I make absolutely no apologies that my blog is about to come the most dog filled blog in the world, I can't help it, I am totally and completely head over heels in love with Miss Holly Berry Charlton, we had lots of fun yesterday though I have to admit that I'm quite glad it was my day off because beagle walks and cuddles beat doing anything more productive hands down, She's my phone wallpaper, she's fully insured this morning, well she actually came with 4 weeks insurance free from Beagle Welfare but this morning I've taken out pet insurance for her so that's it she's definitely a family member!  Last night we both went to bed at 10pm as I've had a headache which won't go away since Monday, she was ever so good though and slept pretty much until 6.30am this morning with just one little getty up for a wee at 1am.  House training is going exceedingly well, in fact I think we've nearly cracked it and yesterday we had 2 big walks, I'm assuming she didn't get a lot of walking before she came to me as she was pretty shattered afterwards and then she got up this morning, went out in the garden, had breakfast and she's snuggled on the settee beside me.

She's simply the best cure for loneliness, I was watching This Morning yesterday, they had a phone in about loneliness at Christmas, one of the calls had agony aunt Denise in tears as well as presenters Phil and Amanda and also me, I just feel so much for people who are lonely at Christmas and of course just because you are surrounded by people during the festive period doesn't mean that you can't be lonely, I am so thankful that I will have my dog, cats, children, one of my best friends and her daughter around me on Christmas day as I know that a part of me will still feel a little lonely because it's my first Christmas since my marriage ended.  There's always going to be some sadness there and its' funny the things which get you, with me it's mostly music, suddenly out of nowhere it'll get me and I'll find myself crying wondering how on earth I arrived at this point when I always assumed that by 40 life, love and everything would be sorted out forever, I do sit and wonder if everything in my life has happened because I've been a bad person and the ether is delivering karma, I used to spend a lot of time thinking I was evil and going to hell until my therapist told me that you only have to be good enough in this life and in her opinion I'd always been better than good enough, she told me to look into the mirror and smile every day and tell myself that you only have to be good enough, it's one of the most important things I ever learned, if you constantly strive for perfection you will honestly never achieve it, as humans we are perfectly imperfect and I know from my years studying psychology that scientifically and statistically people don't actually like perfect people, it scares them!!

I know one thing to be true and that is that pets come into our lives and help us heal our hearts, they show us the true meaning of unconditional love with absolutely no expectations, they have the purest hearts and they, those little furry paws, are the nearest things to angels.

Say hello to Holly the Beagle

Apologies for no blogging yesterday, this weekend has been a very busy one with a wedding on Saturday, portraits on Sunday and then a couple more portraits early yesterday morning and then the rest of the day was taken up with patiently waiting for the arrival of our new family member, my gorgeous forever dog Miss Holly Berry Charlton, that's quite the fabulous name don't you think? Fabulous name for the best dog ever and obviously even though it was late and nearly dark by the time she arrived I still managed to get just a couple of photos of her.

She's 6 months old and already very clever, she sits, she'll do wait and I don't think it's going to take too long to finish off her house training, I reckon we'll have her doing high five by the end of the week!

This year has been by far one of the hardest of my life and also one of the saddest though it's had a lot of good things, when I look back in retrospect I do cry about it but some tears at least are happy. Yesterday at least I cried because I was so happy and thankful for Beagle Welfare bringing Holly for us all the way up from the West Midlands.

She's settled in surprisingly well and whilst I thought I would be writing this at 5am I actually woke her up 2 minutes before the alarm went off at 7.15am

If anyone is a gift from God it's got to be Holly, sent to heal our hearts and be ours with her cheeky funny personality, the cats it seems aren't really even bothered, Pyracantha did her comedy growl and has bashed her on the nose a couple of times which of course is the way it should be so she knows the cats are friends not food!  Poppy though just let her have a sniff and then wandered off completely ambivalent to the whole situation.

Abigail, Looby and Iain all completely love her and for me, well I lost my heart in the first five minutes.  I can't wait to go on lots of adventures.  First on the agenda is a day time walk to the dog park, we did go for a big night time walk yesterday but it's nicer in the day time when there are other doggies to play with.

I know whatever happens in the rest of the year we'll always have at least 1 amazing reason to remember 2014 for.

