Leading up to the winter that year I remember not to clear but remember we were getting on well .
Summer had passed and we moved into a new house , moved back from an out of town investment in a sleepy village called the abbey “ Neath abbey “.
In fact it was the best Christmas we ever had down at our new house in the centre of Swansea . With parks each side of our new home , Not little parks .Big parks that Dexter woof woof ( my best loving loyal Beagle who will mentioned ins later chapters- neither the less he is so prominent in the story and still is to this very day .She had easy access to her family , work and up the road from the scrap yard which I owned on my own at this point .
The Victorian house which I will be honest was her choice to buy was in my heart something I never thought I could ever own , I used to live and I grew up in the area ,on the council estate called Blean-y-Maes just less than a mile away . I would go past these houses on my way to the dairy while camping out when I was about 12 years old with all the other BYM Boys and I remember those summer mornings while sneaking down middle road and having a look out to make sure the electric milk carts where still in the depot fully loaded , ready for us to skim. Every time we heard a noise several of us would jump over a garden wall … as normally the friend who was the dickey eye (look out) would be ahead and fall asleep in the bushes. Not exactly the SAS but we always had to skim off some poor milkman who would often see us, but would turn a blind eye , as they smiled and chatted by the floats having there morning cigarettes , which was probably skimmed from somewhere else , that’s how we grew up .. By god those houses were owned by billionaires I used to think, Huge bay windows and drives with fancy cars on, kids that lived there would have the best toys and clothes ..ate food like king prawns and things I had never heard off .
Now I owned one and planned to put my stamp on it .. my twist ..make it my own and show everyone that yeah I made it ., It was a long road that every business owner goes through in the first couple of years on a new venture .. The big house with a Victorian green wooden door was mine .. it has a name written in lead on the glass window
” Maes amwlegg “
House on the hill with a view in Welsh.
And the view was what I smiled at nearly every day .. while looking inwards to my ever growing family with the same background inner child smile , that those milkmen saw when we jumped on and took that sweet tasting gold top and the occasional sweet glass bottled orange juice .
We both decided for once In our long relationship that we would stay in at home have our glass of Xmas sparkling wine in the morning and watch our boys open they’re presents with a big smile on our faces.
I prepared the veg , but she was always in charge of the meat and especially the gravy.
She took so much pride like she did with all her baking in our home , I would always show interest in how she would mix the juices of all the potatoes and veg , which I would put aside while trying to perfect my roast potatoes to which she would always buy more potatoes and always the extra jar of goose fat , to put in extra because I liked them more each day after with some of her amazing gravy .
Dishes were my duty to my surprise every year she would let me get on with . They was only time anything was said when the dishwasher got mentioned .. but it was my job to clean them in the sink so she could relax, watch the kids and read her Xmas times .. which by Xmas day she read intensely back to front as she had all the month ..
She always lit up at Xmas , her big coat would come out and her bobble hat with Xmas music playing from at least early Nov after the clocks went forward not long before and i would see the smile that i fell in love with all over again , my heart still melts thinking how happy she was that time of year , although i still was a grumpy grinch , inside it warmed me more than her coat and bobble hat did.
Bang !!!!! Christmas gone , just like a blink of an eye as always —- back to work…
had a call off my accountant mid-January asking for a certain Hrmc code for an old business that i was wrapping up and didn’t have a clue where it was .
so home i went after a crazy day at the scrap yard ,had my usual hugs off my eldest boy who came running up at me through the long corridors on the original Victorian floor boards and i walked through to see my youngest in his high chair eating his mashed up comfort food with it all over his chops , licking his lips in anticipation of the next aeroplane spoon full zooming in , i said to her have you any idea where the laptop was for the old company i need it for a hrmc code that i had a call about today reply was blunt ” I have no idea ” , so i forgot about it opened a can of cider and we chatted about our days at work in the dining room while the boys watched their favourite cartoons ,mainly fireman Sam and the cartoon Mr bean .
