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A few blogs ago I mentioned I had been offered a driving job and like the fool I am I accepted it.
Needs must when the devil drives us though and I desperately needed some cash for a few ‘farewell’ gigs before leaving Spain for good which explains why I readily agreed to drive a van from London to Gibraltar and back to Oxfordshire on behalf of my old muckers RH & PF at SJ.
Now please do not think I was ungrateful for the offer, it was my own stupidity that turned it into somewhat of a nightmare.
RH had suggested I take a week to complete the journey, I said I could do it in 4 days; RH is a successful IT director, I am an idiot, you do the math.

I flew out on the day Russia humbled England at footy, assisted RH in packing the transit full of servers, drove to Dover and arrived in Calais at 5am Thursday morning. I drove pretty much non stop (slept for 1.5 hours in van near Bordeaux), drove over the fantastically frightening Pyrenees and continued unabated until I reached the Spain/Gibraltar border when the real fun began.
Whilst waiting to enter the queue, the 75 million tonne artic in front of me decided to enliven proceedings by reversing some 15 feet before crashing into me. As I got out to remonstrate with the driver the heavens opened, the artic driver then did a runner and finally the Spanish customs refused me entry saying I didn’t have the necessary paperwork and then refused to let me leave until I provided them with said paperwork.
I stood in the pouring rain and contemplated just driving through and not only taking my chances but also taking a few customs officers down with me.
Finally I was allowed to leave, drop the servers off at PF towers before grabbing a quick 14 hours sleep before rising at 5am to start the journey back.
I endured England’s rugby defeat on five live (much more exciting than watching it), got lost in Paris around 2am before grabbing the 5am ferry from Calais. I managed to drop the van off in Abingdon and be at my mate Steve’s just in time for Sunday lunch. 3,000 miles, 4 sunsets, 15.5 hours sleep all done in 84 hours, maybe if the new job doesn’t work out I have a future after all.

I recovered just in time to start the festivities as so many people were celebrating me leaving; in fact rather too many people now I come to think about it.
I had a few great meals with great company; the only difficulty is that the ‘special occasion’ restaurants in Spain and Gibraltar are both steak houses, cue too much red meat and way to much red wine (if there is such a thing).
I said my goodbyes to the great and good of Lalinea and Stan James before saying my goodbyes to a few of the not so good of Gibraltar and Guadacorte.
I had a great few nights out with the Spice boys, their Spanish crew including of course Juan, the world’s best barman, the Dutch Girls, PF RH CD & Co.

Special mentions to Scottish Kenny (no Kenny you’re not a cockney), a great bloke I spent many beach hours with over the summer. Really I hope he does a blog as the stories he tells are both fascinating and funny, a little tale which explains his brilliant cruel humour.

Every Sunday night Sky shows two live Spanish la liga games. That is, they say they are live but the second one is always a recording. Many punters are drunk and in the hole at this stage as well as desperate to watch and punt on the game. No bookie will take a bet on the game, the punters are told the game is not live and that’s normally that, not with Kenny. If you happen to be the unlucky punter that gets through to Kenny you will be told, “I’m sorry sir, the game has already kicked off, in fact it has just finished so we are not taking any bets on the match.” And just before the punter puts the phone down, “It finished 2-0 to Madrid sir”, ha-ha hilarious.

Also I said my sad farewells to Hayley, my female friend. Every bloke should have a non sexual relationship with a female friend and mine was with Hales.
We would often go on sessions that would finish a fleet of sailors but not us two, whilst we put the world to rights.
A fascinating girl, for example she has lovely brown hair but dyes it ginger; is incrediblely knowledgeable about football but supports Birmingham City; has bigger bets on football than almost any bloke I know; is gorgeous and yet is single. In fact on her facebook personnel details where it asks for relationship status she has put ‘whatever I can get’.
The most single startling thing though is in her contract with her present employers she has a stipulation that she receives 10p for every spliff she rolls for her boss, amazing.

