Newcastle Photographer and Content Creator, Mandy Charlton, Always on a quest for adventure, often seen on buses, trains and planes. On a quest to be happier and healthier. Lives in Newcastle with her 3 cats, Iris, Maggie and Arthur. Loves good vibes, musicals and cakes. Full time professional wedding photographer in the north east of england alongside content creator on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

The summer of adventure, the summer of freedom

Holly Bobbins Beagle on the top of Roseberry Topping, Yorkshire



The summer of adventures, the summer of fun, the first real summer I've felt completely free, no one to answer to, no one to judge me just friendship and freedom.  I feel like I've come so far and for the first time in my whole life I feel complete and yet for the first time in my life I am truly single, when you think about it, we spend our whole lives looking for our other half and for me I feel like I've done things in reverse.  I was married for the first time at 21, for the second time at 25 and I gave birth to Iain when I was 22, I never had the freedom of my youth, the travel or adventure and I don't resent those choices I made for even one moment for I have three of the most amazing children and I've known true love and I've had the kind of together where nothing else matters but to my children I say, do everything when you are young, travel, experience life, be successful, be happy and be free for as long as you can.

alpaca trekking at Bells of Hemscott, Northumberland


You can forge the deepest friendships and you don't need anything else or at least I don't feel like I do, perhaps because I've already had my children and my only hormones are artificial, if I had got to my age without children or love or success maybe I would have felt differently.  I feel on one hand that I have fought through pain and angst and hard times so I feel justified that life should give me a slightly easier deal now and I'm so thankful for that.


Roseberry Topping from the Kingshead Inn, Yorkshire

I get up every day now and I smile, I work in a job where it genuinely doesn't feel like work at all, today I have trekked with Alpacas, I have herded sheep and I have climbed Roseberry Topping, this is not a traditional career and it takes self control to sit and write when my whole body feels heavy with exhaustion, it's happy and satisfied exhaustion though, in beautiful surroundings with my wonderful friend and of course my soul mate in dog form, Holly Bobbins.  We have laughed today, we have sworn when climbing up a particularly steep part of Roseberry Topping and we have high fived when we reached the peak, something I don't ever think I could have done a few years ago.  I am fitter now, I can run for 25 minutes non stop, I don't think I was quite prepared for the amount of stamina climbing a mountain would take, my legs wobbled like jelly as we made our descent and I realised that I was a rookie explorer, I must have been, I'm fairly sure trail runners don't eat creme brulee before ascending a mountain and I'm also fairly sure that they remember to take a bottle of water with them!!

As an aside as we got up to the very top we found that there's a Pokestop at the very peak of Roseberry Topping, it's just a shame that my phone kept crashing!

So our first day of summer holidays, our first day of big adventures with many more to come, I shall battle to complete as much work as I can whilst completing many trips and reviewing attractions and accommodation.  Blogging can be done from anywhere but I do wish I could blog in advance, but then that wouldn't be me because I write with all of my heart when I feel inspired but now dear friends as dusk falls heavily melting into the night skies, now it is the time to sleep and dream of tomorrows great adventures.
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