At the time i was going through a trading standards local council enforcement check-ups so the Hrmc code passed my ever so busy fleeting mind for a week while i dealt with that and the constant NRW spot checks as a failure on any of these would have got me closed down with a click of a finger or a flash of a badge .
I had to confront the HRMC issue as it wouldn’t go away, so my thoughts where let’s get it done and one less problem to bat off out of my ever growing issues that took so much of my time i really didn’t want around … i turned on my laptop after i found it hidden behind the chest freezer in the pantry under the stairs , the battery was dead …as it had been so long i half expected it to be .. i left it charge with the charger i found in another room ,i wondered at the time why the laptop bag , laptop and charger were always together but not now for some reason and I found them all in different random places around the house .
I had completely forgot about it then flash went to grab something under the stairs saw it on the screen it said ” FULL CHARGE COMPLETE ” ..lovely lets get this code for the accountant.
turned on no password required ..i thought Huh strange ..
oh well it came on and all my icons from my desktop had gone.. it was defaulted, so i opened photos, files, word, excel. All my files gone…
Fuck it i thought I’ve got a recovery USB stick that i used to use when engineers that left my security company were being dicks and changed the company standard login password to piss me off when I had a new starter, it can pull back what was on there on the hard drive as long as it’s in the laptop. Ran the software .. eta 34 hours to complete ..so fuck it I emailed mike and said i’ll have it for him in a couple of days .. had an out of office reply email response he was on holiday for a week (fucking typical .. all i needed was this issue hanging over my head for another week .. great i thought that’s a hole in the bollock I don’t need. )
2 days later the scrap yard was still mental, went home to get my fags i forgot that morning rushing the boys to school and creche, she was in work… as i was bolting out the door … i shouted AH ..remembered to get the laptop from under stairs ..
yesssssssss i shouted in my head , my right hand clinched and made a motion like my football team had just scored an equaliser in a cup game !!!!! full reboot complete all restored … as the icons started appearing 1 by 1 corner to corner they started coming back .. faded into bright clearer icons from the faded ones that initially appeared .. could see my dark green excel spreadsheets files popup ,next was my dark blue word templates ( i used these to send the boys for commissioning of systems and handover certificates ,didn’t matter how many copies i gave them i would have it every Friday on the phone ” boss you haven’t by any chance got to hand some handover and commissioning paperwork to hand to send over – although they probably had stacks of them all bonded nice and presented well in Polly pockets so it would look professional to the clients ) ..always to hand to ping over as an email, site photo desktop folder symbols , .. i thought yesssssss .pheeeeewwwwww.. that’s mike sorted 1 problem down.
right let’s find what he said was so important and get her majesty’s revenue off my already heavy loaded shoulders, looking through the icons i could not see what the hell he was on about, nothing really stood out what he said it was .. ahhhh maybe it was on the security email..
i opened up the browser and it said ” RESTORE LAST PAGES ‘ so i hit yes and about 15 windows popped up ..the top bars were so small to see i had to click on them individually to see what was on them, { i don’t normally leave more than 3 windows up as i get distracted and if I’m working from home which did happen when i had that work laptop, you tube being the main culprit ]
i saw a Hotmail account on one of the tabs , my head leaned back focusing with squinted eyes mmmm strange i haven’t used my Hotmail for many years as never really needed it as i always used the works email for everything these days .
i opened it up and it was her Hotmail account .. straight in no password .. i browsed over the inbox just to confirm it wasn’t mine and not an email from her..
my eyes rolled as in between a boo hoo clothing email and a girls makeup online offer from boots was a HOT NEW MATCH from new TINDER ….
