You know how some days are great for making you feel better about the bad day you had previously, well I've just had one of those today, yesterday I was miserable, ill, narrowly avoided a trip to hospital because I couldn't breathe but got off lightly after a trip to the walk in centre where I hands down refused to go to A&E, time plugged into a nebuliser with some kind of drug that made me very lightheaded, a course of steroids and an inhaler and I got to come home again and by last night I was significantly less grey than I'd been for the last couple of days.

My body has taken such a battering lately, I seem to get endlessly ill despite eating well/exercising and taking vitamins plus rarely drinking and not smoking, I should be a picture of health but it seems that stress may be the culprit, you can see in this diagram just how damaging stress can be, it simply affects all parts of your body and mind and sometimes you can be stressed without even knowing it, it's like your body lies to itself.

I'd like to think I have the answer and I sort of think I do, I know that I can't change things and make them better overnight in any aspect of my life and I know that since September sometimes life has simply been a struggle but I think after 15 years of marriage that your soulmate leaving is never exactly going to be a fun time for anyone, I just think I didn't recognise in myself just how very hard it would be/still is.

I think the answer though is to have less days like yesterday and more days like today.  Holly and I went on the metro to Cullercoats and first stopped into see Joanne and her lovely labrador Poppy at natural dog supply shop The Wandering Dog, we really love it in there and Joanne is a wonderful source of advice on healthy natural foods and treats, raw feeding and everything doggy.  After that we went down to Cullercoats bay beach and there was only Holly and I on the whole beach so we did off lead time and yay, she's still mine and didn't run off, we even played fetch and she's getting so good with her recall.

and after all of that action and running around we ended up in the Tynemouth Surf Cafe which is just the most wonderful dog friendly place and they loved Holly and even made us promise we would go back to see them again, of course we will, there will be no stopping us, we loved it and the nachos I had were utterly delicious, I think it might just be the most dog friendly place in Tynemouth but if you are planning to pop down my warning is that it does get very busy, especially at weekends.

I think I could quite happily live in Tynemouth as it's possibly the most dog friendly place in the whole of the north east of England, many of the bars, restaurants and pubs happily accept dogs and not only accept them but make a lovely fuss of them and that to me is so important, I want Holly to feel as welcome as I do, I've found there's a big difference between dog friendly and dog tolerant.

Holly is a tired puppy this evening, she's had such a busy day, she really is a tonic with her funny ways and her pretty brilliant behaviour for a puppy.  

Whatever you get up to this weekend I hope it contains, love, laughter and friendship...

Wearing your heart on your sleeve and why social media is a lie

The problem with wearing your heart on your sleeve dear reader is quite often it opens you up to being hurt but it does have the bonus that people always know what to expect from you, there's no real hidden side to me, I am on my blog as I am on social media as I am in real life.  I hate that thing when you meet someone you've spoken to on social media and they're not anything like the person you thought they were.  It's happened to me a couple of times and I've always been taken quite aback by it, those people were obviously far clever than I to be able to create a wholly different online persona.

The thing is though, and I was reading about this recently, is that social media and more importantly Facebook is a lie.  How many of us actually say how we're feeling on social media and how many of us only put the stuff out there that we want other people to see?

I read these kinds of statuses "life is totally amazeballs, I love everything" and I think back to the days when I myself used to write similar and it wasn't that they were an untruth but there's definitely something about putting those statements out there and the reasons we do it.  When you think about it, lets for example take holiday photographs, you know the ones, you're at your desk and it's noon on a Wednesday in August and Polly Perfectlife posts a photo of a giant cocktail she's having on her uber hot beach holiday, is she putting it out there because she needs to remind herself that her life is perfect or is she putting it out there to make other people say "oh look at her amazeballs life, I'm so jealous"  Conversely how many people do we mute or remove when all they do is moan and complain about the bad things in life?  I'm guilty of it myself, I simply won't tolerate rain cloud people even though I myself am going through a period in my life where not much fun stuff actually occurs. 