Anxiety, Panic attacks and the passive aggressive personality

I've noticed something lately dear reader, when I am on my own and left to get on with my life I have less anxiety than I've had for over 15 years.  There's something about living your life constantly walking on egg shells but I spent a lot of the time which has passed before me never knowing what would be the next thing to trigger the dark cold silences.  When they happened all emotion would be switched off like a punishment and situations could become so tense that in myself I would want to just explode and break down.  I remember in the early years of our marriage and I would go and hide in the loo and cry before coming out like nothing had happened because that's another thing about people with passive aggressive tendencies, they can't can't handle emotion.  I was actually told "I can't handle your emotions so if you want to talk to me about something you better not cry"  and so of course I learnt to shut those emotions away and I went from being someone who cried at most things (kittens, puppies and romantic movie endings) to someone who has massive problems unlocking her own emotions to be able to let them out.

I want my children to be able to express all of their emotions whatever they are, don't get me wrong, give me a primary school nativity play and I am still a weeping mess which is exactly as it should be but I've lost the ability to break down and get deep seated pain out of my system, this has of course over the years lead to anxiety and panic attacks and during my marriage if that happened that was as bad as being emotional, there would be anger and almost a "pull yourself together" attitude.  When I went through my years of dark emotional mental health I really wasn't as supported as I should have been, it was only ever when it got to crisis points and I was just about to see doctors that the darkness would soften and kindness would be shown because of course the passive aggressive person never wants anyone else to think badly of them.  You know they're often the kind of people who will do anything for anyone, it's not a selfless act though, it's so they can believe that people will think highly of them.

I spent my life proclaiming our love and telling everyone how amazing my husband was, he loved it, he drank it up, before nights out he would ask me how he looked and expect compliments, it wasn't exactly reciprocated and if anyone else gave me compliments he hated that, possibly because of his deep seated jealousy issues, there been more than one or two male friends warned off over the last fifteen years even though I would never ever have done any misdeed and it's just a case of me having lots of lovely male friends as well as lovely female friends.

There's worse stuff of course, deeper darker stuff which I'd prefer to not put out there, I have no problems with my children reading this blog because it's the truth, a document of my life and they themselves will only read it when they feel able but I don't want to cause more mental scars than they already have.

If you are in a similar situation you must know that you are never to blame, no matter how bad you feel and if you are reading and you recognise these behaviours in yourself please consider going and getting some help, I think it is possible to change but therapy needs to occur so you can deal with the very deep seated issues which caused the behaviours in the first place, passive aggressive is definitely a learned behaviour and so perhaps with cognitive therapy it's also possible to unlearn those destructive personality aspects.

I hope this post hasn't been too depressing for a Friday, the good news for me is that given 6 months I think I shall probably not suffer from anxiety and panic attacks anymore, I still have times but that's because of the last grasps of control which are still occurring despite me being free, one day though, full on sparkle with no hint of ever being frightened again!

5 Christmas things for a very festive Thursday

Good festive morning to you dear reader, I wrote a blog this morning which I have to admit was a bit of a mis mash and I want to sit back and consider it before I post it, I also need a little more bravery, it's still hard to talk about some stuff even though it probably does need to be said so I'll leave it in drafts and work on it!  So lets talk about my favourite subject of Christmas instead.

1. The top selling Christmas gift of 2014 is of course the Frozen Snow Glow Elsa doll it's the toy every small person wants and it's not going to be cheap to get one at this point, they are simply sold out everywhere, last week though I randomly clicked on that very same link when trying to help a lady find one for her niece and we actually managed to get one for the RRP, at the moment there are none for less than £60ish but occasionally someone will get a new batch, stick them on and they'll go for the normal £35ish, keep checking would be my top tip, don't go and buy one from Ebay for £800 though!
2. The 2014 Christmas TV Schedule has been announced, what I haven't managed to google is if there are any new wonderful food specials, there always are of course and I'm ever hopeful for Jamie Oliver, Nigella, James Martin and Rick Stein
3. It's exactly 3 weeks until Christmas and I am just about ready to go, I've been gradually Christmas shopping since the beginning of October and adding just 1 or 2 things a week to my shopping has really paid off, it's not going to be the biggest pile of presents ever underneath our Christmas tree but as Looby reminded me, it's not about the presents, it's about the people, I do hope that Abigail and Iain are ok with that too!
4. Being that I won't get any perfume for Christmas this year, I've been thinking about treating myself to my favourite Juicy Couture Viva la Juicy  I still have some Chanel number 19 left, don't know what I'll do when that runs out, that's definitely one I can't afford to buy myself!
5. Christmas is the time for new books so I'm going to buy myself some new ones to read during my 2 week Christmas break, on my list are Russell Brands "Revolution", "We are all completely beside ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler and Stephen Frys "More Fool Me"

and so that's the things I'm thinking about on this thoroughly festive Thursday, on a work note I have the following availability to fill before the end of the year - 