My heart sank ,my mouth went dry i felt on the spot physically sick !!!
in fact i was i went out the side door by the dining room and spewed up my dinner, holding tight on to the drain pipe on my dream home with my dreams not twisted and turned into what i felt then was a pure night mare .. i sat on the floor all covered in oil and petrol in my scrap yard clothes ., telling myself could it be a mistake , why was the laptop hidden ,why was it defaulted ..this is why she shrugged her shoulders when i asked the week before .
i mustered the strength to go back in , sip some water..i was in shock ..so i ran to the fridge and opened a Strongbow to take the edge off !!!
I stood over that laptop for what seemed like forever .. wondering ,head spinning ,her face smiling at me in my thoughts ,her hugging me in the kitchen the day before and looking in each other’s eyes saying i love you to each other and her cheeky laugh as i walked off with a cheeky pat on her bum and the wink I’d give her and always receiving one back with a beautiful happy smile , remembering how close we were ,my best friend , has she really been elsewhere while I’m breaking my back at the yard ,had i done something wrong …am i awake !!!! is this a nightmare ..a real pinch yourself moment .
i slammed the laptop shut went outside and sit in my back garden wondering should i open the link and see what’s going on or will it ruin both our lives like opening a can of worms ,maybe not a can but a tanker full of worms as i found out later .
I couldn’t face it or acknowledge it so i went back to work via a pick-up of some cocaine to have a line on route back to the yard to make me appear sharp and not dishevelled or upset as I’d been crying , sometimes later on i used to pretend I’d had a little fire up the house you know like bills, bank stuff ,paperwork etc to disguise my cried out eyes to customers or my new business partner Andy .
i was like a confused dog lost in a park looking for my owner for the next day or 2 ,acting normal [ish] in work and 100% normal at home ,over emphasizing how much i loved her at tea times ,my love and attention was the same for my boys ..i was looking at the reactions or non-reactions from her ,working out any changes in her moods or habits like phone calls ,really really listening to what she had to say about her day , the gym etc looking for slight clues that i was wrong and that it could have been an old tinder account she had before we met , Although the email on her inbox was only a week before i asked the whereabouts on my security company laptop and i don’t think tinder was invented or i hadn’t heard of it when we met.
This went on for days ..the i just had to confront it ..
My time was bided of when I’d not confront but ask her as in my mind i thought it was me working too hard and not being there , i felt like it was my fault we were in this position .. there was 2 out comes in my mind 1- she fallout of love with me and was secretly meeting people or someone else 2- it was for attention .. attention i was not maybe giving her although we had our fun when the kids went to bed as all parents know its then or never sometimes.
I needed to know???
So the kids were put to bed and i asked her straight out about the email…her response was like she had seen a ghost , my face was just sullen as hers i suppose , her response was its nothing its not mine its your laptop , i looked at her with a confused look what !!!! its your email account i was hoping for some explanation, something .but she just looked down her hair fell over her glasses while fumbling about with a pillow on the dining room chair ,i looked closely at her face when she lifted her head up from fumbling she looked all red and would not look me in the eyes..i asked once again WHAT is going on …her response why are you creepy and snooping around in my emails ..now this is not what the outcome would be in my head filled with responses I had gone over countless times in my head ..i was shocked and shaking ..have a missed something ..why isn’t she giving me anything ..it’s like i asked her what bottle of wine she wanted from the shop .. a normal response in her head but totally confused from my point … so i raised my voice WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?? that email was sent to you weeks age. She muttered again don’t know what you’re talking about ..i pleaded with her in a calm voice have i lost you , is it over and you don’t want to hurt me , is this your way of looking elsewhere have you been meeting anyone , if its an old account why are you not just saying that and its just me and you so don’t be silly or even worried about this Craig , my eyes filled with tears and rage at the complacency of her reaction to something so life changing , she went into the kitchen all i thought was get the laptop out and click the link in front of her .. see if that will give me a response if i open her tinder profile … my head filled with rage said do it , but my heart , the heart that loves the bones of this girl , my soul mate said ,,don’t open the can of worms over and over in my head.. you’ll only get hurt as if she can’t give you an explanation the dating site will only give you 1 explanation and I’m not going to like it . nothing to ease my then thunderstorm pain and stomach turning feelings.
