Breathing Space
When we were watching Springwatch last year, one of their slogans was based on giving "Breathing Space" to nature and the environment. Ian sent off for the Springwatch pack, which included a Breathing Space car sticker. I noticed it in my rear-view mirror today, not for the first time, but today was the first time I remembered, Ian had taken my car keys one evening, sneaked out of the house, and stuck the sticker in the back window without me knowing! I had only realised, the next morning, when I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw it!
My 30th Birthday
I went to work on my 30th Birthday, I didn't book the day off or anything. I came home to find the OUTSIDE of the house festooned in balloons and 30th Birthday banners! Talk about broadcast to the entire street and neighbourhood, my age!
Animaniacs in Windolene
And THAT reminds me! We were decorating the front bedroom, shortly after we bought the house in December 1995, so this would have been early 1996. Ian insisted we smear Windolene all over the windows so people couldn't see in, and then I came home from work to find he had drawn the ANIMANIACS in the Windolene! They were up there for a couple of weeks, at least! My boss even dropped me off from work one day, and commented on them, as you could easily see them from the road! Come to think of it, he also drew Animaniacs on his bedroom wall in Blidworth Close, and again here, in the back bedroom! Ian was talented at drawing cartoons and painting walls!
Yes....life was NEVER dull with Ian. I always got the feeling I never quite knew what he was going to do NEXT...!!!
Ian and I would always buy each other lots of extra little gifts / stocking fillers and wrap them all up separately and put them in stockings or sacks. One year I got him a treasure chest and put all his presents in there and several times he put all my presents inside bigger and bigger boxes (rather like Russian Dolls, all inside each other). One year, I had opened what I thought were all my gifts, and then Ian disappeared upstairs and brought back this huge box and put it on the table in front of me, telling me to keep my eyes closed! I had to keep them closed while I opened it, and then he told me when I could open them. It was a bread maker! I was SO pleased as I really wanted one! Ian had discussed it with Mandy earlier, however, and she had said to him, he should not be buying "house presents" for his wife, for Christmas. I didn't mind, though, in this case, as it was something I really wanted! Ian was actually much better at buying gifts for me than I was at buying them for him. I very rarely could get it right!! Incidentally, he hardly ever ate the bread I made in the bread maker. I like to try out all the flavoured and fruity breads, and Ian would say he preferred it "not messed about with"!
When Ian was in his toys phase, he was collecting Star Wars figures. We often went to Toys R Us and Ian even knew what day they took new deliveries. One such day, we went down there, and I wandered off around the store while Ian made a bee-line straight for the Star Wars aisle. I found him still there, some time later, and he had made a new friend. The pair of them had been opening the new cardboard boxes of Star Wars figures that the staff had left there to be opened and stacked onto the shelves. They were searching for rare, exciting figures, the sort that only come up one in every four boxes and suchlike. Ian introduced me to Tim, and his girlfriend Kirsty who was also there with him. They exchanged addresses because Ian was going to send Tim the addresses to send off for autographs. It was the start of a very important and enduring friendship. They found they had lots of things in common, strong opinions, wicked senses of humour, etc, and it was always a standing joke about how they met, in Toys R Us!!
"Jools, it's Ian for you"
Ian phoned me at work, sometimes. Not every day, but some days, if he had something special to tell me, or simply to tell me to pick something up from the shop on the way home from work. My heart would sing when I heard those magic words, "Jools, it's Ian for you" from whoever answered the outside line at work and put Ian through to me. Even though I had only seen him a short while earlier, his phone calls told me he was thinking of me and I was LOVED.
There were many things Ian and I had in common. We were both ticklish. We were both left-handed. That first weekend after we had met, and we sat talking in the Britannia Hotel, we just talked about all sorts of things....classical music, films, etc, and we realised we had SO much in common.
The Blair Witch Project
After Ian and I watched the cult movie, "The Blair Witch Project", we often went walking in the woods with Meg, and Ian had a new toy, the video camera so he took that as well. He pretended to do as they did in the film, for a laugh, holding the camera really close to our faces and pretending to be really scared. We would then dissolve into fits of giggles.
Ian liked to play with fire...I spoke to Gloria this evening, and she was talking about Ted having had a bonfire today. We both agreed, "like father, like son"! Ian asked me to bring home an empty metal drum from work, for him to have fires in. Silly me, I did it! I then came home to hear he had lit a bonfire in it, (our neighbours had clothes out to dry as well, so I bet we were popular!) thought it had finished and had gone out, he came inside and was watching television, something about fires on the tv, but he actually thought, "this is a good show, I can even SMELL burning!" Actually the fire outside had caught light again and the flames were very high and the wind was blowing them in the direction of the (wooden) fence! Ian said he had to run up and down with several buckets of water and he made himself poorly! Also Ian went to help my Dad get rid of a load of old stuff, clearing his garden shed and outbuildings, and aside from directing my Dad how to fill the skip, Ian had several bonfires up there as well. He made video footage of that and made it into an entertaining film! Not to mention countless barbecues - Ian with the barbecue fluid....scarey!!
