This week has been such a tricky one, it's a weird old life that I lead, last year I think I noted that even though my personal life was dreadful my business one was going from strength to strength. Fast forward to this year and my business life is asking more questions than there are answers whilst my personal life is, well, bloody marvellous actually.

Do you think anyone truly has it all?  Business and personal in a fabulous synergy where everything is just about as perfect as it can be?  Is it stupid to dream that I might be one of those have it all types of women?

It's weird how the oddest things can affect business, I never dreamt that this year would hold rain in store on just about every single weekend since Christmas, difficult when your main source of income is outdoor portraiture.  Weddings I think are the constant I think in my business, they happen whether it's sunny or raining, dull or apocalyptically snowing, in my time it's truly done it all, I guess that's why I love them!

I didn't sleep last night, I worried all night trying to come up with ways to continue offering outdoor portraiture all year round and I still don't have the answer, well I sort of do but it's not the most realistic.  You see I guess, whilst I wouldn't want a studio, somewhere indoors that looks like outdoors is the answer, you know like the Sky Gardens in London or maybe an old ruined castle or manor house, all of those would create amazing backgrounds for portraits and all of them would be infinitely possible all year around.  There's no doubt that we have similar spaces all around the Northeast of England, I mean we have winter gardens, we have castles, we have botanic gardens with green houses but all of those are commercial ventures, you can't just turn up at  Belsay Hall and start shooting portraits without an angry English Heritage representative escorting you off the property because it's a £150 per photo shoot on a pre-arranged date/time.

There must be answer out there though and maybe you know what it is, maybe you have a suggestion?  I know I definitely don't want another studio, I did that for 2 years and I hated the fact that there were no trees, I didn't like that you had one small spot of perfect light where you had to try and contain small people who would love to be running around because running around is what they should be doing, it's natural and that's the thing I love most of all, space and trees and beautiful rich colours of the landscapes of the northeast of England.

Maybe there is no answer, maybe I'm going to have to get a team of umbrella holders called Bob, Bert and Bryan to come keep families and me, my camera gear and everything else dry, I do hope they'll help amuse the kids!  Seriously though a patch of Gunnera would be perfect in these circumstances.

So, answers on a postcard please, I need some help and you, my lovely readers may be wise to something I haven't thought of yet.

Come with me on a Scottish adventure

Well we did it, we made it to the end of term, the end of primary school forever and there were so many tears shed and hugs given to all of the teachers who'd played such an important part of my children's younger years, it was a day full of emotion and by the time we made it to our home for the week in Edinburgh Looby and I were both completely exhausted.

On Saturday we awoke to an incredibly windy day but for the most part it was at least sunny and not too cold, we wandered to Leith, back up Leith Walk and by the time we got back we'd amassed 20K

This last year I have blogged about pretty much everything from my life, business, work, relationship, travel so it seems quite appropriate to want to bring you dear reader along for the journey on our Scottish adventures.  It sunk in last night that I have a couple of weeks of not having to do very much at all, barring the odd 20K a day ;)

All of the photos I'm going to post this week are a mix of iPhone and Xpro1 which have been lightly edited using Instagram, yes I know it's a little lazy but that's the fun of a wifi card and it is my holidays after all.

Edinburgh is such a dog friendly city and it's also a child friendly city, its when you have both that there becomes a problem, lots of the pubs won't allow kids because of the Scottish licensing laws and so you end up with this strange problem of lots of places I could take Looby without Holly, Holly without Looby and not so many that meet in the middle, of course if it's sunny then options are extended, sadly it's rained nearly every day so far but I hold out hope that the weather improves over the next few days.

There are some places we have been which I feel deserve a mention for their welcoming attitude both to Looby and Holly and they are -

White Stuff on George Street, Holly has never had such a fuss and oh my, you must go and check out the changing rooms, no seriously, it's like a magic kingdom. I love to window shop in White Stuff, even if I mostly end up buying my actual White Stuff clothing from charity shops!

Gaia on Leith Walk, scrumptious Italian deli welcoming doggies and humans, it's only teeny tiny as is Castello Coffee just off Princes Street but they do lovely coffee and are both super cosy when it's throwing it down which is pretty much all of the time, did I mention it's rainy?

We also love The Roamin Nose in Stockbridge, lovely homemade granola and again super coffee.

We did also do something fun today for Looby and Holly, we went on the Majestic Tour, it was throwing it down and to be honest I was just glad to sit down for a while and see the sights.

We've now amassed nearly 50k in 3 days and had very little cake, we've been in the park across the road from us a lot and it would have been even more if that soggy stuff would actually just stop falling.

Tomorrow Looby wants to go to the charity shops of Stockbridge which means I'll be standing outside most of the charity shops of Stockbridge with Holly or maybe I'll just find the nearest dog friendly cafe and wait for her in there, wish me luck!

