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The Day My Childhood Ended

The coming of age occurs for men at different ages, each man takes a bold step out of his childhood at different times. Each man matures at a different rate and the process of becoming a man is no mean feat. Many boys are forced out of their childhood through situation, some are self driven to become men and others choose to stay within the realms of childhood. The Peter Pans of society.

I must say I was introduced to manhood through situational reasons. I neither wanted to enter manhood nor was I prepared for it. And my entrance was sharp and unforgiving. I remember it as vividly as ever, like it was yesterday. I woke up excited, full of life and exuberance, it was my 17^th birthday. I had more gifts than I could imagine, I had done the whole rounds, I was sure to visit every family member, aunties, uncles, and even the random people my mum talked to on her weekly trip to the market. No one was safe. It was payday and I was like a bailiff, I would not miss a repossession. Better yet I was like a collection plate at a Pentecostal church, everyone knew I was coming, they just didn’t know when and weren’t surprised when I came around twice.

I was on my final collection for the day, saving the best till last… I turn up at my grandmas with a broad smile on my face, enjoy a Caribbean meal, laugh along with my grandfathers jokes and then it was time, everything was going right, she handed me a large silver envelope embellished with glitter. I opened it with excitement. Grandma always looked after me, visiting her was always a pleasure, warm comforting hugs, copious amounts of dinner on the table and to top it off the monetary gain. Everything was perfect at grandmas. 7th birthday…"here Ross, here’s £5 to get some sweets!" 11th birthday …"here Ross, here’s £10 to get some sweets"…16^th birthday…."here Ross here’s £20 to…" you guessed it, to get some sweets. A visit to grandmas was like a trip to the royal mint.

Grandmas tradition was to wait until you were leaving before giving your gift. My heart was filled with joy as I received the luminescent silver envelope. I glumly thought to myself "ahh you've done it again, haven't you grandma". Don't count your chickens before they hatch is probably the moral to this experience, because I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but an empty card was not one of them. Have you ever opened a card carefully expecting to see money gracefully fall from it's crease, instead the only thing that drops is your heart to your stomach, leaving you with no choice but to try to hold back your disappointment and grin graciously. Nothing was in there, not a red cent. I frantically re-examined the envelope to make sure I didn’t miss anything, whilst attempting to maintain my composure and keep a smile on my face.

I read the card aloud, "Happy Birthday Ross, You're a big man now, we hope you have a lovely day" I smile attempting to hold back my initial disappointment (I failed miserably), but then immediately come to the realisation that in their eyes I had grown up and had achieved adulthood. That is definitely something to be proud of, I suppose.  It was now time for my younger cousins to take the throne. Sigh, I admit I had a good run. Being the youngest child, allows you that. But like all good things, they come to an end and mine had come to a brisk and premature one. It was all downhill from here.

The Challenge I Couldn’t Reject...

Back in the good old days, you know, the care free student days, the days of Call of Duty all nighters, drunken evenings in the SU bar and when fine dining meant pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner, working out for me was not just a past time, it wasn’t a hobby, it was a way of life, it was embedded in my routine. I loved any form of physical activity and participated in anything that was thrown my way. Boxing, gymnastics, football...just show me a sport and I’d partake in it, show me a tree and I’d climb it. And anything could set my passion alight, a TV show (last man standing) a movie (Rocky) or even a randomly placed obstacle in the middle of the street.

Probably at the height of my fitness (lol, at the matching belt and laces)

However since those glory days, life has caught up with me and time constraints have found a way to eat into my recreational activities ever decreasing the time available to participate in the hobbies, which I loved and cherished and that contributed to so much of my personality and character.

Alas, that all changed on an alcohol fueled September evening. On this evening whilst innocently sipping a caprinha with a friend, I was blindsided, taken from behind, kicked in the nuts, insulted some may say!

