How I got here
The process to move to the States started over a year ago. Its a long story so here goes. The date is sometime in September 2005. What follows is the beginning of that story. (Imagine wobbly background depicting a flash back)
I am planning to marry an American citizen and emigrate to the US. There are obviously going to be challenges on the way, and I am no longer just talking about the visa process. There are going to be issues surrounding moving to another country as well as the actual application for the visa.I am about to give my 1st piece of advice. Hopefully the 1st of many, but if not I apologise now. This piece of advice is very simple. It is remember that the American nation like to write their dates in a different order than the British. You probably already knew that. I certainly did. But I challenge any British person to fill out a visa form 4 separate times by hand (no photocopies or typed sheets allowed) and not once accidentally put the 31st October 1975 down as 31/10/75 rather than the US accredited way of 10/31/75. I had to start the form 4 times. The 1st time I made a mistake on my birthday. The 2nd was my mothers and the 3rd my fathers birthday, and then finally when I thought I had it all sussed out, I made a mistake on the date of the declaration. I am not going to go into a debate about whose system is correct or makes the most sense, but I will say this – who thought there should be 2 systems? We tell the time in hours minutes and seconds in both countries so why the differing systems when it comes to days, months and years.
Finally I finished the forms and popped them in the post along with 2 passport pictures of my face (turning to the left so my right ear can be clearly seen) and a letter outlining my intentions. Now this letter wasn’t for Jen’s father – oh no this letter is apparently for the authorities. Now what exactly do you write in a letter to some faceless bureaucrat, whom neither Jen nor I have met? My letter was two lines long, so I have copied in its entirety below. I am sure you will agree that it is succinct, concise and articulate, but does it really outline my intentions? I’ll let you read it and you can be the judge, bearing in mind that the main reason I want to live with Jen is so that I can see her undress everyday.
Mr Nicholas Burr
Peckham
London
SE15
5th October 2005
To Whom It May Concern:
I can confirm that I intend to marry Jennifer Adelsbach, within the 90 days allowed once I enter the USA, under the Fiancé Visa scheme.
Yours truly,
Nicholas Burr
Having reread the above I am not sure it does cover my intentions to have and to hold, for richer for poorer, and for the pre martial agreement that I am allowed to bone Jen once a week. (My married friends who read that sentence snorted and told me to put a penny in a jar every time Jen and I had sex in our 1st year of marriage, and then to take a penny out each time we do it for each subsequent year. Apparently the jar will never empty).We are now in the position of having to wait. We can do no more. Our documentation is in the pipeline and is being “processedthankyouverymuchpleasedon’tcallagain”, which is always said as one word.
I have done a little research, and have found out that I will have to undergo an interview at the US Consulate in London, and probably undergo a physical examination (apparently people in Britain run the very real risk of bringing scurvy and malaria in with them. I suppose we do have previous so can’t complain too much). The interview seems a little scary and I can’t stop thinking about Green Card. Now Jen is far better looking than Andi McDowell but I can’t hold a candle to Gerard Deperdieu. I am determined to rent that movie before I go under the guise of research. I have been practising by asking myself some searching questions about my betrothed, but I am not sure that the embassy will ask me what flavour jam (or Jell-O) she prefers to lick off me (the answer is blueberry for those people that care), or what her secret nick-name is for me is. More likely will be questions regarding her birthday (27 July) her favourite colour (purple) and her favourite soap (Softsoap although if they mean TV soap then its General Hospital). As you can see I am clued up but no doubt it will be a question that I don’t know, and the reason I won’t know it is because there are some things that you just don’t ask a girl that you are going to marry.
All I can do is wait and hope I get contacted soon. It is supposed to be 3 months before my interview but I am not sure that I can wait that long, although ultimately I guess I don’t have a choice………
Fast forward a few weeks......
