Buying a restaurant (part 2)

Doubt and being doubted has always annoyed me. If you ever need to motivate me or get me to achieve something just tell me that it can't be done, or more specifically it can't be done by me! It lights a little fire in my belly you see, sets me thinking and sets me fighting. 'Sorry Mr Freer but you'll never play football again, you're back won't take the strain', yeah that'll do it. 'You'll never make anything of yourself academically as your attitude stinks' (Mr Barclay, Campion high school), grrr one of our attitudes stink Mr B, go look in that mirror and check whose! And our current doubter: 'buy the restaurant, hahaha, but you're the dishwasher', a red rag to a bull if ever there was one! 

It's weird where we find motivation and stranger still how a mind works. We're all different but we're all people and this is where I get a bit (okay, a lot) ranty but when I meet someone I really don't judge them on appearance or on what job they're doing. Everyone should be a blank sheet of paper when you meet them and as soon as they start talking you start filling in the paper with fact and not presumption.

I've had some shitty jobs, Maccy D's, Tesco's, window cleaner, dishwasher to name a few but does that make me a lesser person in any way before you even speak to me. It winds me up in all forms of discrimination too, the elderly presumed to be senile and forever ignored when there is so much we should be learning from our elders. Disabled people, just because you're in a wheelchair doesn't mean you're fucking stupid, deaf, blind, mentally impaired... Racism too, so many preconceived ideas on people of different nationalities purely based on their nationality... talk to them for fucks sake!!!! Yes there are idiots who are old but there are young ones too, ones in a wheelchair, ones not. Idiots from Romania, Nigeria and just as often England. If you take the time to find out about the person there's a whole world of knowledge to be learned and friendships to be made. If you just open your eyes and see 'person' every time you look at someone, not old, not black, not white, not disabled,  just PERSON! ... Okay, I'm calm again now, had a little moment there but we should probably get back to the story!

The contracts are all drawn up. I'm sat in the solicitors office with a cheque in my hand and I'm ready to hand it over. I got it through from my aunt last week, took it into the bank and had a meeting with the manager which went pretty well considering my credit history! They gave me a business account and everything is set for me taking over. As I paid the cheque into my new account I noticed that the cashier was writing 200 pounds on the slip, she blushed and apologised when I pointed out she'd missed 2 zeroes off the deposit! More preconceived presumption by her and I was even dressed in my best clothes! 

In the solicitors the talking is done, the agreements agreed and we sign the contracts. I walk out with a set of keys and I'm the proud owner of Yr Ogof Bistro in Harlech, I feel pretty good to be honest but then I don't yet know that the work is only just beginning and the stress that I thought I'd had is nothing compared to the minefield that is waiting.

I have 3 lives so to speak, well more than that in reality but if I miss 3 consecutive monthly mortgage payments I am in default and will lose the restaurant. There's so much to take in, VAT, PAYE, Stamp duty land tax all to be paid. Then there's my suppliers, wet, dry, fruit n veg, meat and frozen. There's the itinerary of what I'm buying, and there's a 3 bedroom flat included that's occupied with friends of mine at the moment. There's staffing and the levels of turnover that wages should cost and whether to keep on the chef. There's the kitchen which is desperately in need of a refit and new equipment. We need a new dishwasher as the old one has just got a promotion! So much.

I'm basically starting without a bean too which is never ideal. I've got 30 days according to my calculations as the suppliers won't worry about supplying until their first bill is sent. My inheritance is exactly 20 grand, my deposit is exactly 20 grand and so for anything else it's gotta be earned before I can spend it. All of the bills that are coming in the first month are going to have to be prioritised, with wages at number one and food at number two, I'll work down and through the rest from that point. 

We're on a wing and a prayer as I try to fudge together a staff meeting and organise a work rota, re do the faded and aged menus, get hold of the wine merchant who was supposed to be here 2 hours ago, my steaks haven't arrived either and the chef has had a paddy and gone for an hour off. 

It's opening weekend ahead and we're getting there, the place looks presentable, staffing has proved suprisingly easy even though one waitress was especially surprised by my phone call! People are happy for me but worried that i'll fuck it up and who can blame them for that. We've only made slight alterations to anything as old Huw had a winning formula going and just lacked the time and energy to continue with it so there's no major changes, no mending as such to be done.

The annoying thing with anything that you do in life is that given hindsight, given the knowledge earned in any venture or adventure undertaken you can see the mistakes you made. You can see where you went wrong and where you went right and you just wish the knowledge had been there earlier. Right now though I'm oblivious to the errors I'm making, deciding this and judging that using all the wisdom I have at 24 years of age and I'm loving it.

I brew a coffee on my coffee machine, sit down on my bench and light a ciggy, glance into my kitchen and around at my tables, pondering what improvements I can make to my restaurant, I look out of the window at someone parking in my car park and it's sweet this feeling, really sweet.

The phone rings for the 100th time that day. I'm on my own in the restaurant as all the doers are doing and all the well wishers have already wished me well and I'm suprised when it's the University. It hadn't been on my mind at all with so much going on since my final two exams but the faculty office have news for me. 

I make her say it twice as it just doesn't compute the first time around. "It's a 2:1 Roy, you got a 2:1, we do hope you'll be able to attend the awards ceremony", I'm literally speechless but manage a garbled "thanks" as I replace the receiver. I drop to my knees, behind my newly purchased bar. I sit there, bouncing on my haunches, absolutely ecstatic and yet flabbergasted that I've done it. I'd already accepted the 2:2 in my mind and taken the restaurant as a consolation but no, what a week, and as Del boy would say: 'I've only gone and bloody done it'! 

Leaving on a jet plane.... (part 2)

Money is a problem, money's always a problem! I've probably got about 200 quid to land 5,500 miles away from home with and it's got to last me a month, until i get my first pay packet.There's no benefit system, no NHS, no family and no friends who can help me if it goes pear shaped, just me and my crumpled vertebrae.

Kieran's parents had said they would help (remember Kieran, the mate who drove me into the wall...). It turned out that he wasn't insured to be driving at all and his Mum and step dad came to see me, all apologies and 'how can we help'? They were obviously worried about being sued or some form of legal action but that's not how I roll, I made the decision to get into that car and it's down to me to deal with the consequences.

I asked them for help buying the girls some presents over Christmas because they offered but I was fobbed of with some bullshit excuses. It might be worth a shot though so I call them for the second time ever, they had originally seemed sincerely sorry about their son breaking my back, but it doesn't go well. I end the phone call after the step dad grabs the phone and informs me that my constant harassment is not welcome and is causing undue stress on the family... well gee thanks for nothing, I'll just take my crushed, mangled and shattered body away then, sorry to bother you guys, hope Kieran's sprained wrist is all better now!

Dad's skint so no joy there as is my sister, the only money I have is from her anyway and she's helped so much I can't ask for more. In the end it's my go to guy Mr Howie who steps in and doubles my bankroll, thanks Gogs. £400, a knackered body, hope, a steely determination to survive and it's Heathrow here I come for the 11 and a half hour flight to Korea!

There's heat in the air when i step off the plane, it's March now but it was chilly in the England i left behind. I've took my temporary cast off as my injuries didn't come up in my interview and I don't see any reason to start on a negative footing or by inducing any sympathy. I'm looking for an exit or smoking area but I've already been spotted by a suited, distinguished Korean gent holding a board up with 'Mr Free' written on it, I hope the spelling at the school will be better and that it's not a forewarning of what he expects to pay me as I make my way over and introduce myself. 