Tuesday 9/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere 

Friday 13/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere
Monday 15/12 - 11am - Jesmond Dene
Wednesday 17/12 - 10-1.30 anywhere
Thursday 18/12 - 10 - 1.30 anywhere
Saturday 20/12 - 12.30, 1 and 1.30 - Jesmond Dene

30 minute sessions at Jesmond Dene, Saltwell Park and Tynemouth Longsands are £25, other locations/ at home/ larger family portraits start from £40

All photo shoots come with a web gallery for 30 days, 15% off for the first week your gallery is live and a complimentary print.

Please all manifest with me so I can fill those final sessions, my last planned photo shoots of the year will be on Saturday 20th of December and then I plan to resume photo shoots from Saturday January 3rd however, if you have family around this Christmas who you only see once a year and you want to celebrate that with a photo shoot do get in touch and I'll see what I can do, all photo shoots during this time will be a minimum of £40 depending on location.

and so go forth dear reader, drink egg nog (but not too much) sparkle like a Christmas fairy and I'll be back tomorrow with, well who knows, some days I find blogging easier than other days.

How to recognise and survive a passive aggressive relationship

When I think about it now, the man I married and spent my life with was always hot headed, irrational and possessive but I chose not to see it.  We do that don't we?  We meet people and then we ignore all of their flaws because we want to see only the good in people, we want to believe in true love and meeting that special someone you can spend the whole of the rest of your time on earth.  If there's one thing that life has taught me about the passive aggressive relationship it's that you can never win.  I have literally trawled the internet and read books seeking to find the person who managed to stay in a successful relationship despite having a partner who was passive aggressive. Often the problem with passive aggressive personalities is that the cause is so deep seated they're often not aware of their own controlling behaviour. 

I think it can almost be an involuntary compulsion to control and if you couple that with a heady hint of a narcissistic personality then they're so far to believing that they are perfect and everyone else is at fault that they'll never acknowledge control or indeed ever doing anything that was less than perfect behaviour.  In my own personal case even the alcoholism was justified as being something he had to do to remain married to me.

People with control issues, particularly passive aggressive personalities can often be the loveliest most charming people you could hope to meet, they will lavish you with gifts (they want others to know how perfect they are) but often they'll set you up to fail at something and that can be quite difficult to understand, for instance they'll forget that special date that you had booked and if you confront them they'll just deny all knowledge and then they may huff or strop so you feel that it's your fault until you actually start questioning if you ever had the conversation.  They really do thrive on you thinking it's all your fault but if you are reading this and nodding along let me just say now, it's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong and this is all part of the game of control.

Let me give you another example of control which is so subtle that you can mistake it for someone being in love with you, so you're out with friends and you get text messages asking when you are coming home, they miss you so much, they can't survive without you for hours, they want you to come home so they can love you and hug you and be with you, you are their world.  Let me just put this out there as being a huge warning sign.  In the 15 years of my marriage I've lost count of the times when I felt I had to go home from nights out because of the above or angry calls because there was nothing for dinner or they couldn't remember how to order dinner, when I look at these things now I ask myself if I was actually crazy myself, a grown up adult should always be able to source food/cook something/have a few hours on their own.

If dear reader you are in this kind of situation please don't ever let yourself feel that you are anything less than good enough, I've struggled for years thinking I am a bad person and not good enough and I would hate others to go through the same thing, I guess that's one reason I chose to record this journey, to get it out there, because the victims of silent control might not have bruises but that doesn't mean the damage isn't there.  I don't wish to be categorised as a victim however, I am most definitely an expert in survival and no matter what happens in my future I'm going to survive and grow and flourish like the sparkly person I have inside of me.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The festive period has well and truly landed at Charlton towers, yesterday we festooned the house with as many Christmas lights as we could find and Looby, the little gem that she is did the entire tree apart from fluffing up the branches and putting the lights on, she's a little Christmas wonder that one, she even said as we were having our 10 minute bedtime chat that she knows that Christmas isn't about presents, it's about spending time together as a family, I told her she should never change and she told me her teacher had said that to her last week too!