So i followed her into the kitchen of our dream home and leaned against the kitchen worktop with my back and asked one more time. What have i done ??
Her response “its not mine ,i just told you that .. all my energy said get the fucking laptop and open it in front of her in the kitchen and force her to look at what i found on HER email on my laptop… i froze like ice.. i couldn’t do it ..I went through the scenes in my head again ..there was only 1 outcome now … Pain and Hurt…..
i walked out of the kitchen and thought to myself that was not normal what the hell just happened ..i sat on my dark brown chesterfield sofa thinking we have never had this situation in our relationship. So how do i approach it differently to find out what the fuck is really going on …. the boys were sleeping ,i was flicking through the sky channels not really focusing on anything and i could hear her eating her tea in the dining room with the tv on echoing down our Victorian house hallway ,about an hour later i heard her dishes going the sink and her filling up her usual ACDC festival large plastic cup with squash and she walked past the living room said goodnight I’m off to Bedfordshire I’m knackered ,i looked at the ceiling with my hands on my lap fingers integrated so tight they were white like my face with fear…. knowing full well she wouldn’t this time pop in for a quick kiss while i normally would be binging on the sopranos or ray Donovan .
I went through it all in my head over and over …couldn’t make no sense at all .
I was drained , confused and heartbroken to even contemplate the reality of it .
I went to bed later on and jumped in my eldest in his 4′ fire engine bed , hurt, feeling alone and wondering how the hell was i supposed to bring this up again with the women i love , the mother of my kids .
holding my son and watching him sleep ,with him oblivious why daddy was holding him like it was the last time I’d see him ..A bit over dramatic i know , but that’s how i felt at the time until
i nodded off .
I woke in the morning and they had all gone , i checked the wardrobes and the rest of the house ,everything was normal my fears was due to her non reaction .she would just bail and leave it a few days .she didn’t confront the situation with not a inch of anything i thought a normal person would do.
So i jumped up got changed for work , she had left clean jeans , t-shirt , socks and hoodie at the foot of the bed for me , made all the beds in the house and went to work . i was dazed all morning I couldn’t really speak to anyone about it so i smiled laughed and ate my burger van brunch with a smile with the boys at the yard.
Normally by lunch we had exchanged plenty of messages on WhatsApp… how’s your morning, boys go ok to your mums and creche etc .. but that day .. nothing, i checked and checked like i missed something, well anything.
Ii thought fuck it, i flew home in the van opened up the laptop. Took a massive deep breath and thought carefully on what the outcome would be if i opened her tinder hot match email… my thoughts raced on what was on there ,had she met someone , what was her profile like … god you can imagine it yourselves if you were in my position… my head was spinning and i once again was sick by the back door waiting for the laptop to start …
i came back in the laptop was ready …i paused …although i was full steam ahead getting to the house , then the world stopped while i was sick against the drain pipe once again …i opened the web browser ..
I mustered the energy and braced myself , I couldn’t even sit down at that dining room table….I stood there shaking thinking of what I was about to reveal …would my life and world collapse or ????? i couldn’t think of anything else of the outcome !!!
Right fuck it !!! here goes nothing… softly clicking on her email it started to load and then it froze ..
PASSWORD LOGIN REQUIRED –
2 STEP VERIFICATION HAS BEEN ENABLED
I thought fuck !!!!! part of me relived , i sat down with a relief of not knowing ..an old saying popped in my head ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you ‘
either way this was a massive black tumour in my head and heart i couldn’t let go .. !!!!! the soldier in me wanted something anything , even a lie from her would have sufficed .
all my thoughts were to my sons happy faces , our happy times together our dream home.. somehow i felt relaxed and anxious … weird feeling to have considering if the email opened the outcome that day would have been different …how I don’t know …but i would later find out!