Starting Again - Ch 1. From The Beginning

Looking back through my posts here they really are a bit of a jumbled up mess. They are not in order, they mix up the tale of two different people, there are odd posts that are more political that really do not belong. So, time to start again. I will not delete the old posts as they are helpful for me. I will try and put things into order and keep this on the track where I originally wanted it to be - about my journey. It will mention friends along the way, but this is now back to where it should be. My Journey!

So - From the beginning...

From The Beginning

I was born in the small market town of Lewes in East Sussex. This is a strange and mostly quiet little town. I say mostly quiet is it does provide a home to a large percentage of England's qualified pyro-technicians. It has many lovely churches of all denominations. I was baptised into the family of the Church Of England in childhood and went to a local church school. My family were not religious so during these early years my Church attendance and upbringing was down to a weekly school service. The preaching at these services was very much in a relatively old fashioned ‘fire and brimstone’ style with a very vengeful God based principally on the Old Testament. This quite literally put the fear of God into our young minds.

Over the years this style of preaching turned me away from the Church, so by the age of 11 when I went off to secondary school I was definitely in the atheist group.

This belief did not change until I was in higher education, and met someone there who was a good friend through the years of study. She was a devout believer in God, although I do not profess to know which Church she belonged to. She had enough of an impact that my thoughts shifted a little bit from atheist to agnostic, and stayed there quite firmly until this year.

After this I went on my merry way, meeting lifetime goals formed in childhood at an astounding rate. I have climbed a mountain the hard way, up sheer rock faces in some of the most remarkable scenery in the world. I have worked as part of a firework crew and been clapped and cheered by 20,000 people. I have driven powerboats, rally and sports cars. I have bungee jumped, zip-wired and surfed the ocean waves. I have dived off piers into the sea and learnt to scuba dive. I have walked a long distance path unsupported and navigated open moorland in the fog. Professionally I reached the heights of my career project managing multi-million pound projects for the insurance and banking sector, which funded a fun a lavish lifestyle.

All this was achieved by the time I reached 30! I was quite literally having the time of my life. You may notice there is no mention of a partner of loved one through this phase. I met many people I liked, but due to my upbringing and sense of right I was always courteous and shy. So by the time I tried to form a relationship I knew the person well, but by then it was always a sorry accompanied by “You are too good a friend!”, “You are just not sexy!”, or, worst of all “You are a bit too short for me!”. Yes I did all this alone, but always in good company.

All through this I read an awful lot. Some I knew at school and uni would find this strange as I was never a particularly good student, I always did just enough to get through. But I loved reading, I always have. I started to devour books on politics, economics, science, the universe. Most of these were filling in the big picture as I struggled to answer why to all the questions in my brain.

My life was soon to start to change.

Not long after this I hit the first major crisis in my life. My work started to take over and I had less time for friends. The working day reached a point where I left home at 5:30am and I would get home at 10pm on a good day. At weekends I was exhausted and had no energy. By 2003 after seeing two close colleagues burn out and become shadows of their former selves I gave in.

Rather than continue and risk my sanity I quit my job, I sold my house and moved to an area where I knew no-one and had no job to go to. I took 6 months out. I went wandering round my new area, finding the nature reserves and forests and other quite spots where I could recuperate.

About this time I also took up photography quite seriously. I had always enjoyed this past time, but never had the practical skills to be able to develop it properly. With the advent of digital cameras this all changed and I was in my element. If you are curious and would like a look at my creations you can find me on Flickr under the tag line Lost In Norfolk. That tag line gives an idea of where I was mentally at this stage, and held true for a lot more years.

In 2004 I met my inspiration. She taught me to look at the very small, to see how the big picture and overview I had built up in my quest for knowledge was put together. So I continued to read, but now my question of Why? was directed in the opposite direction. Unfortunately we were not meant to be together and we went our separate ways.

My next big change was in 2006. I was starting to get fit again and was looking at getting back into climbing. But then I sneezed! Yep, that’s it. The consequence of that sneeze were a bit more drastic than most would ever imagine. It caused a prolapsed disk in my neck and pinched and damaged a nerve root. This led to many months in agony and being stuck flat on my back. This was a good time to take stock of my life a little, time to calm down and not head off on more adventures but to appreciate where I am more. To properly recover took over 2 years of weekly treatment by a specialist and I will have to endure some pain for the rest of my life.

In 2009 I met Clare, now my partner and the love of my life and instigator of so many happy days.