As many of you know, I have been single now for a very long time, pretty much, I've been a single lady since September 2014.  Partly I was just so damaged that I didn't even dream of going near another human in the dating sense and when I did briefly try in 2016, I found, I was in no capable or emotional state to be able to deal with the basics a decent human relationship requires.

As time has gone on I've started to heal and last year I decided that I would give it a go, I started to go to the pub, I actually opened my eyes to what was out there and even smiled at a person or two but then covid happened and I, like the rest of the world retreated into our prisons of solitude.

One year on from that and I'm so done with being alone, it's made me really question if I can actually spend the rest of my life alone and the answer is, probably but I don't think it would be a lot of fun!  If covid, social distancing and lockdowns have taught us anything it's that humans are not supposed to be alone in the world, we are social creatures and like dogs, we are pack animals, to not only thrive but simply survive we need other people, basic human contact and hugs, the comforting touch of another human is at this point, like winning a gold medal, imagine the serotonin release from hugging people when we all get out of this grim period of history.

For my birthday, Harriet (knowing my love of David Tennant) bought me half size cardboard cut out of The doctor himself and his purpose?  To stand in my kitchen looking off into the distance to inspire me and to help manifest my very own lobster, yes, David Tennant is going to help me find my soulmate.

Now, let me explain further how the online dating landscape is currently.  It does not matter which site you have joined, very few men are actually open to conversation, you need to know I am not a misandrist but without the promise of them getting some action and them actually having to hold conversations, most of them have just gone into hiding.  For me though, dear reader, I blooming love it, it's like dating in the time of Jane Austen, no touching, long conversations and the lost art of letter writing, although that's more message writing and getting a sore finger from tap, tap, tapping on your phone keyboard.

People have said to me in the past that it will just happen when you least expect it, you cannot go looking for love but I don't think that's true, I left it up to chance and 6 years later, I'm still sitting in my cave like a hermit.  I am not Hannah Hauxwell though, I am Mandy and although I'm not the biggest fan of people, I do love my friends, and I actually think I've always functioned at my best when I was happy and in love.  I am a die-hard romantic, always have been, always will be, it's why I still cry when I photograph weddings.  I don't think any amount of damage could stop me believing in true love, love is like oxygen after all.

So, will David Tennant help me find my soulmate?  Well, who knows what will happen in the future but I feel like something magical could be just around the corner and I'm always hopeful.  You can be sure if something does happen, I might not write about it all as that's a double-edged sword too but I guess eventually, I'd have an inability to not say something, I have, after all, written about my life for the last 16 years.  So come on David Tennant, do your thing, stare into the distance and find me the love of my life, you have 12 months or you're going into the cupboard!!

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The woman who got her second chance

Each year, around this time, I write a yearly Valentines post which makes me either seem like the most romantic person in the whole world or the most disappointedly disenchanted person, sometimes it's a mix of both.  I guess part of me is always alarmed that we as a society choose to commercialise that which is the most perfect thing in life and then the other part of me, quite rightly thinks, "A day celebrating love with chocolates and heart shaped baked goods, what's not to love, we need to do this more often".

I'd like to state now for the record that I am one of those creative people, if you didn't know that, welcome, you're clearly new around here.  Creative people tend to be the dreamers, the hopers, the romantics.  We need to be, there needs to be people who truly see the beauty the world, people who find magic in the tiniest details, people who believe that anything is possible as long as you want it enough.

I am guilty of all of the above and my life is proof that it's actually true, I believed and so I did.  I haven't blogged for a couple of days because I'm working on things, I'm working to change some direction, I always want to do what I do but I want to keep evolving and discovering new things and I want to focus and grow in new and exciting areas.

Let me tell you that now, as I sit here, late at night, I have everything, I am the woman who got a second chance, I am the one who held out and hoped and dreamt even in the darkest times and now I am content and fulfilled and have a life I love, a career I adore and most of all, I am surrounded by the most special people, positive people who give me life and make me want to be the best person I could possibly be.

