The Past In Front Of Me...

Crossing the Australian coast

Unbelievably, the past 15 months have flown by. As I cast my mind back to May 2011, I visited my good mate Chris McPherson in Steyning, Sussex where he had come from Australia to play cricket. To me it was poignant that I was visiting the man who introduced me to the woman I am going to marry on my way to pick her up from Heathrow. Two Aussie's that played a massive part in my life, both in England at the same time, both whom I would see within a few hours of each other. The excitement was palpable, and this time Jess was coming with her parents, who would stay in the UK for 6 weeks.

Even then we were saying how time had flown for the previous 18 months from the time Jess and I had first met in December 2009! I have very fond memories of The Ranch pub in Sydney because that's where the Mac Uni Cricket boys and I would go after a training session or a match in both of my seasons for the club. During a club gathering at The Ranch where partners and friends were also invited, Chris McPherson brought his then girlfriend Lisa (They shouldn't have ever split and even now I think they would be good together, but that's a completely different story) who brought her good friend, Jess. A simple meeting outside of a pub driveway, who would have thought it would lead to what Jess and I have now? After I came home in April 2010, Jess visited for 6 weeks in May/June 2010, went home for her 21st birthday, came back for two weeks over New Year 2010/11, I visited Australia for a month in March/April 2011 and here I was, standing at Heathrow waiting for my fiancée and her parents.

Qantas A380 landing at Sydney

Now I sit here writing this entry as Jess is fighting her way through customs at Sydney Airport with her 50 kgs of baggage! It is literally more than she weighs! At 8pm BST (5am Sydney time) we watched and listened to QF2 land at SYD through the wonder of modern technology. FlightRadar24.com and LiveATC.net are fantastic for plane-spotters and aviation buffs like myself, and invaluable if you want to keep track of someone you know when they are flying. It doesn't seem too long since I was meeting Jess and her parents at Heathrow, taking trips into London, Edinburgh and Bath, showing them around Devon, settling Jess into life in Devon and saying goodbye to them in our kitchen.

Jess and I at
White Hart Lane

Since then Jess and I have been to Bristol to see The Darkness, London to see Tottenham play, Land's End with her visiting Aunt and Uncle, Cheshire for a family function, and Ireland for a fantastic holiday (see earlier blog entry). We've been all around Devon together, Jess has almost become a local. It's been great for me to show Jess where I am from and the way I've been brought up and how different it is from her upbringing in Australia. And on Sunday during our bimble up to Heathrow we stopped by at a few places from my childhood and my childhood was there in front of me.

First stop on the way up was the small village of Fringford in North Oxfordshire. My father was in the RAF, based at Abingdon and latterly Brize Norton so this was why we were in that area. To look at our old house was a strange experience, mainly because the trees and bushes in the whole road had overgrown so much! To me it looked a little untidy but this reaction is probably because it had been so long since I had seen them. When we left in 1996 our front garden had "trees" that were about 3 feet high and didn't hide the house, and the surrounding properties had similar height bushes around their fences. Now they are almost completely hiding the houses and have grown so tall the telephone lines go through them! What I could see was that our house still had the same front door and the same glass artwork, and the road didn't seem to have been worked on at all since we left. The same potholes, the same dips in the tarmac and the same markings in the kerbs where we used to play football, cricket and tennis. Even the same raised kerb that I used to jump my bike from. How do I remember little things like that 16 years down the line?!

The "hill" in the playing fields at Fringford Primary School that seemed so huge when I was a child now seemed little more than grassy mounds. The same water stains ran down the walls of the school, the different brick colourations that marked the goals while we kicked around a tennis ball were still recognisable. Further round the road, a friend's house... An American family that lived in the village were good friends of ours, we are still in contact with them to this day. I am a couple of weeks younger than Bryan Good, and we regularly used to go over each others houses, Bryan's brother Jason there too to share the toys out. Their parents, Joan and Mike, were the first to feed me hot dogs, a favourite of mine today! Mike was also the first person to take me ten-pin bowling! Amazing to think that is the same Michael Good who has completed two flights on the Space Shuttle, one of which was the last mission to the Hubble Telescope. When they returned to the USA I knew he had got a job with NASA, but it was still a pleasant surprise when we got the card and photo of him wearing his space-suit.

The Jolly Boatman sits alongside
the Oxford Canal

Everything about the village seemed so much smaller than I remember, perhaps a consequence of growing up. I have been before, but the Butcher's Arms pub is obviously not somewhere I frequented as a child! Jess and I stopped for a quick drink before we headed down to Thrupp, near Kidlington and the beautiful Canal-side pub "The Jolly Boatman". In 1993, aged 7, I had a holiday for a week with Dad where we had picked up a narrowboat from here and taken it up and down the canal. It's too late for us to do it now, but I hope that when Jess and I return to the UK in the future we can maybe go out on a narrowboat for a few days.

Although I had visited Fringford a few times since we moved to Devon, the next destination was emotional for me as I hadn't been there for 15 years. Widmer End in Buckinghamshire was where my Mum's parents had moved to when she was little. They had been the caretakers of the local primary school and lived in the house at the school. For my sister and I this meant every time we went to visit we had a playground and more to ourselves. I used to kick a football against a wall, or mark out a set of stumps to bowl quickly at, pretending to be Darren Gough! When we got there the gates were open and the first thing I went to look for was a plaque that had been left in memory of my Grandad, who passed away in 1994 when I was just 8. The plaque wasn't there and this upset me greatly. I don't have much to remind me of my grandfather and I had hoped that along with my memories of him at this address there might be a solid reminder of him, but it had gone for whatever reason. I had to keep my emotions in check in front of Jess because I knew that any show of emotion would have set her off as she came to leave this country.

Despite the gutting feeling I had there, it was great to be able to show Jess most of the pieces of my life while she was here. I would loved to have gone to Germany with her and shown her where I was born but the truth is that I haven't been to Germany since I was 2 and have no memory of the place. That will be an emotional pilgrimage that I hope to make in the future with Jess.

As much as we should always look to the future, I don't want to forget my past. The fact is that what happened in the past can also shape your future. I had some of the worst things you could ever say about a man thrown at me in 2008/09 and that led to the worst time in my life and things that I wouldn't ever wish to experience again. From those awful events came the decision to go back to Australia in 2009/10 and that led to the BEST time of my life, and fate saw that I met Jess. By far and away she is the best thing that could ever have happened to me and for just under 3 years she knows more about me, understands me and accepts me for who I am more than I could ever have wished for. She knows the truth about me, she has been the main reason I have been able to turn my life around and rescue myself from the demons of 2008-09. I have a future to look forward to because of her.

To think that Jess and I already have a past that consists of Paris, London, Dublin, Belfast, Newcastle, Melbourne, Sydney, Chester, Bristol, Bath, Edinburgh as well as getting engaged and living together for this last 15 months is a testament to the strength of our relationship. As soon as my visa comes through and I can get out to Australia, we can build more of our story. In 33 days time I will be back in Australia for the 4th time, and Jess's sister Sarah will be getting married. After that it'll be time for Jess and I to plan our wedding, and one day we will reminisce about that part of our past. Our past is in front of us.

(I will add pictures from Fringford and Widmer End to this blog within a few days)