He's Mr Kim, my boss and the director of the school/academy that I will be working in. He looks about 50 but tells me that he's nearing his 70th birthday. His English is pretty broken and as he's the first Korean I've ever met I haven't got the nuances or any experience of Korean communication to help me. He's very formal and apart from a brief smile on greeting me he's adopted a slightly unfriendly manner by western standards but as I will find out it's the standard out here, no smiles. I show him some English cash with a shrug of my shoulders and he walks me over to a change bureau  where I instantly become absolutely loaded, my 400 quid buys me nearly 800,000 in Korean won! What was I worried about being skint for... I fold up the wad of cash as Mr Kim watches on before leading me out to his people carrier.

The drive to Cheonan is about 90 minutes but with the tiredness, my desperate need for a fag which went unsated at the airport and the agony coming up from my imploring back ('put the bloody cast on' it's saying!) the 90 feel like 300. The driving is mental, it's not just that we're on the wrong side of the road. I don't see one head turn from straight on to check left or right as we plough down the 'expressway' and cars cut across us, undertake, overtake, slam the brakes on for no reason and every couple of minutes bang on the hazards for an invisible unknown reason! One good thing is that all the signs are in Kilometres and they fly past much quicker than miles. 

When we turn off the expressway and into the city of Cheonan the driving is even worse, there just doesn't seem to be any rules. I react to every potential impact and as I'm sat on the driver side for England I'm pumping the non existent brake pedal like a maniac! When I ask why we're going through a red light my new boss informs me that the red is only 'be careful' and not stop... 

Eventually we arrive at an apartment block in what seems to me to be a quiet enough neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. It's Sunday evening and my politeness is nearing its limits as Mr Kim offers to take me to the supermarket to get some supplies. Given the circumstances though and the fact that I have nothing at all to eat or drink I accept and after dumping my baggage and getting my first quick view of 'home' we head straight back out. Luckily the supermarket is only around the corner, literally a 2 minute walk away from my door. 

It's a 6 storey affair with everything a Korean could ever need! The first two stories are devoted to clothes and fashion, third is food, fourth is a food court serving all kinds of food that I've never seen before, fifth toys, sports stuff and household essentials such as bog roll and toothpaste, and sixth is electrical and furniture. I grab a few bits, bread that turns out to not be bread, milk, cereal and coffee, just enough to be polite and show that I'm all good in this very foreign environment before Mr Kim finally drops me home and after walking me through the apartments' heating, washing machine and cooker he seems satisfied that I'll survive the 15 hours before he comes to get me for work. 

I suck the life out of what is probably the second nicest cigarette of my life and I'm dizzy after just a drag or two. It's getting dark as I come to terms with my apartment, I'm really glad it's on the ground floor with my irrational fear of heights, I get nervous anywhere above a height that would break bones. I remember discussing my fear with someone and they asked me why I had an irrational fear... well if I could explain that it wouldn't be bloody irrational would it!! 

My mind creates scenario after scenario in which i fall to my death as soon as I get up anywhere high, I think it stems from a recurring dream I had as a kid in which I was hurtling along down a zip wire thousands of feet in the air and gradually losing my grip as I morph into the Michelin man. As the final act of transformation happens, my fingers pop out becoming massive inflated sausages and I lose my grip on the handle and fall through the air, waking myself up with the sheer terror of it all. Yeah I guess in retrospect the Michelin man is probably not the scariest but anyhow, it doesn't matter as I'm on the ground floor!

'Che Roy' has two rooms, one a bathroom on the right as you enter, and then the main room containing a kitchenette, with gas burner and microwave, left opposite the bathroom. Opening out from there is a not big but not too small living area with a TV in the corner and nothing else but built in cupboards, shelving and a worktop with an office chair. It takes me about an hour to work out that the big cupboard is actually a fold down bed which is a bit of a relief as the wooden effect floor would have done my back no good at all. I fold it down into the position it will hold for the coming two and a half years, find some blankets and cushions in my cupboards, smoke another fag and realise what I've done.

I'm 5000 miles from anyone I know, 5000 miles from any family. 5000 miles from my 3 little angels. I wanted to get away from the heartbreak, away from the recrimination, the circular and damaging rehashing of the same old problems and I've done it. There's no sense of relief though, just a big gaping emptiness and the reality that with just 360 odd quid in a currency I've yet to work out I am truly alone.

Buying a restaurant (part 1)

Driving up through Cwm Bychan at 6 in the morning is pretty awe inspiring and if you've never done it, I would recommend. The sun is rising with its crown now visible, creeping upwards as if scaling the surrounding mountains. Spring is turning into summer, there's a warmth to the air, a freshness still, but definite warmth and the birds are singing as the mountain flowers open up to welcome the new day. It's 1998 and I'm set to be 25 in September, a quarter of a century done, 3 gorgeous daughters and a reasonably happy marriage. I'm in the middle of sitting my final exams at Bangor Uni but right now I'm off to work.

Cwm Bychan

I'm painting a house in the middle of nowhere, there's a couple of them here to do and if I take my time I can get two to three weeks work out of the job. They're going to be holiday lets and belong to a friend of Gordon 'Gogs' Howie. Gogs is my 'go to' guy, he's looked after me more than most over the years by employing me in his TV shop, housing me in his flat and generally being there whenever I need a helping hand. I owe the guy a great deal of thanks as even after years of no contact I've rang him and he's helped, it's much appreciated! 

The shop downstairs and flat I rented above

Anyhow, my plan is to paint till about 11 as I've got to be in my second job by 11:30 at the chippy in Harlech, that one involves waiting on, peeling spuds and washing dishes. This is the best of my jobs pay wise, the best freedom wise too as I'm the only person within a 5 mile radius (or so it feels) and the best for thinking time. I'm thinking about buying a restaurant you see, trying to come up with a magical formula that will succeed in the face of serious adversity. 

The restaurant is where I have my 4th job, head washer upper or kitchen porter depending on which title you prefer... basically the bottom of the pile in the restaurant despite performing one of the most important tasks of the kitchen. Anyone can do it but there are not many that can do it well, do it under pressure when the 60 plus diners all finish up and the crockery is needed in a timely fashion for the next sitting while the chef needs a certain pan now or a fish filleting five minutes ago or a runner to grab something from the walk in fridge. It's an undervalued role if you're good at it and it's a nightmare to work on the other side (as chef) when someone is bad at it. But that's later, at 7ish tonight, and for now I'm deep in contemplation.

The problem is the banks. They won't touch me with a barge pole as my credit history is appalling. All I've ever done with banks is use them and abuse them. I've run up so many debts and then just moved away that I've pretty much run out of banks I can use at all, let alone get a mortgage with. The plan is to go directly to the restaurant owner Huw. I have the remaining inheritance (I say remaining as it's been accessible as a safety net for me since I was 14 but the balance is due on my 25th) from my mother of around 20 grand and I plan to use this as a deposit and arrange a private mortgage with Huw to pay the remaining close on 100k he wants over the next 12 years. It looks good on paper, sounds good when I run through it in my head and most importantly that 20 grand cash  incentive is very hard to refuse from the sellers point of view. 