I have just returned to the office from a trip up North. I visited Hull University and then went on to my former Uni – Lancaster. Let’s start with Hull. I told Jen I was going to Hull and she misheard me and said “Hell? Where’s that then?” I laughed and explained. But it looks like she was right the whole time. I got on the train in London in nice pleasant sunshine, and 3 hours later stepped off the train in a torrential downpour. It was so bad that an old man went by me muttering something about building an ark. I moved on at pace and headed down to my hotel. Now I am not sure if legally I can actually name and shame the hotel, so for now let’s just call it Hotel H. When I got to the outside of Hotel H (which by the way is an International chain of hotels) I was a bit nonplussed to find a shattered glass door. Was this caused by an angry customer throwing his or her luggage at the doors (“£14.50 for a breakfast – arrghhh!”). I went inside to find the hottest room in the world ™. Now I have already mentioned that it was chucking it down outside, but it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t snowing. Yet the Hotel H had decided that it needed to be 33c inside to combat the extreme temperatures outside. I strolled up to the front desk and already sweat was pouring down my face. I checked in and then went to my room.
Upon opening my door I was disappointed to find that I had 2 single beds. Now I haven’t slept in a single bed since I was 11. Why do they still insist of having these types of rooms in hotels? I sat on one of my 2 beds (at least I would have a choice, perhaps I could watch TV in one of the beds and then hop over to the other one to sleep – how very extravagant) it suddenly dawned on me that these beds were not only single beds, but they were actually narrower than normal single beds.
I looked around the room. TV – check, wardrobe – check, mini-bar – check, door connecting to the next room – che………..wait a minute. What on earth? I got off the bed and opened the door to be confronted with another door that opened to the room next to mine. Useful for families I guessed and shut my door and attempted to lock it. The lock that was there had obviously been placed there by some prankster locksmith, because although the bolt moved slightly there was no way that it was going to go into its correct position, the position that was its sole purpose in life that of actually locking the door. Now I decided I better check that everything else was in order. For a start I was going to doing a presentation the following day in Lancaster and so would need to quickly iron a shirt. No sign of the iron or the ironing board. Not a problem I will call reception and ask for one to be brought up to my room. I dialled the number. No answer. They must be busy and anyway I had to head off to the university.
Upon my return I swung by the front desk and asked for the aforementioned iron and ironing board. The blank look I received did not fill me full of confidence. “I don’t think we have one” was the frankly unbelievable reply. “Really?” I asked. “I’ll check for you, sir and if we have one send it up to your room”. How kind and thoughtful of him.
I got back to my room and relaxed. I was hungry and wanted to eat but the thought of sitting in the dining room alone did not appeal, so I thought “room service”. I picked up the menu and was impressed by the wide range of burgers on offer. Very little else, thank god I wasn’t a vegetarian. I finally found tucked away a pasta and salad section and so I decided upon lasagne. I picked up the phone and dialled the number for room service. After 6 rings I was put through to the hotel’s phone system. A very polite recording told me that if I knew the number of the person I was trying to get hold of then I should ring that number. So I re-dialled the room service number. Six rings later the same thing occurred. I redialled, message, redialled, message. Put the receiver down, and started again. The same thing happened. I lost patience and decided to ring reception. Within 2 rings the phone was answered. A result I thought. I explained that I wanted to order some room service, and before I could tell the person on the other end that no-one had answered the phone I was “popped” through to room service, where after 6 rings I was back in the hell that was the hotel phone system. I tried again several times and eventually got through somehow to the restaurant. Luckily (for them and for me) they were more than willing to take my order for lasagne (and now garlic bread on the side as I was so hungry), and that it would be with me “very soon indeed”.
Twenty minutes into my “very soon indeed” period I received a phone call. It was too early to be a phone call from Jen in California as she would be at school teaching. I picked it up, “Hello?” “Mr. Burr, it’s Colin here from the front desk, just ringing to let you know that we do in fact have an iron and an ironing board in the hotel, and we are just trying to locate it for you”. I felt guilty of doubting that my young friend Colin would let me down. I thanked him and rung off.
My lasagne arrived and it was reasonable (unlike the “very soon indeed” period which I would call unreasonable and also rechristen “whenever we can be arsed to deliver it to the 3rd floor”). I spoke to Jen on the phone. It is really tough at the moment. I saw some England cricketers complaining about having to be away from their wife and kids or 8 weeks, which I grant you is a long time, but try doing it with no end date. This is the toughest part of the whole process, just not knowing when I am going to see Jen again. It has now been 8 weeks since I said goodbye to her at Heathrow and she is not visiting me for another 3 weeks. After that we just don’t know when we will next see each other. Our original plan to ensure Christmas together is now looking as likely as being able to get room service in Hull.
