Is she a model in the making?

She’s certainly happy

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Went with Cliff and Charlie over to Jarad’s home in Aurora to cut up some wood for Pam’s new kitchen cabinets on a dull but warm Denver morning. After a couple of hours cutting Jarad and I locked horns at Darts in his garage, now having not thrown a dart in a couple of years I was a little rusty but after loosing the first couple of games I started to get a little better and was able to win a couple of games and make the scoreline respectable in an England v USA battle. An hours worth of darts and I would say an amicable draw was probably achieved as we shook hands and parted to head back to see the girls who had been out shopping.

Keith showed up today a long awaited arrival but better late than never, always a pleasure for me to see him but definitely an eeek! moment for Jamie and as soon as they get together its like they have never been apart? This time was slightly different though because just behind their usual hug was Reagan…

We had decided before his arrival to go to Chipoltes for tea so it was agreed that the three of us would drive the two blocks to pick up our order and we would all eat together….the following photo reminds me of the last time Jamie drove here and was pulled over by the police. She was pregnant then too and Keith and I were extremely drunk on margaritas and it was a sobering experience for me thinking my wife may get arrested for driving with me in the back “shittin’ me bastard self” whispering don’t say anything just do what what ever he says…lol

The view from where I was "Shittin' me bastard self!"

Rememberance Sunday has been very important to me for many years now, a day I want my children to hold in high importance too, through my education of what it signifies and how much we all owe the people who gave their lives for our freedom and also those who have served and are still serving should never be forgotten either.

I believe it is the very least you can do to wear a poppy and go to the Cenotaph where ever you maybe on the day and spend two minutes in silence remembering…

Poppies laid in respect for all the fallen…we will remember them!

Marching through the town

Remembering the fallen with a service at the Cenotaph

Remembering the fallen!

Ok I will begin by saying you might not want to believe the hype sometimes and this is one of those times possibly…?

First of all the following is what was submitted to the Middlewich Guardian by John Stenstrom:

“Steventons continue to ride high at the top of the Middlewich & District Pool League as they rode their luck with a 6-2 win at Big Lock. In a match which could easily have ended up any score, both sets of players missed good opportunities, with only visiting skipper Alan Forster displaying table topping form. Trailing 2-1 early on, the Steventons players did well to win the final five frames to maintain top spot.

Turnpike faced a similar deficit when they visited Golden Lion, but also executed a remarkable turnaround to leave their hosts po-faced.
Reigning champions kept up their title bid with a 5-3 reverse against last season’s runners-up Broughton, who stay in third spot but have slipped three points behind.
Elsewhere, wins for Feathers and Top House ensured that Boars Head are now rooted to the foot of the table.”

…and here is how it was interpreted and published!

Not strictly true but I’ll take it lol

Also see: Blowing one’s own trumpet the last time I made the local press.

Sorry to burden this blog with my own personal sadness but I want to write about a friend of mine that not so long ago in my head but many actual years was so much part of my life we were inseparable. It makes me smile to remember all the good times we had and the friendship we had, a friendship that probably wasn’t 50 50 because I desperately wanted him as a friend and he wanted everybody to be his friend no matter what…

We had a gang that were out seven nights a week drinking and having a laugh and although Spike wasn’t always out whenever he was everyone loved him being around but he had other friends and spread himself around never getting tied to a routine of drinking with The Cledford gang everynight where as I was.

on other occasions we would arrange to go down town and i would call at his house and we would walk down together only for him to be the centre of attention and go off with another crowd leaving me to drink at the bar but I really wanted to be like him and to be popular not realising until later that I actually was but in a different way

I fought along side him in bar fights spending hours in hospital because although game we weren’t the best at fighting went to concerts that I was thrown out of but he stayed till the end so I sat in a pub waiting for it to end and catch a train home lay in my room listening to records and drinking Merrydown, spiked each others hair into mohicans and basically hung out

Along with the rest of the gang I really did love the guy but I remember one day sitting in a Ford Capri in the backseat and Spike & Bona went into the sex shop in Crewe and brought out 4 tubs of amilnitrate “poppers” and watched them both sniff away at a pot each for ages offering me one which I refused. After that I watch him quickly progress to anything that was going, as I stood aside refusing to get taken in, but at the time it didn’t matter because all me mates were trying these things and dismissing them as shite and returning to drinking which meant I didnt get ribbed or ridiculed, but Spike wasn’t like that.

For Spike drinking never held the rich appeal that it did to the rest of us and I think his addictive personality lead him in a direction away from his true friends that could tell he was being an idiot and would have told him so and towards people who had already secomed to drugs a lot more potent than Middlewich could offer at the time…?

We carried on drinking and saw less and less of Spike although still in and around Middlewich he had a new set of friends and that was when I think I realised he was lost…

Over the next few years I wrote to him in jail visited him jail and spent some time with him when he was out of jail but from the outside he looked like the Spike of old, but he now had convictions for dealing and was probably so addicted to whatever he was on he wouldnt even remember these times anyway. That makes me sad. I was still desperate to be his friend and still desperate to be as popular as him?

I now know that what I did during the 80’s and 90’s was to become “someone who lots of people wanted to be around” or popular if you’d like, without ever trying drugs even once yet all around me were trying the lot. I smoked cigarettes and gave them up and I have drank to excess (my only vice still) but I’m alive and happy.

Spike was always the popular one and EVERYONE loved him but at what cost, I don’t know if he kept in touch with his daughter but I’m sure she will be upset at his passing My friends and me will go to his funeral and reminisce about the great times we had with him, his mom and dad sister and family will break their heart over his death as will the 10’s if not hundreds that will show up at his funeral but in the back of all our minds will be “what a waste”

I will remember him as for spiking each others hair into mohicans in each others bedrooms while listening to punk rock music on the record player then going downtown visiting every pub drinking as much as we could by 11pm then staggering to Shirl and Rolands house to carry on drinking and meeting up with everyone else there and the laughs we used to have!

SPIKE