10 Faces of Sam

I would never call myself the kind of guy who likes to relinquish control - of anything. At least not too much of it anyway.

If we go to the cinema to watch a film that Lucy wants to see, I will moan incessantly about the poor acting, and the obvious plot (how I knew all along that the Kate Hudson character would get the guy in the end). If we go shopping for clothes for her, I will stand outside the changing rooms and tut (along with all of the other guys) about the indignity of having to stand around in such close proximity to the underwear section.

There have been two occasions in the last two weeks where I have had to relinquish control to Lucy; both of which have made me realise why I love her so much.

Last weekend, I went back up to Leeds for a bit of a night out with some of my buddies up there. Lucy promised to arrange "a surprise" for me and some of my friends during the day. I found this surprisingly difficult. Dress warm she says. "why what are doing? are we going caving? are we going hiking? where are we going? have we left enough time to get there? do you know the way?" was my response.

The day out was excellent, the theme was "laser combat". The best way to describe this is like paintballing, but without the pain and misery (and the cheaters who wipe off the paint and pretend they havent been shot).

The guy who ran the centre told us in no uncertain terms - "its not a good idea to do guys vs girls, as even when you win, you lose". We ignored him. How right he turned out to be.

The first game was capture the flag and was set in the woods. The guys were on the offensive first. We had a quick discussion and decided to take the girls from the side of their camp in a lightning raid, capturing the huts they were occupying one by one before raising each flag in turn. This was a heavily flawed tactic. The girls hid behind their wooden structures (and once they had figured out that shooting the structure caused your laser to rebound and kill yourself), they pinned three of us down (each behind a different tree) almost immediately.

Our fourth squad member "private Steve" was at this point attempting an ambitious three mile outflanking manouvre. We lost one man (technically we lost him 30 times as thats how many lives we had), and out of desparation tried to charge the girls. This failed and we ran out of time.

It was the girls turn to attack. We each took position in the huts and spied the girls though the forest trying to make a head on attack. "they're coming straight down the middle" was the cry. We attempted to gun them down and they took heavy fire. then suddenly two of the girls appeared from our flanks and began a surprise attack. Lucy got round the back and started raising one of the flags "bloody hell they're using tactics" was the shout, "cheating cowbags!". She managed to get the flag up (1 of 4) despite the fact we were riddling her with bullets (not sure this would have been an appropriate tactic in real life). Before we killed every one of her team.

This is where the argument began (and it went on). The girls didnt seem to appreciate that the rasing of one flag did not constitute victory when their entire team was ruthlessly despatched.

There were two more pretty cool games (involving attaching forts and disarming bombs) on the day and fun was had by all. Laser combat did teach me one thing - I'd be bloody rubbish at war. I would probably be dead 65 times over in the space of an afternoon. Better throw out those army application forms then!

The second time I had to relinquish control to Lucy came this weekend when we went down to London for (another) leaving do with all of my friends from back in the Hudd (thats Huddersfield to those not in the know). There were about 20 or so of us playing a little poker and having a few drinks before invading the bars of Clapham. We were just about to head on out when Lucy lands yet another surprise on me!

I was slightly suspicious of the size of the suitcase that Lucy dragged down with her from Manchester as we were only there for one or so days. It turns out that she was harbouring a secret.

The suitcase contained 10 t-shirts. Each one of these t-shirts had a rather embarassing picture of me in some kind of just a little unflattering pose. These ranged from the rather nice one of my head superimposed on a body builder's torso, to a peach of a photo from my childhood falling off the "climbing frame of death". Each of the guys was instructed to don one of the t-shirts (some worn with more pride than others) and we headed on out looking like a rather confused stag do.

It was a brilliant night, and I just wish I could post up some pictures. However I was having camera issues, and as my work has just blocked facebook I cant get access to anyone elses (I have a separate rant to make on that!). So these will follow shortly.

I actually felt a little tinge of regret for moving away on both of these occasions. Particularly when I said goodbye to my partner in crime Rob. I guess its the price to payand it will only get worse.

I've got exactly one week to go before I fly off on my adventure, then I will be away from Lucy for around 8 or 9 weeks (until she flies out for christmas) then again for a few months after that. I just have to say - thanks for making this last couple of weeks so perfect Lucy!