The next morning I went to breakfast. Colin was on reception but he steadfastly refused to catch my eye pretending to be busy with the 4 people waiting to be checked out. I breakfasted leisurely overlooking Hull Marina. When I was finished I went back to reception to find Colin all alone. As I approached I could see him start to squirm and look for a way out, but there was none available to him. He was now going to have to deliver the news to me. “Sorry sir we can’t seem to locate it”. Unbelievable.
Having stomped back off to my room and packed and put on my fabulously creased shirt. I then marched back down to reception and proceeded to check out, making sure that Colin saw just how creased and ridiculous my shirt looked. He did a good job of feigning not to notice but I think that deep down inside he was aghast at the whole situation. He presented me with my bill. I quickly skimmed through it, breakfast, room, newspaper, yes all seemed in order. I handed it back to Colin. And then it hit me, the room service was not on the bill. Before I could stop myself I said “Oh it doesn’t seem to have last night’s room service on the bill”. Colin looked crestfallen. Not only had he steadfastly failed to get me an iron, but now he had also messed up my bill. He called his supervisor. She was a big lady and she walked towards me she was giving me a funny look. It was then that I realised that she was staring at the crumbled mess that was my shirt. She asked me what I ordered. I was tempted to say the slowly cooked lasagne, but thought that Hull was no place for wisecracks and so I told her. She added it to my bill and I was free to leave the hell hole that is Hotel H in Hull.
Apart from a few funny stares, the rest of the day was uneventful. I got to Lancaster, I checked in, and ironed my shirt before attending the reception evening.Lancaster is probably where this whole story starts. I went to Lancaster and studied Politics and International Relations. I was there from 1994 – 1997. In my first year I was placed in halls and shared a floor with 9 other 1st year boys. One of them was an American from California. His name was Terry. Terry and I hit it off as we had lots in common, we both liked a drink, we both had similar musical tastes, and I was to find out later we had the same taste in women. Terry and I use to go to the bar together a lot and I would often go into his room to borrow CD’s and tapes. When in his room I would look at the pictures on his wall of his girlfriend. Some of you may have guessed already but the girl was Jen.
I found myself looking at her picture more and more. I tried to hide it from myself but the truth is that I found her very attractive. There was no intention then in my mind to ever meet her.
One drunken night a group of us were sat around our kitchen table and the talk came around to our futures. A pact was made there and then that we would all attend each other’s weddings. It never crossed my mind that Terry would marry Jen, as by this time he had cheated on her on numerous occasions. At one point he had even slept with a girl that he knew I liked.
I graduated in 1997 and moved back to Cornwall and stayed with my parents. I got a terrible job in Plymouth working for the Child Support Agency as a Debt Manager. My job involved ringing up absent parents and asking them how they wanted to pay off the debt that had been accrued on their accounts mainly due to errors by the Child Support Agency in setting up their cases. It was a most depressing job, but one that I stuck at for 18 months. Towards the end of my time there I received a letter out of the blue from Terry telling me that he was getting married to Jen and that I was invited. I found out that 2 other guys from Uni were going so we arranged to fly out together. I quit my job as I had no leave left to go to California. When I returned I planned to move to London and try and get a job there.
I was a little surprised that he was getting married to Jen. She had come over in 1995 to meet Terry at the end of his year in Britain and whilst they were inter-railing around Europe they broke up. By all accounts he was in love with someone he had met at Lancaster. Terry and Jen went back to California and although they were no longer going out they shared a house and a bed together. Then Jen met someone else and wanted to make a go of it so she told Terry that she was no longer willing to put up with the situation. Terry was upset and decided that he did want to get back with Jen. This obviously has nothing to do with the fact that the girl Terry liked in Lancaster had just got a boyfriend. Terry and Jen got back together, and then in 1997 Terry came back to Lancaster to visit. He ended up sleeping with the girl in Lancaster again but he never told Jen. No, I managed to do that one night when I was drunk, but that is another story.
