I met up with my old friend Bob the other weekend, and it was one of those weekends where I just let the good life wash over me and forget everything.
About a decade ago I was Bob's lodger and also DJ roadie, and it was without doubt the best time of my life. I owe a lot of my confidence, control and beliefs thanks to him, though I doubt he realises or aknowledges this fact.
At a time when I was losing friends, had just lost my failed male role model ( due my step-father drinking himself into an early grave ) and had been forced to leave college early, I could easily have drifted into any number of kinds of life.
Despite being a smoker who was also a bit of a womaniser, he was - and still is - a great man. Highly intelligence, he is also an ex paratrooper, who is fiercely loyal to his friends, enjoys a challenge, is well read and with as much life experience as you could expect from three normal people.
He has also got a cunning and evil streak in him a mile wide if the mood takes him.
I know that I am drifting a bit here, but this blog might be the basis of any future biography if I ever do enough for people to want to read about me, and as its my blog then why the fark not, eh?
So anyhoo, Bob is a very good mate and so when he was a little down last weekend it was a pleasure, and an honour or sorts, for us to meet up with him.
Firstly we just went to my local pub and began doing a little maintenance on his DJ music equipment, which took me back about ten years in a single instant.
Then after a little chat we went on to a pub quiz down our old pool team stomping grounds, which brought back even more happy memories. We didn't see many old faces that were around when we used to play for their pool team, but the place itself was still largely unchanged.
Around 11pm, after we came forth in the quiz, and I had won a new
England Football Shirt, he mentioned did I want to go with him and his family down to the beach at Lydd for a Sunday afternoon barbeque.
At first I said no, but but then he pointed out that I had to accept his arguement that I had nothing planned to really come back home for, thus despite having to crash on his sofa for the night I accepted.
Being woken up now by Bobs younger kids is a lot more peaceful than it was all those years ago by being woken up by his older kids when they were little. These ones do not fly across the bedroom with large inflatable hammers and jump up and down on your head as part of an early weekend alarm-clock game.
After a brief snacked breakfast, we all piled into the car and headed on down to the beach through an hours worth of rolling countryside.
This took me even further back and it was almost as if I was back as a child myself, crammed in the back with my brothers and sisters heading on down to Cornwall for our annual holiday.
The only real difference is that instead of singing camp fire songs like "goodbye horse" and "ten green bottles", or having my stepfather sing "Jerry and the pacemaker" songs, we was listening to Bobs latest trance demo CD.
The road leading up to the beach was totally amazing and fitted the idylic postcard photos you often get see but wonder where on earth they were actually taken! Only a few were B&B's and most parts would not have been out of place on the set of the Jim Carey film "The Truman Show".
Once down on the beach itself I was taken back to some of my earliest memories. Of barbeques, sand castles and getting sunburned so badly that I could not wear a t-shirt for several days.
The beach barbeque was more than nice, even if a few grains of sand did blow on the food ( and everywhere else as well ) and the bread tolls were too dry. By the end the flood of emotions that I was feeling was so strong that Bobs wife even had to tell me to stop being mushy and act grown up.
After about four hours on the beach, and me getting only slightly burned despite having some suncream protection, it was time to come home again. Their eldest had done a little beachside stroll while we were sunbathing so we had to go look for her, but to their credit they did not mane her feel too bad for going off, even if she was close to tears.
It started out with me trying to be supportive and helping out my friend, but in the end I cannot say who got the most out of the whole weekend. I will certainly not forget last weekend in a long time and its put me back in touch with a part of my life that even the family photo album could not.
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