The last Rolo
"Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?" Ian once sent me a whole packet of Rolos in the post, he admitted afterwards that he had intended sending me only the last one....but then he had eaten it!!
"Red apple week, Green apple week"
Ian and I developed some strange shopping habits when we were first married! Ian preferred green apples, usually Golden Delicious or Granny Smith's, whereas I prefer red ones, my favourites being the Gala apples, or the American Pink Lady apples. We would alternate between buying red apples one week and green apples the next and that way we had to eat each other's preference. This continued until someone at work pointed out to me, "Why don't you just buy some of each?!" We had never thought of that!
The pond "extension"
Tim told me today that Ian and he were both planning to "extend" their respective ponds this Summer. They had talked about this at length last year, but Kirsty and I knew nothing about this!
"Retro Food"
One evening when we went for dinner at Tim and Kirsty's house, they told us the food was linked together in a "theme" but it was a secret and we had to guess what the theme was. First they served up cheese and pineapple on sticks, followed by avocados, followed by Steak Diane. To drink we had Mateus Rose wine, while they gave Ian "Panda Pops" fizzy pop to drink. Eventually they put on a CD of '70's music, and at that point, Ian got it! Their chosen theme was "Retro Food".
There seems to be many things that Ian would have benefitted from, or
enjoyed, had he still been here. The bus services up our road stopped a
couple of years after we got married. There were campaigns and petitions,
to no avail, mostly organized by our postman who lived a few doors down
the street, but Ian followed their progress avidly. Without that bus, he
had to walk up to the top of the road, and get a bus into town up there,
which he did sometimes, during the day while I was at work. Now, the bus
is back, there is one every half an hour, and they have re-paved the bus
stop areas and everything.
When we went to America, Ian liked the cinnamon Tic-Tacs, and brought
some back with him. They have now come out here, this Winter. Ian would
have liked that.
There is also a Screwfix store that has opened! Ian often
liked to order from the Screwfix catalogue, and so no doubt
he would have made a special trip to the store and he would have been in
his element!
Ian on....ironing
Ian the house-husband. Ian did the ironing but he thought the iron only had one setting - extremely hot! 3 dots! He would iron everything on that setting, unless I got to the ironing first, in which case I would rescue my most delicate clothes and put little notes on them saying, "Darling, please don't iron this!" He did ruin one velvet top with the iron and another two tops he got bleach splashed on them as he would go mad with the bleach as well. But I was grateful to him for doing these chores in the first place - I so appreciated not having to come home from work and do them. If anyone asked me, "What does your husband do?" I was proud to say - "He is my house-husband" - a very important job indeed!
I remembered today, when Ian tripped over a garden chair, a few months ago. He had fenced off part of the garden to try and stop Meg going on it, and was intending to put a gate, but he had stood a garden chair across the gap, temporarily. He often went out to look at the pond at night when it was dark, shining a torch to the bottom to see what fish he could see that he couldn't usually see during the day, including the crayfish. One night he went out there, and I was inside, and I heard an almighty crash, and I went rushing out to see what had happened. He had tripped over the garden chair - saying because he only had one "good eye" he had misjudged where the chair actually was. I said to him, "But WHO left the chair there?" The answer of course was Ian himself, but I felt really sorry for him that night and during the following weeks, he had really hurt himself and injured his knee. He ended up having to go to casualty with it. Sadly Ian was rather accident-prone.
Another one of Ian's accidents - on our second flight to America, he knocked flying a tray full of orange juice drinks, out of the stewardess' hand, ALL OVER HIMSELF!! They offered him compensation, of anything out of the Duty Free catalogue, but admitted they had no free T-shirts or sweatshirts left, so poor Ian had to sit in soggy jeans and T-shirt all the way to Los Angeles for several more hours. And as Ian of course did not drink, smoke or wear after-shave or cologne, a free gift out of the Duty Free catalogue was not much good to him!
Ian on...Supermarkets
When Tesco were doing their "one in front" thing, Ian would take great
delight in standing in the longest queue he could see and then saying in
a very loud voice - "There's more than one person in front of me! Why aren't
they opening another till? They should open another till NOW!" He would
also spend ages choosing things like biscuits. Having been at work all
day and simply wanting to get the shopping done as quickly as possible,
I would say in the end, "Come ON! How long does it take to choose a packet
of biscuits?!" [I have been reading an entertaining book about different
types of biscuits, perhaps Ian, like the author of that book, appreciated
what a serious business choosing biscuits is!]
Ian was also one of those annoying people who would pick something
up, change his mind about whether he wanted it or not, and put it back
on a shelf in a totally different part of the shop!
Ian and I actually shared a passion for supermarket shopping - especially
if we were abroad we both enjoyed making a trip to a foreign supermarket
and looking at all the foreign foods, or familiar foods with unfamiliar
sounding names (unlike most other people who would not choose to do this
on their holidays!)