The moment I first met Jen I felt something change inside me. She was very shy, but somehow I saw through that and realised that she was a very intelligent and funny person. She was also very good looking. Over the 3 days before her wedding we got along very well, finding that we had lots in common. To cut a long story short, they got married, and I moved to London, got a job in recruitment and kept in touch with Terry. They came over to London the following year and stayed with me. Then the following year they came over for another visit and also to attend the wedding of one of the guys from the pact. The following year I visited, and I went back the year after. The last time I saw them together was when I flew out for a secondment opportunity in San Jose, California.
The plan had been for me to gain a 2 year secondment in one of the firm’s offices overseas. San Jose needed someone and so the firm paid for me to fly out there and have 7 interviews, with all the relevant Partners. Whilst there I agreed to meet up with Terry, Jen and Emma, their soon to be 2 year old daughter. Terry and Jen seemed strained with each other, and his drinking which had always bordered on heavy now seemed excessive.
After my interviews I spent 2 days working in San Jose, and then headed up to Sacramento to spend the weekend with Terry and Jen. When I got there we decided to have a barbeque and so we went out to get the food and of course the beer. We had a great evening. At this point of time Jen’s sister Stephanie was living with Jen and Terry along with her child and husband. We carried on drinking after the barbeque, and Steve, Stephanie’s husband had to go to work. He left and then Terry disappeared. Jen and I sat on the sofa chatting. I guess it is testament to how well we are getting on, that we did not notice that Terry had been gone for 2 hours. Jen went to check on him and found him passed out on their bed. We carried on talking and started to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. We never did get to see it all. We carried on talking and Jen finally made the admission that she had always liked me and fancied me. I was too gob smacked to speak, and was just about to make my move, when the front door opened. Both Jen and I leapt apart and in walked Steve. He sat had a beer with us and then went up to bed. We were later to find out that although he didn’t know anything he told Stephanie that Jen loved me. All I can say is that he is very perceptive.
Without going into details we ended up kissing that night, and the rest followed.
I am planning to marry an American citizen and emigrate to the US. There are obviously going to be challenges on the way, and I am no longer just talking about the visa process. There are going to be issues surrounding moving to another country as well as the actual application for the visa.I am about to give my 1st piece of advice. Hopefully the 1st of many, but if not I apologise now. This piece of advice is very simple. It is remember that the American nation like to write their dates in a different order than the British. You probably already knew that. I certainly did. But I challenge any British person to fill out a visa form 4 separate times by hand (no photocopies or typed sheets allowed) and not once accidentally put the 31st October 1975 down as 31/10/75 rather than the US accredited way of 10/31/75. I had to start the form 4 times. The 1st time I made a mistake on my birthday. The 2nd was my mothers and the 3rd my fathers birthday, and then finally when I thought I had it all sussed out, I made a mistake on the date of the declaration. I am not going to go into a debate about whose system is correct or makes the most sense, but I will say this – who thought there should be 2 systems? We tell the time in hours minutes and seconds in both countries so why the differing systems when it comes to days, months and years.
Finally I finished the forms and popped them in the post along with 2 passport pictures of my face (turning to the left so my right ear can be clearly seen) and a letter outlining my intentions. Now this letter wasn’t for Jen’s father – oh no this letter is apparently for the authorities. Now what exactly do you write in a letter to some faceless bureaucrat, whom neither Jen nor I have met? My letter was two lines long, so I have copied in its entirety below. I am sure you will agree that it is succinct, concise and articulate, but does it really outline my intentions? I’ll let you read it and you can be the judge, bearing in mind that the main reason I want to live with Jen is so that I can see her undress everyday.
Mr Nicholas Burr
Peckham
London
SE15
5th October 2005
To Whom It May Concern:
I can confirm that I intend to marry Jennifer Adelsbach, within the 90 days allowed once I enter the USA, under the Fiancé Visa scheme.
