I was born on September the 2nd 1947 in Sussex England, I now live in Slovakia, the journey to get there and to get to the age of 65 has been interesting and diverse but here we go.
This is me in 1948 or 1949, not too sure but I do surely look suave eh!!!!!!
Life seems to go by in a flash but when you try to summarize you suddenly realise it contains a lot more than you think, so I have had several goes at writing this and it may still change from time to time.
I started out life by going to Framfield Primary School in 1952, don’t remember much about that except free school milk in the winter being thawed out on the radiator, ugh. 1958 -1962 was spent at Uckfield County Secondary School or the brown school as it was known, couldn’t wait to leave and when I did it was with no qualifications at all, not that it mattered in those days.
Couldn’t stay in a job for long so 1963 saw me in the Army, Royal Signals to be precise and it was a very good experience, during this time I got married to my first wife Sheila, my family grew with two children Lisa and Tim, eventually in 1978 I left the forces and we all returned to the UK.
Settled in Sussex again and by late 1978 I was in East Sussex Fire Service, this was a very interesting and varied job but 1989 came and I decided to have another change, ran a mower repair business with a friend which went sour and I quit in the middle of a recession, we lost our house and spent nearly two years living in a caravan, and I ended up working as a market stall owner, great for meeting people.
1992 I moved to another job as gardener, handyman, chauffer, yacht cleaner and crew, they were great employers, close friends and it was a good learning curve once again.
In 1997 Sheila quite suddenly contracted cancer and died, we all missed her so much and times were difficult, I quit my job and basically couldn’t sort myself out for a while, eventually started a self employed business as a restoration gardener, had loads of work, for some of the best clients anyone could wish for, most of whom are still great friends. At this time I was involved in a bad news relationship and opted out of it to live on my own for a while.
Late 2000 I met Maria who is from Slovakia, despite our age difference we became close friends, fell in love and in 2002 we got married, bought a house, got a lovely Border Collie called Roxy and carried on the gardening business together, it was a great time.
I think that the idea was initially mine to move to Slovakia, but we both agreed it would be a great idea. We started to build our chalet in 2007 and in 2008 we sold our house just months before the property market crashed, we then wound up our business bought a LHD car, said goodbye to family and friends and in May 2009 moved to our new home in the mountains of Slovakia, which is where you will find us now.
My son lives in Australia and my daughter in England, between them they have blessed us with 7 grandchildren, I have two brothers and a sister living in England, one sister in Australia, worst news this year was our mother dying, she was 90 years old had a good life but we all miss her a lot…..
Maria’s family live near us and her mum and dad have done so much for us we could never thank them enough.
My hobbies are photography, which I have been involved in for a long time, computing which I discovered in 1980 and still find intriguing, gardening, walking and in the winter snowboarding, last year I managed three months in the mountains mostly freeriding.
For Maria, myself and Roxy, life is very good, we have a lot of time to get out, take photographs and enjoy the amazing countryside, our garden is growing in size and now we have chicken and bees to keep us on our toes. For those who do not know, I have a website www.mikesimages.co.uk where you can look at pictures of the construction of our beautiful chalet, the country and the people that surround it.
That just about brings me up to date so far, writing this has made me realise that I will have to elaborate on my life within this blog so stand by for a memoir section in the future, till then please feel free to contact me about anything you wish to ask and thank you for reading my ramblings…………….