And so after all this contemplation, plans that I've worked through 100 times, I wash up my brushes and my roller, check my progress to find that I've finished a bedroom but for the final 'cut in' between ceiling and wall, lock up and set off for the chippy.

Keith and Linda run the chippy, both retired from their lives in Stoke and happily immersed in the unwelcoming climate of being an English invader, running a business in Harlech. Linda loves me and has all the patience in the world for me, Sue (who also does a few shifts) and the kids whilst Kieth is a bit cooler, grudgingly accepting us as workers and friends. It's pretty quiet today though and after serving the 6 or so diners that come in, washing and cleaning up and having a natter to Linda I'm sent 'home' early at 1:30 which gives me 20 minutes to say hello to the wife and Jennifer, who's not yet at school, eat dinner and get to job number 3 for 2pm.

Job number 3 of the day is my role as retail outlet manager with Harlech Technivision! Sounds good when put like that but in reality it involves opening the shop and sitting on my arse for 3 hours on the off chance that someone might come in looking for Gogs or better than that, and by some miracle somebody actually looking to buy something! I also have to answer the phone and make notes in the diary should it ring, which it usually does at least once during my shift. If the shop gets into too much of a state I tidy it up, if I'm ridiculously bored I tinker with the window display but generally I just sit and try to study.

Right now I should be studying a lot more than I am. I've basically gone into each exam and re written my essay on the subject to suit my choice of question. I remember 7-8 keywords that remind me of the paragraphs or points from the essay and write them down as soon as the exam begins and then just pad it out with bullshit!

The loophole I'm working is that the marker of the exam can have no knowledge of whose paper he or she is marking and so if I replicate the same old answer I gave in my essay he or she has to mark it on its merit as an answer and not even take into account that it's the same old shit I already wrote once! It's working so far but I'm very much borderline with my goal of getting a 2:1. My Dissertation was absolute shite, it started well enough and had great potential but then I got job number 3 or 4 which took up even more of my day and I ended up just padding it out with crap quotes and meaningless opinion which earned me a 49% mark. Getting one below the 50 was a little dig by the tutor, he knew I could have and should have done better, as did I. With more time and just a bit more effort I would have. 

There's only 2 exams left now and I finished off the last of the overdue essays last week so I'm a lot calmer than I was but still pretty stressed out and determined to finish with at the very least respectable marks in these two exams. 

I've done well to get to the end of the process at all really. I only went to college to get off the dole and I only went to Uni as a natural progression of the college decision but I really want to get a 2:1 now and it's close, so close I can smell it. To start with I just wanted to get through, to pass, but now that I'm at the end and so close I just want the 3 years to give me a fair price. A 2:1 is just that tiny bit better than my dads' 2:2 and so eternal bragging rights can be achieved! 

The 3 hours drag on as my 'management' duties go un-required, no phone calls and no customers at all. I leave Gogs a note in the diary so that he at least knows I was here before heading off home for a couple of quality time hours with the kids ahead of job number 4 this evening. 

I head into work for 7 and start clearing away the days carnage from the prep crew. It's still pre summer holidays and still pretty quiet so I have a bit of time on my hands and share some banter with the waitress. She attempts to put me in my place by reminding me that I'm 'just' the dishwasher. I quietly whisper to her that I am thinking of buying the place and she laughs, I mean really laughs. Like the idea is completely ridiculous. Like I, the dishwasher, the dogsbody, the skivvy am making the most ludicrous claim ever. And all night she carries it on, despite me asking her to keep it quiet. There's no malice and I'm sure she thinks I was joking but her words and reaction sting.

My shift finishes at around 11 and I head home to catch up with the family's day. I don't stay up long though as I've gotta do it all again tomorrow. As I drift off to sleep the waitresses words and ridicule drift back to me. She really can't see it, can't even contemplate the possibility that I could buy the restaurant and she's just made me doubly determined to see it through... 

Leaving, on a jet plane... (part 1)

Options, choices, dilemmas. The back is okay, it's not great and it hurts like hell if i drive, sit without a cushion or sleep in the wrong position. Come to think of it it just hurts all the bloody time with varying degrees of pain that I have learnt will intensify if I do any of the above. My full body cast is off though, hacked and sawn away from my slightly dishevelled self. It's minging too, they asked me if i wanted to keep it and stupidly I said yeah, having grown quite attached over the last 3 and a half months. Now though, on reflection, now that i have this plaster cast torso shaped monstrosity sitting next to me smelling up my teenage nephews' bedroom I'm thinking i made a bad call. I've been in this thing all that time and been unable to shower, bathe or even really wash any of the body that it covered so not only is it a big pointless lump of plaster cast, it's also a stinkingly disgusting one too! Anything that can make a teenage boys bedroom smell worse is truly impressive in the olfactory sense!

I now have a removable strap on cast that I'm to wear for the next three months and I've now had a bath so things are looking up and smelling better. I'm doing a few shifts on the bar at my sisters pub, nothing too strenuous but it's nice to be earning a bit of money. I've been here a few months now in recuperation, thinking and deciding on what path to take next. I'm in the pool team but it hurts to play, darts is easier and the lads are gonna be disappointed now that the body cast's off as they've been throwing darts into it whenever i go to retrieve my throws! Hilarious the first 45 times...

I can't see me doing a driving job, too painful. Can't see me staying behind this bar too long as even though I know I'm welcome here, there's a limit to when I will have overstayed it. My sister, I think, would be fine with me around but my brother in law is whole different story. He likes to rule his roost, likes to have a shout and a moan, likes to create a bit of chaos where there could just as easily be calm and I'm not one for falling into line so it would only be a matter of time if I stayed that things would come to a head.  Besides, I'm nearly 30 and coming out of a marriage and a near fatal car crash so I'm not the best company either.

So it's all about options. What can I do? Well i can do plenty of things if i go back over trodden ground. Restaurant work: chef, front of house, manager... dishwasher. Pub work: barman, cook, train to manage. Painter/decorator, bad mechanic, window cleaner, job in a cafe', care worker, carpet loom tuner (a bit random but i did 2 years worth of apprenticeship before the factory i was at closed down), job in retail maybe. Options, but all well trodden and none appealing. I could try and use my degree in some way. Social work, helping the homeless, prison warden, police force... yeah like they'd even look at me in my current state and Id need 12 months of training that I really am not in the mood for. I need to make a choice though.

Christmas comes, bringing with it family and gatherings and the usual festive bollocks. It's the end of 2001 and I can't face it. I'm in a bad place all through Christmas. I put a brave face on, even cook the dinner for everyone but it hurts. Physically with the back, and mentally with the past, the present and the apparent lack of future. I cook the Christmas dinner but I can't eat it, can't face it, or anyone or anything. I lock myself away feigning sickness and think some more, circles of thought coming back to the same miserable reality time and again. There's laughter and noise from the pub downstairs, there's laughter and happiness right outside the door but none here, none this side of my eyes. Fucks sake Roy, cheer the hell up and sort your shit out.

It's my first festive season away from the girls, that's the bottom line. That's the reason for my lack of harmony and as I contemplate what to do I realise that my old life just ain't coming back. There's no happy ever after in the story and the credits have already rolled. I promised my ex that I wouldn't take the girls away from their mother and I can't be near their mother without putting my brain into reverse. The only way I can see me coping with this admission to myself is distance and time.

