I nearly Drove the Ruddy Fire Engine Myself

Now then, those visitors already familiar with some of the other articles on the site will know that, yes, I found love last year, but it involved me taking on the role as step dad. I wasn't really up for that, to be honest. It can be best summed up as: I fell in love but at a cost.

I was a bachelor boy and I don't mean in the way that Sir Cliff ruddy Richard is. No, that's just unnatural and deeply disturbing bachelorhood (!) I mean, I was one of the boys down the bar, shooting pool and giving my liver a nervous breakdown.

But, there we are, I was in love so a young boy and girl became my step-kids. To be honest, I'm young at heart. It's an advantage. (I think the pickling of my liver weirdly also preserved my mind in a suspended perpetual youthful look on life. Pickled and preserved, I think they call it …)

It has been very hard for me at times, a whole new routine, but as I write this seven months have passed. And with those months, a certain acclimatisation has taken place.

I'd like to draw the reader's attention to something that happened earlier today. We were all down the town, sorting out the shopping etc, when I noticed that there was a fete being held on the forecourt of the fire station. And as we moseyed over, it became apparent that kids were getting a ride round the block in one of the engines.

Well, I fairly dragged my step-kids into the queue, I was so excited. They were a little shaken but once I explained why I'd dislocated their shoulders they too got all excited. Almost as excited as me. Regrettably at 33, I had to wait behind, but as the engine pulled away, their faces beaming, I felt something deep inside and I couldn't help but grin back. (I was tempted to hijack the ruddy thing and drive it myself, but there we are. It would have ended in tears.)

Times of change will inevitably be hard for us as humans but I have learnt to cherish these nuggets. Change gradually becomes no change at all but in the interim process, cherishing these nuggets, these moments, makes the transition far more digestible and fun.