Wednesday 2 May - Brighton Pier

Today we visited Brighton and walked all the way out to the end of the famous pier.

We were away on another "£10 Sun Holiday" staying in the Portsmouth area. During the visit we travelled to  Portsmouth where we saw the rail link to the Isle of White Ferry, the Ferry and then went into Britain's most the famous navel base and went aboard "HMS Warrior" (the first ever steam fully iron warship that rendered every other warship in the world obsolete overnight -  HMS Warrior, was the first ship of the Royal Navy that deserves the name 'Battleship'. She was launched in 1860 and joined the Channel Squadron in 1861. Compared to HMS Victory her design is quite revolutionary.)

 and "The Victory" (Nelson's Flagship)

and took a boat tour of the harbour. My God...Warships are flipping enormous and I know our carriers are dwarfed by US ones so how big are they. We saw the "The Mary Rose"

(Henry VIII sunken flagship) drying out and Nat bought a ships biscuit,

among other things, from the gift shop. Nat and I also went on a number of the simulator rides where we flew planes and helicopters and the like. We had a fantastic day there and one day, when the kids are older, I'd like to visit again. Portsmouth Navel Base is Gob-Smacking.

I believe, that in the UK, only Milford Haven and Scapa Flow are bigger or deeper natural harbours.

Second/Third Week October 2001 - A Week in Lyme Regis, Birthday Boy, Fools Gold, Captain Scarlet Presents, Band of Brothers on TV, The Jurassic Coast

The week of Nat's Fourth birthday was spent in a caravan in Lyme Regis on another Sun £10 holiday. We had packed his birthday presents and driven with him and Han down to Lyme Regis. Han wasn't really a great part of this holiday as she was only 10 months old and very much confined to her pram. On the day of his birthday we were in one of the two big fossil shops in Lyme Regis when Nat announce to the owner that he was four that day. The owner, lovely man, gave him with a free piece of "fools gold" as a birthday present. I had bought a pile of Captain Scarlet toys at the comic shop before we left as this was now on TV and had supplanted, somewhat, Thunderbirds as his favourite program.

To be continued

Nat's Fourth Birthday in Lyme Regis, Fools Gold, Capt Scarlet, Caravan Park, Band of Brothers, No More Bill, The Jurassic Coast, Seaton Tramway, Stilon Pate,

We stayed the week of Nat's fourth birthday in a caravan park just outside of Lyme Regis on the famous "Jurassic Coast". It was a fabulous week and we booked it using one of The Sun's £10 holiday offers.

View The Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. in a larger map

A short walk from the caravan were the very cliffs where fossils are to be found. The fossil shop you can see below had the most incredible collection of extraordinarily expensive fossils. It blows the mind, if your not some brainless fundementalist who believes the World is only 6,000 years old, to try and comprehend the incomprehensive periods of time involved in their creation. On the morning of his birthday I gave Nat the over priced capt Scarlett toys I'd bought from the comic shop in Leicester and Deb gave him a couple of things too. When we went into town that morning and once again called into the Lyme Fossil Shop Nat told them, he was a very forward four year old, that it was his birthday and for his cheek got given a free piece of Fool's Gold by the shop owner...which was nice!

View Larger Map
While we were there I kept up with Spielberg's spectacular Band of Brothers, which was being shown for the first time, on the black and white portable, or was it colour, in the caravan. It clashed with the Bill and this marked the time when I stopped watching what had been one of my favourite TV  programmes. I've not watched an episode since!
 On our first day we had visited Seaton and travelled on it's famous tramway all the way to Colyton Station. We walked into Colyton Village where I bought some Stilton pate from a small local butcher's shop come delicatessen. Years later I returned to buy some more only to discover we'd visited on half-day closing!
Durring the week we travelled around the beutiful county of Devon and on our way home we diverted to Cornwall to visit the Eden Project.

Hannah, of course, remembers none of this as she was only eleven months old at the time!

August 2001 - My Breakdown - Katie and Dad Suppressed Grief

Lost the plot this month and ended up needing professional counselling. I'd suppressed the grief of the lose of Katie and my dad's sudden death in the January had brought it all bubbling back to the surface. Suffice to say I behaved like a complete loon and a total prat and I ended up threatening those I loved. There was one delicious irony; which was being accused of being a wife batter (which I wasn't) by P Harrison (who was and probably still is). If I'd known what was coming on 11 September perhaps I would have more perspective.

July 2001 - Eurocamp

We spent two weeks in a Caravan in the Vandee(?) area of France.