As it turns out, 5,500 miles of distance is probably overkill but when opportunity and circumstance collide you gotta go with the flow! New year comes and goes and I'm at least starting to move forward, I think. There's an opportunity to teach English in Korea in the paper, the world cup is going to be in Korea this year, 2+2= why the hell not? I look at the requirements: A degree in anything, check. Available to travel to the other side of the world on a 12 month contract, check. A pulse, mmm just about, check!

I ring up to apply and am interviewed by the teacher who is leaving the post I'm applying for. He's happy that I'm eager and offers some helpful advice on teaching methods. The 2 things that they are concerned with are the colour of my skin (am I white... I know, pretty shocking) and am I fit to travel. It's the weirdest job interview I've ever had but I got the job on the basis that I could talk English, had a degree and was white. They need to do a bit of paperwork and sort out my visa (so much simpler in 2002 than it is now) and I'm set to fly out at the beginning of March. The pay is okay, the apartment is laid on and I will be working 5 or 6 hours a day 5 days a week... I'm happy and I'm sad, I'm exited and I'm scared, I'm ready and yet I'm most definitely not!

Cars I won Part 2: The Citreon in the wall

The restaurant's gone. I've tried to pay everyone the money that I owe them but it just isn't there. I paid the wages up to date, managed that at least. Gave what stock I had to the Spar and the Butcher and my fruit and veg man but it's nowhere near what's owed. The VAT man is due anytime for his 24 grand... hahaha, 24k he wantsand I havn't got 24 pence, to be fair he's not asking for anything I don't owe. Think my marriage is fucked too, no way left to move it forward. Only arguments, stupid arguments, pain, recrimination, blame and counter blame. There's nothing left, no moves to make, no deals to do, no saviours or miracles on the horizon...

I'm sitting on the top of the turret/tower (what exactly is the difference?) of Harlech castle. There's a few ways into the castle that don't involve paying, a few that are pretty easy under the cover of darkness. I've come across the wall by the ugly horse statue and climbed the wall on the castle's side, jumping a gate in the process. Not so easy to do with 4 bottles of Bud but pretty easy compared to the climb that followed in which one slipped out, crashing after a disconcertingly long time travelling through the air. I'm at the top of the back left one as you look here, the two with flagpoles are a lot harder to access as they have padlocks on, not that that stopped me on a different occasion with a certain Mr Stokes!

I'm way too drunk to be up here and the sky is rolling over itself like the old t.v's used to when the vertical hold was gone. Have a fag Roy, yeah good plan. I'm trying to look up, looking for the stars but the clouds are building and there are very few stars to be seen, if I look down I really wanna jump. It's weird how my main concern is not dying but surviving, If I die then it's ok in my alcohol fuelled logic but if I survive, am crippled/maimed/brain damaged or any combination of these then I'm a further burden on the people that I'm already letting down. So I look up, up to the sky rolling over on itself again and again and as my eyelids sag under the strain of staying conscious the clouds build up further and as I drift into a restless sleep I feel the drip drip drip of the rain. My last thought is how the hell I'll get down from here in the wet but it's not something that bothers me for long as the lights switch off in my overloaded brain.

I never did get down to the bottom of the blame game. Was the restaurant to blame for ruining my marriage? Was the marriage to blame for ruining my restaurant? Your head goes round and round when you come out the other side of a failure, personal or business and you wonder at which point you lost the game, when exactly was it all over. Was it one big thing or a multitude of little things adding up day by day to bring it all crashing down. I think in the end it's a pointless exercise as no matter what you do in life, win or lose, you learn. You learn and you grow. The pain hurts but pain subsides, you can analyze the failures in your life as much as you want but the fact is that you can't change them. The only thing I got to the bottom of was that bloody castle, thankfully alive and well but soaking and full of a cold/hangover combo!

Where's the car Roy? You promised us a car story and here we go, moan moan moan.... 

3 months after sitting at the top of the castle and pondering the continuation of life (sounds better than the S word!) and I've cheered up a bit. I sometimes feel, as I'm sure we all do, that I have a self destruct button. If I press it then everything goes bang. I've pressed it a few times down the years and it always has the same effect, total devastation! Things are looking up a bit now though, not much but a bit. I want to get away though, away from Harlech, away from failing and away from all the negativity surrounding it.

I'm staying in a little cottage 4 miles from Harlech in a little town called Llanbedr. It's a beautiful little place, isolated from anywhere with enough privacy to get me through this funk. Proper old world country cottage with an Aga in the kitchen and a massive oak dining table too. Quiet, isolated, and pretty damned nice, all furnished with proper expensive stuff that comes from family history and not IKEA! It's just close enough to town for me to walk to the pub and just far enough away to escape into my own world and blast my music or shout if i want to.

My mate Stevie was the one who found it, we're supposed to be sharing but he's loved up at the moment and spending all his time with her. Either that or he's just leaving me to it as I've not been great company. Nirvana 'Nevermind' has been on loop in the CD player for days but I'm past any thoughts of a Kurt style exit from this world and plotting a move away. Ready to maybe break from Blurs' 'No distance left to run' (check out the first verse if you don't know it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWFcM_1ye8o) and get a bit of woohoo going instead! Fair play to Stevie, he's still paying for this place as I have nothing. I moved what was left of my beer/wines/spirits into the cottage and have pretty much drank the lot now and that was all I had to offer as 'rent' so I know he's got my back. 

The thing is I still want to be a father, still want to be with or near my 3 little girls. I've been in negotiations with Sue (my nearly ex) and we think we can tolerate each other long enough to find a place, maybe co habit for a while until we get on our feet, maybe make it work if all goes well... As I say, negotiations, nothing concrete. We need some cash for a deposit somewhere, we need a car (About fuckin' time Roy!...)  and we need somewhere to go. We're looking at down south, somewhere near London where there's money and opportunity and we're looking at going as soon as possible. 

I've just come back from the family house, my house, the one that I now feel like a stranger in and I've decided to call into the S't Davids for a beer or 2 on the way home. I think we've got enough cash together to move and I've been chatting to a letting agent in Surrey about a house they have to rent. I go to buy myself a pint but Mike (not his real name) sees me and has already ordered me one. Mike's sound, I did a bit of work for him during my painter/decorator phase and even wallpapered one of his sons bedrooms. He's rat arsed though, In fact more pissed than I've ever seen him and he wants a game of pool... 

We play the first game and I hammer him. To be fair he's normally a lot better but he can barely stand and now he wants to play for money. My general mantra when playing for anything at pool is not to take advantage, I'm pretty good and on my day I'm unbeatable. I'm not bragging or being big headed but I've been playing since I was knee high and with my Dad having lived in pubs throughout my upbringing pool was one of the only constants I had. I've had some tough lessons on the pool table and lost my fair share of games before I reached a decent enough level, but Mike seems totally unaware of my ability as I win the first game for a quid.

"Double or quits?" "No Mike, you're too wrecked mate". "Are you calling me drunk?" Oh great, here we go. How and why is it an insult to call someone drunk? I've never got that one? If you go out to drink then the objective is to get drunk... Then for someone to say "you're drunk" is surely just the same as saying "well done mate, you've achieved your objective"!! Anyhow, Mike's not having it so I double, then I double again, £4 if you're keeping track. 

