My life!

 I've been thinking about doing this for a while now.. Writing a blog series about my life, a kind of memoir if you will. Putting it like that sounds really pretentious and I don't think I am.

I'll start with some facts: I was born in April 1976 just before the 'hot one' which possibly explains why I hate the cold and feel like i was born on the wrong continent. I lived and grew up on a small estate to the south of Nottingham. This estate had playing fields that ran the length if it and a brook bordered the playing fields on the other side. Growing up here was idyllic, summer holidays playing on the fields, pretending we were Star Wars characters (i was clearly Luke) I remember we used to whack paths through bracken and dog weed with willow branches that we snapped of trees that were growing by the brook. I'm pretty sure that we did more for weed control than Nottingham City Council did.

I had two main friends on the estate, both were called Gary. One had a sister called Vicky and the other a sister called Lindsey. My parent's liked one of them and not the other as they believed the other to be a potential bad influence citing a seeming lack of parental responsibility. Both of his parents worked full-time and he was effectively a latchkey kid with maturity beyond his years forced upon him. At age 8 it was like having a friend that was 16.. He had access to his parent's video collection and it was this video collection that made me realise that I did not like horror movies.

The nearest school to me was the primary school in a neighbouring estate that was about a 5 minute walk from my house across the brook. I did not go to this school.... I went to a Church of England school just to the south of Nottingham city; a 10 minute walk to the bus stop and a 5-10 minute bus journey away. No one else from my estate went to this school but as the other school was burnt down twice; I believe my Christian parents made the right choice. 

I'm still thinking how to write this - I don't think I'll go chronological (too hard and requires more planning) I think I'll go 'Theme-Centred' and cover topics like school, church, childhood teens, moving house, girlfriends, partying, driving etc in later posts. I'm also unsure what frequency to do this.

Later posts will be about my life with Anna who died this year on June 12th after a battle with cervical cancer. It was one hell of a fight and she fought like a true warrior of God. People asked 'why you'; she answered 'why not me'

Anna on Oct 27th Just before her diagnosis

I miss her terribly but know with certainty that because of both of our faith in Jesus, we will see each other again!

This blog is going to be mainly written for our kids so they can have a memory of who we were before they blew onto the scene like a hurricane that shook our world and knocked a lot of the rough edges off us both.

More to follow.............