I probably won't do any justice to Lance here but will try to recall some of my favourite memories of the man himself.
I 1st met Lance online via the very forum, good ol CBF! We shared a hometown of Worthing & work was similar in some ways, he was a bread salesman for Sunblest & I a professional driver for the last umpteen years in 1 guise or another so naturally got chatting online. I was moving out to Turkey to spend a year based in Calis & during some of our chats I somehow got roped in to help Lance gain a better understanding of technology (those who spoke to him right to the end must now realise what a rubbish teacher I was!).
Duly settled in Calis I met Lance for a beer down at Eyna, this turned into a few beers chatting about Sussex & old times & generally "chewing the fat" about life, a friendship was formed & a bond made. Lance was a "rough diamond" to coin a phrase, heart of gold but had a few skirmishes along his life path, most with a funny tale attached, some not so, especially the IR story which I won't dwell on any further suffice to say it was quite unusual!
Anyway, 1 day I was invited up to his home to give him some lessons on basic computing, simple things like how to organise emails into folders, how to transfer photos from camera to laptop & suchlike. Thinking a couple of hours over a cuppa was my 1st mistake, 10 hours later, numerous cuppas & by the end an uncountable number of Efes had gone down the hatch, don't think any of my teaching had sunk in but we did have many laughs that day. Numerous trips up to Catalarik followed, many repeats of click here then click there to try & get Lance up to speed with modern technology, most of these trips had some Efes involved of course & I'm positive 99% of what I tried to teach the old devil went in 1 ear & straight out the other. Keith once said he played the village idiot but was no fool, he was a very bright & intelligent man, just not with modern technology! Eventually I got through somehow & had Lance chatting on Skype, not just chatting but understanding "how to", the penny had finally dropped, or had it?
Next stage was to introduce Lance to Facebook, that was a marathon in itself, don't think he ever did grasp how that worked but at least he managed to post the odd photo on there, even if it was in the wrong place! As for photos, anyone on CBF will know Lance had a Picasa account, I tried to make him understand what a "cloud" account was & how it worked but for the life of him he just couldn't understand why "his" photos were not on "his" laptop, oh the irony! Lance will be looking down at this now I'm sure & saying something like "you don't buy a dog a bark yourself", all his photos & emails etc were stored in perfect order, done by me not by Lance of course!
Lance & Irina hosted dinners for me on many occasions, each & every 1 of those had lots of laughs as well as amazing food & copious drinks! Lance was an ex professional chef, an amazing cook & Irina is a seriously talented lady in the kitchen as well as an all round lovely person, I know she will miss her big cuddly bear very much, as will we all. 1 funny story about food (other than the already well documented prawn cocktail story), at 1 of the dinner parties there was a large tub of homemade chicken liver pate (my request) with some weird looking bread, very dark in colour, I really wasn't sure what it was. Upon asking I was told it was Russian black bread, I asked how they got that in Fethiye & was told it had been smuggled in during a trip back to Russia, only Lance would smuggle bread when he lived directly opposite 1 of the nicest bakeries in the area!
Last story: Lance wanted to buy a new car, the old Tofas he had was falling apart, had no power steering & Irina refused to drive it in case it fell apart in her care! We went round the various car sites in Calis & Fethiye, found numerous makes & models they both liked, even agreeing with 1 garage to come back tomorrow with a wad of paper money as I'd managed to drop the price by 20%ish for a cash deal. When I asked how the new car was Lance said oh I didn't bother to go back I bought 1 somewhere else, oh ok, what did you get then? I bought a Fiat Marea, 1.6 petrol from "Ahmed" (I think) at Orange Rent A Car because he said it's a good car! It was an ex rental, driven by all & sundry with spaceship mileage, price was the same as the low mileage minter I'd found & he always wanted a diesel, somewhat different then! Lance took the man on his word, that really sums up the kind of guy Lance was, a man of his word.
May you RIP my friend, you will be missed by many & I for one will never forget the many happy times we shared over the last few years & thanks to Keith/CBF for introducing us in the 1st place, Calis has lost a true legend & I have lost a true friend...