"Tenner Roy? or quits"... "Right, I will Mike, but this is the last game mate, I gotta go". "Gotta go where Roy? haha..." I've been updating Mike on my trials and tribulations but in his state the sympathy is not exactly forthcoming, especially now that he's losing. "Tenner then mate" I agree, then it's doubled, and doubled, and doubled again and we're on a ridiculous £80.00 from a game of pool that I never wanted to play. "look mate, seriously, just forget it" I say "buy me a beer and we'll call it quits", I'm trying to diffuse the anger I can see mounting with every game. I won't let him win, hell no. I won't let anyone win at pool. I spent so many years growing up earning every precious victory against grown men who dared not lose face against the 'kid'. 

"Fuck you Roy!" This is not going to end well... "Didn't you say you needed a car?" Yeah I know, I already told you that there's no way I'd take advantage of a drunk guy but he won't drop it. "Best of 5 Roy, for my Citreon? I was gonna sell it anyhow". So whilst my sensible and scrupulous side is saying no, you can't do that Roy, It's my now slightly inebriated and less morally correct side that comes out. "you're on mate!" I break and sink the black with the white losing my first game of the night and Mike's finally got a victory to cheer him up. Sadly for him I take the next 3 in a row for the match and after some pretty unsporting insults he throws a car key at me telling me to pick up the paperwork tomorrow before storming off. 

I crash at a mates house in Harlech after a few more bevies in the Lion and wake up knowing I can't take the car. It's not a great motor from what I remember seeing of it but it's decent, gotta be worth 4-500 quid of anyones money. Mike only lives up the hill 5 minutes from here so I say my thanks for the bed and wander up. I can see the car as I round the bend and it's parked in a wall! It looks like the handbrake was let off and it's rolled 5 to 10 yards before planting itself into the dry stone wall that guides the road, seeing it like this gives me a fresh perspective. No way I was taking it 2 minutes ago, now I'm not so sure. I stroll up to Mikes’ door and knock, holding out the key for its safe return. 

"Sorry about last night Roy" is the first thing he says, throwing me somewhat. "I was drunk and acted like a twat... ". Well I'm happy to agree but try and play it all down as a bit of harmless fun, wondering how much he remembers. "look mate, I woke up with your car key, just brought it back up for ya" I say. "You won that Roy, fair and square. I came home and... well let's just say I wasn't happy. I'm guessing you saw the car on your way up. That was me, sorry but you should take it. You earned it and it was my own fault". This is the Mike I know, alter ego of Mr Arsehole from last night. He's genuine, apologetic and happy to admit he was wrong. Takes a big man to do that. "I'm not comfortable taking it to be fair mate", I make one more attempt at giving him an out but he's already handing me paperwork and the other key. "Take it Roy, and good luck with everything". And so I do.

Cars I won, part 1: Greys Mallory

"3 minutes and 40 seconds. That's the record Ronny, you owe me a car."

I've just gone around an assault course, a pretty tough one for a 15 year old lad. It starts with parallel ropes strewn between trees at roughly 20 yard intervals. These run for about 15 trees and then there's a zip wire down onto a climbing frame/death trap in the middle of a lake. I needed to land well or I was in the drink, I did and I clambered through the obstacles and climb the wall to finish the whole thing in what was an all conquering 3 minutes 40. 

"Yeah, I guess i do but I think you cheated Roy..." He leaves the statement hanging in the air knowing full well it will get the desired reaction. That's the thing with Ronny, he loves a reaction. He loves to watch you strain every sinew, push yourself as hard as it's possible and then just when you think you have him beaten he'll pull out a rule change or a blatant dismissal of an obvious victory. 

Ronny (Ronald J Robinson III) is a part of the Robinson drinks company family. He was in his early 60's at this point, I was nearly 16 as was my best mate at the time and co-conspirator in the 'win a car' venture as well as all other sorts of chaos, Stokesy. The thing that you had to get about Ronny was that all this turned him on, he loved it, got off on it, and in a very sick and perverted way too. He'd set you a challenge just to watch you sweat, he was a sick paedophilic aristocrat and he was trying to con me out of my fairly won car. We knew, me and Stokes, but it was a balancing act. Do two 15 year old boys want a car to rally around the woods? ... well yeah, obviously but how far were we willing to go to get it? ... Not as far as the sick old bastard wanted! 

He had this massive mansion with 25 acres of land. Our house was on the main entrance's gateway, there was a north and south lodge and we were in the south one. There was a 3rd lodge on the side entrance to the estate which was apparently nicer than ours, that wouldn't be hard though! Our nice enough house was neglected, falling to bits, and had an infestation bordering on a plague of mice sharing the house! We had to tie our bread to the bare standard bulb hanging from the kitchen ceiling to stand any chance of it lasting more than an hour. There was some great fun to be had hunting them but in all fairness it was too easy, if you left a bit of food anywhere for more than 10 seconds there was a swarm of them on it! The main drive parted the two gatehouses and ran straight, between two open fields to the main house/mansion. It's recently been burnt down in what was recorded as an accident but was pretty impressive in its day. (http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/four-escape-listed-manor-house-3052936)

Off to the right of the house as you look at it here and through an arch there were the garages with some great old dilapidated wrecks including a rolls' and a jag' and then further to the right the woods began. There was the assault course, a lake smack bang in the middle of the woods, a fantastic rope swing that took you from up by the zip wires' starting point out over the lake and back too close for comfort toward the ancient stout horse chestnut it was tied to. A track the width of a car ran around the edge of half of the lake and then off through the woods passing 'the valley of wahhh' (named after the sound a passenger would make when we used it as a shortcut in the car), upwards and left towards the 3rd gatehouse and then looping back around past the main house and back to its origin. further down from the lake was an open field with a rundown old barn that I spent a few months living in  further down the line. Coming back up towards the house there was the orchard and in behind that a little paddock where Thunder the horse lived. Then as you came back up towards the house, directly behind it there was the croquet lawn and tennis court, very nice!

The trick with Ronny was to let him think he was winning, give him just enough to get what you want and stay in control of any deals that were being negotiated, cool and calm, composed and in control... "YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME RON!! It's done, I won you pervy old fucker, you fuckin' watched it, how and where could I have cheated?? GET ME MY FUCKING CAR"!!! Woops... Ron's gone, He's stomping off, his face a nice shade of crimson. "Nice one Roy" interjects Stokes and he's off after Ron to try and talk him round. I knew better, shouldn't of lost it but it's done and Stokes is the master of talking Ronny round. So I sit and smoke a soggy rolly, dejected, knackered and despite my victory, defeated!

"You've gotta do the hill Roy, deal's back on if you do the hill". Stokes is back after rigorous negotiation. I really don't wanna do the hill, there's rumours abound that the last kid who tried it had a heart attack. Rumours that apparently had some substance. "Do the hill and the deal's back on, he's got the money ready for the one we found in the paper". 'The one' is a Talbot Avenger 1600cc sport, light blue body, black roof. A whole shed load of sexiness to a nearly 16 year old! 

The pic is a bit darker in colour but the same beast! "I'm not doing the hill now, I'm fucked", I tell Stokes. "No, he doesn't want you to do it now, he'll say when". I know what this means, it's a punishment. You can't shout at Ron and get away scot free. He'll wait till it's pissing down, till the hill is a slippery mud bath of hell. Doing the hill entails having Stokes (6 foot already and 1 and a half of me in weight) up on my shoulders and climbing the hill that is pretty much a cliff and runs from the bottom of the rope swing cliff up to the left towards the house all the way up to its summit, you get to the top, stand tall with passenger intact and you've won. There's a knotted rope to pull yourself up with but it's hard enough on your own. It's hard enough when it's dry and you can get a good footing. "Ok" I say after serious contemplation, we really want that car, "tell him I’m in"! 

