Octoberfest.

Evening strumpets,

I love October. It`s the witching month. It`s the month when you begin to feel a crispness to the air. It`s the month, when it`s becoming a necessity to wear a coat when going to the pub. It`s the month when the tree`s let you know that Christmas is around the corner. It`s the month of Brambles and Conkers, gloves and scarves. Of Spectacles steaming up as you walk into a room. It`s the time when you can begin to smell Gunpowder in the air. When the Mornings are dark, but it`s still light enough to drive home at Teatime. Leaves filling drain covers.

But above all else, it`s the month when I met Louise.

Funnily enough we met on My Mother and Fathers Wedding Anniversary. I was making a living driving a forklift Truck in Nottingham, and I had come home (which I will always call Middlesbrough) for the weekend. I, for once at the time, had remained quite sober throughout the night, the remnants from a conversation I had had with my Brother about the state my drinking had gotten into, still residing within my mind.

I went to a Nightclub in Middlesbrough called "Blaises", which has long since closed down. Saturday nights in there were split down the middle in 1995. One room had an Eighties night, the other room (the bigger room, which often had condensation dripping from the ceiling) had what was affectionately known locally as "Freak" night.

It was in there that Michael Platts told me I should introduce myself to Louise. "You`re just her type" he told me. And a funny thing happened. he was right. I met her and she asked me what i did for a living. Usually, a little embarrassed to admit that i was a manual labourer(I was Twenty Five, cut me a bit of slack!), I would invent elaborate stories.

"Me, oh I`m the youngest Professor to be teaching Classical Literature at Newcastle University"

"Me, Oh I`m a session musician,just finished playing with Blur"

"Me, Oh I`m a novelist using a pseudonym. you may have heard of me, Dan Brown"

When Louise asked I answered

"Me, Oh I drive a Fork lift Truck"

I never felt the need to lie. Funny that.

She was stunning, and I could not believe that a) she was talking to me, and b) she was flirting, and seemed to like me. I`m not fishing for compliments, but man alive, she was out of my league.....except she wasn`t. She never made me feel that way, never has. I know she feels about me the way I feel about her. And Amen to that.

She is the strongest person I know, and the prettiest. She makes me laugh, but she also at times makes me want to stick a fork in her cheek. But then we laugh about how daft the arguments were. She`s my sweetheart, and I`m always going to be here, her big man.

The above picture is a favourite of mine. It`s in Mam and dad`s house, and has my closest friends in it. Louise and I had known each other for two months at that point.

Till the next one, learn something new,

Mark.