Alison and I met on 14 January 1997 on the wall next to the Turf Hotel in Darvel. As first dates went it was fantastic as I was dazzled by those huge blue eyes, wonderful smile and cheery disposition. If it was not quite love at first sight it was very close as I had more or less moved in within a month and then we were engaged in May 1997 and then married in Darvel church on 02 May 1998 with a small reception in the Seamill Hydro. We both loved our holidays and Alison was a big kid at heart who had a fascination (some would say unhealthy) with Tigger so after our first holiday together in 1997 to Menorca it was off to Florida and Disney World for our honeymoon in May 1998. A fantastic time was had by all even though Alison was saddled with her in-laws although she would get her own back on me at a later date. The following year 1999 the pennies were a bit tight so a week in Ibiza had to suffice but again we had a great time especially at night when we would go for a meal and sit most of the night draining jugs of sangria followed by shots of schnapps. We bought two bottles back on the plane and they didn't even last 12 hours as we were invited to Margaret and Roberts for our dinner where the two bottles were drained plus a further bottle (quick nip round to the Spar before it closed) that Robert purchased. The year 2000 saw Alison getting her revenge on me as we went to Florida with Margaret, Robert and Gavin. Apart from a 5 hour delay on the way out the holiday was great with plenty of Disney and Universal parks completed and loads and loads of shopping, Alison had a thing for shoes and bags. After the usual hectic Christmas, well we all know how much Alison loved christmas, we jetted off to the USA again but slightly further north this time to Michigan to see my relatives. We landed in a snow storm which delighted Alison and the snow fell continuously for the next 6 days which made the suburb where we were staying into a picture postcard christmas wonderland. Alison as normal charmed her newly aquainted relatives with her gorgeous smile and lovely personality and we returned laden down with Christmas ornaments. In June Alison found out she was pregnant and for a short-time we were living in bliss until the night before her 12 weeks scan when she had a miscarriage, we affectionaly named him little Jesper (after Jesper Parnevick the golfer). We picked ourselves up and got on with things and had a short-break in Pitlochry to cheer us up. 2002 saw another pregnancy, twins this time but again it was not to be as we lost one at 7 weeks and then the other at 9 weeks. Although we were both dispondent we got on with our lives and decided to cheer ourselves up with a holiday to guess where yip you got it Florida. This time we tagged along with a couple of friends and their kids. Did the usual parks and rides and of course plenty of shopping but had also added a 1 night break in a special guest house called Casa de la Plaz (The house of Peace)in St Augustine which raved about it's unique speciality breakfasts. Alison couldn't contain herself the next morning when I was served brazed gratefruit followed by onion and tomato quiche; 30 minutes later we were sitting in Shoney's having a non-unique breakfast. Another false dawn happened in August when we were going for third time lucky with pregnancies but again Alison miscarried in September. 2003 saw us venturing back to Florida, which would be our last together. Another trip to St Augustine was organised this time for 2 nights and definately not staying at "The house of Peace" as I we both wanted a decent breakfast. Arriving in St Augustine we were both famished so went to the A1A Grillworks (and micro brewery) for some lunch and ordered a local beer to drink, they were doing a special offer, half pints of all their signature beers (8 in total) for $10, several hours later we descended on the unsuspecting staff of the Olde Christmas Shop and the next morning realised we had spent a fortune - but hey it was good fun. We fancied doing something different than Florida plus we couldn't continue to sustain Alison's shoe and Christmas ornaments shopping spree. So for some strange and bizarre reason, we did often discuss this and could never come to a conclusion of why, we decided to go to Jersey for a holiday. Nice short flight and smart modern hotel, well it looked that way in the brochure. One of the strangest hotels we had ever stayed in, the bar was inside the restaurant which closed once the evening meal was finished. You see the hotel had a cunning plan because it had a wine-bar on the main street that was attached to it and the staff were very kind in directing you there, first night bill after several Morgan Spiced Rums and Glayvar's (which soon became doubles) was a pricely £95.00. After that we found somewhere else to quench our thirst. Weather was poor and did most of the attractions in the first two days and then ended up going to the cinema to break up the days. Made some good friends though, Sharon and Rob from Llanelli Wales and we kept in touch until Alison's death. The previous year we started a treatment called IUI to try and gain some success. After the woes of Jersey we needed to put our heads together to find a better holiday destination and since none of us fancied the usual Spanish mainland / Islands or Portugal we seemed a bit stumped. However on one of her many shopping trips Alison spotted an offer for Hotel Causius in Bardolino, Lake Garda so after a short discussion we booked it. Things did not