2 days later and I’m waiting for the nod. I know it will be today, or tonight as it's been raining all day. We had a recky earlier and it's a death-trap so it's sure to be on but he keeps us waiting till the light is fading and dusk is setting in, all psychology on his part. I won't be able to see the summit, I won't be able to see a fucking thing if it gets much darker. Stokes wanders down to the house for the tenth time that day and then he's running back, "c'mon, let's go". We had a practice run yesterday, it was dry and light yesterday but the technique is programmed into my head, it's gotta be done quickly. The longer I take the more unlikely it is that I'll do it. It's also about the knots, we've tied a couple of extra in to match my pace length and can only hope that isn't considered as more 'cheating'! 

Ronny's there, at the top with his lecherous pudgy little face grinning away. He's confident that I haven’t got a chance, looking at what I can see of the hill with water cascading down and mud puddles formed at the bottom I’m anything but. "The rules are that you need to get him (Stokes) to the top without any part of him touching the floor", he tells us what we already know. "And you have 3 lives", again, we know but I’m pretty sure that if I don't get it right first time I won't have the strength to go again. We slide down the hill, using the rope to steady us but it's slippery as hell. 

"And go"! He's loving it. I crouch as Stokes stands directly over me and with a practised routine stand and steady his legs with my left hand. The balance is key, it's impossible to use the rope and keep any hold on him and so we've got to keep it steady at all times. I take a step, planting my left at the base and readying my right for the first upward stride. I fall, we fall, there is just no traction and we land heavily in a heap at the foot of the hill. I look up and see Ronny's glinting delighted eyes.

We regroup, encourage each other, Stokes mounts and we're ready for take 2. I get the tension in the rope before I lay a foot anywhere this time and start the climb. Right leg step, left leg stabilise. The rain intensifies and we're wet through. It's then that I know I can't do this, my heart is hammering in my chest and we're like novice ice skaters knowing that any second now we're toppling over onto our arses. I can't see much but I can see him smiling, leering, squinting to see my pain and there's my inspiration. Step, stabilise, step and I’m over halfway. Seeing him and now seeing the summit silhouetted against the last light of the day drives me on. Step, stabilise, pound pound pound my heart is virtually exploding in my ears but I speed up as I know I'm nearly spent. We make it, finally and I stand like Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia museum of art. "YESSS"! 

We get our car. We rally it, we break it, we fix it, we jump it, we rag the hell out of it and we love it. We do time trials around the rally track, drop down into the valley of waaahh and jump up the other side nearly getting wiped out by a very inconsiderately planted tree that causes all sorts of stress to the driver side door. But more importantly we win and I didn't die at all (for a change)!!

Sorry Mum

"Put the burger down so we can fight gont Saison (English c***)"! It would and should be a funny demand under pretty much any other circumstances. This is Gwion, my nemesis from the the lovely Ysgol (school) Dyffryn Ogwen in Bethesda and he's standing, flanked on either side by his henchmen Dylan and Gareth. He hates me because I'm English and he's Welsh! He's a real nasty bit of work, the school bully and so full of hatred for anything English it's unreal, I really don't know how he carries it all around!  I don't mind Dylan as we've traded punches before and he at least has a modicum of respect for me. Gareth is only there because he's a follower, a sheep, when he's by himself he actually seems pretty sound but they will back Gwion up out of fear. 

Gwion's been waiting for this for a long time and I've walked right into his sneaky little ambush. He's got me and it's time to take the beating, I haven't got any intention of fleeing, even less of fighting back. It wouldn't happen under normal circumstances, I've been leading him a merry little dance for months and he hasn't the intelligence to catch me, but these are not normal circumstances and I'm not on my game.

It's a bleak, rain soaked night, dark and dreary, matching my mood. It's about 10pm and I'm walking home alone from the pub where my Dad is 'just having the last one' with the boys. I'm just going straight home, not even lifting my head since I visited the chip shop, I've got a lot on my mind and I didn't go through any of my normal checks and routines for getting home safely. So it's my fault really and I've got no intention of putting my burger down!! "Just do it Gwi", I make eye contact and see the hatred, real burning hatred for me, why? "I'm not fighting you, just do what you've been waiting to do". 

And he did, but he couldn't sustain it as I wouldn't fight back. Bullys' tend to enjoy the chase, enjoy you being scared and the power it gives them. If you take that away and show no fear, they don't really know what to do! And it wasn't that bad, a few punches in and I was actually relieved to be feeling something, some real pain that I could use to cry a few more tears. Not for him, not because of him, and not because of the bloody nose and split lip i had but because i needed to cry. Needed to cry and reflect and remember her, needed to mourn her. Gwion got bored pretty quickly,all his fun spoilt by my submission, and let me stagger off up the road crying, bleeding and still clutching that stupid burger...

Three weeks earlier:

It's beautiful. Once in a while Bethesda could really take your breath away. I'm boarding the coach and can pretty much see the whole valley bathing in sunshine and shimmering under its light. We're off on a school trip to Ironbridge, 'instigator of the industrial revolution'!! The beautiful green and plush mountainside on my left contrasts with the grey blue mountains of waste slate slag taken from the quarry on my right whilst straight ahead the road meanders up and between the two.

I'm in a pretty good mood and may even be smiling when I notice that she definitely is, smiling right at me! I have to check of course! I look around me, there's no one sat next to me (the benefits of being the English kid!) and check again. She shakes out her hair with a little flick and turns back, making eye contact and removing most of my doubts. That's Angharad, with wavy jet black hair, dimpled cheeks, kind and tumultuous eyes and an amazingly coy teasing smile which is directed at me. Wow! This is a whole new experience for me as I'm usually ducking and weaving my way through each school day just to avoid another fight. I have had a few girlfriends but I've never experienced this open show of desire that I'm experiencing right now. I brave another glimpse, Oh my... still there, still definitely looking at me. My heart literally skips a beat and the smile on my face is a strange new reflexive feeling for me as the coach stumbles and stammers its way through the Ogwen valley mountain range.

What a day it was, so memorable because of the contrast with what was to follow later but even with that it stood alone as great. I don't think I'd smiled so much in years, smiled and flirted (or tried to!). We followed each other around for most of the day, Angharad had her best friend with her for most of it but I didn't care. We chatted and smiled some more, the early summer sun warming our backs as we discussed teenage dilemmas and it was nice. I really wasn't used to nice, nice or normal were alien to me but if this was it then I'd happily take a whole lot more of nice!

We finished the tour of the old bridge and its' museum with a video and a talk thrown in! I honestly can't remember a thing about it because of the Angharad factor and we were so close by the end of the day that she sat next to me on the way home. I don't think we got as far as a kiss but the sweet innocence of the mutual attraction was more than enough to thrill me. We held hands, caressing and clasping each others. Entwining fingers and staring into each others eyes. We arrived back at the school and arranged to see each other the next morning, ahh young love! As we stepped off the coach though, I noticed Dad there waiting for me, that may not sound too strange I'm sure but it was. For starters the pub was open! He had a bag over his shoulder as well and a grim expression on his face. "It's your mum Roy, we gotta go". I never saw Angharad again.

