Lead up to the BIG Day

Well, here we are.

I say we, I mean me, which is still "We", but I don't mean you. Understand? I'm rambling.

Oh, well, here "We" go.

It's now 13 years plus some weeks, days and hours and here I am, gearing up to the Biggest day of my life.

We managed a shower in our new bathroom last night (first HOT shower in the apartment in 6 months)- amazing! It's tiled and the water runs and doesn't flood or leak (we hope/think) and the lights work without a short circuit, so, all in all, last night was a pre-wedding day miracle.

I spent a couple of hours last night, out on the town (in the local bar) with my brother-in-law to be, Mauricio, discussing the kind of things you discuss the night before you dedicate yourself to someone forever and drinking a beer or two (Mauricio had Iced Tea, he's hard-core!).

This morning I awoke feeling calm, no jitters, no shakes- which is good, because I've had a viral infection for the last week and have been nervous as to my health prior to the Day, but it seems I'm not only healthy in body, but well adjusted in mind also.

I'm not worried, but I am excited. I'm sitting here, having busied myself with dish-washing, garbage tidying and grocery shopping and now I'm writing this, in an effort to distract from the fact that at 5:15pm today, I'll have a ring on my finger and a new family to legally call my own.

I'm not a religious man, I believe in something, though I'm totally unsure what and I'm not superstitious, though I firmly believe that my parents will be looking on and even if they weren't, I'm comforted by the knowledge that while I may not have had the chance to tell them about re-uniting with Clarissa, they had the foreknowledge and instinct to know that this day was always going to come.

6 hours 37 minutes to go...

Time is counting down...

to the Big Day.

By my reckoning, I have fifteen days remaining of my "Freedom"/Bachelorhood.

Actually, make that fourteen.

Clarissa asked me today if I'd had my "Freak-out moment". I looked at her and smiled.

What can you say to that?

No, it turns out is the correct answer.

And I haven't.

Oddly, I've been gearing up for this day most of my life.

It's often thought that it's the girls that dream of their wedding day and I'm sure that's true, although, on this occasion, it's my turn.

Since I was a young-man I've had this belief that I would one day find that special little lady, settle down, get married and live happily ever after.

I know where this desire came from, it came from my Mum and my Dad. To my eyes, they were a happy couple. Strike that, they were a very happy couple. A pair that, as I saw them, were one person, to the point that I often found it difficult to imagine their lives before they met each other and became Mum and Dad.

I'm sure this lack of sight is common in most children, but I know for a fact that my parents were one.

One half silly, the other, even sillier.

I thank them both for a multitude of things, not least, an obsessive, book reading nature. Something that didn't really rub off on me until my early twenties but in no small part is their doing.

The nearer the 28th gets, the more I find I'm thinking about them and the rest of my family.

I will miss my Cousins and Aunt at the wedding, I won't miss my Brother, I will miss, more than I can say, my Parents.

At the end of last year I finally finished and e-published my first book. I wrote a dedication inside to Peter and Daphne- my Parents. I wish they had been able to read it, but moreover, I wish they were able to be here on the day.

I thank whoever that they met Clarissa all those years ago. I thank them that they contributed so heavily to our being able to see each other over the months and years were were together and I thank whoever that Mum knew that I was going to see Clarissa again.

To paraphrase my Fiancée, "If you're going to do something, best do something hard".

Our lives before and our lives now are hard...and worth every tear.

Family, old and new

While thirty three may not yet be old, it’s no longer young either.

And while I may look less than the sum of my collective years, I often feel vastly in advance of them.

It’s now, that marriage, a home and canine responsibilities rear their heads that I find myself revolving 180 degrees and thinking about the actions and events that led me here.

I’m not going to dive headlong into all the days and years leading up to this point, but it’s worth taking a few minutes, maybe an hour, every now and then and seriously pondering the meaning of your life to this or that point.

I sit here, in our apartment, surrounded by the dust and debris of construction and reconstruction and gaze at the photo frame across from me.

Staring right back at me is Me, a younger me, the one from 13 years ago, the one from 17 years ago and the one from almost 30 years ago. He still looks like Me.

In one image he looks sun-flushed and drunk, in another, he resembles a teenage motorbike enthusiast and in yet another, he sits with his Father to one side and his now estranged Brother to the other.

There’s even one photograph where his Mother and Father encircle him- despite his far greater height and hug him. Him, this late 20’s, chubby faced individual.

Now I sit here and I stare back. There are smiles on every face I see and in my new family I am overwhelmingly lucky enough to see these smiles again.

The smiles in the photos are gone now, but I look at them and I remember them and I know they are still smiling with me.

Rendezvous with Rama

What can you say about Mr A.C. Clarke that ain't been said before?

Dunno? Not gonna then.

Plot: Following a disaster, wherein a chunk of Italy is damn near wiped from the map, the peoples of Earth join together and create a monitoring device, to detect objects hurtling towards them. Jump forward to 2200 and low and behold, one of them nasty meteor thingies is en-route...or at least, they think its a meteor. Turns out to be a large, dark, cylindrical object, and it's massive! Well, off go a team to have a butchers at the ol' goliath. Having committed a bit of B&E (breaking and entering folks), the captain and his crew encounter a world of possibilities and curiosities.

Pretty darn good writing. 

The characters could have done with a touch more development, but the details and the imagination are second to none.

