|
On August 9th 2001, myself, long-time friend Tim Bailey and his mate Mark made the trip to Heathrow airport where I would meet my wife Irina. All the preparations for Ira's coming had been made. My room had been willingly converted into our new den. Dad had whisked away his quite unnecessary collection of toenail clippings and six inches of dust had been duly removed from the furniture and fittings. Standing at terminal four of Heathrow was quite a nervous experience. The previous weeks had felt like a kind of waiting room. Everything was on standby until Ira came and we could begin our life together. Now I was moments away from realising that. And I wanted everything to be easy as possible for Ira. She was the one who had left her home, her family and friends to be with me. In all the excitement I mistook another passenger on board her flight for Ira herself and shouted out to her. A slit second later I realised my hastiness, Tim and Mark rightly thought it was pretty funny. Agonising, I waited and waited. Everyone on her flight came out. Where was she? Had something happened. Had she changed her mind and parachuted out somewhere over France? I sent Tim and Mark off to check up and down the terminal just in case I had missed her somewhere. Moments later she emerged out of the confines of custom control and into my arms. At last we were together, and this time it was for good. No restrictions and no limits. That was the start of our new life together. In the following weeks and months Irina began to grow accustomed to life in Birmingham. I showed her the sights (which took all of twenty minutes), enrolled her my local college to improve her English language skills, introduced her to my friends and family, re-visited London for closer inspection and serenaded her every night with a suitably depressing Nic Treadwell classic. What more could I offer. Considerably more of course. It's now nearly Spring 2002. We have made it through our first Winter together. Which is a major achievement in this house I can tell you. We have spent our first Christmas together in England. We regularly keep in touch with Birmingham's own Russian Club Rubric, Ira has made friends at college, while working part time, I continue to work at West Midlands Police and too write all kinds of wrongs with my music and poetry, and well basically... We are trying are darnest to live happily ever after.
I would like to leave you with the wise words of Pope John Paul II who once said, “Life, is the name of the game, and, I want to play that game with you.” Or was that Bruce Forsyth, I forget.
Copyright Nicholas Treadwell 2002
|