Hi Holly,
Well it's been a hectic week... Jasper got run over a week ago, and it was 10 hours before he was found in a garden down the road. He was taken to an emergency vet, where they tracked us down and we went and picked him up and brought him back to our usual vet in Brighton. He had been hit in his back legs and had damaged his pelvis, broken one leg and ruptured the knee of his other. Things did not look good...
For 2 days it looked like he would die, but the lovely people at the New Priory Animal Hospital managed to stabilise him, and they referred him to an orthopaedic surgeon to get his broken bones sorted out. He was operated on last Tuesday, and now has pins and screws through his various broken bones, which will take about 3 months to fully heal. He still wasn't out of the woods though, because he had also damaged his liver, and unless they could get him to eat, he could have died of liver disease, as he was very jaundiced. It was touch and go for a couple of days, but with the help of some of his favourite fish, which he couldn't resist even though he was on death's door, he pulled through.
He can't walk and has his broken leg all bandaged up, but he has come home for the weekend (hurrah!!!) and we are making a huge fuss of him. He's got to go back to the vets next week and live in a cage for about 6 weeks, but after that, he should be alright - he has very definitely used up at least one of his 9 lives!!
You probably won't remember Jasper, but you went and chose him and Rosie (his sister who died in a road accident about 4 years ago), when they were kittens, and brought them home as a surprise for me after Jinksy died (that's another story...)
Anyway, that has been what's going on here this week - oh, and Brighton and Hove Albion getting to the play-off finals in the most dramatic manner - and we were there! I hope we can have a serious talk about the Albion one day - my friend takes his 10 year old daughter to all the games and she really enjoys it - it would have been nice if I could have taken you too...
Anyway, must get back to the bionic cat... blog to you again soon.
Dad xxx
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Last night...
Hi Holly,
I wanted to tell you about your sister today... I saw Katie last night and we were chatting about you and agreeing how much we missed you. We were at the Marlborough Theatre in Brighton watching Pip performing in 'Sketch Machine' - a very funny new show that she's in.
As I hope you know by now, Pip is an actress and she has developed quite a knack for comedy over the last few years - when I met her, it was all fire-eating roles!! She even taught me to fire eat and we did an act together, fire-eating whilst she was balanced upside down on my back, which we did for a show at the Gardner Centre at Sussex University in 2000 - I have the video if you want to see Dad the fire-eater one day!!
Anyway, back to Katie.. She is just finishing her degree at Brighton Uni, and will be graduating in July. She then hopes to get a job in marketing and earn her first million before she's 30... She's got a really nice boyfriend called Ian, and she is moving in with him when she finishes Uni. She's very pretty and seems to have her life fairly well planned out - job, career, marry Ian in about 3 years, have babies - that's it in a nutshell I think, but we both agreed that you should be part of all this.
We're going to Florida in the summer, me, Pip, Katie Ian and Michael - it would have been nice if you could have come too - we've hired a house near Orlando, so we'll be doing the Theme Parks no doubt... - a final family holiday before hols with the boyfriend/girlfriend take over I expect... wish you were here...
Love as always... Dad xx
I wanted to tell you about your sister today... I saw Katie last night and we were chatting about you and agreeing how much we missed you. We were at the Marlborough Theatre in Brighton watching Pip performing in 'Sketch Machine' - a very funny new show that she's in.
As I hope you know by now, Pip is an actress and she has developed quite a knack for comedy over the last few years - when I met her, it was all fire-eating roles!! She even taught me to fire eat and we did an act together, fire-eating whilst she was balanced upside down on my back, which we did for a show at the Gardner Centre at Sussex University in 2000 - I have the video if you want to see Dad the fire-eater one day!!
Anyway, back to Katie.. She is just finishing her degree at Brighton Uni, and will be graduating in July. She then hopes to get a job in marketing and earn her first million before she's 30... She's got a really nice boyfriend called Ian, and she is moving in with him when she finishes Uni. She's very pretty and seems to have her life fairly well planned out - job, career, marry Ian in about 3 years, have babies - that's it in a nutshell I think, but we both agreed that you should be part of all this.
We're going to Florida in the summer, me, Pip, Katie Ian and Michael - it would have been nice if you could have come too - we've hired a house near Orlando, so we'll be doing the Theme Parks no doubt... - a final family holiday before hols with the boyfriend/girlfriend take over I expect... wish you were here...
Love as always... Dad xx
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
What Dad did while you were otherwise occupied...
Holly,
Having set up this place for us to stay in touch... sort of... I thought I'd tell you a few things that have happened to me in the last 6 years:-
1. I finally gave up playing rugby when I was 42, as I found that everyone else was running a lot faster than they used to... and also it was taking me 3 days after every game to be able to walk again with out something hurting...