I was taken to my grans house in Stratford upon Avon and taken straight to my mum's bedside. She looked like shit, understandably, and there wasn't much I could say or do to help. I just tried my best, I was still a bit shell shocked to be honest, hoping beyond hope that she would get better. I'd been told, Dad had explained that she wasn't going to last long, a few weeks at best. All I could do was give her a hug, a hug and a cry on your mums shoulder is so taken for granted by so many but not by me, not on that day.

It was a strange couple of weeks with family and friends coming and going, tears being shed and heartfelt conversation that mostly went over my head. We were all waiting, waiting for the innevitable but avoiding talking about it, A lot of people couldn't face my Mum, they wanted the memory of how she was to be the one to remember her by. Not the memory of this frail, weak and sickly woman, a shadow of her real self. I don't blame anyone that didn't come and I thank those that did. She was suffering so much as the bastard cancer tore through her body and systematically shut down her system that she really didn't care who came. There was no cure, no remedy and nothing anyone could do.

She was a nurse, and she was a good one. She was the Sister on her ward and got offered work out in Saudi Arabia which was well enough paid to tempt her away. She worked away for a few years and met a guy who came back to the UK with her to set up house. My sister was living with her having had enough of the poverty and neglect that came from living with Dad. Mum had been through a bout with cancer already and had a breast removed, she knew the score when it came back and she knew her days were running out.

I was never very fair to my mother. Always a burden to her as a child and always blaming her for leaving me. For leaving us. I was 5 then and had caused her nothing but grief with my rebellion and resentment in the 9 years since. But now she was dying, she was dying and it wasn't fair. I didn't hate my mum, I loved her. It's a fine line sometimes but the fact was I'd always loved her, loved and missed her as anyone in the same situation would. And now she was going to leave me again, leave all of us for good and all I wanted to do was make sure she knew I was sorry for the pain I'd caused her. That I'd forgiven her for leaving, that I understood.

I tried my best. I cried, I apologised and I hope she knew. I was holding her hand as she passed away. The time had come, she just wanted the pain to stop, emaciated and withered it was so hard to see her this way. As she took her last breath it was almost a relief for her, an end to the torture. I walked out of the house, tears streaming, head bowed. I got as far as the local shop and bought 10 fags... oh the irony Roy!

You can have good funerals. I mean they're never happy, never fun, but sometimes they are really good. I've been to shit ones where you turn up and some guy in a collar talks impersonally about someone they didn't even know telling you how god will accept and forgive them and that they will be remembered. I've been to funerals where the vicar got the name of the deceased wrong, not once but all the way through the ceremony!! Mums funeral though was a good one, it was one of the first I'd been to so I didn't appreciate it much at the time but the way it was done was beautiful. There where no strangers talking, just friends and family and in between there were songs, her songs. It was all about Mum from start to finish and a really lovely send off for such a lovely person.

The funeral finished and the next morning I headed home with Dad unsure of what was coming as there was talk of us moving to the midlands to be near or with my sister. We got back mid afternoon and headed for the pub. I wandered off a few times, down to my park and over to the spar for snacks and fags. I really wasn't in a sociable mood though and eventually had a word in dads ear. "Ok" he said, "here's a couple of quid, get yourself a burger on the way home"...

3 Little Angels part 2

"Just try and stand up Mr. Freer". Here he is again. "Or at least sit up a bit so we're making some progress". That's the doctor talking, which he's good at. His bedside manner is slipping though, obviously a busy man and one awkward bugger who, in his eyes, wont even try. It's the listening part of his job he needs to work on. I've told him it hurts, hurts like stars coming into my field of vision, hurts like if i go one inch further i'm going to pass out, hurts so bad I really want to punch the ignorant shitbag just for doubting me. He's not listening though, I presume he thinks I'm milking it, or that I'm just a whingeing little wimp!

I woke up, obviously! I woke up and there they were, my 3 little angels! I didn't like the fearful look they gave me but I was yet to see a mirror! I did like the warmth, the tears, the relief  and the love they showed though. I was in intensive care and they were a bit worried for a while. I'd been put under the knife, my internal organs having taken exception to wearing a seatbelt! Spleen ruptured, liver lacerated and intestines partly removed (2 metres cut out) and then they'd stapled me back together and hoped for the best.

Now the doctor is over me and i'm trying to explain, "it's my back you see, are you sure you've x-rayed it"? "This patient is recovering from an RTA and we're trying to get him to sit up". He's got an audience of some students and a few nurses this morning. "Only, the thing is, he's not very responsive, are we Mr Freer"? If i could get up mate, I'd be up wouldn't I, kicking the shit into you... "Can you please just check the X..." "We're going to have to move him onto a ward soon and hopefully he'll try a bit harder for us then". And he's off, turned tail and walked away.

I've had a few visitors now, and they all wince when they see me. I finally get to see a mirror and see why! My face is basically a bruise, a bruise with a few cuts thrown in! i've got a bad gash down my left leg too but that's the least of my worries! Kieran's been down to say sorry, he got a broken arm (yup, that was it!). His parents have popped in to promise me any help needed (turns out their boy was not insured.... turned out they didn't really want to help). Family have been, my Dad, my sister, happy to see I made it but concerned where I will go from here. I've had to give up the flat as I'm not going to be working anytime soon and Sue, the ex, graciously offers to put me up and maybe even 'give it a go' again.

It's one of the nurses (isn't it always!) who finally listens, days have passed now. She sees the strain, sees how I nearly faint with the effort of just lifting my weight and she asks me where exactly it hurts. The next morning I get sent for a "most unorthodox" (tosser!) 2nd x-ray and as I'm being wheeled out and back up to my ward I see them rushing past me with a brown A4 envelope. Here he is, Doctor fucking Oblivious, "Don't move Mr Freer" he says! Don't move? Don't try and sit up? Don't try and go for stroll doc!!? "If you move now, you may never walk again"! Wow, there's a sentence to make you pay attention, the guy isn't even acknowledging the irony of his sudden concern but he's got my interest and I'm not moving!

It was the 2nd vertebra up on my backbone that was broken, all pretty closely tied up with the spinal cord apparently. I've gone from whingeing pain in the arse to star patient in a matter of minutes and they have me lying down now whilst they shape and construct me a full body cast. Not full as in the 'mummy' sense but full as in my entire upper body covered with my little legs popping out underneath and my battered head poking out the top! They finish patching it all up and leave me to dry for a while and then my nurse is back, the listener, who, as it turns out has listened to my (nicotine yearning) appeals again. She's armed with a wheelchair and a single Benson and Hedges! I think that cigarette was possibly the nicest or most satisfyingly appreciated of my entire life!

What a job those nurses do, juggling egos and idiots, dealing with abuse and the obtuse and yet still there, day after day saving lives and giving, always giving. She will not have got any credit but i know it was her who had a word in the right ear to get me the 2nd x-ray and so it's to her, and to nurses in general (I even went and married one..!) that I am most thankful.

