"I can make your costume for you..."

Thank you for visiting.  Today I'm sharing some more memories of the early days together.  Writing them down is helping me and I hope reading them is interesting to you.  

At the Warp 2 convention in Cardiff,  one of the guests had asked the audience how many of them were experiencing their first convention.  

"I warn you" he said, "they are addictive!"  

He was dead right. If you're a Trekker, once you've been to one you want to go to another one.  The convention following the Cardiff convention was in Heathrow, over the August Bank Holiday weekend, and I was determined to go.  

I was a teacher back then and I took a part-time job in the school holidays to help pay for the convention and hotel.  I'd taught myself to adapt dressmaking patterns and I was making my own costume (I'm a Romulan!).  David was also going to the same convention and for a long time had wanted Vulcan Ambassador's robes (as worn by Mark Lenard in the Star Trek movies).   I offered to make them for him.  We began spending some time together, sourcing materials, adjusting patterns and fit.  

David in Vulcan Ambassador robes

 Somewhere between spring and summer, I fell hopelessly and shatteringly in love.  

I wasn't looking for it and I denied the feeling for a long time, telling myself that because of the age difference he did not see me as anything other than a good friend.  I had a home, a job and a family that I did not want to jeopardise.  I had no inkling that David felt the same way about me, until one day he said something that let me know that I was more than just a friend.  

I felt as if someone had put a metal bucket over my head and hit it with a hammer.  I pulled back and stared at him, and he looked at me and just nodded.  

We agreed that we needed to talk - urgently - and arranged to meet one day when I had some time to myself.  

We spent the best part of a day driving around in his old VW Beetle ("Ringo" - which, he claimed, approved of me as it would allow me to fasten my seatbelt!)  talking about how we felt and agreeing that we couldn't go any further, that too many innocent people would be hurt if we did and there was no future together for us.  

When it came to the crunch, though, we couldn't be apart.  Just - couldn't do it.  And in the full knowledge that our relationship couldn't end well, we began to meet when we could.  

"Nice badge"

That was then...this is now

This post is long enough, so I'll tell you more next time. Before I go, I want to tell you about something weird that happened last week.

David's phone, which he'd had for about five years, suddenly stopped working a few days before he was due to start his chemo cycle.  He needed a phone to keep in touch with me throughout the day (and so that he could call me to pick him up when he was done) so we got a new one immediately.  When I was swapping the SIM card from the old phone to the new one, I dropped it.  I saw where it landed, only when I bent down to pick it up, it wasn't there.  

We spent a couple of hours trying to find it, searching every inch of the floor, moving the furniture just in case it had somehow bounced underneath the couch - no sign of it.  I even vacuumed the floor and then went through the dirt in the dust bag with a tweezers without any luck.  So we gave up and ordered a replacement.

The vanishing SIM card

A few days ago I was finishing my breakfast, glanced down and - there it was.  In plain sight.  Exactly where I saw it land when I dropped it and where it definitely wasn't before.  I'm taking it as a sign that he's still around.

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Afterword 

by Andrew Caldwell

I was at the Heathrow convention too.  Dave and I had booked a B&B but he was having such a good time he didn't leave the venue over the 2 days at all.  I remember the panels, with the DS9 team telling us how to submit script ideas (ideally "bottle shows" that reused existing sets to keep the cost down) and we were introduced to the cast of new BBC Sci-Fi show that either got cancelled after the convention or disappeared into obscurity. At the evening party I remember all the Klingon and Psi-Corp going up on stage for a bow (about 20 of each - would have been a fair fight me thinks).  The dance floor always filled up when the Timewarp came on and that Dr Who in the Tardis song.  I also remember the food, as there was nothing affordable at the venue so everyone walked across the car park to McDonalds.  For 2 days it was full of Star Fleet officers, Klingons and occasionally a Vulcan Ambassador.  You can't believe how much I wanted to eat real fruit or anything healthy after 2 days of that been every meal.  It was a great 2 days.