I want to give an example about finding pleasure in the smallest of things. You see, if you ask any of my closest friends they will tell you that I am a bit of a tea and coffee snob, I have a waterbar that dispenses the perfect temperature of water, it's triple filtered so it makes the best coffee and tea, I grind my own beans and I drink loose leaf tea although I won't say no to a good silk pyramid teabag.  Coffee and Kin are a local company forged with love and I'm head over heels about their coffee, I've taken to mixing beans from Guatemala and beans from El Salvador to create my own blend of the most special coffee, I like to add double cream which makes the most amazing coffee, small pleasures which starts every day with a friendly wake up.

My point here is that if I can find pleasure in tea or coffee then surely I can find pleasure in everything and really, I can, no matter how many times I see squirrels in the parks around where I live, I still shout "Squirrel" and smile at them.  No matter how many times I see dogs out on walkies going past me, I still say hello to them and not to their owners.  No matter how many times I go for walks with the sun on my face it always feels magical like the first time I've felt it.

By loving the minutia in our lives it's easier to be completely rocked by the big things, happiness becomes a way of life and when the dark days try to invade, they're easier to fight and overcome.  I saw my therapist last week and she's ready to release me, I've asked for the next two sessions to still go ahead though, just in case.  But you know, I think I might have truly cracked it this time, I've learnt that by going the extra mile in everything I do it brings rewards and more fulfilment.

My heart is so full because every aspect of my life has fallen into place so this Valentines Day I don't really mind what happens because I know that true happiness is about something much deeper, although I don't mind at all if I receive a heart shaped cookie, it would be rude to refuse now, wouldn't it?

This post would not have been possible without Coffee and Kin who sent me beans which I accidentally mixed and then discovered that I'd just made the best and most heavenly blend in the whole of the universe.

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!

Experiencing Life in All It's Colours

Waking up this morning I breathed a big sigh of relief that no more damage had been done by the winds of yesterday, I have a little wait before the new fence is erected and I may even invite my neighbours to have some kind of winter BBQ party while we share a community garden, I made the news yesterday with a huge facepalm as I saw the story "Woman nearly trapped in her house by falling fence" Around once a year I do seem to make the news for all kinds of strange and peculiar things!  Do you remember the incident last year with Facebook, I thought I blogged about it when I was impersonated but I didn't, probably for the best, the girls banned me from ever saying abhorrent again after seeing me on the news!!

Isn't Sherlock the best drama on TV at the moment?  I watched it on Sunday on the edge of my seat and then I rewatched it with Mr F last night, I am still completely lost as a fox (I'm sure that's not a saying but I'm making it one), I did get rather distracted at the end though as I was booking a £28 train ticket to London in March, £28!!!  Can you believe that?  I paid £105 for the one at the end of January, the trains are a couple of hours different in times and I get more time there in January but really, I can afford to go more often at £28 than I can at £105!

In every facet of my life at the moment I am reconfiguring, I am looking at plans and goals and trying to work out what's essential, what stays and what goes, it's a little like a spring clean but instead of it being my house, it's my life.  Yesterday saw me halving my bipolar meds again, after speaking to my doctors I'm fairly sure that there's a chance that I can come off them completely, for anyone who doesn't know, I have bipolar type 2 and haven't had an episode since I was pregnant with Looby and she's 13 now!  I'm just at a place in my life where everything is so vastly different to what it was fifteen years ago, I have no negative influences and my days are filled with happiness, love and contentment, I'm great a practising self-care, I have no vices now apart from my penchant for tech and kitchen gadgets but I don't think that's likely to affect my mental health.

More than anything, though, I have good people around me so if I do start to waver they'll be the first to let me know and if worst comes to worst, it'll take 2 weeks to get back on the medication but I honestly don't envision that's going to happen.

In my life, on most days, apart from where I wake up in the morning with a cat or dog sitting on my face and have a moment of perturbed thought wondering what the heck it is, I'd go so far as to say that I'm bright and bouncy, I can't actually remember the last time I was in a bad mood but isn't that how life should be?  If you have a job you love, great friends and a fabulous pocket-sized bohemian geek, well then life should make you smile, shouldn't it.  Look I'm not going to make anyone responsible for my own happiness because only I can be in charge of that but we all only have one short life so it's surely better to throw heaps of positivity at it, live the life of a bohemian romantic and just get hurt, sometimes rather than being afraid of life, living in fear and never experiencing life in all it's glorious colours.