There's not much more story from the hospital. I got a new doctor, guess the old one was too busy! I had an eye watering experience when they wanted to examine my urinary tract with a camera... ouch! It, and me, thankfully all started working properly though and time started its' healing. I got to the point where, a few weeks in, i noticed that i wasn't actually doing anything that i couldn't do at 'home' (I didn't have one of course, but still!). Just taking pills and resting was all I did and so I discharged myself, the body cast was doing its thing and I wasn't going to spend 3 months in the hospital bored shitless while it did it.

And so I discharged myself into the care of my ex, probably not my greatest plan ever but that's a different story again!!

3 Little Angels part 1

Darkness, darkness and peace. There's nothing else, there's no bright light to head into, just darkness. I'm not even aware of it really, just drifting on through, through and to the end. An ending before the middle though, before its' time surely. There is something. On the periphery of my sub conscience I can make out 3 little shapes. Angels? Gotta be Angels. Do angels talk though? These are talking, no crying, crying a word if that's possible. I can't quite make it out though and that darkness is somehow comfortable, easy, it's engulfing me and i'm happy to let it. Why fight it? why bother? "Daddy", that's what they're saying "Daaddy, DON'T GO!"

I am mid divorce. It's a nightmare the first big split of your life and this has been just that. I reckon it's an 18 month process getting through, getting to the point where you don't wake up everyday and think you can fix it, but that's in hindsight and i'm not using that just now, it's all here and now, all hurt and regret and argument and the slow slow recovery. But I've made a big step, a step out of the door and away at least. I've just moved back up to Leamington from East Sussex and have got my taxi badge through. I've sorted out a flat to live in, even moved my stuff up from Sussex where the semi ex and my 3 Daughters live.

It's not ideal but I know I have to do it, get away from the circles of repetitive hate, away from the constant reminders and the 3 girls who have done nothing to deserve the atmosphere surrounding them. I don't really want to drive a cab in Leamington, it's what my Dad has done for the last 18 years and whilst there's nothing wrong with following in his footsteps it's going to be a large shadow to climb out from. But it's done, i'm gone and ready to make this new start. Or i was, before that phone call....

"Just pop down and watch the girls will you? I've got to go to the dentist, a few hours is all..." That was all it was, and who'd have thought one little bit of attempted fathering could lead to so much. I'm just coming off the M25 and heading into East Sussex when the phone rings again, "it's ok, I don't need you to come now..." Well that's just great but I'm kinda already there now and not overly happy. I decide that having lived and worked down in Sussex for a while, having a few mates around, it being a Friday night, it being me and me, being in a kinda pissed off state of mind it must be about beer o'clock!

Kieran was my old night shift buddy. Kieran was going to kill me.We had a great set up in the care home we worked at, they reckoned it took 2 staff to sit there all night doing fuck all and who were we to argue. We'd get the chores done early, wait till everyone was off to kip and then take it in turns catching up on sleep! Great little number as long as the awake guy stayed awake! Anyhow, Kieran was the closest mate, literally,  to me when I'd got the 'abort abort' phone call and so it was him i called. "Yeah, having a few beers tonight with some mates" he says, "yeah sure come along, the more the merrier".

And so it transpired. The first pub i visited, The Horseshoe inn, Herstmonceux, was a great little venue for a night out and there was a birthday bash on too. It was the second pub I was to visit that would cause the problems... I remember pool, vodka, beer, dancing. joining up with the birthday crowd and having a good night and a nice catch up and then i don't remember much. Not from being too far gone but from Kieran driving me into the second pub (The Woolpack inn, on a nasty little junction in the centre of Herstmonceux) at about 50mph!

They say you blank out what your mind finds too hard to process and it's true. I have vague recollections of arguing about walking, then even vaguer ones about being scared, and i must of been as I put on my seatbelt (unusual for me, especially drunk!). But the crash, or the run up to it, is a blank. I'm guessing it's locked up in a little file somewhere at the back of my brain, locked, padlocked, chained and not going to open any time soon as I've tried to bring it back but to no avail. Apparently Kieran was racing a mate back to his house where the party was due to continue, took the corner at an impossible speed and boom! All the impact was on my (the passenger) side, I was thrown into the footwell, crushed from the 3 people in the back flying forwards with the impact, crushed by the engine being forced into me when we hit the 300 year old pub wall and it decided it was not really interested in moving!

It took them a while to get me out apparently, the old jaws of life of the so undervalued fire service and the life saving efforts of the heroic ambulance crew. I died, i think in the ambulance or maybe just before. They brought me back and then i died again en route to the hospital. "CLEAR" baboom! how many times have you seen this on tv?! back again and stabilised at the hospital and all I can see, all I can envisage and recall is darkness, an all enveloping darkness... oh, i think is where we came in.

Thank you my 3 little angels x

Swimming

Did you know that diving is the new smoking? It is! It's got to be bad for you... I've just took my lad for his swimming lesson and it's everywhere, as soon as you walk into the leisure centre  there's a warning sign up 'NO DIVING', I'm suprised there wasn't one in the changing rooms... Oh and that was another thing, i walked into the 'MENS' changing room to find women and girls everywhere, me and my boy turned round and walked back out to check the sign on the door, yup right room but someone obviously hadn't told them... what's going on? Anyhow, the pool is maybe 20 metres in length and plastered all over the back wall are 'NO DIVING' signs, 5 of them!

I'm sure in my day we used to dive didn't we? i mean i remember a few horror stories about Johnny who'd banged his head but i remember diving in on a regular basis, i think it was one of the highlights of swimming to practice how cool your dive was! When does a jump become a dive? When did a dive become an illegal maneuver? When did you need 5 bloody great signs to all say the same thing?

I'm pondering this, sat up in the sauna like higher echelons of the viewing gallery when i notice about 5 or 6 kids swimming by in their pyjamas doing a backstroke whilst holding an imaginary brick on their chests. Yeah, i know...! What ever happened to the big black rubber brick you used to have to dive, yes DIVE (!!!) to rescue for the lifesaver badge back in the day... I must have saved at least 6 or 7 bricks attaining my lifesavers' badge and where are they? They can't have all drowned surely?!! These kids today have to use air bricks! 'just hold your hands like this and imagine a brick'?  ahh, it's a shame, maybe they've been retired and there's fields of them somewhere overlooking a pond and shivering from the memory of the deep end! 

Where was I? Oh yeah, the 'NO DIVING' signs... everywhere... Didn't there used to be a bit of variety, 'No Running', 'No Shouting', 'Non swimmers not allowed beyond this point' to name a few. All gone now it seems... just 'NO DIVING!' everywhere...

And haven't the 'lifeguards' got a lot more miserable these days, i mean what is it they get trained in? How to blow a whistle in the most annoying way possible repeatedly? I mean really really annoyingly with little tweety whistling techniques designed to show their levels of concern! A little peepy one for minor indiscretions such as waving at your mum, an elongated screechy one for quite serious ones such as gently throwing your kid in the air in a playful manner and the one that really makes you want to shove that whistle right up their arse is the repeated high pitch shrill peep peep peep when you attempt a dive! 

It's not just the lifeguard staff though it's the counter staff that seem trained up in pedantry now... I remember a few months back i tried to take two of my kids swimming... ohh no, that was a no go situation from the off. 'You need two adults for two children' they say... well i managed to get the two of them up this morning, dress them, feed them, in fact i seem to remember that on our last holiday they were both (and don't call childline) in the pool at the same time without any parents... where was i? i was practicing my diving in the deep end of the big pool!!!