You know when you just get into your groove and then life throws something else up in your path and disturbs it?  Yeah, well, that happened.

It's okay though, as much as I loved my new off the cuff writing style, the numbers would suggest that not many other people did so I'm reverting to weekly updates and long rambling sentences (lucky you!).

It seems so long since the carefree days of my holidays, I currently feel like I've shot 100 weddings this year, I haven't but I have shot a lot and I've loved every moment. the editing pile though, uy!

You know I said that I'd stopped swearing and instead replaced it with the word "Uy" well, I now say that approximately 784 times a day and even more if I'm tuned into Sky News.  I'm grateful for my continued success in business.  Both companies are currently thriving, Inspire is only in its second year so it provides more challenges than photography which just continues to be a constant that I am supremely grateful for.

I decided that I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life but at the same time I'm super picky, I installed dating apps and yet, I think I only did it to feel more normal, because window shopping is good in the quiet moments of the night.  I decided that I would truly be myself and so, choosing Pansexual from the list, I was emboldened, even though I've never declared myself to be anything really.

Oh and for those who wonder, what's Pansexual, the Wikipedia definition is - 

"Pansexuality, or omnisexuality, is the sexual, romantic or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others"

The truth is though, just between us, if you ask my friends, I've always been someone who thinks that attraction is based on the person rather than the gender and I've always been someone who's refused to give myself a title, there's  a "love without labels" movement for instance and I've always been a bit of a wild bohemian, though, let's be honest, I'm 45, I'm still a bohemian but my wild days are over.

So there you go, I just sort of came out (in public, on my blog, at least) I guess but that's what you do in your forties isn't it, you figure out exactly who you are, you redefine yourself because after so many years of being defined as mum, your kids are independent and you have to rediscover the whole of you.

I should point out at this point that generally I'm hoping that one day I'll meet someone in real life because it's easier to meet someone on a pub than it is online, I mean, after all, I am a bloody good photographer, I actually look nothing like my dating profile in real life.  At least if you meet someone at the pub then visually at least, what you see is what you get!  Will I ever meet someone?  Who knows, I favour Scottish men and men who have beards and are thin, it's no wonder my top 3 list is Ewan Mcgregor, Richard Madden and David Tennant.  For sure I have a favourite type, I can compromise on the beard and on the Scottishness but hair is super important.  I'm, also not willing to compromise on one other fact...

If you've never seen Moulin Rouge or you hated it, we're never going to have anything in common because to me, Moulin Rouge is more than a movie, I have a clip of it saved on my phone to watch whenever I'm feeling sad or distressed or confused, it always makes me feel better and I guess it has something to do with it being about the bohemian ideals of beauty, truth, freedom and love.  As long as they can put up with the fact that I watch it at least twice a month and that "Come What May" is an anthem for life, well we'll be just fine.  I remember watching it for the first time with my then-husband in 2002 and falling in love with it because we had both found what we were, although I always say, if you think I was a bohemian, he was the real wild one, that's why we fell in love in 1999 because we were the same, at least for a while.

So there you go, my life as it is, it has so much more freedom, something I've fought so hard for and something which has cost me more than you can ever understand.  To have this freedom, I've had to lose things I've loved with all of my heart but I'm happy now, whether that's on my own and accompanied by a beagle or out, at the local with my best friends and friends I've yet to meet.

Being free is future-facing, being free is me, now, and forever

Why I'll always love Valentines Day

It's one week until Valentines Day and a few friends have commented, some have actually ranted about how much they hate this Hallmark holiday and yes I get it, it's commercialised, it's showy and really we should all be showing love to those we care about every day of the week, however and in the words of Christian from Moulin Rouge, "Above all things, I believe in love, love is like oxygen, love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love"

I am a romantic, I think with my heart, I believe that if you have love in your life you can do anything, amazing Abigail made me a jar of 50 reasons she loves me for my birthday, it's the sweetest present I've ever had and one of the 50 reasons was "because you are proof that love is all you need" I spoke to her about it (after we both had a few tears together) and she said it didn't matter what we were doing in our lives I had brought them up to know that money isn't important, love is" Yay me for teaching my kids a good lesson and how amazing is Abigail to be so insightful at 14.9?

She's right though and I've written about how love is the highest of all powers many times, each time we put more love out into the world, the world smiles back at us and the greatest thing you'll ever learn really is just to love and be loved in return.  Sadly thus far in a romantic way at least it's something I've never quite achieved on any kind of permanent basis but when I have had it is when I have found my happy place.

The thing is, and we need to remember this, we have days that celebrate all kinds of things, so why not have a day that celebrates love and wonder, even if it is with heart shaped cookies, hang on a minute, it's a day that celebrates romance and you get to eat baked goods, are you freaking joking me?  This is the best day ever!!

I'm a die hard romantic, I love gestures, I love sending the people I care about small surprises to show that I'm thinking of them, cards, flowers, random animals with sad faces, chocolates, cakes, playlists, every day you make someone smile is a day you feel it yourself because the love we put out into the world always comes back.

I also realise that a lot of big manly men have a problem with showing the more feminine side of their personalities and Valentine's Day encourages them for one day to be the big romantic lead, move over Segal, Cary Grant is here for just one day and if that's what it takes, one Hallmark day every 14th February then I am happy to be on board because everyone deserves a little love and romance.