Friday 26 Jan - The Death of My Dad Six Weeks after the Birth of My Daughter

My dad suffered a stroke last week and we'd been down to see him but couldn't stay because Han was only six weeks old. We were due to go down to Wales after I'd finished work. However, I had a dental appointment that morning and had left work at 9:00 am to get there. while I was there deb rang to say that the hospital had called to say that my dad had just died of a massive heart attack. I suppose this was hardly surprising; the very first thing that the medical staff had done last week was ask me for resuscitation instructions after advising me that it would be better not to try and resuscitate my Dad should when the situation arose. The stroke he'd suffered was massive and his chances of recovery, at age 79, were close to zero. So I had given my consent to  them to treat my dad as a "Do Not Resuscitate" patient. If he'd lived he'd have had no quality of life and walking to the pub, something he did daily, would have been absolutely impossible. No, he would have been doomed to sit and waste away in a small flat unable to carry out the most basic of bodily functions...and what's the point in that?
I returned to work to advise what had happened and to let them know I would be on my way to Wales immediately and would advise when I would be back. We travelled down and eventually arrived at Prince Charles Hospital in Methyr why I briefly saw my fathers body.  I stayed down for a few days with my cousin Cath to make arrangements while Deb and the kids returned to Leicester. My Dad was cremated the following weekend.
This is where he grew up and spent almost his entire life; this is the village of Abertysswg as it looks today.

And, this is how it looked when he was a young man. He started working down this mine, when he was 14 years old, along side his Father and Brothers!

This is Charles Street where both he and my Mother were born and raised. The blue tiled shop is Roffi's. Mr Roffi emigrate to Wales from Italy early in the Twentieth Century and established his shop and proceeded to have a large family. His wife was still alive when my dad passed away and she was a sprightly 102 years old; I saw whilst I was there which was only the second time I'd seen her in my entire life. Her Son Aldo had been a good friend of my parents and I visited her with him.

Friday 8 - Saturday 9 - Sunday 10 December 2000 – The Birth of The Han Monster

Friday - waiting
Just as with Nat and Katie we arrived at the Royal Infirmary maternity wing at 8:00 am and settled in for a long day. Han was not due for another two weeks but because of what had happened to Katie (she died two weeks before she was due to be born) had decided to induce the birth early. Deb and I were escorted to a private room and she was given the drugs and told to let nature take it's course.

Saturday 03:40 AM - Born

Sunday Afternoon - Home

September 18-23 2000 – Pendine Sands, Katie's Anniversary and the Last Time we saw Granddad Bill

Pendine Sands Holiday Park
We came to stay on a Sun Newspaper £10 break; a week in a caravan in beautiful Pembroke on the record breaking Pendine Sands. Deb was six months pregnant with Han and Nat was almost Three years old. It was an absolutely beautiful place. The caravan was exactly what one would expect and not quite as up market as the ones displayed in on the 2010 website. Nothing to moan about though; warm and dry what more could you want.
Club house and Nat winning a dancing prize
nat dancing
nat playing in the sand on Saundersfoot beach
Tenby
Folly Farm
Nat and i falling over on seaweed and getting our trousers filthy and soaked
St Fagans Museum
St David's Cathedral
Remembering katie’s birthday on the way home
Seeing my dad for the last time before his stroke
Home to Leicester

Thursday 14 October 1999 - Nat's Second Birthday, Party at Donna's House for Nat and Sian,

Shortly after Katie's death it was Nat's second birthday, Donna showed what a friend she is to Deb by arranging a joint party for him and Sian at her house on the 15 Oct the day between their birthdays. This was held at the house they were renting on the Kingsway.

September 23 1999 – Katie’s Still Birth

Holding

1 – 6 May 1999 – Zakynthos : A week on the Flower of the Levant

This was Nat’s first foreign holiday although given that he was only Twenty Months old it’s unlikely that he remembers it. We travelled to Zakynthos, the flower of Greece, during the first week of the holiday season so we had the place more or less to ourselves. We stayed in Alykanas which can be seen on Here on Google Maps

