Wednesday 8 April 2015

We all need a best friend.......

.....sure we claim to have friends..... those on facebook claim to have 100's of friends..... but best friends..... true best friends........ they are rare indeed.......

I've known Mike since we were 16.5 years old, and here we are 36 years later still best friends and never a crossed word, not even a mis-understanding...... but boy how we have laughed .... fuck we have laughed so much in those 36 years there have been times my body has ached so much when we laughed ......... we've been arrested together, fallen off bikes pissed, knocked off bikes by cars..... stuck in a tunnel in Switzerland in a Ferrari about to run out of fuel, and just made it to gas station in time...... christ we laughed at that..... we once nearly got arrested on a German train for not having a ticket......

Mike was going to shop me to the conductor, until he realised he didn't have a ticket either..... quick as a flash exhibition of my credit card, and we narrowly avoided
stalag 13........ we don't put the world to rights, we don't share secrets..... we just laugh, and look at cars..... in fact in just over a week we are heading off to Germany for our annual pilgrimage to Essen Techno Classica..... Some of the finest cars in the world appear at this show.......

I think I would be quite devastated if anything happened to Mike ......

Yesterday morning without warning, my youngest daughter's best friend died....... They had been best friends for 21 years, it started when they were new born babies.... I am not sure that new born babies can actually develop best friendship at such a tender age.... but it was decreed they would be best friends.....

Every birthday they have been together sharing with each other...... Katie played a big part in our life...... in her teenage years she was once in my Tattoo gang.....

1 of my top tens is George Orwell ~ Coming up for air...... as a young kid we spent our summer holidays at Mablethorpe, they seemed like a golden age in the late 1960's, and when I reached my forties, I had a coming up for air moment, except I dragged my family along for the ride, katie came too...... with her mum and dad, Colin and Wendy....... the intervening 40 years or so years since my first visits to Mablethorpe had not been kind to the place..... it was shithole...... but I loved every minute of that weekend...... I always wanted a tattoo but never could have a real one...... I got a stick~on one.... Katie loved it, I got her one too and we formed the Tattoo gang...... there was only 2 members.....

On the morning we were packing up the tents... the sun shinning, blue sky in full view.... and my daughter and Katie were still in their sleeping bags..... then spontaneously they both stood up and started to have a sleeping bag race .... ala the sack race ...... we laughed so much...... Katie did that to you..... she made you laugh.....

In some ways I have no idea why I am writing this shit.... this is my shit.... but then again this is my blog..... I can write what I like...... and if I don't write this, get these words out of my head.... by brian will just turn into some kind of mush..... it's feeling a bit jellified as it is......

But I have been lucky I have had a best friend for 36 years..... my daughter had one for 21 years, until she was so suddenly taken away from her yesterday...... all those years she made her laugh..... made us all laugh......

On my way into work this morning, I stopped by to see Katie's mum and dad, what do you say to parents, just a couple of years older than myself, about the loss of their beautiful daughter...... oh how we laughed during that weekend in Mablethorpe......
this morning we cried......

Katie was a beautiful best friend


she died at 06:30 am on Tuesday 7th April 2015

she was just 21 years old

this coming sunday was to be her birthday....