Anniversary

Hells bells! A full year has passed since I began this weblog. What an adventure into the unknown it's been! Like Brad the Gorilla, my transatlantic adversary, I don't know if I'll have another year's worth of stuff to write or another year's worth of enthusiasm. This is what I wrote in my very first entry twelve months ago....

"So this is England in mid-summer. Lovely warm weather and you know what, they're all bloody well complaining! "Oooo it's too hot!" "Open a window!" "Oh I feel faint!" Whingeing whining wimps! I just love to barbecue, walk out in shorts, sweat, wear flip flops. If only all of our summers had long hot spells like this! Leather on willow. Swallows performing acrobatics in the evening sky. A glass of ice cold light white wine with condensation running down the side. "Oh! It's too hot! I couldn't live in a foreign country if it's like this!" As my old mate Trog used to say - Knickers! Knockers! Knackers!"

Trog was a neighbour who became a dear friend. He died two years ago of lung cancer. I will always remember him in his dressing gown, holding up a twenty pack of cigarettes to show me the government warning on the side - Smoking Kills. "It's true you know", he said with a wicked grin. He was such a character and such a kind and decent man. Now there are new people living in his house - people who occupy his space but never met him or care one iota that he was once with us. I guess that's life...or maybe it's death. Rest in Peace Goronwy "Trog" Evans.