Something else I was reading about yesterday is concealed depression, something which I'd like to come out and hold my hand up and say that most of the time that's actually me at the moment, I think I've been pretty depressed since I lost my one true love but you can't go on about it endlessly can you?  It's not helpful to anyone if you just post "so bloody depressed" on every single Facebook status and it's going to get you muted/unfriended/hidden from newsfeed so it's just easier if we all post only the good things about our lives or if there isn't anything good it's just better that we post nothing, well no, that isn't ok actually because I think social media can lead to us concealing depression even more so and I actually think depression is something we should be talking about a lot more often, we should be normalising it because so many people have to go through it and still far too many people are suffering in silence.

I'm not sure how much if any of this blog post will make any sense at all but I think one of my goals for this year is to go out into real life situations and see friends, make more friends, do things which aren't all about social media because as I noted yesterday I've just reached the point of having 5000 followers on Twitter, I spend far too much time on social media when in my actual real life it can be days/weeks/months between seeing friends in real life.  I'll tell you what I would love to do, maybe I could invite all 5000+ of my Twitter followers to have a real life party, I wonder how many of them would actually turn out not to be robots eh?!

Dancing through life?

It's been said dear reader that a change is a good as a holiday, does this mean that a holiday is as good as a change I wonder?

Whatever it means I am happy to announce that I am going on a short midweek Easter break with my girls (that's Abigail, Looby and Holly) to the Berwick holiday park, Looby is utterly excited, we last stayed in a caravan in August and had a brilliant time, she loves caravans for some strange reason and to be honest I'm just happy to get a bit of a rest so we're going in the second week of the Easter holidays from the Monday to the Friday, I forsee lots of walks along the beautiful beaches though I shall not be partaking of any of the Haven nonsense, I have a great excuse, Holly can't go in any of the facilities, just the grounds and the Caravan, a perfect way to avoid chavvy children who stay up way past their bedtimes high on too much sugar and run amock.

Whilst I fully recognise it's not a 2 week trip to Majorca I am hoping that the girls get some kind of enjoyment out of it and hopefully soon I'm going to book our summer holidays where I think we're going to go to Keswick because it's the most dog friendly place in Britain apparently and you know it's all about the dog, about the dog, no woofles!

Over the course of the weekend I've managed to see 2 musicals, namely Annie and Into The Woods, both of them I loved for different reasons and I have decided that life would be wholly better if we all lived in a musical, I had planned to sing and dance my way through the week but after waking up with a huge headache I might have to start tomorrow.  No sooner had I got Looby off to school did Holly and I run back to bed and slept until 11, I love that I have a dog who could sleep quite easily until lunchtime!  At least when we did get up we went for a stomp although it was a little on the windy side for both our likings and there were moments when I feared we'd blow away, have you ever seen a beagles ears in the wind, she looked like a little helicopter ready to ascend to the skies.

This week is about getting back on track with writing and blogging and also I'm going to try and make some new plans for things to achieve this year and then obviously I better work out how the heck I am actually going to achieve them (always helpful).  Maybe Holly and I should do our own reviews of dog friendly pubs/coffee houses and holidays?  She certainly likes to get away on high days and holidays...

Bad days and holidays

Good windy morning to you dear reader, I have to first apologise for my absence this week, it's been the first week back at work and I've been trying to catch up to date with actual work, you know the stuff that pays the bills so I've been beavering away and I have 3 tasks left on my to-do list, 1 of which was blogging so well done me!

Yesterday was a thoroughly crappy day, the girls are going to Majorca in August with their dad and to say I'm not dealing with it well is an understatement, I can't stand to think of them so many miles away having the time of their lives without me, it's quite heartbreaking and I haven't found a way to deal with it yet.  I've asked them not to mention the holiday or anything about it because it just makes me cry and it's not that I don't want them to always be happy and have new experiences but I think it caught me off guard and it's just another realisation that life has changed forever.  I had been looking at holidays myself but more along the lines of a week in a caravan in Berwick, it's hardly likely to be able to complete with Majorca is it?  Even worse is the fact that I can't seem to get 2 weeks away because of when Paul has booked and my summer schedule for weddings so a week in a cheap caravan doesn't even slightly compare but I want to be able to take Holly with us, I want her to have a holiday too, I think I would miss her smelly paws (and they are smelly) without her by my side, you know they talk about dogs getting separation anxiety, I think with Holly and I it's definitely the other way around, I hate leaving her and miss her so much when I am not with her, this is her current position next to me - 