The Lovely Haley

Goodbye also to ‘The Dragon’ occasionally called by his real name Urien but more commonly called by an abbreviated use of his surname, Josh, (instead of Joshua). The dragon and I spent many a happy hour on the golf course, in fact just this week along with Peanut we followed Luke Donald around on the fairways of Valderrama on practise Tuesday (which sadly led to a bet on him by moi).
The best trader in SJ by a mile, a top bloke who also shared my love of cooking and things you can find in a garden, he will be a hard friend to replace.

I shall miss Spain greatly, the weather, the cheap beer & food and all the new friends I made there, mostly though I shall miss the women. Don’t get me wrong, I never actually had anything other than a platonic relationship with the Senoritas but they are so beautiful to observe. If women are like flowers then living in Southern Spain is like having a season ticket at the Chelsea flower show.

Also I shall miss the humour and another tale to explain the type of characters that pass through SJ and Gibraltar. A couple of years ago my old boss Tim Baybutt landed a job at SJ and within a week was celebrating with his co-workers in the Allswell pub. Tim has a wide variety of jokes but one of his best is the press up gag.
Tim bets you he can do between three and four hundred press ups in 10 minutes, he always achieves it and you pay up willingly. He of course does four press ups and asks for payment, which when you work it out you do. Another colleague present was one Alistair Lunn who could hardly contain himself when the posse moved to the Ship pub and bumped into Alistair’s colleague Paul. Alistair craftily asked Tim to perform the gag again and bet Paul £20 on the outcome. Tim saw what was occurring and did the honourable thing; he got to two press ups and said he couldn’t manage anymore. A gutted Lunny paid up and learn the valuable lesson, there are no such things as ‘sure things’.

It’s been a month of farewells. Iain Rankin has finally retired Rebus (much to my disappointment) and also this week I said goodbye for the last time to the Sopranos, the greatest TV show of all time. In fact if your never watched it I lose 5% respect for you as a person, it’s that good.
A great ending but one would expect nothing less from a show that has delivered time and time again. I spent the last 8 years of my life with the Sopranos and I shall miss it, greatly. Another hilarious piece of dialogue from the dramatic final episode,

Paulie: "In the midst of death, we are in life." Heh. Or is it the other way around?

Meadow: I think it's the other way around.

Paulie: Either version, you're halfway up the ass.

Paulie

Meooooooodow.

And if you are a fan of the show but have not seen the final episode this is song they choose to close 8 years of greatness with, enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip1zsUIosoA


So to Ireland. I landed in Dublin before being whisked home for dinner in my new abode, my parent’s house. Then we were off to a firework display being held by our neighbours in a field about a half mile away.
The 1st firework went off; it lit up most of Northern Ireland and climaxed in a bang that my friends in Spain would have been able to hear. A young lad in front of us turned around looking somewhat frighten, his father turned to him and excitedly remarked, “Ah don’t worry son, that was just a fart”, I think I’m gonna like it here.

We got home some 90 minutes later to realise the house had been broken into; some fuckers had stolen mobiles, laptops, ipods and cash. Not the best but what can you do, apart from shoot them if we catch them.

Monday I start a new job at Boylesports as their new Poker Operations Manager, something I am extremely excited about. I won’t be looking to reinvent the wheel, just add some bells and furry dice to it. The site is in its infancy, I intend to take it out of pop socks and put in into suspenders, wish me luck.

So finally after 14 months out of work I am back in the saddle. I aimed to be out of action for 12 months so I sneaked an extra 8 weeks. I know how lucky I have been to be in a position to have taken time out and believe me; I fucking loved every second of it. In 1966 I was yanked out of my mother kicking and screaming, come Monday my mother will attempt to drag me out of my bedroom kicking and screaming to go to work, when does it end?

Zed: Bring out Spillane

Maynard: But Spillane's sleeping.

Zed: Well, I guess you're gonna have to go wake him up now, won't you?