Becca Jane St Clair

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This post is inspired by It All Comes Together in the End AKA How I Met Your Father. The post was a list of the series of events that happened in her life that led towards her meeting her husband. Her events started when she was in college, but looking back, I think the events that led me to meeting Tim actually started all the way back in high school…..

When I was 14, I had a crush on a boy named Harlan. Yes, I can admit it now, and let’s be honest – who didn’t know I had a crush on him back then? He probably knew, too (or at least now he does. Hi Harlan! LOL) The internet was slowly becoming popular, but before there was the internet, there were BBSes. And Harlan just happened to run one. I managed to convince my mom that we needed a modem and somehow roped Harlan into coming over one day to install it and show me how to use it. So, thanks Harlan, for installing my modem!

Through BBSing I met a lot of people I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. A lot of these people are some of my closest friends, but that’s a story for another time. The important thing to remember is that I met people and started talking with a kid I used to know when I was younger, named Dave. Years later, Dave decided to go by his first name, Malcolm, and he and I dated for about a year. Through Malcolm, I reconnected with some of the old BBSing crowd I hadn’t seen in ages. Thanks, Malcolm.

Flash forward another few years. I was hanging out with one of my old BBSing friends, Mike, when he started to tell me about a new IRC network he and some friends had started. He asked me if I would be interested in checking it out, and suggested I join #schlock_mercenary, a channel for fans of the web comic of the same name. Through this channel, I made friends with even more people. Thanks, Mike.

One of the people I met was a guy named Brent. Brent and I would privately chat about everything and anything and one day he suggested I check out this other channel, #crfh, because he thought I would fit in with the crowd of people there. #crfh was a channel for fans of the webcomic, College Roommies From Hell!!!. As it turned out, he was right. I fit in quite well there. Thanks, Wulfy.

If you’re a girl in a male-dominated geeky world, you tend to wind up dating quite a few of the guys you’ve met. I’ll be honest. I probably “dated” about a half a dozen boys I met through #crfh. Some of them I actually met in person, some of them were online relationships only as they never reached the meeting each other point. At one point, I wound up talking to a kid named Charlie who happened to live not-so-far away from me and he asked me out. We started dating, and at the same time the channel was planning a big meet (BoardieCon) in Seattle. Because I was dating Charlie and wanted to meet some of the people I knew through these channels, I decided to go. While there, I met one of the men I had been talking to for around a year. His name was Tim, and he was British. We hit it off immediately when we chatted online because of my love for the UK and my hope to someday live there. We spent a little bit of time together at BoardieCon, but I was also there with my boyfriend (the above mentioned Charlie), so it’s not like we could have gone off together if we wanted. I do remember getting mad at him and another man from our group for ditching us all to go ride trains for a day while I was stuck making swords out of foam with my boyfriend, though.

Charlie and I broke up, and through a series of miscommunications (to put it nicely), a lot of the people from the chat channel started disliking me and saying nasty things about me. But not Tim. He remained a steadfast friend. I started seeing another guy from the channel, Alex. Alex lived in Michigan, so it was a long drive to see him, but we got along well and for around two years, Alex and I had some sort of pseudo-relationship. When Alex moved out to Seattle for a job, we “broke up” for lack of a better way to describe it. The break up happened right before I was going down to Florida to visit my cousin, Missy, and to go on Ships and Dip III. This Tim fellow told me that he would be there for me and anytime I needed to talk I only had to call (long distance across an ocean, but still!). My cousin told me she thought he was sweet for offering. Thanks Alex.

After I got back from the cruise, Tim and I got closer and closer. His village finally had high speed internet and we started talking more and more over Skype…having real conversations not just typing to one another. Over the course of six months or so, I fell in love.

To be honest, everything that happened after that moment seems to have passed in a blur. I came out to visit for 6 months, thanks to my friend Linz for being able to organize my flight after my first flight got cancelled. I went home. Tim visited me. My mom and I visited him. We got engaged and got married on Bonfire Night. We filled out visa paperwork and I moved to the UK 10 weeks after we got married. Today we celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary, but we constantly say that it feels like we’ve been together longer than that because we just fit.

So looking back, I have to thank a little girl (me) for having a crush on a boy she met through drama club. Isn’t it funny when you look back on things?

(There are also probably several other previous relationships to thank for where I am now, but if I start listing everyone we could be here for a while…..Greg, Dave H, Dave S, Dave G, Dave McN, Dave who’s last name I forgot, Tom, He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named, That kid who was in jail, That one I don’t want to admit to having been with, that other one who’s name I’ve actually forgotten, the first boy I dated when I was 14…was that Stephen?….John, Jason, James, at least one guy named Mike…Uhm, did I mention this would get to be a long list?)

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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My mom texted Tim last night to have him tell me she was taking my beloved kitty, Will, to the vet. They thought he had a urine infection possibly.

From what I know, his bladder was swollen so badly it caused him to have a heart attack right on the vet’s table. Mom was with him.

I got Will in January 2004. I just decided that I really wanted to have a cat of my own, and so we went off to the humane society in Lancaster, PA. They had two kittens in their kitten room. One was a white girl kitten who was skittish and hid from me in the play room, and the other was Will. He craweled all over me and perched on my shoulder, and I just knew he was the right kitten for me. The vet estimated he was only about 4 or 5 weeks old, so that puts his birthday somewhere around the end of November 2003/beginning of December. I always said that January 3 was his birthday :).

Will originally got his name from Will of Will & Grace….and he would actually watch Will & Grace with me and anytime someone said “Will”, he would look up. He also gained nicknames, like William Shakespeare (espcially after I heard the Arrogant Worms Song “William Shakespeare’s in my Cat”), and even Prince William on occasion.