I think one of the problems is fulfilling everything on my needs list for a holiday, it's got to be dog friendly, child friendly and accessible by train or public transport plus not too long a journey as Holly will need toilet breaks and she can't exactly nip to the loo like us!

I think yesterday was just confirmation that I'm still not especially in a good place and it's January which of course amplifies everything, I've always hated January, it's the worst month of all for Seasonal Affective Disorder which I thought I was doing ok with given that I walk Holly every day but it really seems to have hit me this week and I am struggling to stay on top of it.

Do you ever feel about running away to the circus and not coming home again?

One thing I do know is that I am going to have to have some kind of massive coping strategy for when the girls are actually overseas because at this point when I think about it I fear for my own mental health during that time, I'm so glad I have Holly at least, she's the one thing which stands between me and the cloak of madness!

Abigail and Looby are both staying at dads tonight so I need to give myself a shake and go and do something with Holly or I'll just end up sitting in a corner and crying and that's not going to help anyone.

Hopefully by the time I write again (which may well be after the weekend and then I promise to get back to a regular schedule) I'll be feeling better.

It's back to work day!

It's that day we all dreaded, back to work proper day!  I do hate when my children go back to school and this morning neither Looby or Holly even responded when the alarm went off, Holly is a big fan of getting up at a very gentle pace at around 9ish in the morning, she was not impressed when I told her that 7.15am is now getting up times, well at least for the next 6 weeks or so.

I've changed my working hours to Mon/Wed/Fri and either Saturday or Sunday depending on bookings, this means that Holly will never be on her own for more than a couple of hours and what I've already noticed is that she of course gives me that look which says "Walkies now or I'll eat the rug/floorboards/jumper/anything"   You wouldn't refuse this menacing look now would you?

Holly really has changed my life in so many ways and I certainly feel like she's made me a much better person, she teaches me things about life on a daily basis and I try to take it all on board, well apart from the message that wood is the tastiest thing to eat in the whole wide world!

Usually in January I'm giving myself an extra week off because literally nothing is happening but this year for some strange and bizarre reason I seem to be busier than usual, I have a couple of photo shoots midweek and that never happens in January, my calendar seems to have things in for most weekends and if you are interested in having a photo shoot in Saltwell Park then I have availability on 17/1, if you would rather go with Jesmond Dene you'll find me there on 25/1, I have no current plans for Tynemouth Longsands but if you do want to take advantage of the gorgeous winter light then get in touch and I'm sure I can brave the cold for an hour or 2.  Remember that photo shoots at all 3 of those locations are only £25.

I've been trying to come up with all of those important goals I need to motivate me during this year, I know for instance that I want to do much more writing as it fits in with my working life really well and I don't have to particularly go anywhere to do it.

Oh and about the UK Cityscapes project, it kind of took a back seat when my marriage fell apart and I still feel for the most part that I don't want to be away from my kids or indeed Holly but I've been formulating a plan over the Christmas holidays and Looby and I are going to continue and where possible we'll stay in dog friendly hotels and take Holly too.  It does mean of course that it's going to take longer before the project reaches completion but I started the project and committed to it and so therefore I have to finish.  What I do know is that it's probably going to take another 3 years approximately, for 1 thing my income has fallen and my outgoings have risen due to being a single parent but complete it I will and hopefully no one will get there before I'm done!

So that's 2 goals and things which will motivate me this year, have you made any goals or do you have things you want to focus on, get in touch and let me know.

5 Life lessons I've learnt from my dog

I've thought for a long time how much easier life would be if we were like dogs, we go out, we sniff each other and then we're life long friends forever, sounds like a good plan to me!