Yours truly,
Nicholas Burr
Having reread the above I am not sure it does cover my intentions to have and to hold, for richer for poorer, and for the pre martial agreement that I am allowed to bone Jen once a week. (My married friends who read that sentence snorted and told me to put a penny in a jar every time Jen and I had sex in our 1st year of marriage, and then to take a penny out each time we do it for each subsequent year. Apparently the jar will never empty).We are now in the position of having to wait. We can do no more. Our documentation is in the pipeline and is being “processedthankyouverymuchpleasedon’tcallagain”, which is always said as one word.
I have done a little research, and have found out that I will have to undergo an interview at the US Consulate in London, and probably undergo a physical examination (apparently people in Britain run the very real risk of bringing scurvy and malaria in with them. I suppose we do have previous so can’t complain too much). The interview seems a little scary and I can’t stop thinking about Green Card. Now Jen is far better looking than Andi McDowell but I can’t hold a candle to Gerard Deperdieu. I am determined to rent that movie before I go under the guise of research. I have been practising by asking myself some searching questions about my betrothed, but I am not sure that the embassy will ask me what flavour jam (or Jell-O) she prefers to lick off me (the answer is blueberry for those people that care), or what her secret nick-name is for me is. More likely will be questions regarding her birthday (27 July) her favourite colour (purple) and her favourite soap (Softsoap although if they mean TV soap then its General Hospital). As you can see I am clued up but no doubt it will be a question that I don’t know, and the reason I won’t know it is because there are some things that you just don’t ask a girl that you are going to marry.
All I can do is wait and hope I get contacted soon. It is supposed to be 3 months before my interview but I am not sure that I can wait that long, although ultimately I guess I don’t have a choice………
Fast forward a few weeks......
I have just returned to the office from a trip up North. I visited Hull University and then went on to my former Uni – Lancaster. Let’s start with Hull. I told Jen I was going to Hull and she misheard me and said “Hell? Where’s that then?” I laughed and explained. But it looks like she was right the whole time. I got on the train in London in nice pleasant sunshine, and 3 hours later stepped off the train in a torrential downpour. It was so bad that an old man went by me muttering something about building an ark. I moved on at pace and headed down to my hotel. Now I am not sure if legally I can actually name and shame the hotel, so for now let’s just call it Hotel H. When I got to the outside of Hotel H (which by the way is an International chain of hotels) I was a bit nonplussed to find a shattered glass door. Was this caused by an angry customer throwing his or her luggage at the doors (“£14.50 for a breakfast – arrghhh!”). I went inside to find the hottest room in the world ™. Now I have already mentioned that it was chucking it down outside, but it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t snowing. Yet the Hotel H had decided that it needed to be 33c inside to combat the extreme temperatures outside. I strolled up to the front desk and already sweat was pouring down my face. I checked in and then went to my room.
Upon opening my door I was disappointed to find that I had 2 single beds. Now I haven’t slept in a single bed since I was 11. Why do they still insist of having these types of rooms in hotels? I sat on one of my 2 beds (at least I would have a choice, perhaps I could watch TV in one of the beds and then hop over to the other one to sleep – how very extravagant) it suddenly dawned on me that these beds were not only single beds, but they were actually narrower than normal single beds.
I looked around the room. TV – check, wardrobe – check, mini-bar – check, door connecting to the next room – che………..wait a minute. What on earth? I got off the bed and opened the door to be confronted with another door that opened to the room next to mine. Useful for families I guessed and shut my door and attempted to lock it. The lock that was there had obviously been placed there by some prankster locksmith, because although the bolt moved slightly there was no way that it was going to go into its correct position, the position that was its sole purpose in life that of actually locking the door. Now I decided I better check that everything else was in order. For a start I was going to doing a presentation the following day in Lancaster and so would need to quickly iron a shirt. No sign of the iron or the ironing board. Not a problem I will call reception and ask for one to be brought up to my room. I dialled the number. No answer. They must be busy and anyway I had to head off to the university.
Upon my return I swung by the front desk and asked for the aforementioned iron and ironing board. The blank look I received did not fill me full of confidence. “I don’t think we have one” was the frankly unbelievable reply. “Really?” I asked. “I’ll check for you, sir and if we have one send it up to your room”. How kind and thoughtful of him.