Whilst puffing my chest out and proudly bragging about my previous exploits in the fitness arena, the medals I had won, the goals I had scored, the acrobatics I did effortlessly, she told me that she couldn’t believe it and that she would never have assumed I could have been serious about working out AND that she is more of a gym person than I could ever be!…That was the last straw! *flashing lights* masculinity challenged! Now this conversation got more excitable and heated until we agreed a challenge. A challenge that would demonstrate not only physical strength, but strength of character, of commitment, of persistence and ultimately of self-motivation AND that would most importantly make her eat her words!

The gauntlet had been set, the guillotine had been weighted and stabilised! Whoever attends the gym the most each week gets a point, the person with the most points by Easter Monday wins! Wins what you ask, Wins a....

Now I am used to competing in sportsman’s bets, whereby the winner takes home bragging rights or man points or if a financial reward was at stake, it would be no more than a pound or a pint at a Weatherspoons (of which my “friends would never pay, citing hard times as an excuse”).

But wow, how the stakes have been raised, how the ante has being elevated. I have stepped into the big leagues with this one. As the delicate cocktail glasses crashed against the sturdy mahogany table, I realised I had helplessly meandered into deep water, drifting out to sea like a lonely can of cider at Blackpool Beach, tossed by a pubescent teenager whilst having it large on a Friday night. Then instantly with an intoxicated handshake the wager was set.

Before....

After

If losing ones masculinity wasn’t enough, Financial ruin was also on the cards…for the person who wins the most points and is victorious in this battle of will wins a luxury holiday to…. Santorini. Flight and hotel included! I hope she has an application read to apply for a pay day loan because in the infamous words of Nas "I WILL NOT LOSE!". 

Game on! The beast has been awoken! Fyi at the time of writing the score is 3 weeks to 1 in my favour! Lets do this! 

Can you keep a secret?

The Time I Went On A (not so) Great British Holiday

It was the last week of university and everyone was beaming with excitement. “One of the toughest years you could ever experience” a quote taken from a former student during our induction (couldn’t have been that hard if you passed it I thought to myself).  But nevertheless we were here and most of my friends had made it, minus a few casualties along the way. The A team (don’t ask) were in high spirits going into the back end of the student year.

After a few drinks at the graduation ball reminiscing about some of the epic moments we had enjoyed together, the excitement was all too much and our routine of counting down the days to the end our placements had back fired. Turns out we were not counting the days to end of our placement but instead to the start of our adult lives. Oh the irony. The end of our student lives was over as quickly as it started. It couldn’t be, could it? How could we leave it like this!?…”Lets go on holiday together” bellowed one person,  “Yeah lets go surfing, it’ll be amazing” rattled a drunken Irish accent.

But where? “Devon!”, exclaimed another. “Devon?” I mutter under my breath, slightly confused and disappointed. “I’ve got a mate down there, he loves it!” and with that, it was settled. We were going surfing in Devon. How I got caught up in this whirlwind I’m still quite perplexed but screw it, I was IN! There were 3 seats in the back of the car and my long legs and I would be occupying two of them.

The next 3 weeks I waited in anticipation, as I had never been surfing, nor had I ever been to Devon. I knew this would be a memorable trip, but why, I had no idea...

Slept the whole journey, "Are we there yet?"

After our second night I sat in the log cabin also known as the shed at this point (literally because it felt like we were sleeping in a shed) questioning why I felt so miserable. This wasn’t a feeling I was familiar with. It wasn’t the 7 hour journey, it wasn’t the over crowded shed, it wasn’t the fact I had to walk half a mile to take a shower,  it wasn't the Stag and Hen do’s of the local pond life which seemed to never end in the local pub, it wasn’t even the fact that 3 nights before I had been In Ibiza racing buggies around the buzzing streets of San Antonio and drinking champagne at boat parties. No, it wasn’t any of those things.  It was the feeling of being constantly cold!!!! Cold, cold, cold! 

The type of cold that doesn’t leave, the type of cold that lingers in your bones, the type of cold that seizes your body and takes your soul for ransom, rendering even my most entrusted thermal undergarments useless and staring at the floor in disappointment, unwilling to look me in the eyes because they know they have let me down and there is nothing they can do about it. The type of cold that makes you question your existence in this cruel world. I was a man on the edge.

A rare sunny day in Wolacombe...

