Sitting on my bed working dear reader, the light is dim and the central heating is whirring in the background, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm actually writing this during the month of November but heck, no, it's blooming June, flaming June, bright and sunny June....

My new lovely hair thanks to my amazing friend Steve, Looby calls him Stylist Steve, I think he's got magic haircutting fingers.

These last few weeks have offered many challenges and I ended up with an enforced weekend off due to less than perfect weather conditions.  I wonder if it's because I've not been shooting so many weddings this year, usually June is glorious unlike August, statistically the wettest month of the year, one can only dread what's going to happen this year if even June is letting us down!  So here's the thing, the rest of the week looks quite quiet and then on Saturday I have 2 portrait photo shoots, a 3 hour wedding and a 2 hour ruby wedding anniversary party to photograph and then Sunday I have more portraits, Monday I have portraits, this continues right up until Looby breaks up and we have our summer holidays, weather, you have a couple of days to get your act together and then you must let the sun shine through, the clouds must disappear and all of the fine rain which sticks to your clothes and skin must kindly stop for around 9 weeks, in fact actually if it was just nice until around Christmas Eve that would be perfect.  Oh heck, now look what it's made me do, I've just made my first mention of that C word, forgive my kitchen French and lets say no more about it....

Holly with horns, there's a scary thought!

Moving swiftly on and I have to say that apart from the weather related incidents life is pretty good at the moment, it's a gentle pace and I won't win any prizes for my rockstar lifestyle but I'm pretty content and happy and so are the kids and the menagerie I seem to cultivate.

Holly continues to be the laziest beagle in the world, yesterday she decided to get up at lunchtime, we went to Morpeth for lunch to celebrate my 8th Business birthday and as it was raining she went once around the town centre before deciding she'd had enough.  This morning I coaxed her out of bed at half ten but just to get her down the stairs took more effort than it should, she's definitely a teenager now!

So, 3 weeks on Friday and we're off to Edinburgh, Iain is delighted to get rid of us for a couple of weeks, we bought our rail tickets but we didn't buy returns because we don't know where we're going to go for the second week but to be honest I don't really care, as long as there's Looby, Holly and I I'm going to be delighted.

Looby goes to St Marys for 2 days next week and she's dreading it, she still says she doesn't want to ever leave Benton Park and I do know how she feels, when Looby leaves I'll have been a parent at that school for 15 years, it really does feel like the end of an era and the jury is still out on who's going to cry more, her or me!  Every time I think of my youngest child reaching the point of going to secondary school I feel strange, the completion of a life stage I suppose and those early days when all 3 of them were small and the days and nights seemed endless from lack of sleep and I guess I had moments where I wished them to be older, we all do that don't we on the bad days?  If I could stop time for a while right now and have the ability to enjoy some of the best days over and over I'd jump at the chance, I know time travel might not be within my grasp but at least I have the ability to remember the moments through photographs I've taken and those are the things I cherish whilst still leaving enough room in my memory and on wall for cherished moments and adventures yet to come. This last year more than any other has taught me to press record in my mind of the best days so I can replay them to myself on the not so bright days and then if you can recapture that feeling of joy you experienced then, well then you have the ability to always be happy and smile even on the darkest, dullest, and stormiest of June November days.

Hello new life, it's nice to meet you...

It's Sunday evening, I've had a lovely weekend off work due to some unfortunate rain yesterday, last night I ambled down to the Northumberland Hussar with Holly (it's a great dog friendly pub if you're around the Heaton area of Newcastle) to meet my lovely friend Laura and friends.  I've really decided to take my life and fate into my own hands and that really starts with me going out and meeting people and having a good time, just because I don't drink/smoke/eat sugar doesn't mean I can't at least have some fun.  

I was talking last night about the more scary elements of suddenly finding yourself single after 15 years in a relationship, I mean the last time I was single the Nokia 5510 was in fashion, Big Brother hadn't been broadcast and reality tv was Dale Wintons commentary on supermarket sweep. I don't even want to think about what happens on dates these days and I think if I am really to re-enter the world entire a la Bridget Jones then someone is going to have to buy me a manual.

