According to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy the meaning of life is 42, being that I reach that on Monday I'm crossing my fingers and toes that is actually true.

41 for me was a bit of a weird age, it started off quite badly as I remember it but then it just got better and better until I found myself having the most fun I have ever had.  

In work I've photographed portraits and great travel destinations, beautiful weddings and I've written about some of the most glorious places in the country and Europe, I visited 5 countries in 4 days, went on my first cruise, holidayed for a week in Edinburgh and reviewed some of the loveliest dog friendly places in the country with Holly Bobbins my chief doggy travel expert.

41 was the age I went to my first ball and the age I really learned to appreciate the friendships you have with women, it's been the age of actually letting people in my home, I never thought I would see the day I actually let a TV crew into my living room, I think I got 10 bonus brave points for that one.

There's a comfort and knowledge that comes with age, especially as a woman I think, society places so many pressures upon us, the ways we should look and feel and think and we're judged on every little thing, I think somewhat we still have a long way to go to be seen truly as equals but we're breaking through glass ceilings every day and whilst there's still a long way to go I'm glad I've had my time on earth when I have.

I'm having a weekend in a luxury cottage this weekend, part travel assignment and part rest and relax with my gorgeous friend Li who I don't see enough of since she moved away from Newcastle, along with our wonderful daughters I think we're going to have a lot of fun and a stress free time.  What's even better is that Holly Bobbins will also be there assessing the dog friendliness of the property, I'm already pretty sure we're going to be delighted with what we find.

Monday is my birthday and I'm going out to dinner with some of my favourite people, a tale of 11 invade As You Like It will be a definite tale to tell next week.

I'm working on plans for the things I want to achieve this year, I have some travel assignments I'm working on at the moment, trips which are sure to be exciting and I can't wait to share those with you, I'm in the process of arranging Barcelona at the moment, we're just working on which dates are going to be best.

One final thing to look forward to is the fact that it's February next week, spring is on the way, I like to count down to spring as often as possible because I loathe winter so much, I'm already noticing that it's getting lighter in the mornings and it's getting dark just a little later in the evening, the promise of lighter, warmer, brighter days to come. Lets all celebrate the fact that we've now made it through January, Payday for most of the known world tomorrow and then you can all get on with planning lovely spring photo shoots or Mothers Day presents or Easter or making the final arrangements for weddings, I still have availability for 3 more weddings this year, I won't be taking on anymore once I have those final 3 so if you are still looking for your wedding photographer then get in touch!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, I might still be hiding under a duvet but at least I can poke my head out thinking about the promise of spring to come!

When do we begin again?

It's October tomorrow, the month of glorious leaf fall, bright happy colours and sometimes, just sometimes warm woollen mittens although I must admit that warm woollen mittens do not go well with camera holding so I mainly end up in pointless fingerless gloves which must have been designed by masochists, fingerless gloves have so much promise without any actual point, they're gloves but you still have (or at least in my case) blue numb fingers, yes it's no surprise then that winter isn't my most favourite season.

I've been on my own now, a forty something singleton for over a year and I must admit that although I love my sparkly happy life and I'm grateful for each and every friendship I do miss kisses, hugs and someone to cuddle into on a cold winters evening, I do of course have Holly the Beagle but she's entirely rubbish at political debate.

Last night whilst pondering this and conversing with one of my loveliest friends we mused that when we are old and grey we'll call each other every day just to make sure we haven't died and we aren't currently having our faces eaten off by our cats!

I definitely know now that I don't want to be on my own for the rest of my life and more increasingly of late I've been wondering just when do we begin again.  I have this wonderful friend who's marriage ended just a few months earlier than mine and last week came the news that she and her new beau are to live together, it's so amazing that she's found the happiness that she so deserves and all this whilst I haven't even had one meaningful conversation with another member of the opposite sex in all that time.

I'm a bouncer back, I don't like to be sad for too long, I won't let myself be sad for too long, it's not good or healthy but I can't help but have the occasional pang of loneliness, I watch way too many rom coms, one quick look at the list on Sky Movies is enough to tell me that, there are not many I haven't seen.  last night I watched Man Up, a Simon Pegg rom com about a couple who accidentally end up on a blind date together, well sort of, it's a bit more complicated than that but I really recommend it in fact I cried at the end as I always do because I realise every time that's what I want, I want movie love and for anyone who says that never happens in real life well I would have to disagree, I've had it before and I know that I can have it again, well barring the fact that I am somewhat older now, actually lets not say older, lets just say wiser and much more experienced!

