September 12, 2012
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Oh Happy Happy Happy Happy Day! August 17, ’09
Hi Guys!It’s no big secret that I’ve been missing my brother Geoff like mad since I moved to the States, especially since he disappeared off the face of the earth a few months back, AWOL git!
Well thanks to that wonderful service Skype, I’ve just spent a brilliant 30 minutes talking with him and catching up with everything that’s been going on since we were last in touch. WOOHOOOOOO!!!
As some of you know, he finished his career in the Army in April this year, and that was about the last time I heard from him, he just dropped off. I emailed, IM’d, prodded him with sticks here on Multiply… heaven knows why I didn’t just phone him, hahahaha!
But armed with $10 of Skype credit, I called his mobile (cell) this morning when I got up and we’ve had the BEST chat-like-crazy call!
He’s doing really, really well. He got a very good payoff from the Army on leaving after 25 years, and is getting a decent pension too. He and his friend Kev, who joined the Army at the same time and has been a close friend ever since, decided some time back to go into the housing renovation business together when they left, and that’s just what they’re doing. They’ve clubbed together some of their payoff and bought a flat (apartment) in May, and that’s why Geoff’s not been around since! The flat is a total renovation project, and they’ve been busy working on it since then ~ I could hear Kev in the background with an electric saw or drill or something, busy at it while we were talking. As Geoff put it, they’re “living in shit” right now! Hahaha! (but after serving in Kosovo, Iraq etc that’s nothing they can’t cope with
All his stuff is still packed up and they haven’t got internet connection there yet as it’s such a mess, hence the lack of contact ~ even his address book is stashed away so he couldn’t write a snail mail. They’re literally living ad hoc, surrounded by dust and plaster etc. As well as working on their own place, they’ve been working working at the same time, doing jobs on other homes as part of their business, which is why their own place is still ongoing ~ Geoff says it would have been done in a month if they’d been able to go at it solidly, but obviously they want to get established as a business too… fair enough eh?! So I can let him off for not being around… at least I know he’s alive, hahaha!
And the best news he told me ~ after ten years of no contact with his daughter, he recently found her!! Via Facebook, of all things!!
And despite the best efforts of his ex-wife to cause otherwise, they’re getting on GREAT. Within half an hour of the Facebook contact they were talking on the phone, they’ve met in person, he’s had her stay for a weekend, and there are plans for a week’s visit before long. I am SO over the MOON for them both!!!! The last time we saw her she was almost 4 years old, and now she’s nearly 14… wow. Such a lot of time together missed out on, and such a lot of “getting to know you” still to come… Geoff says she’s a “proper little lady”. He’s chuffed to bits! He and Kev are off to Crete for a week’s (well-deserved) holiday from Tuesday. In the meantime I’ll be snail-mailing (now I actually have his new address! Hahahaha! ) with MY address (he had no pen and no wet plaster when I called, hehehe), and we’re going to start keeping in touch more regularly ourselves, too.
Here’s a MonoMonday I’ve just sort of ‘thrown together’.
All done in Picnik… sharpened (roflmao! It was a BAD photo! ), contrast upped, a “posterize” effect added, then ‘Before & After’ and “postage stamp’ frames. I took it to quickthumbnail.com to increase the size by 50% (thanks to Keir for the link to that site, it’s brill!), and voila…“Me and My Bruvver.
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(I’ll pop back with the link to our Hostess With the Mostest, Luxy’s, site shortly. I am SUCH a Happy Mouse today!!!