Over the many years I have had some of the most awful Valentine's Days on record, I've had cards telling me that I'm not loved, I've had painful dramatic days where I would be put through hell until the very last minute when late at night I would suddenly be presented with Champagne or flowers from the supermarket or the least romantic gifts you would possibly imagine so I for one should hate this sacred day, I should declare that I never want to even hear of it again but that's not me, I am forever living in hope that I'll just get my turn to have something more than heartache and disappointment, I guess like always being hopeful that someone will love me properly one day.

So if you hate Valentine's Day then I understand, I completely do and I'll try to always respect your feelings as long as you respect the fact that I am a hopeless romantic who lives in hope, someone who sends her friends and children cards and tokens on that special day because I feel there's not enough love in the world and because I think this day where we celebrate the greatest of all powers in the universe should be shared with everyone we care about, why wouldn't I want to show my kids or my friends just how important they really are, love isn't just the romantic kind, Love is everything, if you want to come and find me, I'll be over in the corner eating a heart shaped cake with pink buttercream icing!

The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn Is Just To Love and Be Loved In Return

This week I have done a lot of soul-searching, I've watched many TED talks, I've tried to inspire my mind as much as my heart.  I've always had a goal in my mind to one day be someone worthy of giving a TED talk although still as yet I am without the inspiration to come up with the subject that I would actually speak about, it's definitely on my list of life goals, though.

This week I have finally gotten closure, seeing someone you used to love and knowing that you are ok with everything, more than that really, that you have moved on and like the song now they're just somebody that you used to know, what's even funnier is how your brain plays tricks on you when you are in love, suddenly that person who seemed taller and athletic in your mind is revealed to you as actually being quite short, ageing fast and more rotund than you can ever remember, without the chemical effects of love in our hearts and in our brains the true identity is revealing, to say the least.

My favourite quote in the whole entire cosmos is "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"  It may just originate as a lyric in a song but it is the highest truth I've ever known.

Let's take that quote and let us look at it as part of our own fundamental philosophy, we must first love to be loved, we must love not only ourselves but we must love strong and hard and we must love not only our children, our families, our friends, we must love the world and try to do good every day, I cannot lie and say that I truly love everyone, I am working on it though, it's just harder with some people than it is with others.

Other than the one or two people I have to work on my feelings towards though I would say I'm closer to I have ever been to loving and being loved, maybe not on my own personal level and not in a relationship or dating way but just in a general love of humanity and of my children, my friends and the general population of the people I have around me both online and in my day to day life.

We are all on a journey, we're all trying to figure out life, it's meaning and we're all searching for our twin flame, our other half, our soulmate but I think we can open ourselves up to that if we try, love is one of the highest energies that exists, it has a power, it has it's own vibration so the more love we put out there into the world the more likely we are to attract it back, I want you to go and read Lisa's blog, she wrote a post about kindness and talking today, it had a profound effect because it's something I feel passionately about and this evening as I watched Moulin Rouge for approximately the 4000th time I felt compelled to open up the Macbook once again and write, 3 posts in 1 day is not bad at all!!

So here's what we need to do and it really isn't all that complicated, let's all get up each day and think about the people we love, let's think, "how can I make the world better today, how can I put out more love into the world?"  I think in no time at all what will happen is that we'll bring so much love back in that we'll be able to create a whole new world around us.

Have a great weekend everyone, go out there and be with the ones you love and love the ones you are with.

Love, is it overrated?

Someone last week asked me the following question, "Knowing what you know now would you consider that love is overrated?" It's quite a question, maybe one of the most phenomenal questions I've ever been asked and I've spent quite some time thinking about the answer.

The truth is (I think) that love is if anything completely underrated, I can't even imagine how I would describe love to someone who'd never felt it, an alien perhaps - 

It's like the best Christmas day you could ever dream of.

It's like an amazing holiday that never has to end.

It's like the best cuddle you've ever had, you know the one that envelopes you and makes you feel complete and protected.

It's like the best lie in you ever had, the one where you feel cocooned in your quilt and never want to get up because it's so divine to just lie there a little longer.

It's like standing on the top of the world and looking down, I guess it's similar to the feeling the astronauts get as they look down from their spaceships over the world and see the sunrises and sunsets.

I could go on, the truth I think is that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I'm pretty sure I've been in love 3 times in my life, each an extraordinary event I'll never forget as long as I live.

There are many lines in music that sum up how I feel but there's a line in Moulin Rouge that I'll borrow to sum up how I feel "Love is like oxygen, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love"

If you know me, either in real life or simply from reading my blog you'll know I am an incurable romantic which I suppose has got me in trouble once or twice in my life, you see I always see the positive, the good stuff, I'm always leaping forward because I believe so strongly in love that I want to be wrapped up in it.  There's never been a moment I've regretted where I felt love.

I still feel so much love, I guess it's different but it helps me to be a better person, it's most definitely helps me to shoot better weddings, I adore hearing how couples met, I love it when they tell me about their engagement stories and I usually cry at every wedding I shoot because, well, wedding ceremonies and couples declaring their love for each other are beautiful.

The truth is that life can be hard, this world we live in can feel like a struggle but love helps to make it beautiful again, love lets light in on dark days.

So here's the thing, and this bit is important, if you have ever been in love (even if it's not right now) I want you to remember falling in love and how you felt, I want you to remove all of the pain that might have gone along with relationships which might not have gone as planned and just remember the amazing gorgeous feelings which are sure to come back,  now capture that feeling and when you feel unhappy or life gets you down take yourself to that place and feel only love.

I'll never ever regret the love I felt ever!