Grief, the kids, and Norm Grabowski

First, the grief. Last winter I had an idea to "finish" the family hot rod for this summer. With the 40's Ford sedan project shelved indefinitely, the '51 Chevy sold, the plan to build a banger powered '27 T tourer from stuff around the yard was hatched. But these plans soon stalled as Kate's illness took hold.
Had I known how soon she'd be leaving us, I'd have spent even less time in the garage. Possibly.

So now the most important thing in life is the kids. Maybe I didn't fully realise that before, maybe I did.They've been a great help - never under estimate the clear cut strength in the mind of a nine year old girl. Who's mother raised her well. Robert, I'm not so sure. Approaching teens, I have no idea what's crossing his mind.
But when I asked what they'd like to do during the school summer holiday, they asked to go to the Supernationals at Biggleswade. Out with dad, to a car event?!



Which is how we came to have breakfast with Norm Grabowski.
Cool?
Pretty surreal actually.
Made a bit of a hash on the catering front - Kate was always so well organised. I took bowls, spoons, milk. Forgot the kids breakfast cereal. By 7.30 on the Saturday morning they're getting real hungry, so in desperation we went off to see if there was a shop over at the college or something.
Walking up to the restaurant entrance, out comes Chuck Vranas who says, "hi, oh, and Norm's in there - go say hello".
And there he is, sitting there all alone in this big empty room full of tables. so the kids grab some Cocopops and we sit down with him, talk absolute rubbish for a while, and when Alice has finished, a quick goodbye and she drags us back to the campsite. A few people are up, so I tell them about our "breakfast date" and before anyone says anything, Norm comes strolling across to our enclave and starts checking out my car. Hope he's had his tetanus shots. Chuck Vranas returns, oh and by the way, "could he do a quick photoshoot?"
And that was our first morning of the Supernats.







I've always found life a bit weird really - Kate used to keep it on an even keel for me. I kinda think she's raised the kids to keep it that way.