As the days passed more and more people arrived until by the end of the week, as we were leaving, it was beginning to feel crowded. This has to be one of the nicest and most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. I certainly got a number of things out of it; I discovered Greek Honey and Greek Olive Oil and loved both. I had always hated the taste of British honey and Italian olive oil but the Greek stuff blew me away. The place was a bird lovers paradise with swifts forever swooping around your ears. The restaurants were fantastic as was the food they served and the people were incredibly friendly. I spent one evening getting seriously out of my head on Ouzo in an empty night club next to our hotel discussing the Kosovo situation (this was the time when Britain, as part of NATO, had sent in troops and planes in order to prevent the Serbs from massacring the Albanians – touchy because the Greeks were supporting the Serbs) with the owner. I don’t think I paid for a drink after my first… God what a hangover that was. Given that we were only there for a week we managed to see quite a lot; in part because Nat and I were up with the larks an d we rarely got to bed before midnight. Nat and I walked every morning to the Harbour

accompanied by two largish dogs while Deb, who was pregnant with Katie, tried to get some “I’m Pregnant and need my rest” sleep whilst we were out walking…wimp!
We could see the Island of Kefalonia out of our bedroom window which was odd because Deb had brought “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” with her to read and this novel is, of course, set on wartime Kefalonia. As it turned out she couldn’t get into the book (being put off by the second chapter which contains nothing but Mussolini ranting to himself) whilst i couldn’t get into the book I’d brought (Peruses Spur – Julian May) so we swapped and I though that Captain Corelli was one of the best books that I’d ever read.

During the week, while we were I was relaxing at the pool bar a little girl of four joined us (Sophie) and took charge of Nat. I keep trying to remember her name but I can't recall it. she was there with her Mum and Dad but Mum had MS and was somewhat restricted because of her wheelchair. She never stopped asking questions (particularly WHY) and was a delight. everyday she joined us and took Nat to the pool, which was immediately adjacent to the bar so that wasn't a problem. The bar kept it's glasses in a freezer and when you bought a beer it came in an ice cold glass crackling as you held it. During the week we booked two excursions, the first was to see the north of the Island and the second to travel to the main town of Zakynthos. The first trip was to the north of the Island and our first stop was at the famed blue caves.

The Blue Caves - Nat was sick on the coach just as we arrived. Thankfully, everyone was very generous with tissues and such like. Cleaned and wiped we exited the coach to walk to the harbour where we embarked on some small craft to travel out to see the Blue caves. They are called this because of the varying colours of the water caused by the combination of sun and shade.

It was spectacular, at times you felt you could reach out and touch the bottom of the sea. Sophie, the little girl  who was joined to us at the hip, was on the same boat with her Dad but found the noise from the engine very frightening and cried her eyes out until we were back on land. A cruise ship pulled up alongside whilst we were out there, talk about feeling dwarfed!

These two beautiful arches are located near the Blue Caves at the north end of Zakynthos. After this we re-embarked on the coach and continued the tour; among the sites we visited was the famous ship wreck in the bay that had no land access. As you can see from the photo below you get there by boat or you don't get there. This is how we saw it from the cliffs above:

The Mill; along the beach road the was a side road branching off and at the end of this lane was The Mill. A club/pub/bar/restaurant run by a Greek man and his English husband. They had two sons around five and seven. the Mill was a find the owners were fantastically hospitable and the kids showed Nat the local lizards and how to bounce on their bouncy castle. For a child under 2 years he took to both activities like a duck to water. Further up the beach road was a restaurant where we ate on a number of evenings. We were served by Dennis (on Zakynthos everyone is called Dennis...why see below) who became something of a friend and would sit and chat with us while we were there. He, along with every other adult, dote on Nat and we discovered first hand the Mediterranean love of children; how so unlike paedophile obsessed Britain!

Our second excursion, with the same tour company, was into the town of ZakynthosDennis's. The church was shut so we couldn't see inside but the rest of the town was absolutely smashing, even though no building there was over 50 years old (due to the earthquake in the 1950's that levelled Zakynthos and the surrounding islands) in either the town or anywhere else on the island. This was why there were so many half completed houses with steel rods sticking out of them. Every building on the island is now constructed from reinforced concrete. You'd need a tank to demolish these structures. One of the few downs were all the gypsy beggars and their children perched on the kerbs. It's little wonder that the Greeks support the Serbs because they associate the Albanians with the war and the beggars. In town I managed to buy large packets of pistachio nuts. I also saw the new Tom Clancy Book Rainbow Six, Deb wouldn't let me buy it so when we got home I had to wait a further six months before it was published in here.
We had a fantastic week, it seemed longer which in itself is very unusual, and did a huge number of things.  I wandered the town at night, while the other two slept, and met scores of interesting and friendly people, most of whom I shared a drink with, which gave me a holiday of my own. Eventually all good things come to an end and with our bottles of Olive Oil in our hands we left Zakynthos and headed home.

Zakynthos...I Love You!!!

