Talking about popping outside the marquee for a "snout" ahaha...
bloody nice chaps though, one bloke, telling the missus how lonely he was, and that drink was his only friend, some foppy Keats or Byron wannabe. I told him to fuck off and moon about somewhere else. the cunt.

Let's see, Sunday, the missus decided we're to have no more babies, would mean too much strain on her body she thinks, with me.....I think she means, grunting away on top of her. So, she sorted out baby clothes and other stuff and went down to a "car boot" sale, I think they call it, to flog them all off to the scum of the earth.
I took the smashers down a little later to support her and bring her provisions. The type of people that wander round these places, I tell ya, you wouldn't want them in yir local or walking up your street of an evening. Body shapes I've never seen before, faces I'm sure I have, on crimestoppers...uncomfortable in my new surroundings, I beat a hasty retreat. She made some money though, I'll give her that...

All that was good about me

It hasnae been a great week for me, getting back into the swing of work after last weekend has been harder than I'd imagined. It's been made more trying by the fact that I'm having to cover for someone on holiday and also, suddenly, there's a rush of work on. Today I took my first tentative steps back into the gym after a week long absence, old friends greeted me like a long lost relative, wrapping their arms round me and gently encouraging me to do "one more" length of the pool, then helping me back to the showers and soaping my weary body...Tiredness doesn't come close, it's more a draining, sapping morbidly depressed kinda feeling I have right now. The diet and general keep fit campaign floundering on a wave of apathy...snap out of it Steve! for Christ sake, think of the kids!!...
All that was good about me, me, my own personal hero these last few weeks, shunning booze, exercising and dieting like a method actor days before his first day shooting, now turned to dust, or turning to dust if I don't pick myself up and dust myself off pretty damn sharply....if you like train wrecks, if you're a born rubber necker, if you dare, then check it out

It was boiling on there Sunday....it didn't help Dave fancied a long walk that morning, but the way I see it is, if I hadn't followed, I'd've never seen the railway cuttings, the warehouses, the industrial units on the edge of town...

Neeek, calling me a moaning bastard, and threatening to beat me up if I didnae shut my fucking mouth

Nige, enjoying a "joke" with Dave

Dave, in position, ready to recieve me from behind...see how tense he looks, but it was fine, over in minutes

Dave, Nige, Paul etc outside Dickens pub in Riga

Riga

So, Dave and Nige's stag weekend finnaly came round, and now it's all over, and I'm depresed about it because, for a change, I actually enjoyed this weekend away. Spent far too much, drank far too much but it was worth it, for the most part...