This weekend I did something I didn't think I would ever do and I got married. My history with this particular establishment is not a particularly good one. My dad has been married and divorced 3 times (on his 4th engagement) and my parents divorce was the source of most of my childhood trauma. It's fair to say I had a lot of resistance to the whole thing. I've been with Lavinia for 18 years and we have 3 amazing children. I have always been committed to the family but I always saw marriage as an unnecessary step in the relationship. I asked Lavinia to marry me around 5 years ago and thought I had got away with not getting married until a meeting with our accountant forced our hand 6 months ago (romantic, I know). This last 3 months has been a very interesting journey. It has triggered emotions from my childhood, relationships that 'might have been' have been put to bed. I have had to look deeply at the stories I had around marriage and my aversion to fully committing to my partner of 18 years. The result, as always, of moving towards and through the pain are transformational. I have further integrated the rejected boy, the 25 year old that didn't commit to his Italian girlfriend, the man that was keeping part of himself safe. I feel more grounded, more present, more committed AND I got to experience an incredible day full of love and happiness. I often preach moving towards the joy and living from this point but often this can be found on the other side of our greatest pain.

I want to talk about maybe the most destructive, legalised and normalised drug on the planet, ALCOHOL! There's a photo of me somewhere with my Grandad. He is helping me pour a tiny glass of beer out a small keg. My father is the one taking the photograph and everyone seems so happy and proud of me and my first beer. I am 4 years old. My Dad always liked a drink and I remember him coming home and making himself a dry Martini to “help him unwind after a long day at work.” Occasionally he'd have a glass of wine or two as well with dinner. As I only saw him once or twice a week for dinner as he usually arrived after I had gone to bed, God knows how much he really drank. I never remember seeing him drunk until his 50th birthday when his uni mates came round and they all got wasted. I was 21 at the time and had a superhuman resitance to alcohol thanks to my own university experience which had trained me well. As a result I was a fairly sober bystander to the carnage that ensued that night. I remember him enjoying a pint or 2 (max when he was driving) at the pub with lunch and he enjoyed a good single malt whiskey. Whiskey had been what put him in hospital with a split knee requiring over 50 stiches. He was 20 years old and had ridden his Lambretta from Cambridge to Loughborough to see his Dad. They drank a bottle of whiskey and probably some beers beforehand. After a rather shit night's sleep he rode back to uni. While merging onto the dual carriageway, he fell asleep on his bike, slamming into a truck nearly killing himself. By all accounts I am pretty lucky to even exist!! My Grandad always enjoyed a drink as well even when he was at death's door (91 years old) and couldn't eat as his swallowing mechanism was failing him. He managed to get to my cousin's wedding for a few hours and had a feeding tube and a nurse with him. Instead of drying up the spittle in his mouth with the absorbant swabs he dipped them in his favourite single malt and pushed that around his mouth instead. I am guessing the love of booze didn't start with him and goes way back in our family line.

I finally reached the 490m 14th at my club in two during a competition!! I was up there with two lads half my age. In spectacular form we walked away from 3 eagle opportunities with par, par, bogey!! 🤣🤣🤣

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Today, I wanted to share a recent incident which helped me release a whole world of stuck energy. Something I wasn't even aware that was there until I spewed it all out in one of the most satisfying moments of 2026 (so far). As you may or may not know I am currently dealing with a failed relationship with 2 boys in the middle. We are currently still living under the same roof, however we have not shared a bed for more than 3 years (maybe it's 4 now.) Recently we decided to take charge of the kids for one week at a time. Last Sunday (9 days ago) was Marga's last day and even so, I asked the boys if they wanted to go and watch the senior's rugby match as I didn't think A, she was aware of it and B that she'd really want to go. She piped up on Sunday that she wanted to take them and that by promising them a day out with breakfast I was somehow ruining her plans. “It's my week with the kids so I will take them, I'm in charge.” She said the 4 of us could go but after her little telling off I didn't feel like being anywhere near her so I thanked her and went to play golf. Afterwards, I met up with the young lady I am interested in, so it really was a win win! Fast forward to this Sunday. She had been away all week and wasn't witness to a rather heated debate between the boys and 2 of their friends over a game of Minecraft. Long story short, my eldest set up a server for the 4 of them to play. He lent the password to one guy so he could open the server while they were out at the beach. He then gave it to the other guy who went into creator mode to get a “load of loot” without actually earning it. Basically he cheated. When the boys saw this they were angry and were dealing with it through Discord. In his anger my youngest went into the cheater's base and TNTed all of his stuff. This really kicked off the argument and they were going back in foth for nearly an hour. It was getting quite late and they were all being told to close down for the night and decided to hold court the following day to resolve the issue.