Every day I come home to this beautiful house and each time I walk through the front door I have to remind myself that Mark isn't coming home, it feels so empty but sometimes, just sometimes I swear he is here. When I first met Mark he came to my mum's house because my sister and I were having a few people over cause the parents were out. He was shy and quiet and spent the evening asleep in a chair. Ricky spent the whole evening trying to throw things at his head to wake him up and I just kept telling Ricky to leave him alone. I just thought Mark had had a hard day, I didn't realise he was just pretending so that he didn't have to talk to anyone. He was never one for a social gathering of strangers. I must admit he got better in the years to follow but was always that little bit nervous. I would say to him 'just go talk to so an so their nice' but he would just counter with 'but I don't know what to say'. The silly thing is once he got to know someone, even just a little bit, you couldn't shut him up! As everyone who knows Mark is aware he was more a hands on person but when he discovered Ebay and the delights of the millions of cars it offered him there was no stopping him. For hours he would sit and find bargain after bargain and such a session would usually end with a conversation that started 'guess what I brought'. We would end up half way around the country looking at cars and bits for cars and even at one point a trailer so he could tow home even more. Funny story about that trailer...... at the time we had a Frontier I think but when he brought it he found it lacking a tow bar so he got one and welded it on. A few weeks later we where off to bridgewater I think (somewhere south anyway) to pick up a trailer. The trip there was fairly uneventfull, we picked up the trailer and went on our merry way. About half hour into our return journey there was a loud cracking noise and we watched out of the drivers window as the trailer suddenly overtook us!!! It was like one of those slow motion sketchs in tv comedy, off it went down the motorway and smashed into the railings at the side of the road. We were going over a bridge at the time and the railings were covered with wire mesh to prevent things going over the side, the trailer promptly ripped this to shreds and sent alot of it flying into the road. We pulled over and on investigation discovered that the welds on the tow bar had snapped hence the detour the trailer had taken. As we stood and tried to figure out what to do, cars came past and as they got level with where the trailer was tyres were going pop and they were snaking all over the place. The mesh from the bridge was everywhere and causing the pucntures!!. We proceeded to drag the trailer back to the car and Mark thinking on his feet as always, tied it to the spare wheel using a tow rope. We put the hazzards on and continued the journey home at 40 MPH. We thought we were home free when we got to the dartford tunnel but then as we pulled up to the barriers the man in booth started shaking his head and wouldn't let us through because we were deemed as a hazzard if we got stuck becuase the trailer wasn't secured to the car properly. It took 20mins of mucking around to get us turned around and they sent us to the black wall tunnel cause there are no officals there to stop us going through. When we eventually got home a trip that should have only taken a few hours had taken the best part of 10!! we were exhausted and still we got up after an hour or so sleep and off to work we went. We spent the next month doing it up a little cause it needed a coat of paint and the wiring redoing. We used it once to retrieve a Ford Probe (that's a whole other story!!) and then someone NICKED IT!!! I have so many escapades in my head and although at the time they were a pain in the butt we always looked back and laughed and thought it could only happen to us. I miss Mark so much. He is always in my thoughts and forever in my heart. I hope this has brought a smile to your face as read it. Always and forever. Moo xx