Finally it's the end of term, just this one day to go and then my lovely daughters should be home by early afternoon, I am on a mission to catch up with work, get ahead even so that no barriers stand in our paths.

Last night, Harriet came over, my children see her as a piece of the furniture anyway, it's great they think like that, I'm sure it's far more fun, mum having friends than worrying about mum having boyfriends, well kids, I can reassure you right now, mum isn't likely to get a boyfriend any time soon, mum is happy, having too much fun, mum loves being single!!

Here's the thing though, you're the first to know, after the next few weeks of visiting Yorkshire, Perth, Stratford upon Avon, York, Edinburgh and Northumberland, Harriet and I are jetting off for 5 nights on our own to....Barcelona!!

I couldn't be more excited about this summer, I'm going on a holiday with a friend and without my teens, I've never done that before, sunbathing, culture, food, adventure, exploration, Gaudi.  It's somewhere I've always wanted to visit and Barcelona airport just didn't cut it when I was there in November flying home from the Norwegian Epic cruise.

I did have a moment of parental guilt but I figured the girls should spend some time with dad this summer and I was already giving them weeks of different experiences,  in truth I try to give them new and interesting experiences as often as I possibly can because life should be about memories.

For the next six weeks I'll be working from home at a much easier pace, well at least that's the intention,  Iain is now well trained in the art of admin, dog sitting, home sitting and indeed cat visiting, in fact we've even talked about him going out into the world and joining Trusted House Sitters so he can see the world whilst being paid to care for others houses, pets and belongings as well as Pokemon hunting, I can't tell you what this app has done for my son, he's getting up in the mornings, he's going out with friends every day, for the first time he wants to be out there travelling, it really is the good that tech can do.

4 sleeps until Yorkshire

10 sleeps until Perth

26 sleeps until Stratford upon Avon

37 sleeps until Barcelona

Truly the best summer ever has begun.

The summer of adventure, the summer of freedom

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.

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.

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.

And so that was Christmas...

I can barely believe it's over, those twinkling lights, the promise of magic, the expectation of wonderful packages underneath the tree...

I have to admit that our tree is still up, the lights are still twinkling, apparently it's unlucky to take down the decorations before or after the 12th day so tomorrow we have it scheduled in our calendars to de-Christmas!

I have to admit to having had the most wonderful Christmas and New Year, it was filled with the best of times, the most amazing friends and one or two slightly fuzzy heads.  I don't think I stopped for breath much over the festive season and I have loved it.  I love my life now, it's full of fun and friendship and laughter and hugs.  I'm surrounded by the most wonderful friendship group of people who I love dearly, they really are the people I would proudly choose as my family.

Every year I choose a word, that word becomes the focus of my year and whilst last years word was "Renew" this years word is most definitely "Adventure".  Even though it's the dark days of January and I'm sort of feeling the effects of seasonally affective disorder I am already planning and plotting to make this the year I want to write about, I want to fill it with new and interesting experiences, people and places, I want to journey overseas and also in the UK, I want to take Holly Bobbins for many dog friendly adventures and I want to make sure my kids have the best year ever.

of course I can't achieve this without working super hard, I worked the hardest ever last year and I've no intention to do any different this year because when I work hard I create the means for us all to have a better life and that's what it's all about really, fun, adventure and happiness.

I'm excited as we go into 2016, I actually can't see what happens next, I hope to get more travel photography and writing assignments overseas and I cannot wait to see my article about my cruise from Rome to Barcelona on the Norwegian Epic published in Cruise International Magazine on February 12th, I'll probably be queuing at WHSmith to get my hands on a copy!

Big Adventures and New Friendships in Edinburgh

I finally climbed up Calton Hill in Edinburgh, amazing views.

It's Friday evening dear reader (although you're probably reading this on Saturday morning) and I've just got back from 2 days in Edinburgh for the #CaptureIbisStyles event, I have been wined and dined to within an inch of my life and I can't speak highly enough of the Ibis Styles brand or indeed the people who run it.