start well as we received a letter two weeks prior to departure to inform us that building work was being carried out next to the Hotel but it should not affect our holiday. And then at the airport once the Palma and Malaga flights had boarded we were left sitting amidst a hundred or so pensioners - oh where are we going crossed our minds. Nice short flight and as we toured around the hotels we found ourselves the only ones left on the bus, oh could be good and then we spotted the cranes in the distance, oh could be really bad. Arrived at the hotel which was building an annex and spa next door and were upgraded to a suite for our inconvience, well space and luxury you couldn't beat it absolutely gorgeous. Yeah great holiday about to begin, well still one little hiccup to overcome. As I sat on our huge balcony sipping a glass of our complimentary wine I noticed in the hotel literature it stated Long Trousers must be worn for dinner, oh oh I only had shorts, nice tailored shorts but shorts none the less. Now have you ever tried to buy a pair of mens trousers when not being able to speak a word of Italian (litre of wine a lunch-time probably didn't help), no didn't think so, returned to the hotel with something that looked like a cross between punk bondage trousers and shell-suit bottoms in a lovely creamy orange colour - why did we buy them only the smiling italian shopkeeper really knows. After one night of looking like an 80's euro-punk misfit I ended up wearing a pair of Alison's trousers to dinner and then beating a hasty retreat to the room to change back into shorts. Great holiday was had by both of us even though I got nagged to death for years after lying in sun on the last day (och I will be fine it's not that warm) without any sunblog and then suffering from heat-stroke and having to be put into a cold bath and then bathed down by Alison. I would get me revenge on the nagging front at a later date. Later that year we found out that the IUI treatment we were doing was a total waste of time as Alison's fallopian tubes were badly twisted and scarred. At least there was some good news as we could now go forward for IVF but a couple of years had been wasted. We commence the IVF programme at Glasgow Royal Infirmary in late 2005 and by April 2006 we had our first unsuccessful outcome. But hey nothing a good holiday couldn't cure so it was off to Italy and Bardolino again but a different hotel as the Hotel Causius that we used last year had completed it's building works and was now a 5* Hotel and Spa and it was also a 20 minute walk into the centre so this years choice was the Hotel Idana. Good location but Alison cried when she saw the room and we were in a superior one, problem was she had been spoilt the year before with our upgraded suite. A kiss and a big hug and then down to our favourite restaraunt for lunch and a litro di vino bianco soon had her sorted. Good enjoyable holiday although the hotel was not the greatest and the we had quite a bit of rain but did plenty of touring on the ferries and plenty of eating and drinking. Unfortunately the year ended in a relative low when we found out in October that the second attempt at IVF had also failed. 2007 was some year full of extreme lows and extreme highs. Our final attempt at IVF through the NHS had failed in March so there was a lot of despondency especially with Alison. After a lot of discussion we agreed to have one try through a private fertility specialist GCRM so it was off for another round of probing and sample producing. After last years slightly disappointing hotel we had really done our homework for this year and opted for the Villa Letizia which sat right on the lake front in Bardolino. Now for all you that knew Alison you will understand why I affectionately called her "Mrs Organisation Woman", I was "Mr Timetable Man" just incase you were interested, and for those who didn't well this is the woman who had a weekend in late Novemeber / early December dedicated to Christmas decorating and would have suitcases packed and ready to go at least 2 weeks prior to departure. Okay picture the scene 4 am been up from 3 but still really excited about our holiday, approach check-in desk and handover the usual documents, the man seems to be taken longer than usual and then he looks at us and utters the first of those unforgetable words "do you realise your passport has expired" to which Alison looks at me and says I don't believe it do I need to organise everything, and then the second unforgetable words floated across the counter "no Mrs Lochhead is is your passport that has expired". Well as you can expect I was gobsmacked and speechless as I took the suitcase from the check-out desk and shuffled past all the people eagerly waiting to check-in and then plopped myself down in a chair and put my head-in-my-hands a muttered to myself "I can't believe it" (probably several hundred times). As you can imagine the bus trip back to the car park (30 mins after we had left the place)was done in complete silence but that was soon shattered as we went to pay at the car park kiosk and the attendant stated "lass, you don't pay until you return from your holiday" and as Alison replied "my passport had expired" we just smiled together and I thought oh well there's worse things that can happen in life - unfortunately those thoughts came back to haunt me. Lots of frantic phonecalls later and we had managed to book a flight on the Saturday (initially due to fly on Wednesday)still to Lake Garda but a different resort call Sirmione and an appointment at the passport office on Thursday. I am glad to say everything went smoothly and we ended up having one of our best holidays and then in October we finally got the news we had been waiting years for - Alison was pregnant. 