Apologies for the slightly dodgy quality of the Instagrams but it was pretty dark by the time I was able to photograph it and still no photographs of downstairs, I might do that after the cleaner has been as it's abysmal!

There was a certain sadness yesterday as putting the Christmas decorations up was always such a family occasion, I would do all of the decorating, the kids would put the decorations on the tree and Paul would sit in the corner getting drunk on egg nog, it's not that I miss that part so much but I've always so strongly firmed in being a family that it's sad the way that things ended up.  Poor Abigail is really poorly and stuck at her dads, too ill to come home apparently so Abigail if you are reading this, get well soon and come home to see that Christmas has arrived!

Tonight I am going to a Christmas party, my first foray into the world and being social, I've already tried to get out of it several times but I am taking Stacey to thank her for working so hard for me this year and also because there was less chance that I would actually chicken out of going.  I did say to all of the children that I could stay home if they needed me more but Looby said this morning that she wanted me to go out.  This is the first of 3 festive events I have invitations to but this one is the only evening event out in the big wide world, I'm slightly terrified but at least it's at The Stand in Newcastle so 1, it's in the dark and 2, it's comedy so I don't actually have to talk to people.  I don't actually have anything to wear at this point and there's a bottle of hair dye on top of the fridge which stands between grey haired old lady me and slightly younger red headed me.  I'm running to the retail park once lovely Daria stops cleaning around me and I've seen the black dress I'm going to buy so it's just a quick run into the M&S outlet store and a grab at the nearest rail!

Back tomorrow, if I survive...

Christmas Memories and trying to remain positive...

Well it's officially December the first dear reader and at the time of writing this I made it to December before putting up my Christmas tree, I hope you're proud!  You see the thing is, well Christmas was always going to be a tricky proposition, it's not that we always had the most amazing Christmases because lots of them involved things which just took the edge off like blatantly awful hangovers which meant grumpiness or being ill which meant saying things you wouldn't normally say but did because of the pain levels.  I remember when we had been together for about a year and we would beg for no grumpiness and so it would be declared some time on Christmas Eve and if we were lucky it would last until Boxing day.  We also had some brilliant Christmases though, I was proposed to at Christmas, the 22nd of December 1999 to be exact, it was after 3 bottles of wine and a biryani so I'm not sure how romantic it actually was but I said yes straight away.  Then there was the Christmas where I was pregnant with Abigail and my present was a hamper filled with about 50 individually wrapped small presents, these are the things I'll always remember and I'll treasure and I'll try to not be too sad if the memory takes me unexpectedly.

The other day I was in the kitchen baking with the music on and suddenly I found myself sitting on the floor crying to Ewan Mcgregor singing Come What May, yes I gave myself a stiff talking to afterwards and then laughed at myself and the ludicrousness of the situation but it's funny how things creep up on you unawares like that isn't it?!

It's been a good but busy work weekend and I'm not out of the woods yet though I do feel like I am entering the home strait now that it's actually December, I have my eyes on the prize, 2 weeks off with my children in the most festive part of the season.

This week I've said to Looby that we are going to do at least one festive activity every day, we have Christmas crackers to make, Christmas decorations to sew and I think once my shopping has arrived tomorrow we can actually make some mince pies, the first batch ever with my home made mincemeat, I can't wait to use that for sure.

When our Beagle Welfare visitor was here she asked if we were having a party because of all of the bottles of alcohol under the bench in the kitchen but the reality is that if I see a bottle I like I buy it, I rarely drink any of it, it's just the power of knowing I can have it in the house, something I could never do before, it's funny the things we do isn't it?  If anyone does pop around at Christmas they'll be sure to be offered a festive tipple for sure, it's funny though that Iain and I rarely touch any alcohol, that's what happens when you have lived with someone who drinks heavily, I think you see the damage it causes and it puts you off for life, don't get me wrong, I still like a nice glass of wine on an occasion but 1 or 2 and I am done, to be honest anymore and I tend to fall asleep anyway!

This weeks family to-do list is another wonderful thing from Looby, you know I think that girl may be the reason I get through difficult weeks, she's a total wonder and her bright enthusiasm cheers me up even in the darkest moments, she's got such a beautiful heart and I hope that her uniqueness never changes.