When I came out of my last marriage I could have become gnarled, bitter, twisted and I don't think anyone would have blamed me but it's just not me, I always say I'm a hopeful romantic, not a hopeless one and if I had become some kind of disillusioned hermit then I would have been shutting myself off from the wonderful happy heart I have now, life is far too short not to take chances.

My Secret Confession

I'll let you into a secret, I have a bit of an obsession, I'd call it a love but really, it's slightly more questionable than that!   You see, not only is it bad enough that I'm prone to bouts of feelings of utter aloneness but I also seem to have an addiction to the kind of movies which end up making me seriously emotionally overwrought.

I'm not at all sure there's a cure and really, I have always been like this, I remember splitting up with one of my first boyfriends who I was with for four years and then torturing myself by going to the cinema alone to see movies like Strictly Ballroom ("A life lived in fear is a life half-lived" fans of the movie will know what I'm talking about with that quote!) whilst weeping softly into my popcorn for one.

So let's look at yesterday, a pretty good day on the whole until I got home from work and started to download classics from Sky Cinema on demand.  I decided the movies I needed to watch were, When Harry Met Sally, St Elmo's Fire and The Holiday, all in one night, back to back,  I should also state that I was saved from being a complete emotional wreck by Martyn who I chatted to on Twitter instead of just sitting in the middle of my rug, rocking back and forth weeping!

When Harry Met Sally is a movie I have loved ever since the first time I saw it, I must have seen it over a hundred times but there's no movie which sums up true love and friendship more eruditely than When Harry Met Sally and when Harry decides that he just has to spend the rest of his life with Sally and the rest of his life has to start right now, well that's me in tears lamenting that I once had that, I need to have it again and why don't I have it right now?  Honestly dear readers, I've had therapy, I am mostly not a tragic effigy of myself so please don't feel too sorry for me!

St Elmo's Fire, I don't even know why I cry in this movie, it's just from the eighties, it's the brat pack classic and I'm even sure the story is still relevant but then Andrew McCarthy has that crush on Ally Sheedy it just serves to remind me of how painful unrequited love can be, when I'm emotionally overwrought you can be sure I'll find a reason to cry!!  I will say though that if you are a child or teen of the eighties and you haven't seen this movie you really need to even if it's just to see a young Rob Lowe, how on earth is it that the man looks way better now than he did then?

And so we come onto The Holiday, and you only have to watch it once to know it's never a movie you should watch if you are feeling at all lonely or alone or you're just craving to be coupled or you like someone and can't find the words to tell them or you're in an unrequited love situation, this movie pretty much has it all and that's before you even add Christmas into the mix. You know the bit which got me last night?  When Jude Law is crying and tells Cameron Diaz that he's fallen in love with her, it's just the most beautiful moment and I crave with all of my heart for it to happen to me again one day, ok, there don't have to be tears but I wouldn't complain if someone wanted to show emotions other than me, I am definitely open to spending the rest of my life with someone more sensitive with an ability to show feelings rather than be a mannish buffoon who thinks it's weak to show any hint of them.

Emotions in their fullest extent are a pretty new thing for me, I spent way too long in the overmedicated wilderness and so I'm really embracing them but I do currently feel like I need to get over myself a little, true love is out there I'm sure of it and as a paragon of positivity is it really good to end up in situations where you constantly end up in tears?

Maybe, I'll just go and select a Christmas movie from my Christmas Movies shelf, not The Holiday though, definitely not that one just for now...

So, What Happened Next?

So it's 7am, Sunday morning and I'm in bed, with a (loudly) snoring beagle next to me who's spent most of the night with her head right next to my ear snoring so loudly you would assume she's the one with the massive head cold and not me! I took those cold tablets which are supposed to make you sleep and had the worst nights sleep I think I've ever had,  I have a big work day ahead of me today with a couple of portrait sessions and a 10 year anniversary party for favourite clients and right now, all I want to do is stay in my warm quilted cocoon with coffee and cold tablets and a beagle!