He was a special kitty. I still remember when he was a kitten and I couldn’t find him anywhere in my apartment…..and then I opened the fridge. He had managed to climb into the fridge while I had been preparing my dinner!

He was a curious and friendly cat. Will expected everyone who walked through the door to greet him and rub his tummy. If you didn’t, he would make sure to rub up against your legs and bother you until you did. He worked better than a doorbell for alerting us to people! He needed to know what you were doing, watching, reading, or eating…he even drank green tea on a few occasions — but no other “people food”. He never begged for food from the table, he just wanted to see what you were eating.

He knew when I was upset and would come and lay down next to me as if to say “it’ll be alright”. When I missed Tim and would be crying, Will was there. If Mom and I were on video chat with each other and Will heard my voice, he came over to “see” me and would try to lick the webcam.

I was looking forward to the day when we could finally move Will over to the UK so he could join us here. I’m going to miss him a lot….that crazy little furball meant the world to me.

Rest in Peace, my brave kitty.

Will
3 Jan 2004 – 13 May 2011

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

Michelle from A Mid-Atlantic English (as well as The American Resident) asks, “Why are you here?” and asks her readers to post their stories on their blogs.

“Why are you here?” is a question I get asked countless times…at least once/week when I’m at my volunteer job, sometimes in the shops as well, but since I tend to frequent the same shops, people are getting used to me.

I suppose my story goes something like this….

-Visits the UK as part of a whirlwind European tour senior year of HS (1997)
-Decides then and there that she wants to live in the UK someday
-Goes to Penn State, puts dream aside for a few years while she dates and studies
-Breaks up with boyfriend, considers International Business
-Gives up on International Business
-Starts working in a day care, UK dream having been given up
-Gets laid off, gets job at bank. Starts thinking about the UK again and sets a 10-year move to UK goal
-Dates some more
-Goes to Seattle for a convention of webcomic fans. Meets English bloke.
-They hit it off well and stay in touch via email and IMs. They exchange Christmas presents, etc.
-English bloke upgrades his internet to broadband, starts talking on Skype.
-Tells English bloke about dream of living in UK, English bloke suggests an extended visit to see if the UK is really what she wants
-Agrees, and schedules visit for October 2008.
-Decides she likes English bloke as more than a friend, and surprisingly, he likes her too.
-Start dating English bloke
-visit English bloke. Decided after 2 months that they don’t want to be apart, so visit gets extended to full 6 months
-Goes back to US, 4 months later, English bloke comes to visit.
-5 weeks later, takes mom to the UK to sightsee and meet English bloke’s parents
-English bloke has an epiphany while riding Welsh Highland Railway and proposes
-Returns to the US, plans wedding in 5 weeks
-Are wed on 5 November 2009
-Apply for passport in new name, apply for spousal visa, pack up all belongings
-Moved to the UK 21 January 2010 (interestingly, about 2 years before my “goal” year)

So there you have it. And we’ve just celebrated our one year anniversary and soon it will be my one year anniversary of living in the UK.

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I know, you’re scratching your head. I can hear you thinking What? She hasn’t been there a year yet!

And you’re right. I haven’t been here a year yet, BUT as of today, I have officially spent 12 full months in the UK during my assorted visits.

So here’s the break-down of my “first visits”:
October 17 – October 31: 2008
November: 2008
December: 2008
January: 2009
February: 2009
March 1-24: 2009
March 25-31: 1997
April 1-4: 1997
April 4-6: 2009
April 7-30: 2010
May: 2010
June: 2010
July: 2010
August: 2010
September 1-15: 2010
September 16-30: 2009
October 1-16: 2010

And I swear, I haven’t forgotten about everything I need to blog. I just seem to have developed a social life and since we got back from Austria, I feel like I’ve been constantly on the go! Updates soon!!

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There’s so many things I haven’t yet blogged about that I need to, so I’m making myself a handy list to remind myself what I need to write about in the comming weeks. I always hope I can bang out an entry each day, or at least a few times a week, but real life just catches up with me.

Sweet Adelines Region 31 Convention (all the way back at the first weekend in May!)
Beamish
Train ride across Hadrian’s Wall
Garden 2010 update
Beckenscot
Richmond
London
Abbey
Tattershall Castle (From Mom’s visit!)
Lincolnshire Life Museum (from Feb!!)
Trolley Museum

…yeah, looks like quite a bit to catch up on! I better start blogging….

[This entry refers to an event from March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging events from January – April.]

Tim’s cat, Prudence, likes to be outside when there are people around. She also likes to walk around on the garden rail tracks:

Watch out for the that train!

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If you’d like to chat with me, I can now be reached on AIM as BeccaJaneStClair, and on MSN Messenger as BeccaJaneStClair(at)hotmail.com. Don’t worry, my email is staying the same!

I’ve decided I’m not going to take the time to completely blog every single town and place we visited. I’ve been home for over a month, and I just haven’t had the time. BUT – I know I have some readers (i hope?) who want to read about things, so here is the list of places we were. If there is a place you’d like to see me write more about and I haven’t already, please leave me a comment.

Stamford
Liverpool
Lincoln (multiple times)
Stratford-upon-Avon
Hereford
Hay-On-Wye/Brecon Beacons
Cardiff
Bridlington
Scarbourough
Robin Hood’s Bay
Yorkshire Moors (and NYMR!)
York
Nottingham
London
Portsmouth
Stonehenge
Blackpool
Liverpool
Rainhill
Newark
London
Greenwich
Beamish
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Alnwick and other Castles in the North
Scottish Borders
Durham
Darlington
GCR
Bletchley Park
Leeds
Mablethorpe (and other seaside towns)

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