Dad #2
Dave is Dad#2 and I get on better with him now than I ever did as a child.
He is fanatic about F1 and grew up very close to the home of British Motorsport, Silverstone.
He is fanatic about F1 and grew up very close to the home of British Motorsport, Silverstone.
My mother and I moved into the vacant house next door to Dave, Mum and Dave hit it off and from my snot faced years onwards Dave was to become Dad #2.
We lived in a nice village and I attended the local infant and primary schools.
Once, my mum bought me what she thought were shorts and sent me to school in them despite my best efforts to convince her that they were in fact boxer shorts...my winkie fell out several times at school.
We lived in a nice village and I attended the local infant and primary schools.
Once, my mum bought me what she thought were shorts and sent me to school in them despite my best efforts to convince her that they were in fact boxer shorts...my winkie fell out several times at school.
I had 4 memorable accidents whilst living in this small village, two didn't really hurt and two did hurt quite a lot....
1. A friend had just been bought a 50CC moto X bike for his Birthday and I was lucky enough to get a ride on the day he received it. I felt like Eddie Kidd, got excited and crashed it on the gravely path running by his house (if you don't know who Eddie Kidd is think Bam Margera on a crosser and for those that do here's a blast from the 64Bit past).
I had absolutely ruined his brand new toy and quickly told him I had to go home for my dinner before he had time to get his Dad. I never got another go, or was invited back. - This one didn't hurt too much
2. As a kid I took up skateboarding and although I was more than capable (or RAD if you will) for some reason I had decided to push myself down the street with one knee on the board, I hit some gravel and, with the help of Newtons second law, threw my face at the floor grinding my chin in the dirt - This one did hurt and I ended up with 5 stitches that made the skin on my face feel like it was being pulled taught.
As it healed I developed a funny twitch where I would stretch my face by opening my mouth and eyes as far as I could (go on try it...you will look like a mental patient!), I once got sent to the headmasters office for pulling faces in class but it wasn't my fault, my face was too tight.
As you can imagine, he didn't believe me and I was forced to write 100 lines which I completed by sellotaping three pencils together and writing three lines at a time.
3. Another motorbike one although this time a large 250CC Quadbike which was used by my friends parents on their farm. My friend drove and I was pillion, tearing across open fields, jumping over bumps, doing a little bit of wee in my pants each time, we found a huge pile of cow dung....."let's reverse into it and do a massive wheel spin!!". Seemed like a great idea, it wasn't.
My friend had poor clutch control and as we hurtled backwards into this ginormous pile of sh*t the quad tipped sideways throwing us both face first into turd mountain. - This only hurt our ego's
4. The fourth and most painful was a mountain bike accident....sounds pretty cool...but sadly not.
I had been generically naughty and was told I couldn't attend the end of year disco at primary school, my Mum eventually gave in to my sulk and changed her mind last minute, I had to rush to the school secretaries house to pay for my ticket. Woohoo Game On!
I had recently pumped the tyres and cleaned my Diamond Back mountain bike (I was proud of that bike!) after repairing a puncture the day before.
En route I jumped from a tall curb stone at full pace only to discover that my cycle engineering skills were not up to much and the quick release front wheel did exactly as it was intended to although in action film slow motion, my forks dug into the concrete....as did my chin...again.
This time there was not enough skin left to put stitches through so I had to settle for butterfly stitches which stood proud on the induction days at my new secondary school....aaaa...memories!
Believe it or not I can still feel the ragged edge of my bottom jaw bone through the skin where the gravel chipped pieces out.
Other than these 4 vivid memories life was a little dull and Dad #2 was rarely around due to his job.
When I reached 11 we moved house to be closer to the local secondary school and for some reason Dad #2 seemed to be around even less before.
Over the next months and years I played basketball for the county, continued to skateboard, had my first and second holiday in Florida, lost my virginity in a field and made a new group of friends in my new home town. (to read a short memoir about Florida click ME)
From muffled arguments overheard from the banister, and later clarification from Mum, I discovered Dave had been a busy boy and gotten another woman from his work pregnant...that was pretty much the end of living with Dad #2
Oh, we had a dog too, black lab, lost an eye to cancer and was the size of a small bear. We saved him from a rescue centre, he was in the second to last cage in a separate section of the centre on what can only be described as Doggy Death Row.
