Physical Perfection

Approximately 4500 people gathered together for one sole purpose. The Liverpool half-marathon. Weeks and weeks of training boiled down to the next few hours. Pushing the human body through higher and higher levels of exhustion. Sweat, stress and fatigue. Waking early every morning for a quick half hour sprint took an impressive amount of will power and determination.

For most people, the run lasted around 2hrs and it was just under 2 hours into it when Dave and Jean approached the finish line at Sefton Park.

They hadn't run the race, oh gosh, no. Dave was tired just watching. No, they were on the otherside of the fence, in the crowd, awaiting the arrival of Tony, who had run. He finished 3 minutes before his 2 hour goal and looked like he was about to die. He seemed to have lost around 3 stone during the race, his previous nickname of "Big" no longer applicable.

Dave was enormously impressed.

Later that day, Dave saw even more impressive people. The Chinese State Circus was in town.

'Wow'

How can someone climb up a 20 ft, vertical, smooth pole, in less than two seconds without even using his feet?

There was spinning and climbing and balancing and jumping and fighting and cute lions and impressive dragons and bendy girls.

A blur of images, most of which should be impossible.

How long and hard must a person train to achieve such heights (both liturally and figuratively speaking)?

'Wow'

With renewed determination, Dave went home and was straight back into his press-ups.

"...20....21.... aaaaaah"

*THUD.*

It's all Greek to me.

"So... what do you recomend?" Dave was asked, for the seventh time that minute.

"I really don't know," he replied, trying to keep his cool.

What was so hard to understand? Dave was half Greek and his dad was the Greek Chef who cooked at THIS Greek restaurant. Why would people imediately assume from this that Dave might know which food was best? Truth was, he'd probably eaten less Greek food in his life than anyone else at the table. He probably spoke less Greek too.

"So... what do you suggest?"

'AAH!'

In the end they ordered the banquet, after which the food just kept coming and coming. It was endless and nice, a delightful combination. Half-way through, Macca turned to Dave and said, "Tell your dad he's beaten me, I can't finish any more." The others gave in one by one after that, each very satisfactorily stuffed.

Suddenly Aline started shouting and bouncing around excitedly. There was Dave's daddy, off to the toilet. 'Drat,' thougth Dave. He had planned to ask to see the chef at the end of the meal, without anyone knowing his true identity, bwahahaha. Even the table had been booked under the name Mr Mathews. 'Oh well, better early than never.'

Dave's daddy was happy to see his "cheeky monkey", but it seemed Dave's dad's boss was even happier. "You look just like your dad!! Everyone come see!! Little Vasili!!!" The rest of his father's work mate's gave him a look of absolute "so?", except one kind waitress who asked innocently, "Is he your grandfather?"

And yet he wasn't excited enough to offer a discount.

After the meal came the Greek dancing and belly dancing. Smashing plates and setting fire to things, the Greek's are truly cultured. Dave couldn't be sure if the boss had had a private word or if it was just coincedence, but it turned out that Dave's table was picked to all get up and dance, with Khany going to the extreme and wearing pretty much full belly dancing suit. Twas highly entertaining, even if Dave's father refused to join in. Still, it was great to see him.

A wonderful meal, a wonderful dance, a wonderful night.

"..but the chicken was a little dry, dad."

Spring

Early March, Spring was just around the corner and since Dave was still doing his door to door job for the Echo, were warm weather is unbelivably helpful, that could only mean one thing.

Snow. Lots and lots of snow.

The snow left Dave with a mixture of feeling, fear of sliding flat on his face in front of potential customers, concern that such heavy snow at this time of year was early signs of the horrors Global Warming would produce and finally a sense of "oooh snow... pretty...." It was a magical time of year, when small children could create and then brutally murder inocent snowchildren.

Another symptom of Early March was Lent. Dave and his friends, a few days late, sat around and made some vows. Shell, who lacked imagination, went for giving up chocolate, again. Isadrunk decided to not talk about horroscopes. This of cause then became the center of the disscusion, everyone talking about various horroscopes and getting it all wrong while Isadrunk turned blue holding her breath. After a while, Jean had given up playing Spider Solitaire, a serious addiction of hers, and Dave had sworn to do 50 press-ups a day.

On returning home that evening, Dave dropped to the floor and got right into it.

"11.... 12..... aaahhh.... " said Dave, as he collasped, "50 comes right after 12 right?"

Jean didn't hear him. She was busy playing Spider Solitaire.

Jos' 21st

Still February and Dave was celebrating another birthday. Why did the smallest month of the year contain the most getting old days? Twas a puzzle.

Saturday 25th Feb saw Dave and Jean at Jos' 21st birthday party, in the middle of no where, miles away from cilvilization. It was a kareoke party, or a 'Terryoke' party as the guy in charge of it had called it. Dave assumed his name must be George.

The fact that Dave had once earned the title 'Kareoke Dave' for singing kareoke several times a week made people kind of expect a performance. This was worrying.

"Why are you nervous? Just get up and sing a song!" said Jean, repeatedly.

Well, he was nervous for several reasons.

1) The vast majority of the audience were Christian. This meant the choice of song had to be carefully screened so as not to offend. Such songs as "Losing my Religion" and "Like a Prayer" may not have gone down well. Even "Imagine" would have coursed Dave to choke when it came to "Imagine there's no heaven...".

2) Dave usually didn't care what random people thought of him. However the people in this room were not random. They were people he saw quite frequently in church. More importantly, they were people whose opinion seemed to matter a great deal to Jean. He could not joke around and do something stupid up there, he had to actually sing. He didn't know for certain if he could sing, he had always got pretty mixed feedback.

3) The last time he had been up in front of these people he had choked, he had said "Hi..." and then stared at them blankly for 20 minutes. They would ALL be watching him this time.

4) Jean believed he could sing. She had never seen him do kareoke before, but she believed in him.

5) He hadn't actually done kareoke by himself before, he had always had someone else as a safety net. Except one time, when he sung Barbie girl, though that was obviously a joke and could not have been taken otherwise.

"Why are you nervous? Just get up and sing a song!" said Jean, repeatedly.

"OK."

When Dave finally took centre stage his prediction had been spot on. The entire room fell silent before the song had began to play. All eyes were indeed on him. 'Gulp' sprang to mind. The song began suddenly, he missed the first few words. Then he began.

Can you Feel the Love tonight, Elton John.

The room disapeared, he had eyes only for Jean. He sung his heart out. He was starting to feel pretty good. It was going unbelieveably well.

When the song finished he returned to his wife's side.

"Yeah, I could tell you were nervous, you didn't do very well."

Dang.