This week has been a peculiar one but I've felt strangely more aware than ever before of all of the people behind screens who choose to read my daily ramblings.  On Friday, someone I know stopped me in the street to ask me about "Mr Adorable With Puppies", people emailed me, messaged me on Facebook, commented on Facebook or here on my blog, over 6000 people have read the article, I'm assuming because you all have followed my story for so long that you just want me to be happy, either that or you're just all bloody nosy!

Now I wish I could tell you all what happened next, "If he was so perfect why no third date?" Asked someone.  "Is there any chance of a 3rd date?" asked another, "He doesn't like cake?" asked more than one or two of you, yes I know, it's kind of weird, I've never encountered it before and I'm sure there's a cure.

The one person I actually didn't expect to read the article was the man himself, I was kind of mortified for a moment when he got in touch but he was lovely, I mean he should be, I was only complimentary after all and it's not every day you meet someone you want to call Mr Adorable.

I can't at this point give you a solid answer as to what's going to happen in the future but I will tell you what I told him, I would rather wait 6 months for another date with him than keep dating people who didn't make me smile every time I got their messages.

I've come to realise that it's a lot more complicated to date in your late 30's/early 40's and that's because generally we all have kids and kids plus single parenting plus careers plus the distances between us, well it doesn't exactly make things easy. Right now from where I'm standing it seems a little too similar to the Adjustment Bureau although I should state that neither of us is a politician or a ballet dancer, I just don't have the toes for it!

The truth of the matter is my short toe dip into the heady world of online dating has been, shall we say, an eye-opener?  It has presented many "characters" It's both good for the confidence and yet as someone who is a classic overthinker you will drive yourself completely insane, it's like sitting next to the phone waiting for it to ring and I'm talking about in the 80's or 90's when you gave someone your number and prayed they would call you.

There's a thing now, with online dating at least, I know from friends, they have a few men they're chatting too and then they'll go on a couple of dates to try each one out, like it's an audition or a job interview, this, of course, seems sensible to me but I just think I have an inability to be like that, perhaps because I'm older, but I'm quite prepared to put all of my energy into something I potentially think could be great rather than expend it all with 3 or 4 utterly bland experiences, maybe that's me being insightful or maybe I'm just stupid, whatever happens, for the moment at least, Tinder, you are toast, and Plenty of Fish, you are getting released back into the ocean, whatever happens though, one thing is for certain and that is Mr Adorable will always be Mr Adorable!

The Romantic Weekend with the mysterious case of the Purple hair

Had a fabbio weekend with the hubster at Gisborough Hall Hotel, very relaxing although we went to Flamingo land on Sunday and it was such a giggle going on all the big rides without the kids tagging along, much as I love them one weekend alone in a swanky location every 8 years will do me just fine!!



This is where we stayed, Noice!!



Imagine having a wedding here ;)



I loved this kooky little dragon above the doorway.

On saturday night we both decided on a change of hair colour, mine is now a little redder than it was and Pauls well he's gone from Blonde to....



PURPLE!!!!



I have to say though for a man with purple hair I think he's rather dishy don't you???!!

Ooh and I forgot to mention the Alpacas which lived just outside the hotel..




Fab or what!!

Holed Up

No weddings this weekend so hubby and I are holed up at the Gisborough Hall Hotel which is lovely though terrifyingly expensive, I nearly passed out when I discovered that it was £7.50 for one glass of wine, we hastily retreated to the nearest supermarket and bought some nice bottles to have in their room, now I must stress that you do get a complimentary corkscrew so we're obviously not the first couple to faint at the drinks prices!! To be honest the food isn't horribly expensive just the alcohol, aah well, not to worry! One thing I must say about the Gisborough Hall Hotel is that it would be the most fabulous place to have a wedding.

So no pics yet as I can't honestly be bothered to connect the lead from my camera to my laptop, I might share some tommorrow night!!I could have fun with Paul if we were trapped inside a small cupboard together!!

Toodlepip it's face-mask time!