I got back to my room and relaxed. I was hungry and wanted to eat but the thought of sitting in the dining room alone did not appeal, so I thought “room service”. I picked up the menu and was impressed by the wide range of burgers on offer. Very little else, thank god I wasn’t a vegetarian. I finally found tucked away a pasta and salad section and so I decided upon lasagne. I picked up the phone and dialled the number for room service. After 6 rings I was put through to the hotel’s phone system. A very polite recording told me that if I knew the number of the person I was trying to get hold of then I should ring that number. So I re-dialled the room service number. Six rings later the same thing occurred. I redialled, message, redialled, message. Put the receiver down, and started again. The same thing happened. I lost patience and decided to ring reception. Within 2 rings the phone was answered. A result I thought. I explained that I wanted to order some room service, and before I could tell the person on the other end that no-one had answered the phone I was “popped” through to room service, where after 6 rings I was back in the hell that was the hotel phone system. I tried again several times and eventually got through somehow to the restaurant. Luckily (for them and for me) they were more than willing to take my order for lasagne (and now garlic bread on the side as I was so hungry), and that it would be with me “very soon indeed”.
Twenty minutes into my “very soon indeed” period I received a phone call. It was too early to be a phone call from Jen in California as she would be at school teaching. I picked it up, “Hello?” “Mr. Burr, it’s Colin here from the front desk, just ringing to let you know that we do in fact have an iron and an ironing board in the hotel, and we are just trying to locate it for you”. I felt guilty of doubting that my young friend Colin would let me down. I thanked him and rung off.
My lasagne arrived and it was reasonable (unlike the “very soon indeed” period which I would call unreasonable and also rechristen “whenever we can be arsed to deliver it to the 3rd floor”). I spoke to Jen on the phone. It is really tough at the moment. I saw some England cricketers complaining about having to be away from their wife and kids or 8 weeks, which I grant you is a long time, but try doing it with no end date. This is the toughest part of the whole process, just not knowing when I am going to see Jen again. It has now been 8 weeks since I said goodbye to her at Heathrow and she is not visiting me for another 3 weeks. After that we just don’t know when we will next see each other. Our original plan to ensure Christmas together is now looking as likely as being able to get room service in Hull.
The next morning I went to breakfast. Colin was on reception but he steadfastly refused to catch my eye pretending to be busy with the 4 people waiting to be checked out. I breakfasted leisurely overlooking Hull Marina. When I was finished I went back to reception to find Colin all alone. As I approached I could see him start to squirm and look for a way out, but there was none available to him. He was now going to have to deliver the news to me. “Sorry sir we can’t seem to locate it”. Unbelievable.
Having stomped back off to my room and packed and put on my fabulously creased shirt. I then marched back down to reception and proceeded to check out, making sure that Colin saw just how creased and ridiculous my shirt looked. He did a good job of feigning not to notice but I think that deep down inside he was aghast at the whole situation. He presented me with my bill. I quickly skimmed through it, breakfast, room, newspaper, yes all seemed in order. I handed it back to Colin. And then it hit me, the room service was not on the bill. Before I could stop myself I said “Oh it doesn’t seem to have last night’s room service on the bill”. Colin looked crestfallen. Not only had he steadfastly failed to get me an iron, but now he had also messed up my bill. He called his supervisor. She was a big lady and she walked towards me she was giving me a funny look. It was then that I realised that she was staring at the crumbled mess that was my shirt. She asked me what I ordered. I was tempted to say the slowly cooked lasagne, but thought that Hull was no place for wisecracks and so I told her. She added it to my bill and I was free to leave the hell hole that is Hotel H in Hull.
Apart from a few funny stares, the rest of the day was uneventful. I got to Lancaster, I checked in, and ironed my shirt before attending the reception evening.Lancaster is probably where this whole story starts. I went to Lancaster and studied Politics and International Relations. I was there from 1994 – 1997. In my first year I was placed in halls and shared a floor with 9 other 1st year boys. One of them was an American from California. His name was Terry. Terry and I hit it off as we had lots in common, we both liked a drink, we both had similar musical tastes, and I was to find out later we had the same taste in women. Terry and I use to go to the bar together a lot and I would often go into his room to borrow CD’s and tapes. When in his room I would look at the pictures on his wall of his girlfriend. Some of you may have guessed already but the girl was Jen.