I've spent time with some seriously inspirational ladies, all bloggers and some photographers, I thought I would give a couple a mention so that you can add their blogs to your reading list so please go and check out the very lovely and beautiful Zoe at Simply Ruby and the simply gorgeous Lucy over at and Capture by Lucy both have the most beautiful blogs and utterly amazing Instagram feeds, I'm quite envious, it does remind me that I need to start using Instagram in a more productive way instead of just posting bazillions of images of Holly the beagle.

I'll be posting a full review of the event and my stay at Ibis Styles St Andrews Square over the next few days.

I am reminded by being in the company of inspirational focused women just how much I sometimes lack focus and I'm ever so slightly easily distracted as well as being the Queen of procrastination land although I blame that on Holly.

Over the next few months I am resolute that I am going to concentrate on Instagram as my chosen form of social media rather than Facebook which lets be fair, currently only shows 7% of my likers my posts unless I pay.  How is it going to go?  Well who knows but you can always follow me on Instagram and then you can enjoy the journey with me.

And so after some hours of hopefully peaceful slumber I shall be back out in the world bright and early tomorrow to go and visit some favourite clients and their precious new baby daughter and then I am literally whizzing across the other side of Newcastle to catch up with a  lovely bride and groom for some lunch at As You Like It where they're getting married and then it's off down to Jesmond Dene for their pre-wedding photo shoot.  After the days in Edinburgh I've just had I am sincerely hoping I can find something without refined sugars, and white flour in. I just managed my 10k steps today and I am definitely back to no sugars tomorrow, I can't quite describe how awful a sugar hangover is but it's not the way I am used to feeling and now that I'm only 13lb from my target weight and 3 dress sizes smaller than when I started my weight loss journey I really don't want to jeopardise that.

and 1 final note, I still have 2 available sessions for next weeks Mothers Day sessions on the beach at Tynemouth on Saturday, if you would like to book one they're just £30 for a 30 minute session, 12x8 complimentary print of your favourite image, web gallery for 30 days and 15% off the first week your gallery is live.  The remaining sessions are 10.30am and 1.30pm and if they're anything like last year they'll be utterly fabulous.

A family day out to Kirkudbright, Southwest Coast of Scotland

I've always loved Kirkudbright dear reader, I fell in love with it on family holidays to Dumfries and Galloway on the southwest coast of Scotland when I was growing up and then later it was the place Hubby and I would escape to knowing that just a couple of hours drive would take us to a place where the stress would evaporate and the trees would be green.

Yesterday, we took a family day out to the Southwest coast, a time to enjoy family time, rest and relax and a trip to our favourite place, somewhere we hadn't visited for several years.

A family portrait at last, I love Petunias smile, she's just got a perpetually happy face!

Who's a lovely husky?

I have no idea what they're doing, pretending to carry the meat home with the rest of the hunters I think!

The main street in Kirkudbright, yesterday when we arrived we found that they were having the Kirkudbright children's festival, there was a sign which stated "probably the best day out you'll ever have" well it was "National Mud Day" who knew they even had one of those.  I did have my nails done by a mature lady to help pay for a new wheelchair for someone and for the bargain price of £2, yes £2!

We paid a visit to Maclellans Castle owned by Historic Scotland which means we got in half price with our English Heritage membership, it's a fabulous little place, once owned by one of the Lords of Kirkudbright, I particularly liked the "Lairds Lug" you'll find these in castles all over the border counties where it was common for the border reivers to fight, the laird could make sure his visitors really weren't about to attack him or plotting to overthrow him for whoever would pay the most money, it'll have no doubt been those marauding border reivers the Charltons, though I think they were more likely to have been found doing much the same in the Northumbrian borders.

This was my family portrait, funny how it just never seems to work once I have to be in the photo!

Looby took this one of Abigail and I, that's about the best it's going to get, one day we'll get some updates with all of us in them, the problem though is that I'm completely photo phobic!

I love this image of Looby and Petunia, as you know by now I love the chance to do something different and it's easy when you have a dog who's name could easily be "bedtime" because that's all she ever does, I've never known a dog quite like Petunia, she just sleeps all the time, well apart from during the night when you actually want her too!