2008 started great as everything was going well with the pregnancy and Alison was radiant. Scans and tests came and went with no anomolies and all of a sudden it was June and Alison's 40th, she had hoped to give birth before her birthday purely for vanity reasons, and then a final scan to see if the baby had turned as it was lying breached. Thursday 19 June we attended the maternity unit at Crosshouse and the scan showed the baby was still breached so we were booked in for a c-section on Monday. As we were leaving the mid-wife reminded Alison if anything changes to contact the emergency number to which Alison replied "how what is going to change", oh how she could have ate those words as I was awakened at 4.00 am with screams of "my water my water has broken". A quick dash down to the maternity unit where Alison was examined and it was decided that because her contractions weren't too severe she would wait and go to theatre at 8 rather than do an emergency c-section. The theatre staff were over the moon that we didn't know the sex as this was very unusual but we were convinced it was a boy and had been for a while. The staff nurse asked if we had picked names as he could introduce the baby to the world by their name and so it was at 0827 hrs we heard the words "welcome to the world Zara", don't know who burst into tears first, think I just pipped it. The next few months followed the usual pattern for parents with a new-born, changing, feeding, washing, trying to catch up on sleep. Alison was getting some strange feelings and went to the local GP (who will remain nameless) and was told she had just had a child by c-section so things will take time to settle down and get back to normal. Things did not settle down or get back to normal and she returned on two further occasions again to get fobbed-off with various excuses. Finally on the fourth visit she saw a different GP who instantly referred her to crosshouse hospital for an endoscopy. Good, we thought, we can get this minor ailment sorted and move on and focus on our new family life, never did we expect to be told she had a massive tumour which very certainly was cancerous. We were on tender-hooks for a couple of days awaiting the biopsy result which when it came through confirm the tumour was cancer. An operation was scheduled for 31 December and we both stayed positive with the philosophy that she might have cancer at the moment but by 2009 she won't. Operation we were told was a great success and everything had been removed. The start of 2009 was extremely draining both physically and mentally for both of us. Alison had a long post-operation recovering time and we also had a 6 month old Zara to contend with but as we had done before when faced with adversity we focused on our love for each other and for Zara and just got of with it. A MRI scan revealed there were quite a high proportion of lymph nodes affected so as a precautionary procedure a 6 month course of chemotherapy was recommended and taken, what choice do you really have. Treatment went well and the regular blood-test were all positive so as spring moved into summer our mood was happy and content and we celebrated Zara's first birthday with a garden party with family and friends, my dad made a refreshing white rum punch and if anyone managed to sample some before it was devoured by Robert then they were the lucky ones. Chemotherapy finished in July and since we had to cancel our holiday to Italy in June we re-booked to go in September to the Imperial Hotel in Garda. Although we had visited Garda on several occasions we had never stayed there but it was central and handy for the ferries. I was all doom and gloom before we departed as I had checked the weather forecast on the internet and it showed 7 days of rain, but hey at least this time we did all have valid passports. Sure enough we landed in teeming rain and wind and a cosy 15 degrees. We were slightly down on the bus to the hotel but once settled and after an afternoon nap the rain stopped the sun appeared and for the rest of the holiday it was a very pleasant 25 degrees. To say the hotel catered for children and was family friendly would be a complete and utter fabrication of the truth, mind you cot-bed looked brand new but that was probably because they felt guilty about the seggiolone (high chair), which was probably the most used italian word on holiday well apart from vino, sorry back to the story yes you would have thought the high chair arrived with the Ark as it was an ancient wooden contraption that Zara could easily high-dive off, but hey the hotel probably wouldn't have cared as we got stuck in the back corner of the restaurant facing the wall, gave Zara a nice big target to throw her food at, serves them right. We entered 2010 full of life,happiness and hope for the future as we had dealt with and overcame some very trying and difficult times in the previous year, and this was enhanced when Alison received a clean bill of health following a routine blood test in January. Alison was back at work and the first quarter of the year was surprisingly uneventful for us and then April was upon us and another routine check-up. Everything went as normal or so we thought and a good few weeks later we checked the answer-machine and there was