I had a lovely evening though and it was just nice to be out for a couple of hours, I was still home by 9pm at the request of Looby who messaged me saying she'd made me a gift but I was not home to receive it and it wouldn't wait until today or even possibly an hour later, it turns out she'd made me a lovely card thanking me for everything and telling me she loved me, definitely worth coming home to although I'm sure she could have been quite happy with her brother for just 1 more hour!

This week ahead has so many highlights, I'm on a blogging assignment for The Bells of Hemscott, I'm photographing Nethermined, a Minecraft convention at the Park Hotel on Saturday, I'm meeting 2 new babies in their homes and I have another couple of portrait sessions in the park, I've also decided to work bank holiday Monday so if you would like a portrait session anywhere in the North East please get in touch.

In addition to all of that I am editing 2 gorgeous weddings, one 10 hour one and one 1 hour one, it's an incredible contrast but I feel that I still was able to produce something magical for my lovely couple who's wedding I went to for just 1 hour on Friday afternoon.

I love this because it's a portrait I always wanted to shoot, I had it in my mind before I even got to the wedding, there's something fascinating and magical I think about wedding portraits on a busy shopping street and there's nowhere better to find that than Northumberland Street in Newcastle city centre.

I've produced an up to date pricing brochure with wedding photography pricing from 1 hour upwards and I'm currently offering a complimentary pre-wedding photo shoot with images on disk worth £335 for all bookings of 2 hours and upwards just until my wedding photography business really kicks off again (if you're wondering why I took a year off and am restarting my wedding photography business you might find this post helpful).

And so it's Sunday night and I am excited and enthused by the new and exciting week ahead, not just professionally but also personally, I just hope now that I've found it again I get to have my renewed love of life forever again, it's only when you have lost something that you realise just how valuable it was and there's simply nothing more valuable than a love of life.

If you would like the latest copy of my wedding photography pricing or you're simply looking for a photographer in Newcastle please get in touch via my Website/Facebook/Email

Life is always beautiful, you just have to see the moments

There's something quite magical about warm spring days that fool you into believing that summer has come early, I've just sat down after a busy day working on wedding albums, walking Holly, visiting the beach for a lovely photo shoot, having our first BBQ of the year and then some editing and catching up on emails.

Whilst I love the break in routines that school holidays provide I'm always quietly grateful for just a little time to myself to catch up on important business things which pay the bills!

It's been an adjustment in life since being on my own and then getting Holly (lovely, gorgeous and wonderful as she is) completely threw my routines out of the window.  I think though I'm getting back on track.  I've started to get dressed the moment I get up in the mornings and then I feel I am ready for the day, I sit down to start work at 7.30 with my morning coffee and everything is usually calm and quite quiet as Looby gets ready for school, Iain pops his head around the door on the way to go to college and Holly is usually lying on her favourite purple chair readying herself for the day ahead, it's only when we get to 10am that she'll quite often sit in front of me arooing until I get the hint and then I put my trainers on, her tail wags and I say the magic words "Walkies" and she sprints to the gate to see what adventures await us on our morning stroll.

I thought as I walked through the Ouseburn Park on this beautiful spring morning how lucky I am to have the freedom to live my life as I do, I may have had knocks along the way and don't get me wrong, there are many trying times when you're a single parent juggling business/life but I'll never stop being grateful that I get to be outdoors so much and feel the sunshine on my face rather than being stuck in an office under artificial daylight 8 hours a day.

When I went to the beach today it was a day of sunshine, a day for being besides the seaside, usually at Tynemouth in spring you get a bit of a chill in the air as you wander near the shore but today my favourite beach basked in warm glorious sunshine and light so bright I felt I hadn't seen it in an age.

I think there's a new joy in loving what you do or indeed recapturing the love for what you do, I find myself looking at life and business in whole new ways and after Saturdays wedding I was so sad to leave, I love being around people and feeling the joy that they share, there's never been a sad day at a photo shoot or wedding, there may be the odd frustration with a grumpy three year old but weddings at least are such a joyous occasion you can't fail to go home feeling a warm glow and often completely in love with the world once more.

When I left Saturdays wedding at Newton Hall I ran from the building to capture the last of the sunset, the golden hues had turned to blue and the mists were rolling in over the hills and fields and as I clicked my shutter one last time I said to myself to remember that life is always beautiful, you just have to see the moments.

Where we are right now, a progress in the life of me update

I don't know about you but I started 2015 with a heavy sigh, sad that 2014 hadn't been my favourite year in life but in the back of my mind I had a feeling of great expectation that 2015 would prove to be a much more smiley year.