6 - 21 October 1998 - A Week in Northumberland, Nat's First Holiday, 1 Year Old, The Builders Are In, Living Upstairs

October 1998 was a month of firsts; we went on holiday for the first time, I went to Scotland for the first time, We ate haggis for the first time, Nat, for the first time, laughed at me burning my mouth on a chilli, we went to Lindisfarne Island...you get the picture.
Northumberland
caravan park
Newcastle
Huge music Store
Brassed Off CD
Russian Military Choral Music?
Lindisfarne
Pub Garden
Train Whistle
Edinburgh
The Royal Mile
Black Whisky

Berwick on Tweed
Toy Shops
Haggis and Chips by the river tweed
Cannons on the Castle

Bede's World
Feeding the Goats
Travelling Home
Noddy Car at the services
Travelling too far done the A1 where's the M1

Getting the builders in and knocking the downstairs rooms together
Living upstairs
Nat's1st Birthday
Catapillar cake

15 March - Starting 6-2 at Powergen, Deb Back too Work after Maternity Leave

Holding

Tuesday 13 - Wednesday 14 Oct 1997 – That "Know it all" Nat’s Birth

After 12 years of trying and after 42 weeks of waiting the day was finally here. We went to the Royal at 8.00 AM on Tuesday morning to deliver our two week overdue first child. We already knew that it was a boy and had decided on the name Nathaniel (Mr Sinister in the X-Men's original name). It was going to be a very long day and night as Nat was already two weeks overdue in in no hurry to leave his warm hidey-hole. The first day passed with little happening, Deb lay in bed reading another Patricia Cornwall book while I fussed about somewhat. There were various tests through out the day but basically, if I recall correctly, it was a question of waiting for the the drugs to kick in and induce labour. Nat was going to be a big baby and the medical staff had decided it wouldn't be a good idea for him to get any bigger inside of Deb.

We had left the three dogs at home, Jasper, Sprout and Mumbles so I couldn't stay at the hospital full time. During the day i had to cycle home to feed and water and pot them. I can't recall if I spent the night at the hospital, I'll have to ask Deb, but the bottom line was that nothing happened on Tuesday and it wasn't until Wednesday morning that the little monster began to stir. Things developed slowly but eventually Deb was taken into the delivery room and things got moving. He did prove to be an enormous baby because he was finally delivered at 12.15 PM by Ventouse after the medical staff had cut deb down below to try and make more room. They finally pulled him out and the delivery room resembled an abattoir. Deb needed immediate attention to stitch her wounds so Nat was taken to the resuscitation room, accompanied by me, to ensure that he was OK. He was fine and after a few moments I got to hold him for the first time; he weighed in at a massive 10lb 12oz. I carried him back into the delivery room and passed him to deb who suddenly forgot about all the pain and established AN UNBREAKABLE BOUND WITH HIM THERE AND THEN, there was no post-natal depression or such like in this case; she'd waited far too long to allow that to spoil things.
While deb had Nat I left the room and found a phone; I immediately rang Deb's parents and my Dad but don't remember in which order. Deb was moved onto a ward and she and Nat rested. Later I went home, again to see to the dogs, before returning later in the afternoon. Below is the first photo I have of Nat and I together.


07/06/2010 by mysickbones on Zooomr

Deb and Nat remained in the hospital for the next few days and I visited twice daily, I think I had the week off work but I can't actually remember, until they were given the all clear to come home. I think they were released on the Saturday ( confusing because Han definitely came home on a Saturday) and Alf and Doreen, Deb's parents, travelled over from Redditch to see their first grandchild and bring him home.
After this life was never the same again and gradually, actually rapidly, one forgot that one had had a life before this child arrived. Nothing's Changed!

Mothering Sunday at The Chequers...300 Meals at Lunch

View Larger Map

It turned out that that first day did prove to be a baptism of fire; I'd not worked behind this bar before, didn't know what beers we served, the prices or where anything was. We served 300 meals and didn't close until 5:00pm when we cleaned up, Barbara prepared everyone something to eat, steak in my case, and we prepared to open for the evening. I've never, before or since, ever worked in a busier bar that that one that afternoon; it was brilliant  I loved it! I started there at 11:00 am and we didn't finish closing up and clearing up until gone midnight!
I worked there for almost a year and gradually gained the confidence of the landlady. I took over the control of the stock and managed to end the petty pilfering that was going occurring. I stayed until they left and new tenants took over. I didn't really get on with them, by then I'd got use to virtually running the pub, as being relegated back to the position or A.N. Other barman made the job awful. Got drunk there one night, drove home, met the police, lost my driving license and that was that! I'll never know why I didn't knock on Andy's door and kip there...oh yeah it was because I was totally arseholed and coherent forward planning insn't something you do in that state.