Burglars, Heat and too much Rain

This week has been another odd one, ever since we were first burgled about a month ago we've had the same guys come back every single week and we think they even stole Loobys replacement mobile phone as she swore she left it on the kitchen table, went out to play and then came back and it was gone.  I've always felt safe in my own house, even when my agoraphobia was at it's worst I still felt secure in my own house but that's changed and now I am uber jumpy even when in my favourite spaces, every time Holly barks or the cats shuffle things about downstairs I get jumpy, even though I know we're locked in and no one can get us I find myself living in a constant state of anxiety.  This time when the burglars came I was in my garden, I ended up shouting at one of them, running into my house, locking the door and calling the police, who to their credit were with me in minutes.  It seems they still can't actually catch the perpetrators though and it's really starting to get to me, this time they advised me to buy some home surveillance stuff and of course I did that straight away so hopefully when that arrives we'll finally be safe because if they do try their luck again there'll be video evidence.

It's one of those times where if I could move house I would go tomorrow, whilst I'm not one for running away from problems in this case I think it could provide some of the solutions, sadly though until my girls leave secondary school and Iain leaves college it's not even an option.

This week has also been hot, really hot, too hot for Holly the beagle hot, we've started walkies at 6/7/8 or even 9pm at night when it's cooling down and it's definitely helped her feel better, yesterday I even resorted to giving her a cool bath which she wasn't amused about as she hates water but she definitely perked up afterwards even if she did have a bit of a huff with me about it!

I've had some lovely outdoor photo shoots this week, one on Monday when the weather was a little dull but quite warm and 1 on Tuesday when it was pretty full on hot up in my clients gloriously huge garden in Stocksfield, mostly though the weather continues to plot against me at weekends and I'm sitting here on a very rainy Saturday morning having moved all of  this mornings photo shoots to a hopefully much sunnier afternoon later today.  It's weird that the weekdays seem to be so sunny and the weekends rainy, maybe it's always like this but because I've shot mainly portraits instead of weddings this year I've noticed it more!  I've always been quite lucky when it comes to sunshine and weddings so once my diary is full again you'll be able to celebrate with sunny weekends again.

In just a couple of weeks it'll be holiday time and I can't wait, I am so ready for a couple of stress free weeks where I don't have to think about anything other than Looby, Holly and I, no alarms, no work, just adventures, speaking of which I haven't actually planned what we're doing on our second weeks holiday, I've offered Looby a flat in Glasgow and a houseboat near Stirling, both of which I found on Airbnb but she's not keen on either of them, she doesn't do flats or boats apparently, I may have to resort to a blindfold for her so that she can't see where we're staying, heehee!

Lets hope this week ahead brings more sunshine, less burglars and more holiday choices!

Rainy Saturday.

I woke up this morning dear reader to find that all of the lovely autumn weather had been replaced by weather suitable only for ducks (actually that is a myth, they really don't like getting wet) and moisture starved flowers and plants.  This weather does not happy photographs make and for the first time in forever I have had to reschedule 10 photo shoots and let me tell you that rescheduling 10 photo shoots isn't the easiest thing in the world but hey ho, they're all done and fitted into new places over the coming weeks.

This of course now leaves me with a very rainy Saturday in my schedule, a Saturday I have to spend on my own, Abigail and Petunia are at their dads, Looby is partying again with friends and Iain, well he doesn't count as he's usually found in the same small corner of his bedroom plugged into something, he's definitely not one for embracing the rain with red wellington boots.

My mood today is a little like the weather, I find that even though I am a positive person some days it's just a big fight up a very steep hill to maintain the positivity, today is definitely one of those days. You see I think if it's going to be rainy and you need to batten down the hatches you should do it with chocolate cake and friends and family around all snuggled under blankets while you watch movies and drink hot chocolate, it's not a place for single alone people who have no plans or places to go.

I may go out for a walk in the rain, I think it's probably not safe to take my camera with me, waterlogged technology was never a good idea, apparently my camera is waterproof but I have no urge to check if that's actually true.  I may actually just stay in bed although I did that on Monday when I was ill and it's really not that exciting, maybe if you are 4 it's a wonderful thing but not so much when you're 40 and all you can see out of the corner of your eye is My Little Pony and Lucy the scary Welsh doll.

Whatever you do today dear reader don't spend it alone like me, get your friends and family around and bake huge chocolate cakes for them or maybe all cook together to make a huge pot of chilli, that is exactly what I would be doing right now if I could fix the broken pieces back together with family superglue.

Flaming June, more like raining June!

In the Northeast of England, it's been a grim old month weatherwise, well I say that but I remember shooting a wedding at the end of the month in scorching heat.  It seems there's a theme of rain, rain, rain, heatwave, rain, rain, rain.....

This month I have been really busy, I haven't stopped working, in fact i'd go so far as to say that if I'm not working or spending quality time with my lovely family I'm probably asleep, there's really not much room for anything else to fit in!

So, what have I been up to well if you follow me on Instagram you'll know I post quite often and it's a great way to keep up with my busy life, find me here http://instagram.com/MandyCharlton  there's also my facebook business page which has feeds for both my Instagram Feed and also my Pinterest feed, you can find me on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/MandyCharlton

Today on this not so rainy Sunday I'll leave you with a quick preview from Kay and Robs lovely wedding yesterday, we were lucky to be shooting at The Baltic because the rain was torrential, luckily for us we still get to have an outdoor feel because of that wonderful viewing box with gorgeous even when soggy views of the Tyne.

Congratulations Kay and Rob!