It really has been so far, I've had some gorgeous family moments, some happy times at work and some adventures thrown in for good measure.

I think now I get out of bed with a spring in my step and a little woofy face at my feet, having a puppy who loves cuddles on the other side of the bed is way better than a cold empty flat space next to you.  My daily wake up now involves a beagle head or toes usually right next to my cheek and I'm lucky that Holly isn't a massive fan of mornings like me (totally perfect match we are) but once she's up and about she's dragging me off to the park for a few miles of wandering, walking and sometimes me chasing her trying to get her to come back after encounters with spaniels, she really does have a spaniel fixation!

This year I have given up sugar (barring a couple of nights out but you can't be a saint all of the time) and I'm a dress size smaller and a stone lighter than I was on my birthday (1st Feb).  I've also managed to make my business pretty autonomous and get Sundays off thanks to the ace photography skills of my associate Stacey.

I've explored places near and far and all mostly because of Holly, well you have to walk interesting places when you're doing 12,000-15,000 steps a day!  Oh yeah, I should mention the steps, I went from walking 8,000 steps a day to nearly double that and have lost inches, I wish I'd measured how many!

All in all we've come to nearly April and I'm happy and pretty content with my lot in life, there's more to be done of course, there always is, I want to lose somewhere in the region of another stone though my target is only 8lb away and I want to continue to become fitter and healthier.

I want to continue to build my already successful business into something entirely awesome, I have a great team in the shape of Stacey and Sue who does the admin and I'm pretty sure we can conquer the North East (in a photography sense) by the end of this year.

I'm going on holiday in 15 days, more walking and stomping and rambling and ambling, all through the Northumbrian countryside, I can't wait!

So here we are, Holly will be 10 months old this week, that's 5 months she'll have been with me, it's unbelievable to think it's been so long and at the same time it feels like she's been a family member forever, she keeps me on my toes on a daily basis but together we have the best adventures and I'm so thankful she came into my family.

Embracing Life

Yesterday dear reader I had a photo shoot in the late afternoon in Jesmond Dene so walked there and back through Armstrong Park which for any of you who aren't local is a park which connects Heaton Park to Jesmond Dene gifted by Lord Armstrong in the 19th century to the people of Newcastle and if you don't know who Lord Armstrong is, well he had the very first house (Cragside in Northumberland) to be lit by electricity.

I digress, my point is that yesterday was the most beautiful sunny autumn afternoon and if you were stuck in an office then all I can do is apologise for the afternoon you missed.  Luckily for you I took just a couple of photographs on my walk home.

This first one was in Jesmond Dene, I love paths which lead the eye but you can't see exactly where they're going, it could be anywhere but for me it means that adventure is just around the corner.

These 2 just show the glory of Armstrong Park at the moment and I get to walk through this park every day when I have a photo shoot in Jesmond Dene, I get to enjoy and embrace this beauty for free!

Now on my lazier, fatter days I have been known to get a taxi straight to my photo shoots and still do if they're really early morning but for the most part now more than ever I find myself walking and walking and walking some more, sometimes on my own and sometimes with Petunia who of course loves a walking adventure.

It's a month today since I started living on my own (well apart from the kids, the cats and Petunia) and the thing I've learnt is that you have to go out there and grab life by the neck and enjoy every minute of it, you have to work less and be slightly more broke but love more, cherish the ones you love and love the ones you cherish because work may bring success and financial gain but you can't go to bed at night cuddling work!  Now more than ever I remember my life plan and the commitment I've made to change.  I am very much living the simpler life and there is an adjustment to not working as often and if I can find a way to make a residual income I am working on finding that.  I have though spent just about every Sunday with my family and we've had some great times and this Sunday we are going to the aforementioned Cragside estate for a family stomp around.

So if you haven't done it yet, go read that life plan, embrace the ones you love and care about before it's too late, please understand that I don't believe that my whole marriage collapsed due to me working too many hours but it was certainly a contributing factor and the thing I've chosen to work on and change and I can already see that it's being appreciated that we get so much more quality time together as a family.

Today I have a couple of afternoon photo shoots and so I once again get to walk through the autumnal landscape of some of the most beautiful parts of Newcastle embracing every footstep that I take.