I found myself looking at her picture more and more. I tried to hide it from myself but the truth is that I found her very attractive. There was no intention then in my mind to ever meet her.
One drunken night a group of us were sat around our kitchen table and the talk came around to our futures. A pact was made there and then that we would all attend each other’s weddings. It never crossed my mind that Terry would marry Jen, as by this time he had cheated on her on numerous occasions. At one point he had even slept with a girl that he knew I liked.
I graduated in 1997 and moved back to Cornwall and stayed with my parents. I got a terrible job in Plymouth working for the Child Support Agency as a Debt Manager. My job involved ringing up absent parents and asking them how they wanted to pay off the debt that had been accrued on their accounts mainly due to errors by the Child Support Agency in setting up their cases. It was a most depressing job, but one that I stuck at for 18 months. Towards the end of my time there I received a letter out of the blue from Terry telling me that he was getting married to Jen and that I was invited. I found out that 2 other guys from Uni were going so we arranged to fly out together. I quit my job as I had no leave left to go to California. When I returned I planned to move to London and try and get a job there.
I was a little surprised that he was getting married to Jen. She had come over in 1995 to meet Terry at the end of his year in Britain and whilst they were inter-railing around Europe they broke up. By all accounts he was in love with someone he had met at Lancaster. Terry and Jen went back to California and although they were no longer going out they shared a house and a bed together. Then Jen met someone else and wanted to make a go of it so she told Terry that she was no longer willing to put up with the situation. Terry was upset and decided that he did want to get back with Jen. This obviously has nothing to do with the fact that the girl Terry liked in Lancaster had just got a boyfriend. Terry and Jen got back together, and then in 1997 Terry came back to Lancaster to visit. He ended up sleeping with the girl in Lancaster again but he never told Jen. No, I managed to do that one night when I was drunk, but that is another story.
The moment I first met Jen I felt something change inside me. She was very shy, but somehow I saw through that and realised that she was a very intelligent and funny person. She was also very good looking. Over the 3 days before her wedding we got along very well, finding that we had lots in common. To cut a long story short, they got married, and I moved to London, got a job in recruitment and kept in touch with Terry. They came over to London the following year and stayed with me. Then the following year they came over for another visit and also to attend the wedding of one of the guys from the pact. The following year I visited, and I went back the year after. The last time I saw them together was when I flew out for a secondment opportunity in San Jose, California.
The plan had been for me to gain a 2 year secondment in one of the firm’s offices overseas. San Jose needed someone and so the firm paid for me to fly out there and have 7 interviews, with all the relevant Partners. Whilst there I agreed to meet up with Terry, Jen and Emma, their soon to be 2 year old daughter. Terry and Jen seemed strained with each other, and his drinking which had always bordered on heavy now seemed excessive.
After my interviews I spent 2 days working in San Jose, and then headed up to Sacramento to spend the weekend with Terry and Jen. When I got there we decided to have a barbeque and so we went out to get the food and of course the beer. We had a great evening. At this point of time Jen’s sister Stephanie was living with Jen and Terry along with her child and husband. We carried on drinking after the barbeque, and Steve, Stephanie’s husband had to go to work. He left and then Terry disappeared. Jen and I sat on the sofa chatting. I guess it is testament to how well we are getting on, that we did not notice that Terry had been gone for 2 hours. Jen went to check on him and found him passed out on their bed. We carried on talking and started to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. We never did get to see it all. We carried on talking and Jen finally made the admission that she had always liked me and fancied me. I was too gob smacked to speak, and was just about to make my move, when the front door opened. Both Jen and I leapt apart and in walked Steve. He sat had a beer with us and then went up to bed. We were later to find out that although he didn’t know anything he told Stephanie that Jen loved me. All I can say is that he is very perceptive.
Without going into details we ended up kissing that night, and the rest followed.
posted by Nick at 9:29 AM
1 Comments:
I laugh, i cryed and i hurled.
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