So that was it, our amazing family day out.... well that was sort of it, we had just left Kirkudbright and we could hear a weird noise coming from the engine and then we smelled burning and the engine died, I've never sprinted from a car quite so quickly thinking that it was going to explode in a Miami Vice type car explosion, it didn't explode and we were stranded in a lay by near the village of Tongland, luckily it was in front of 2 little cottages where 2 little old ladies lived with their dog Anoushka and their grumpy donkey called Toby who decided to nip me on the arm, I have a huge bruise.  A call to the AA was quickly placed and guess how long it took them to reach us?  4 hours, 4 hours in a lay by, thank goodness for those lovely ladies who made us coffee, fed us biscuits and let us use the loo.  When the AA did turn up we were told we had a broken starter motor, did they fix it?  No but they bumped it and told us we could drive home but not stop unless it was a petrol station on a hill, guess what we had to do, yes we had to find a petrol station on a hill, as I said to hubby, if it had of been me I would have refused to just chance it on the way home, it's hardly the full service when you've got kids and a dog to think about and you're hours away from home!  We did eventually make it home and hubby has gone to get a new starter motor this morning, the sun is shining and we're all having a day off to recover, lets hope it's the start of a new and fantastic week with slightly less in the way of broken down cars and nips from grumpy donkeys!

In Review...

It was a pretty good week up until I got sick on Wednesday night and since then we've not done a lot really, it seems all that activity which preceeded my downfall may have taken it out of me somewhat and now I'm kind of suffering, I've had the chills, a rash, sickness, and now I have the sore throat to end all sore throats. Still I'm not complaining, well other than about the lack of photos taken over the last couple of days. Still it's allowing me to catch up on editing a little and so I can share a few of Bernies highlights of his visit and indeed the highlights of what has been a very very busy Easter holidays. I've been proud of myself for beating agoraphobia for the last six or so months but it's only now that I truly appreciate it, being able to just get up and go with the children really has meant the world to me, they get so much more from visting galleries, museums, gardens and farms than they ever could sitting in the house with a mum trapped by an evil illness.

So todays photos, first we have Bernie learning to sail boats at the discovery museum in Newcastle.
After that the little chappy learned to fly a helicopter, surely a bear has never accomplished this much in such a short space of time! No wonder the little guy is looking a tad tired!
Finally another of my favourite places on the north east of Englands beautiful coastline, this is St Marys Lighthouse and as you can see from the photograph it's quite beautiful.

I'm trying to compile a scrapbook album of his visit and I just hope I finish in time!


One final and very important announcement, 7 years ago today I married the most wonderful man on earth, without him none of this would be possible, I love you Paul, so much even the briefest seperation cuts my soul in two, thank you for all the love and all the happiness you've brought and thank you for showing me that there are people out there who love you for who you are and not for who they want you to be.

Bernie Goes to Whitby

On Sunday Bernie decided that he would like to go and visit historic Whiby and never being one to refuse a bears request off we went to the fabulous seaside town where it is rumoured that Dracula was shipwrecked upon the beach. Of course the locals can't resist having a Dracula museum or two LOL.

The other thing Whitby is famous for is having the best fish and chips in the country, obviously it wasn't the place we had lunch though as ours was BLAND! Paul was not amused being the foody that he is! He did say that the ice-cream was pretty good though.


I think that a definite highlight of the day for me was going on a 25 minute boat ride, the sea was very very bumpy and both Iain and Looby ended up looking a little pale but Abigail and I were both out on top deck being bounced up and down by the fierce waves laughing our heads off because it was so much fun!

Of course being a Charlton day out adventure is never far away and there were moments of panic when we realised that Bernie had gotten left behind in one of the amusement arcades we visited, we sprinted back along the seafront and to our releif Bernie was waiting for us having been discovered trying to have a second ride on the merry go round.

Whitby was a definite great day out and I wouldn't hesitate to go again in the summer though I suspect it would be far too busy for us all as it was very crowded last Sunday so I would hate to think just how crowded it gets during the summer season.