Norwich

Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

| Richard

It’s been a while since I updated this blog.

I’ve been so busy and every time I sat down to update, something else would come up, so …

On the Friday afternoon after the last update I rode up to Silverstone for Kevin Ash’s memorial lap which was a fitting tribute.

I'm on the black bike with the video camera on my helmet
I’m on the black bike with the video camera on my helmet

Saturday and I thought I should do some more cycling: I’ve injured my knee in my training for the Berlin Marathon and had to call it off for this year on the advice of my Consultant, though I’ll still be there to support GT. So off I went for another quick explore along the Thames Path, South and North: 11 and a bit miles in all. Great fun.

Iced Tea stop at Greenwich
Iced Tea stop at Greenwich

The following Saturday saw the start of the new football season. Jack and I have now moved seats to a more central location – which meant paying full adult season ticket rates for him as well as me – from where we watched Norwich get a draw against Everton.

The View From...
The View From…

The following week saw loads of hard work and travelling between offices, interspersed with blood tests and seeing my Consultant and Physiotherapist – with whom I’m so comfortable, I started undressing whilst she was still in the cubicle talking to me. And an after-work meal with colleagues at the Folly. We found out the next day that my colleague from Colchester fell asleep on the train home and ended up in Ipswich. No trains back so he had to wait until after 1.00am for an airport coach which dropped him off in Colchester at 2.00am but the other side from the station so he had to walk through Colchester at kicking out time, stopped off for a kebab en route and got in at 3.00am. He’d forgotten we were out for the evening so had only sent a text to his wife at the last minute…

The following weekend ended on the Bank Holiday with my upping my pushbike mileage to 20 miles as I continued past Greenwich – and the obligatory stop for an iced tea – and on to Woolwich where I caught the ferry across for the first time since the late 80s. Nothing’s changed. Saturday had been off to GT’s for the evening and some shopping the next day: some killer heels from Kurt Geiger.

Cutty Sark at Greenwich
Cutty Sark at Greenwich
Urbex
Urbex
Thames Barrier
Thames Barrier

 

A shorter work week – with more doctor’s visits – ending with Club Antichrist on the Friday night with Alix. Great fun! Home at a reasonable time, though, as I was off to Norfolk again the following day.

The following week started well with a fundraising burlesque event for Dixie Evans at Volupté which meant a whole load of cocktails mixed by Josie, including an utterly fabulous Amaretto Sour (or two) (two measures of Amaretto, one of strawberry syrup/liqueur, lemon juice, Angostura bitters and an egg white). And the week ended on a high note with a meal at an Italian restaurant in Ewell Village with GT and shopping for leather jackets for her.

And the small matter of a 20 mile pushbike ride on the Sunday morning down to Hampton Court, following GT as she’s training hard for the Berlin Marathon. Mad woman!

Oh and talking of leather, I ordered a gas mask and a bespoke ladies’ white leather straitjacket, which will both probably find use in one or both of these locations:

Passage
Passage
Deserted
Deserted

 

One evening that week, walking home from work, I came across the London Air Ambulance landed on Potters Field by Tower Bridge as a cyclist had been squished. I happened to take a quick iPhone shot of the landing site pausing only to try to set it up as best I could and then I uploaded the image to Instagram. That night, a local news site picked up on it and asked if they could use the credited photo on their site, which they did. The next morning it was picked up by ITV News and used on their site with credit (eventually). And the London Air Ambulance themselves picked up on it and asked me if they could use it for their promotional stuff. I was happy to licence it to them and indeed made a bigger version for them as the original would be too small for print:

London Air Ambulance at Tower Bridge
London Air Ambulance at Tower Bridge

That week, I also heard that I would be heading off to Canada for a week in October and another trip there in December, both for work.

And we’re almost up to date! Last week started off with a hospital appointment for some 18 burns to be applied to my face… It improved significantly with an impromptu gig – Kings of Leon at the Roundhouse courtesy of the iTunes Festival. A great gig!

King of Leon
Kings of Leon

Saturday was spent relaxing … and another 20.7 mile ride on the pushbike which I’d fitted with a new gel MTB seat. This appears to have made only a slight difference: at 17 miles when I have a load of cobbled streets to ride over, my arse still hurts! But at least today there were some random Morris Dancers out:

Morris Dancers
Morris Dancers

Party Time!

| Richard

Well that was a busy weekend!

After my skydive at Skydive London on Friday – photos and videos to follow! – I got back to the apartment late, late on Friday night.

An early start on Saturday morning, as I was heading up to Norfolk to see my kids. Big pre-match lunch at Nando’s before going on to the Norwich v Blackburn match at Carrow Road. After the match – a real thriller and a well-deserved draw – I drove down to Epsom for GT’s 40th birthday party. She looked really gorgeous in the LBD from Ted Baker and French Connection killer heels that I’d picked out! Great food and a great atmosphere too at the Barley Mow where Phil and Cil took good care of all of us and in Cil’s case, slightly overdid the drinks…

Thank goodness the clocks went back, as it was a late night and I had an early start to head back up to Norfolk for Jack’s football and a family lunch before heading back down to London again!

When I got back, a text from a very good friend reminded me of this time last year: a Hallowe’en Party hosted – obviously to be the centre of attention as always! – by my ex-girlfriend in Grimsby. The exchange started something like this:

“This time last year…”

“…wearing masks and pretending to be someone else. And that was just [the ex]. The rest of us were having a Hallowe’en Party!”

Of course by this time, she was already cheating on me whilst professing undying love, etc. I wasn’t to know at this point that it was my wallet she actually loved and everything else was merely escorting… Still, Karma’s a bitch, as they say, and the ex’s new true love is apparently Jack Daniels. That, coupled with her inability to sleep these days – guilt maybe? Yeah right! – has really taken its toll on her looks, and of course her family have apparently all turned against her so she hasn’t even got them any more to use. She’s apparently clinging on to the poor sap who, like her, seems unable to maintain an er… I mean a relationship. I wonder if she told him about her claim last Christmas that she was pregnant by me as a ruse to get me back, even saying that she could ‘fix’ our relationship and lose the loser? Of course that pregnancy miraculously disappeared all by itself when she realised that I wasn’t having anything to do with her and wasn’t sure who the father might have been – one of many potentials – in the very unlikely event she was telling the truth!

All academic, really, and I honestly do thank her from the bottom of my heart: she saved me from throwing my life away with her and her duplicity before I’d wasted too much time (just far too much money) on her. I learned a valuable life lesson too: there will always be those who take advantage of good people like me. What goes around come around…

Oh wait – that’s a tattoo someone else has: the ex used to regularly take the piss out of her behind her back, despite this poor woman being a genuinely nice person. Of course now with the departure of her oldest and dearest friends – again used and lied to like the rest of us – it’s funny how this poor girl is now the ex’s supposed best friend! Still, given the poor lass was interested in the ex’s local hero before the ex ensured they didn’t get together, she’s clearly trying to keep any friends close and her enemies closer still. Trust is a wonderful thing and the levels of paranoia are high with her! It’s also interesting to note how she’s also trying to break up her friends’ relationships to feel better about her own inadequacies.

So the text exchange compared and contrasted my ex with GT: the differences couldn’t be more profound. It’s good to reflect on things sometimes and better to be thankful for where you are today. It’s funny how after I posted a photo of me in Madrid last week to Facebook, a number of friends commented on how much happier I look these days when compared to this time last year. How true!