a request from Alisons care nurse (who shall also remain nameless) to contact her urgently regarding her last blood-test. Alison duly did the next morning whilst at work and was told some waffle story that her initial blood-test had somehow got lost, Alison was very perceptive and knew something was amiss. We were due to travel to Italy for a holiday on 05 June so we tried to put the worrying thoughts behind us as we had been scheduled an appointment with the consultant on 14 June. Went to a place in the south of Lake Garda called Pescheria which was handy for Gardaland (Italy's equivalent of Euro-Disney)which we visited on two occasions. The hotel was very family friendly with some kids activities which Zara loved and she made a couple of friend from Italy, Germany and Austria. A great holiday it was, although Alison had started to feel some pain in her abdonmen which gave us a slight concern. We returned from holiday and both went back to work on Monday as normal and tried not to think about our meeting with the oncologist on Tuesday. Well Tuesday arrived and we were both uptight and had discussed what we thought was the worse case scenario which would be ovarian cancer and a hysterectomy. To our shock and total dismay our worse case scenario was way off the mark as we were informed that Alison's cancer was back and it was terminal and they were looking at a timeframe of 18 months. Shocked and stunned is an understatement I even looked over my shoulder at one point convinced that the oncologist was talking to someone else because to us this was totally out of the blue but did not seem to be to them, did we miss something over the last eighteen months, this is something we kept going over and over again because we were convinced that at no point previously had anyone told us how serious it could be. That evening we had the difficult task of informing our families of the news. Alison's birthday was the next day and we tried to be positive and went to Scott's in Troon for lunch, to say we both had better days was the understatement of the century. Alison was started on chemotherapy again and we met with the surgeon who under took the original operation but he was unwilling to operate as the cancer cells were numerous and in the abdomen, however he did refer us to a specialist surgeon in Gartnavel Hospital. Stay positive all the health people told us 18 months is just a worse case scenario so don't focus on it. September found us still positive if a bit tired as we were having to travel to the Beatson every second week as the first batch of chemotherapy at Crosshouse had failed to make any impact. We travelled down to Lytham & St.Annes for a long weekend with Alison's family but the good old British weather unfortunately didn't play ball as it rained for most of the time but we did get to take Zara to Blackpool zoo and it would turn out to be the last family holiday we had together. The next few months were very demanding as we kept trying to be positive but on a good note my workplace had undertaken a lot of charity work in order to raise money to send us to lapland to see Santa. Alison however did not want to go until her course of chemotherapy was finished and she felt a bit stronger unfortunately that day never arrived because on 15th December after a further PET Scan we were informed that the lastest treatment again was not successful however a Medical Professor was starting a new treatment in January and we were given an appointment to see him on 04 January 2011. We tried to carry on the usual Christmas cheer especially for Zara but for the first time since I had met Alison Christmas just wasn't doing it for her, the weather certainly didn't help with Christmas day being an ice-out and our family get-together being cancelled but we did have a good time on Boxing Day when family joined us for food and festivities, although Alison was suffering quite badly. 2011 arrived with the on-call GP being called out at 4 o'clock on New Years morning as Alison was becoming very poorly and in a lot of pain. We managed to attend our appointment with the Medical Professor on 4 January and Alison was referred for a further PET Scan. An emergency appointment was made with Alison's local GP once the surgery opened as she was deteriorating rapidly, but as I would find out over the next 2 months he like most of the other health professionals we came into contact with seemed to have switched-off. We were due to attend the Beatson for a PET Scan on 13 January but at lunch-time Alison phoned me at work to say she was feeling very very poorly, as I rushed home she had phoned her GP to get admitted to hospital. Alison spent 11 nights in hospital with a lot of medical people talking a lot but not really saying much at all. On 24 January Alison was dis-charged from hospital and I had been informed that our 18 month window would probably be cut short and Alison would probably lose her battle in 4 or 5 months. My course of action was set, Alison would rest and try and build up some strength and she would finish her diary to Zara that she had started back in June but had put on hold, and we could also do some video recordings of Alison for Zara to watch later in life. I had my wife, albeit a very fatigued one, back for 3 nights before she had a very bad turn and on the Friday her GP (a new one who did seem to genuinely care)informed me Alison had between 48 hours and 2 weeks. Alison finally lost her battle to cancer at 5.27 on Thursday 24 February 2011 and so our journey together ended.