It's no real wonder that Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein were and are still the staple diet of any and all Sci-Fi enthusiasts. 

Yesterday

was a day full of events. Some small, some big.

Firstly, I collected my now, registered Birth Certificate from the Brasilian authorities.

Secondly, I rescued a Blue Tit that had become trapped in some plastic on our balcony. I released it, but it kept flying into a half window we have. I reached my finger out, it sat, calmly on my forefinger and waited for me to lift it high enough. It then paused, as is to say thanks and was away.

Thirdly, I saw a pizza delivery guy loading his 1 year old son into the box on the back of the bike. Some hungry customer is going to be a mite confused.

And finally, we completed all our paperwork.

As of 5.15pm, February 28th, we shall be Mr David Wing and Mrs Clarissa Troller Habekost.

A good day, all in all.

Now, the count down to marriage begins.

Nebula Award Stories 6

Yep, it's another sci-fi book review.

Feel from to skip along to the next Brasil themed post if you like. I just can't stop reading this stuff.

A collection of short stories ranging from the unique to the obscure.

Slow Sculpture, tells the story of a woman, suffering from breast Cancer who ends up in the orchard of a rather confusing man. It seems the gentleman in question is a mechanic/doctor/carpenter/botanist/etc and it jst so happens, if she promises to keep her Gob shut, he's got the cure to what ails her.

By the Falls is told as a conversation piece, based on an interview between a journalist and the old man that lives under the water fall. In this world, the land below the waterfall, the people are oblivious to life above. Curious to some extent, by ambivalent in equal measure, even when the occasional stray pet washes up on the shore or a house floats by.

Purely for the British readers, check out In The Queue.

Not all great stories, but this collection (edited by Clifford Simak- Why call them back from Heaven?) is worth a flick through and the £2 you'll find it for in your local charity shop.

February 1st- a year

February 1st made it a year since Clarissa and I met again.

We'd corresponded via email and made the conscious decision to limit our phone/Skype chats for that unspoken tension aspect of a reunion. You don't want to say everything before you meet but then again, you don't want to lose touch.

Clarissa flew into London on the 1st February 2012, a day earlier than she had informed me she would. Seems that ol' pesky time difference thing reared it's ugly head and I had an email's warning, just before she left for the airport to change my travel plans to meet her.

So, I threw away our train tickets and booked a pair of tickets on the National Express Bus service and headed to the station to get the 6 am bus to London- Heathrow Airport. At this time, Clarissa was en route.

I was feeling somewhat nervous. I am a person that likes warning, advance warning...the more advanced the better and given that my notification was, on this occasion, all of half a day earlier, I had little time to prepare.

I was living in the family house in Sheffield with my brother and, given that he is loathe to help out much, I found myself running around the house with the vacuum cleaner and a feather duster. Yes, very manly I looked too.

I had so much stress and nervous energy building up in me I had real trouble sleeping. I needn't have set the alarm, I woke every hour on the hour.

The taxi arrived at 5am and we were off to the bus station.

The ride was fairly uneventful, but due to the remaining tension I was unable to enjoy reading my book or relax in any way. If I'd been able to pace, I would have.

I arrived (via a connection at London Bus Station) at Heathrow Airport and made my way, as relaxed looking as I could, to the terminal. I got lost on the way. Not crazy lost, where you end up in Bristol, but lost as in I took the wrong turning and ended up at a totally different terminal, all the was across the airport. No real issue and quite expected as I tend to get lost on a regular basis- having gotten lost as a Cub Scout looking for a post box (it was just over the road-I was distracted).

So, I finally ended up at the correct terminal, but given my nerves, I had gotten the earliest bus possible and now had 1 1/2 hours to wait.

I enjoy people watching and made ample use of my wavering, erratic eyes. I also made an unconscious decision to drink coffee (something Clarissa would later refer to, as I forgot to buy some chewing gum and subsequently had not-so-pleasant breath).

The minutes rolled by...slowly.

At last, the doors to duty free opened and the first of the passengers started to trickle through.

A series of lost looking individuals wandered out (the lonely ones are always in a hurry to get out, then they just stand there), then a few families, then a traveller or two (the hippy/twenty-something variety) and then, then I saw her.

Clarissa was looking quite relaxed and perusing the duty free champagne.

Now, I like Champs as much as the next fella, but, given that it'd been a long trip down, a long night before, the nervous tension of getting back in touch and that we had not physically seen each other in a decade...I had hoped that she might run through the gate at a sprint and throw herself into my arms.

But no.

She stopped shopping, turned and walked towards the gate.

Time slowed. I promise you, it really did.

She saw me, I saw her.

She slowed, then sped up.

I had strategically placed myself at the opening to the visitors barrier and made sure that there was a clear line of sight and access.

I walked, then ran.

Arms out, not hint of embarrassment on either side, we collided, grabbing each other and holding each other tight. I kissed her (on the cheek- don't be so presumptuous) and we looked at each other, ignoring the other passengers around us.

We pushed the trolley and her bags out of the way, past the other visitors/families and to an area with a little more space.

We stopped and looked at each other.

Always the one for the romantic gestures and realising that 10 years is just 1 decade too long, I grabbed Clarissa a kissed her squarely on the lips.

She kissed back.

So, her we are, 1 year on.

We celebrated with beers, peanuts and a few games of pool.