...It didn't last long

But as you know too well through Hollywood, no tales of adversity are complete without an uplifting end. And although Woolacombe is a long way from Hollywood, a very long way in fact. Some may even say it’s an insult to have them in the same sentence. My uplifting moment came as I lay 225 miles away in my central London flat directly in front of a electric heater whilst it blasted its thermal rays upon my weathered skin as I snuggled into a goose feathered blanket cradling a cup of peppermint tea.

I realised the light at the end of my tunnel came through those 3 people who I crowded into a car with. I realised it came from the comfort of my friends. Those rainy nights and brisk mornings whereby we looked up at the sky from the shed and saw a bright sun gleaming down on us, for us to sit and question the solar cycle...“You are up there, why don’t you work? Why wont you make this place warm? What have we done to deserve this?

I literally lived in this jumper

The trip was made enjoyable (bearable) through my friends. Their clothes kept me warm, their drinking games kept us upbeat and their spirit meant that we all bonded through the struggle. There was always a joke to be had and a person who was happy to be the butt of it for the enjoyment of the others. 

So overall it was a great experience and an excellent team bonding session. However when drinks are raised and someone has another bright idea to go on holiday I'll either suggest a warmer climate or will quietly back away into the darkness and do a Homer Simpson.

5 things I love!

The Time The House Lost...

You know that song by T.O.K ”I just got paid and I got a little money to burn” yeah that one, well it was definitely not the theme song of my life at this moment. I was over worked, under paid, over stressed and under laid. Ha-ha, it wasn't that bad, but you get my point.

Anyway I decided that my next get rich quick scheme (I’ve had quite a few of these in my time) would be to gamble! Like nobody has ever thought of that before! Anyway, I consulted my finances, got out a pad and pen, liaised with my trusty friend Google and had a lunch with a friend (a real one) that is a pretty big gambler, a gambler that I’ve seen walk away from a bookies with more cash then the average dude makes in a month of hard labour, (working for a boss that doesn’t like him and a girlfriend that is dissatisfied at his futile attempts to please her) in just 5 minutes flat... I was in good company.

We conversed about the dogs, horses, roulette, football, odds, evens and all kinds of other crap I couldn’t be bothered to remember. But one thing was for certain, he was the real deal and he knew his stuff.

Having finished our conversation, I left upbeat and in high spirits, having made a note of all his formulas and secrets to win big at the casino and got on the train with my over loaded backpack for my 90 minute commute back to the heart of London, which was delayed due to a signal failure at Finchley road, god damit. A crash back to reality. Oh, the joys of London transport,  Compelled even more when you don’t get a seat.

I digress, fast forward a fortnight and I am ready, I'm prepared, I've read everything I need to read and practised everything I need to practise.  Now all I need is silence, I turn on my laptop and log into William Hill ready to make a killing. I tell everyone in my presence that I need silence and not to disturb me,

Roulette is my weapon of choice, and I play with £20, that’s my agreed limit. I’ve gone in with a clean head on my shoulders, first spin, £10 down, god damit, but I keep the faith and stick to the strategy. Before you know it I’ve got £50…. Then £20…then £60 and then...it happened, I raised the stakes, putting £5 on each number. I thought YOLO (does anyone even say that any more?).  I got to £200 then £300 then £700…£700 from 20 friggin quid…. then I said in dell boy fashion, to myself “this time tomorrow Rodney, we’ll be millionaires” the excitement was too much I put £25 on each number, If my number came in I would win at least £25 x 36 from just twenty quid! get your calculators out, that’s serious cash. I had most of the table covered. I was sure to win. I almost wet myself. My mind flashed to this scene in American Dad, I was gonna make it "rain on dem H**s".

Then I thought to myself …wait, what!?  £25 on each number...I looked at the balance and realised I had almost £500 on the table! £500! What the f**k! I came to my senses and tried to remove the money...no response …then to my horror...BETS CLOSED! God dammit, I could only wait with baited breath as the ball danced delicately across the vanished spindle, to the sound of my irregular heartbeats. Tick..Tick…tick…tick…