2. I started writing comedy for a show that's on every month at the Komedia in Brighton. It's called the Treason Show and it's topical songs and sketches about whatever's in the news - I mostly write songs, which are re-writes of famous songs from (in my case!)the 70's -last month it was 'I punched that bitch quite hard in the mouth', sung by Victoria and David Beckham and Rebecca Loos, to the tune of 'You took the words right out of my mouth' by Meat Loaf - you probably won't know the song, but your Mum used to like Meat Loaf, so maybe..
I've been part of the writing team of about 20 people for nearly 3 years now, and I get something in the show most months - hopefully one day you'll get to see something that I've penned..
3. I've also written a play called 'Beach Bar'. It's being performed soon at another theatre in Brighton - I'll tell you more about that another time.
4. I've taken up playing the tenor saxophone. I started learning about 2 years ago, and like most things, I don't have enough time for it, but I'm slowly learning to read music - which is more difficult than learning the sax! If you ever need a deadly rendition of the theme from 'Pink Panther' - I'm your man!
There are lots more things to tell you and so many questions that I wish I could have answered about you... but they'll have to wait for another time - work calls..
Until next time... Dad xxx
Having set up this place for us to stay in touch... sort of... I thought I'd tell you a few things that have happened to me in the last 6 years:-
1. I finally gave up playing rugby when I was 42, as I found that everyone else was running a lot faster than they used to... and also it was taking me 3 days after every game to be able to walk again with out something hurting...
2. I started writing comedy for a show that's on every month at the Komedia in Brighton. It's called the Treason Show and it's topical songs and sketches about whatever's in the news - I mostly write songs, which are re-writes of famous songs from (in my case!)the 70's -last month it was 'I punched that bitch quite hard in the mouth', sung by Victoria and David Beckham and Rebecca Loos, to the tune of 'You took the words right out of my mouth' by Meat Loaf - you probably won't know the song, but your Mum used to like Meat Loaf, so maybe..
I've been part of the writing team of about 20 people for nearly 3 years now, and I get something in the show most months - hopefully one day you'll get to see something that I've penned..
3. I've also written a play called 'Beach Bar'. It's being performed soon at another theatre in Brighton - I'll tell you more about that another time.
4. I've taken up playing the tenor saxophone. I started learning about 2 years ago, and like most things, I don't have enough time for it, but I'm slowly learning to read music - which is more difficult than learning the sax! If you ever need a deadly rendition of the theme from 'Pink Panther' - I'm your man!
There are lots more things to tell you and so many questions that I wish I could have answered about you... but they'll have to wait for another time - work calls..
Until next time... Dad xxx
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Holly's story...
Holly was 4 when I last saw her - well, about 4 anyway... no doubt her mother would chastise me for not knowing exactly how old she was, but it was a long time ago... far too long.
She's 10 now and I think about her every day... I don't suppose she thinks much about me any more - I've no doubt become an amalgam of all the things she has ever heard about me from her mother and I suspect there's not an awful lot of good stuff gone in there... And of course she has a Daddy - Richard, who has brought her up since just after her mother left me - I've always wondered about the timing of that... - and he has taken my place in her life.
I'm writing this blog so that one day Holly will be able to see that I was thinking about her for all those years and that it wasn't because I didn't want her that I couldn't be her Dad.
Her mother and me were like chalk and cheese - I was a divorced single Dad with 2 sons who were 7 and 9 when we met, and she was a single 23 year old. Things were fine for a while, but then she got pregnant (apparently that can happen when you don't take your pill for 4 days in a row right in the middle of your menstrual cycle...) and 9 months later, along came Holly. I was a little underenthused when she first got pregnant as we had only been seeing each other for 6 months and it seemed far too early to be making that sort of commitment - fairly accurate as things turned out... Still, when Holly arrived, she was beautiful and I instantly loved her as much as my other children.
And there was the problem... 'as much', not 'more than'. As she was her mother's first child, she was obviously the most important thing in her life, whereas I had to try and keep the balance with my boys too. Things started to go tits up fairly soon after that, and her mother once told my sister in a moment of girly chat that if we ever split up I 'would never see Holly again'. Well I didn't think she actually meant it - I mean, no-one could be that unreasonable - could they?
She left just after Christmas '96 and moved back to Eastbourne to be near her mother. Now at this point, reasonable arrangements for me to stay a part of Holly's life and to make the best of what was obviously going to be a tricky time would have been the order of the day...yeah, right!
Well Holly, if you ever read this, the truth is that I tried - I really tried... When I couldn't get reasonable access,I went to Court and after 2 days (and £5,000 later) in the County Court, the Judge said I could see you even more than I'd asked for. He didn't believe any of the crap your mum came up with to make me sound like a cross between Jack the Ripper and the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... and he certainly didn't believe any of the UTTER crap about your relationship with your brothers.