I hope one day it will happen to me, I'm certainly not going to force anything, internet dating fills me with dread and fear so I am leaving it to fate and the universe and I know it'll organically happen, I just hope it's before I die a lonely death and have my face eaten by my cat!

My Project - 1 year on, what happens now?

You know I was talking yesterday about our digital legacy and Timehop ect, well just lately my Timehop has been filled with the images and adventures I had when I embarked on the project a year ago and every day I dread opening the app as I suppose I had kind of shut it out, I've spoken about it privately with various friends and I have blogged about it in amongst other subjects but as the one year anniversary approaches with the project stagnant at city number 24 I thought it was time to publicly state where I am with this all.  This week marks 9 months since my husband walked out of our marriage as we knew it and a month later Abigail went to live with him, I don't really talk much about it now in public because we just kind of get on with it but I can tell you that there are things we have been through in the last 9 months that I didn't ever imagine I would have to endure again.  The hardest thing has been going from a 2 income family to a 1 income family, single parenting changes everything, how you live, how you work, your whole life entire becomes something other than that which you knew.  I hadn't for a moment thought when I embarked upon the project that Paul and I would separate, it was my worst nightmare, it still actually is, I still to this very day love him with all of my heart.

I'm not someone who likes to let people down and I'm also not someone who likes to leave things unfinished and I have had many sleepless nights trying to think how I could go forward to the future and finish the project but at this point it's not even vaguely possible, I don't have the income, the business infrastructure or the family support I would need.  I was so used to coming and going as I pleased, I knew that if I wasn't around Paul would be there to tend to the kids and it had always been the same the other way around but you can't just do that as a single parent, I'm not questioning Paul's parental skills, he's a great dad to Looby but Looby has needed me so badly over the last 9 months that my whole life has revolved around her pretty much, and Iain, who has no other family in the whole world apart from me (he tells me this and it makes me so sad, he's said even at the age of 18 all he would really love is a proper dad) still needs me to be there.

When Paul left I tried to maintain my business but my head and my heart weren't in it and something must have gone amiss because in January I saw a huge decline and by March I was living on  batches of cous cous being unable to pay even the most basic of bills.  I haven't had a public mental breakdown, perhaps because I'm too stubborn to fall apart although there've been times when I've certainly been on the edge but luckily every single time I've fought on even further for the sake of the kids and I.

To this day I am now regaining control of my business and have fallen in love with it again, not just portraits but also weddings, something I had previously decided to give up but now I continue onwards for perhaps another 10 years.  It's still very early days where that is concerned though as mostly you're always booking a year or two in advance so whilst we're pretty much out of the woods and I'm being able to invest in my business again we're not exactly ready for a tropical beach holiday. 

I want to say today that I have not given up on the project, one day I intend to finish it, I'm just about to start selling quite possibly the largest collection of life stuff that I have built up over the last few years,  Once I have a large savings pot then I can take the time off to go travelling with Looby and Holly and via air bnb I think it's quite possible that I can finish the project one day.  I think it's about being able to take chunks of time out of my diary and then renting a house for a few days in the south whilst I tackle those cities.

I've questioned myself so much over this, I've had one or two unpleasant emails which have shaken me up, I would not have gone into this if I didn't think I could finish it, I have hated myself for not being able to deliver when I thought I could and I constantly beat myself up that I have let people down.  My business investors continue to be present in my mind and on my blog and they'll remain forever because it's the least I can do.  I'll never ask anyone for any help ever again although I still hold out hope that one day a publisher will think it's a brilliant idea for a book and help me to complete it, obviously even then it would be with Looby and Holly at my side and never being away for so long that Iain feels alone, he often says if I'm away for too long it drives him crazy because he doesn't see other people, he goes out once a week to his friends and he goes to college 3 days a week although he's just about done until September now.

I wish I could go back to the beginning knowing the things I know now, for one thing I didn't even scratch the surface of the cost of the project, I invested every single penny of savings I had and my accounts for last year are going to be so awful that it's probably better to laugh about them than cry. One thing I do know is that I absolutely underestimated just how much the breakdown of a marriage can affect you when you have a business or if you think you are financially independent even within a relationship try taking one half of that away, it's beyond all reasoning and some things I still don't understand.

So thank you if you have stuck around with me, continue to support me with friendship and love and to those who doubt me, hate me or feel let down I truly am sorry, take comfort in knowing no one feels more like that than I do.  This blog has been coming for some time, I hope you'll excuse any typos or bad grammar but I had to just get myself into a space and write it straight off so that I wrote exactly what was on my mind, it's really the best way sometimes.

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!