Seriously though, there are some things which I've really learnt from my dog which can hopefully help me to be a better person and hopefully you too, we could all learn something from the furry ones we spend our lives with, not the cat creatures though, they just show the perfect model of ambivalence to everything although they do like to sit on the bed when you're poorly which is nice!

1. Be excited to see each other, I've never known anything like it when I have been away from home for an hour and she makes me feel like I haven't seen her in a year because she's just so happy and excited to see me again, I'm not suggesting that we all jump up and lick our friends when we see them but be so delighted that you make them feel really wanted.
2. Cuddle often, sometimes Holly will jump up and cuddle me and then she hops down and gets on with her own thing (usually eating the floor tiles or any wood she can get her beagle teething gums onto) but she comes to cuddle me often just to remind me that she loves me.
3. Forgiveness, I think dogs never bear grudges and I try to be forgiving but lets face it we can all get a little lost along the way so on January 1st I made my pledge to the universe that I forgave everyone who had every wronged me and my shoulders fell and relaxed instantly, I also forgave myself.
4. Be lovely to everyone!  Holly greets the world with love, pretty much every where she goes she wants to say hello to fellow dogs and humans and isn't that how we all should be?  We should have a cheery word or just a smile even when we are passing people on the street, after all a smile costs nothing!
5. Greet each new day with a smile!  Holly likes 8-10 hours of sleep a night, much like me really but when she wakes up at around 8.30/9am she hops on to my bed to say "Good Mowning, I love you mummee" she's a happy little thing and she greets the day with the expectation that each day is going to be the best day ever.

I'm sure there are other things we can learn from our canine friends and please do get in touch if you've been struck from any more life lessons, I mean after all, even o2 have been telling us to "Be more dog" for a while now!

Always Remember To Gallop...

So here we are on the 2nd of January dear reader and my house has been restored to non Christmas reality, well apart from burning a Christmas candle I just found and eating the Christmas cake I made and then promptly forgot about.

The year has gotten off to a great start really, Looby and I did a 10 mile round trip walk with Holly and our lovely friends Aggie, Alan and their kids and dog yesterday, in fact I think Holly has a walking hangover today, she's been the quietest beagle in the world, Iain took her out for a walk earlier and ended up carrying her because she refused to, well, walk!

I go back to work tomorrow with a sprinkling of photo shoots throughout the weekend and then Monday, I'm back at work proper with a ton of editing, admin and other such joyful tasks, I shall miss just getting up in the morning and then taking Holly out all day, I have no idea what we'll do actually as she favours a nice easy 9am getty up and a leisurely breakfast with an extra helping of cuddles from Looby before she'll even contemplate doing anything.

I've never been a big fan of January, the light levels suck and my SAD is usually at it's worst but I have to say for the first year in a long time I'm feeling ok in the SAD department, I think going out on big dog walks every day really does help more than taking vitamin D tablets ever could, it's also just a lovely thing to do, I love walking with Holly, a time to contemplate and I often chat to her on the way, i'm sure that makes me seem a little barmy to passers by but to be honest, they probably thought that anyway!

I think for this year (after watching Miranda and knowing we share a love of galloping, I thought that was just me) I need a necklace or bracelet with "Always remember to gallop" written on it.  I caught the last episode of Miranda last night and I have to admit that I had tears running down my cheeks at the end, I love that she finally got her happy ever after, I think the tears may have been my sadness that I didn't get mine too, well at least not this time anyway, I guess there's still time. 

One of my goals for 2015 is to write more and hopefully make more of an income from writing, I haven't exactly decided how I'm going to make that happen and one of my January goals is to work out that conundrum.

If you're not back at work until Monday why not take the time to think about your goals for the coming year, business or personal, you could even do what I've done and Join lovely Amy of Whiteacres' Goal Setting Collective, after all a group mind is better than a lone one!  You even get a free A2 wall planner and speaking of that, I need to dig mine out now that Christmas is cleared away and get it on my wall, 2015 is all about goals, making them, meeting them and hopefully smashing them!