I did see you again for a while after this, and we had some nice weekends together, with you even being allowed to stay over with your own Dad...! But then your mother played her most heinous trick, which resulted in me having the police and social services round and all sorts of threats being made to the boys and I, and at this point a decision had to be made... Quite understandably, due to the pressure you were under at home, you didn't want to see me anyway at this time, so I told your mother that I wouldn't see you again until she could be more reasonable about the whole thing... I'm still waiting...
I don't know if you've received them, but I've sent you Christmas and birthday cards and presents every year, always with my phone number so that you could ring if you wanted... I know what pressure you would have been put under if you had tried to get in touch, so I haven't really expected anything, but I live in hope that one day...
I've been living with a lovely woman for the last 4 years who has made me very happy in all parts of my life except the box marked 'Holly'. She even rang Richard last year to try and get a photo of you to give me as a birthday present - it would have been the best present I received, as the pictures on my desk are of you when you were 3 and 4, so I expect you've changed a bit since then!! Unfortunately, they wouldn't even send a photo, so I guess time has done nothing to soften their attitude.
I hear you've got another brother or two now, and I hope life is being good to you. I really hope it won't be too long before we can see each other again, and in the meantime, I'm going to save my thoughts on the Hollyblog from time to time... I love you, Dad xx
She's 10 now and I think about her every day... I don't suppose she thinks much about me any more - I've no doubt become an amalgam of all the things she has ever heard about me from her mother and I suspect there's not an awful lot of good stuff gone in there... And of course she has a Daddy - Richard, who has brought her up since just after her mother left me - I've always wondered about the timing of that... - and he has taken my place in her life.
I'm writing this blog so that one day Holly will be able to see that I was thinking about her for all those years and that it wasn't because I didn't want her that I couldn't be her Dad.
Her mother and me were like chalk and cheese - I was a divorced single Dad with 2 sons who were 7 and 9 when we met, and she was a single 23 year old. Things were fine for a while, but then she got pregnant (apparently that can happen when you don't take your pill for 4 days in a row right in the middle of your menstrual cycle...) and 9 months later, along came Holly. I was a little underenthused when she first got pregnant as we had only been seeing each other for 6 months and it seemed far too early to be making that sort of commitment - fairly accurate as things turned out... Still, when Holly arrived, she was beautiful and I instantly loved her as much as my other children.
And there was the problem... 'as much', not 'more than'. As she was her mother's first child, she was obviously the most important thing in her life, whereas I had to try and keep the balance with my boys too. Things started to go tits up fairly soon after that, and her mother once told my sister in a moment of girly chat that if we ever split up I 'would never see Holly again'. Well I didn't think she actually meant it - I mean, no-one could be that unreasonable - could they?
She left just after Christmas '96 and moved back to Eastbourne to be near her mother. Now at this point, reasonable arrangements for me to stay a part of Holly's life and to make the best of what was obviously going to be a tricky time would have been the order of the day...yeah, right!
Well Holly, if you ever read this, the truth is that I tried - I really tried... When I couldn't get reasonable access,I went to Court and after 2 days (and £5,000 later) in the County Court, the Judge said I could see you even more than I'd asked for. He didn't believe any of the crap your mum came up with to make me sound like a cross between Jack the Ripper and the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... and he certainly didn't believe any of the UTTER crap about your relationship with your brothers.
I did see you again for a while after this, and we had some nice weekends together, with you even being allowed to stay over with your own Dad...! But then your mother played her most heinous trick, which resulted in me having the police and social services round and all sorts of threats being made to the boys and I, and at this point a decision had to be made... Quite understandably, due to the pressure you were under at home, you didn't want to see me anyway at this time, so I told your mother that I wouldn't see you again until she could be more reasonable about the whole thing... I'm still waiting...
I don't know if you've received them, but I've sent you Christmas and birthday cards and presents every year, always with my phone number so that you could ring if you wanted... I know what pressure you would have been put under if you had tried to get in touch, so I haven't really expected anything, but I live in hope that one day...
I've been living with a lovely woman for the last 4 years who has made me very happy in all parts of my life except the box marked 'Holly'. She even rang Richard last year to try and get a photo of you to give me as a birthday present - it would have been the best present I received, as the pictures on my desk are of you when you were 3 and 4, so I expect you've changed a bit since then!! Unfortunately, they wouldn't even send a photo, so I guess time has done nothing to soften their attitude.
I hear you've got another brother or two now, and I hope life is being good to you. I really hope it won't be too long before we can see each other again, and in the meantime, I'm going to save my thoughts on the Hollyblog from time to time... I love you, Dad xx
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