1. A friend had just been bought a 50CC moto X bike for his Birthday and I was lucky enough to get a ride on the day he received it. I felt like Eddie Kidd, got excited and crashed it on the gravely path running by his house (if you don't know who Eddie Kidd is think Bam Margera on a crosser and for those that do here's a blast from the 64Bit past).
I had absolutely ruined his brand new toy and quickly told him I had to go home for my dinner before he had time to get his Dad. I never got another go, or was invited back. - This one didn't hurt too much
2. As a kid I took up skateboarding and although I was more than capable (or RAD if you will) for some reason I had decided to push myself down the street with one knee on the board, I hit some gravel and, with the help of Newtons second law, threw my face at the floor grinding my chin in the dirt - This one did hurt and I ended up with 5 stitches that made the skin on my face feel like it was being pulled taught.
As it healed I developed a funny twitch where I would stretch my face by opening my mouth and eyes as far as I could (go on try it...you will look like a mental patient!), I once got sent to the headmasters office for pulling faces in class but it wasn't my fault, my face was too tight.
As you can imagine, he didn't believe me and I was forced to write 100 lines which I completed by sellotaping three pencils together and writing three lines at a time.
3. Another motorbike one although this time a large 250CC Quadbike which was used by my friends parents on their farm. My friend drove and I was pillion, tearing across open fields, jumping over bumps, doing a little bit of wee in my pants each time, we found a huge pile of cow dung....."let's reverse into it and do a massive wheel spin!!". Seemed like a great idea, it wasn't.
My friend had poor clutch control and as we hurtled backwards into this ginormous pile of sh*t the quad tipped sideways throwing us both face first into turd mountain. - This only hurt our ego's
4. The fourth and most painful was a mountain bike accident....sounds pretty cool...but sadly not.
I had been generically naughty and was told I couldn't attend the end of year disco at primary school, my Mum eventually gave in to my sulk and changed her mind last minute, I had to rush to the school secretaries house to pay for my ticket. Woohoo Game On!
I had recently pumped the tyres and cleaned my Diamond Back mountain bike (I was proud of that bike!) after repairing a puncture the day before.
En route I jumped from a tall curb stone at full pace only to discover that my cycle engineering skills were not up to much and the quick release front wheel did exactly as it was intended to although in action film slow motion, my forks dug into the concrete....as did my chin...again.
This time there was not enough skin left to put stitches through so I had to settle for butterfly stitches which stood proud on the induction days at my new secondary school....aaaa...memories!
Believe it or not I can still feel the ragged edge of my bottom jaw bone through the skin where the gravel chipped pieces out.
Other than these 4 vivid memories life was a little dull and Dad #2 was rarely around due to his job.
When I reached 11 we moved house to be closer to the local secondary school and for some reason Dad #2 seemed to be around even less before.
Over the next months and years I played basketball for the county, continued to skateboard, had my first and second holiday in Florida, lost my virginity in a field and made a new group of friends in my new home town. (to read a short memoir about Florida click ME)
From muffled arguments overheard from the banister, and later clarification from Mum, I discovered Dave had been a busy boy and gotten another woman from his work pregnant...that was pretty much the end of living with Dad #2
Oh, we had a dog too, black lab, lost an eye to cancer and was the size of a small bear. We saved him from a rescue centre, he was in the second to last cage in a separate section of the centre on what can only be described as Doggy Death Row.
If we hadn't taken him he would have been put down the next day. Great dog, loved him to bits, buried in the garden eventually....took me ages to dig the grave, he was a beast! (here is short memoir about "Bear Dog")
Mum and I moved to a smaller house and Dad #2 moved into a flat, both in the same town.
Mum worked hard to clean and decorate the new (old) house (which was cheap as some guy had recently died in it) and made a nice home for the pair of us. I was getting older and hormonal by now and felt a little put out by everything that had happened to us so far...
I was, after all, a teenager now so surely that meant it was time to experiment....
Mum and I moved to a smaller house and Dad #2 moved into a flat, both in the same town.
Mum worked hard to clean and decorate the new (old) house (which was cheap as some guy had recently died in it) and made a nice home for the pair of us. I was getting older and hormonal by now and felt a little put out by everything that had happened to us so far...
I was, after all, a teenager now so surely that meant it was time to experiment....