1995

Incredibly we completed our house move to the next street up the hill in the middle of January, leaving The Croft behind after slightly less than 3 years, which is hard to rationalise 27 years later given the number of memories with great friends associated with that address. We did the move ourselves with a trailer borrowed from the Scouts and a very wobbly pick-up borrowed from Colin, the landlord of our local pub, the Moor Edge and a lot of box carrying from Gareth. There was an urgency about the move associated with my imminent departure for the middle east.

My extended trip to Oman started within a week of moving house, leaving Jackki behind with a house to unpack, a full-time job and a 1 year old crawling baby, as ever there was barely a second thought from either of us and Jackki just got on with it. I was able to call home twice a week but that was about it, the 5 hour time difference meant that by the time Jackki was home from work, baby fed and asleep and her marking done, I was fast asleep in bed. My focus while out there was primarily on making money, with the various overseas allowances and huge amounts of overtime I was tripling my salary and we both knew this would make a difference.

I was awoken one night by the sound of the phone ringing in the apartment I was sharing with Joe and Rab in Ruwi, a suburb of Muscat. Jackki frantically told me that it had snowed in Sherburn Hill, she had set off for work and skidded out of control before leaving our street, writing off her car and that of one of our new neighbours in the process. She had quickly apologised and then got back home to jump in my car and set off again for work and had been only a few minutes late for work. Her main reason for calling was to see if I knew where her insurance paperwork was, although she had already called them and started a claim. Another call a few days later was just to check whether I thought she should accept the insurance offer to write off her car, which since it was for more than we paid for it, I suggested that she snatch their hands off. Such dramas were brushed off by Jackki without stress and she just got on with things, of course Abi was in the car at the time but safely wrapped in her car seat and nobody was faking whiplash and making dodgy insurance claims.

I can’t remember exactly when I got back from Oman but it must have been sometime in May but I can vividly remember that the little baby I had left behind was now confidently running towards me in Arrivals at Newcastle Airport. I had missed her first steps. Jackki had been tasked to book us a holiday so it must have been close to the half term for Spring Bank holiday, I had expected her to seize the opportunity and be flying us all off to Spain or something so you can imagine my level of excitement when she told me she had booked us a week at Butlins in Ayr! In spite of my cynicism this proved to be exactly the holiday we needed, it was a safe environment for Abi to run around night and day and allowed the two of us to relax, have a few drinks and have a laugh. It was also where our shared love of the punk band Green Day really took a hold, I had returned from Oman with a collection of dodgy pirate cassette tapes and CD’s and the album Dookie provided the soundtrack to the holiday and our lives from that point on.

In June we had the very happy day and night celebrating the family wedding of my brother Dave & Sarah with Abi providing the entertainment in a suitably fluffy dress for the day. There are some very precious photos of that day including so many family members no longer with us. I had chickened out of attending the stag weekend in Blackpool a few weeks earlier, citing my recent return from Oman as my excuse but was also influenced by a sense of expectation from my Gran that I should be looking after my little brother. Knowing his mates and the good times he was intent on having I really did not need the pressure of babysitting a bunch of grown men! Not sure I ever told Dave that was the real reason, hope he wasn’t secretly pissed off about it.

I’m really not sure what we did with the rest of the summer, I know I was still working away for short periods down in Scunthorpe and London but other than a short camping trip to the Lakes I don’t think we did any more holidaying. I certainly remember that my trips to Scunthorpe were still going on into November since I was dining out in Sherburn-in-Elmet with Dave and a very pregnant Sarah on the night prior to her going into labour. George Coe entered the family shortly afterwards and we became official Aunt and Uncle for the first time, we visited the hospital and introduced Abi to her cousin, I remember my Dad was full of cold and despite almost bursting with pride and wanting to meet his grandson, he stayed out of the room to avoid passing on germs.

For the first time, Jackki hosted everyone for Christmas that year in our house on Pinders Way, we were joined by my Mum & Dad and even Dave, Sarah & baby George were there for Christmas Day and for the Boxing Day walk. Note that I will always describe it as Jackki doing the hosting, my role was always to support the increasingly elaborate Christmas workload she took on and to entertain in a more jester like manner and to help out where I could/was told.