Life, the Universe and Everything

Today I have reached the mystical age of 42.

Well, it took longer than I thought..

...for Wifey to be called over to see Little'uns teacher. After only three weeks at school, on Friday Wifey was told by Miss Teacher that Little'un had been asked to draw a picture of himself but instead he scribbled all over the cover of his exercise book and then was not allowed out at play time. At his preschool Little'un was the king of the "time outs". Big'un would be absolutely mortified if he got told off and the teacher told his mum.
Last week the baby started saying "whatever" to Wifey. Where did I go wrong?, we are becoming like a family from a TV documentary, "Britain worst chav-asbo-scummer families". We spent the weekend trying to "re-educate" Little'un by telling him that Father Christmas is watching and making out his lists.

I was pretty good at school, I only ever had one detention which was for setting light to another pupils tie in the smokers corner.I thought this was a bit harsh. I mean it wasn't like he was wearing it.

Global Village

Well it's a small world, last week I got an e-mail with the subject "greetings from Singapore" it was from a friend of mine, Mark who I used to train in Lau Gar Kung Fu with. I haven't seen or heard from him for years and I'm so glad he contacted me.
In the mid 80's, in my early 20's, after a brief dabble with a couple of different styles of Karate I started practising Kung Fu . I soon became friendly with a few people and a few of us began going for a beer or three after training. We tried a few different pubs around Romford but eventually settled on the Dolphin leisure centre bar as our regular watering hole, mainly because there was an aerobics class right outside the bar.
A few different people came along here and there for a drink but mainly it was myself, Mark and a guy named Bryon. As I said I was in my early 20's, Bryon was around late thirties and Mark was 15!, Bryon and I were always proud of the fact that we were partly responsible for Mark's moral corruption!
As the years went on we became good friends and the going for a beer after training often became more important than the Kung Fu i.e I wouldn't go training but I'd just turn up for a beer.
Bryon was married and had a daughter and he was a bit off a lad to say the least, we always had a good laugh and the three of us would often go along to other martial arts clubs to see see other styles and mainly take the piss a lot.
I remember visiting an Aikido class, Mark and I watched and Bryon joined in. Although Aikido was impressive all the students seemed to have this ability to throw themselves very dramatically across the room when the instructor demonstrated something, Bryon volunteered for a demo and didn't play ball at all in fact he went out of his way to frustrate the instructor by acting like a sack of potatoes.
Over the years various things happened, Bryon split from his wife and found himself living with a postwomen in southend, Mark went to Hong Kong to train in kung fu and maybe get a part in a film. While in Hong Kong Mark met a chinese girl and fell in love, he returned to the UK for a while, learned cantonese and then went back to Hong kong.
We are now in the mid 90's, Mark is still in Hong Kong, married ( they had a traditional chinese wedding in HK and came here for a church blessing/ wedding at which Bryon was best man) and I think by this time either expecting or just a had a little boy. I met Wifey and fell in love.
In 1997, the chinese were to retake control of Hong Kong from the british and it was a very uncertain time in Hong Kong, Mark returned to the UK with his family to wait and see what would happen.
I got married, Mark returned to HK (as nothing much happened there when the chinese took over), Bryon and the postwomen were trying to have a baby and not succeeding.
I lost contact with Mark and no longer saw much of Bryon and gave up the Kung Fu, around 2001 I got an email from Bryon saying that the postwomen had left him to go and get pregnant by any means possible.
Early 2002 (april I think) I got a phone call from the postwomen saying that Bryon was very ill in hospital, she also said she was married and heavily preggers. I went to Southend hospital to see Bryon and I was shocked, the fit healthy bloke I knew had been replaced by a shambling man who looked years older than I remembered. On seeing him it was obvious what was happening but no one had actually told him, officially what was wrong with him. The postwomen +bump was sitting there with him and when I entered his face brightened and he said "hello mate" and got up to to meet me. I struggled to hide my shock as the shadow of the man shambled across.
Bryon was the type of man who'd find humour in anything, during his time in hosipital a lady came and sat on his bed, which would always perk him up, and started chatting she said she was a MacMillan nurse to which Bryon replied
"Ok?"
she said "you do know what a MacMillan nurse is, don't you?"
"er, no"
"oh" she says "a Mac Millan nurse is someone who comes and gives support to people who have been diagnosed with cancer"
"righto" says Bryon "I'll bear that in mind"
"what do you mean you'll bear it mind?" asks the nurse rather confused
"well, no one has told me I've got cancer" Bryon replied.
A panicked look overtook the nurse's face and she rushed off muttering something about getting a doctor!
I wasn't able to go and see Bryon the next weekend The following week Wifey gave birth to Little'un and two days later Bryon died. One in, one out.
And that's about it, there are various other people and stories I could have included but it's taken me a week to write this post and I'd never finish it.
I've had contact from Bryon's wife and daughter who both found this blog whilst thinking of Bryon and searching the web for Lau Gar Kung Fu and this was how Mark found me aswell.
Hopefully Mark will be over in February and we can get together, there may be some beer involved.