Another Night in Rugby

Drove to the Chequers and again to Rugby where I filled in for a second night. Luckily I only worked there for two nights and never ever went there again. Unfortunately it meant was that the next day, Mothering Sunday, was to be my first actually working day in the Chequers itself. I'd got the job there because a fried, Andy, lived in a flat a few doors further down the road from the pub and he had worked there for a while in the evenings. He wasn't able to continue doing so and had suggested that I might want to take his place. The Chequers was a food orientated country pub and very popular with the Sunday lunch crowd. Mother's Day was always one of the busiest days of the year. Tomorrow, it appeared, was going to be a baptism of fire.

First Night The Chequers, Ullesthorpe - Diverted to Rugby.

This was the night I was supposed to start work at the Chequers pub in Ullesthorpe but it turned out to be a very different evening all together!!! When I arrived I met the landlady Barbara and her husband, can't remember his name. Her husband ran another pub way out in the sticks somewhere near Rugby. He had injured his back and needed someone to go to his pub and run it for him. It seemed that yours truly had drawn the short straw and  I was to follow him there in my car. This was to be the first problem; he was driving a high performance car, something with a Rolls Royce engine in it if I recall correctly, and drove like a maniac whereas  I was driving an old banger. Keeping up with him was almost impossible and a few times I thought I'd lost him. Eventually we arrived at his pub, I don't recall the name, which was a small village local in the middle of nowhere. It was virtually empty until 10:00pm but shortly afterward the regulars started putting in an appearance; apparently licencing laws counted for nothing. I eventually shut up shop at about 1:00am and, somehow after clearing up, managed to navigate my way home. I think I made it home for about 2:30 am and I'll never know how I managed it in the dead of night from a place in the middle of nowhere that I'd never been to before! What an interesting first night!

Our Wedding Day - Not At All a Traditional Wedding NOT COMPLETE

Deb Job interview am
lads around in the morning
Registry office polkingtons walk
Mispronounced my name
The DeMontford Hotel Reception
Meal

Nick, Nick, Andy, Racheal, Mum, Dad, Tess, Ray, Doreen, Alf, Deb, Me - The Whole Party

Ian Hamiltons Funeral

This was going to be our wedding day; Deb and I thought it would be amusing to get married on Friday the Thirteenth but my Mother, the superstitious atheist/agnostic, was absolutely against it because of the possibility of it being bad luck...people I'll never understand them. It turned out to be a much different day to the one we had planned. Ian Hamilton, the permanent full time Secretary of the Leicester University Students Union and an absolutely lovely bloke, came into work the previous week complaining of a headache. It got so bad that eventually he went to the Royal Infirmary who checked him over, gave him a paracetamol and sent him home. He collapsed of a brain hemorrhage on the hospital steps and never regained consciousness and died three days later...he was Forty One Years Old!
At approximately One O'clock, on the day we had planned to get married, we instead found ourselves in the University's official church St Nicholas attending Ian's funeral.

 After the service we drove to Saffron Hill Cemetery where Ian was cremated. This was the same crematorium where twenty five years later Duncan Hastie, a friend and colleague at British Gas, was cremated after he committed suicide on 3 Oct 2006.

Approx September 1981 - Price Waterhouse, Skipworth Street, Proposal

Started work at Price Waterhouse as a trainee chartered accountant but didn't appreciate that finally I was doing something that would actually require me to sit down and study so didn't qualify and left after two years.
 Deb working as a traffic warden after being let down by the solicitor who had promised to article her.
After much to-ing and fro-ing between the builders and the vendor the purchase of 14 Skipworth Street finally completed and we moved out of the flat on Evington Road and into our new terrace house. At this time the interest rate was at 12+% and our repayments on an £8,000 mortgage were huge. Within a year they had halved. Nice place to live, great corner shop unfortunately a young black guy moved in next door and over a period of 20 months, due to the drugs, changed from a nice block into a total c*ut who I often fantasised about killing. Eventually he forced our move from the property thus bollixing our plan to keep and rent out the house as a start to acquiring a rent property portfolio. Mind at the time getting a buy to let mortgage was impossible, if you couldn't get the money from family you couldn't get started. this is why most of the people doing this in Leicester are Asian because this is what they did; pooled family money.
At some point during this period I suggested to deb that it might be a good idea to get married for the tax relief so we did the following month on the twentieth.