~catch up~

So again I leave a long gap between posts, when i had vowed to myself to start my old school blogging on a regular basis.

since my last post my North Star and i took ten days off of work and took ourselves and our 'new' RV off to Cornwall. we had a few days camped up between Boscastle and Tintagel, walking the Cornish Coastal path to get to both. Then we re-located closer to home-a site in forest only a few miles from my home. but it could have been a hundred miles away.
we felt so happy there we extended our stay twice-only returning to our lives the day before we were due back to work.

we had one hard day-actually one hard hour, on the day we left Cornwall. we were having ongoing mechanical problems with the RV and a small hiccup just got the better of him. my response was to stay calm, start packing to leave and tea.
oh the tea-the source of all problem-solving.

I made two cups, went out and silently handed him his cup and took mine to the top of the cliff overlooking the wild cliff and sea and the start of the walk through Rocky Valley. I slowly sipped my tea, let the tears fall and then said my goodbye and went back up to find NS.
I did and he took my hand, looking tearful and apologised for his behaviour and asked me not to cry.

An hour later we stopped off down the road to find coffee and he asked, almost sounding like a little boy, totally unsure, if I still wanted to continue our holiday-of course I did and I am glad I did.

I would post some photos but as I am using my little notebook for this I have no photos~and I am sure most of you reading this are either from IG or FB then you have already seen them!

we spend every weekend together and recently I have been dropping him off at his truck on sunday then driving home. I always put in my earphones for the hour drive back home so I a have a good sing-as I left NS said 'be careful sweetheart-I will ring you in half an hour' true enough my music was cut into and this voice went 'you 'aw'right then?' we had a brief chat and he then said 'I will phone you in half an hour'...half an hour later my phone went just as I was leaving the motorway and he said 'text me as soon as you are home'

this man breaks my heart-not literally, not in a dreadful way but if I find myself dwelling on his past, I feel my heart break. Little things pop out that remind me of his dreadful past, sometimes he will talk about it. things he has told me before but I feel if he needs to talk about it again then I will listen-even if he tells me it a hundred times, I will listen and respond, if it helps him.

i had an almost idyllic childhood, brought up free in the new forest, family holidays, things bought for me, encouraged and loved-to hear of a childhood where you were not wanted, were never given baths or clean clothes, were beaten and taken out of the family home is beyond my comprehension...

~notes from a sick bed~

So here i sit

i have been unwell for a few weeks and with the appearance of a rash and my own personal lightbulb moment of 'shingles' i find myself having to take a high dose anti-viral every four hours and have taken the decision to stay home from work for a couple of days.

so in true hygge fashion i have made my little attic bedroom a little cosy haven for the next two days-plumped up my pillows, laid out my quilt and favourite blanket. my radio is playing the ever present Classic FM, my lamp is casting a cosy glow and through the slightly open window i can hear the old, hanging shop signs swinging in the breeze that is coming up the river from the Solent, half a mile away and in the lull between songs and chatter i can hear the wind blowing through the rigging of the ever present yachts and fishing boats. 

i know i will actually become board with this enforced rest, i am used to busy days and i argued with myself about staying home-but i know that, this being my second bout of shingles in about 6 months i need to be realistic and look after myself.

i am still smiling from a beautiful weekend with my North Star~once again we camped out in Big Bertha at Keyhaven Marshes...

this is without doubt our favourite  place to camp outside of Glastonbury. While it is only a few miles from my home on the old town quay it feels as if we are miles away and we adore it whatever the weather.

it is here that we find we can open up and talk honestly about our relationship-not being able to hide behind text, email or the phone. 

he is finally opening up about why it has taken him so long to really open up and settle into our relationship and to be honest it was of no surprise to me~the two appalling marriages made him totally untrusting of women and the eight years he spent alone, combined with his solitary job made him happy...well maybe not happy, but comfortable being alone.

and then i happened

this weekend, as we approach our 17th month together, he told me that what won him over was my patience with him, that i didn't rush or try to push him into being a couple~that we went at his pace, the pace that made him comfortable and he was slowly able to trust me...

~when tears are good~

when i first met Mark, i would cry when leaving him for another week

i would literally be in tears before i reached the end of the lane and cry on and off the whole 50 minutes it takes to get home.

then it stopped...of course i missed him...but i felt secure enough that i no longer cried.

then last weekend, after three wonderful weekends together i found myself crying again.

i think...no, i know the healing we went through after our two weeks apart has only strengthened our relationship. last weekend we returned to keyhaven marshes for the weekend. the first time we had been back since our blip had me driving away only half an hour before the new year.

we both admitted we felt anxious about it, as if the place could only hold bad memories and negative energies.

we made a point of burning white sage to purify and cleanse us, the motorhome and the general area of negative energies and i truly believe it worked.

we had the most perfect weekend, the weather was shocking, heavy rain, howling gales but we were cosy inside, talking , laughing, listening to music and watching films. in the morning we went to our favourite cliff top cafe and had breakfast and then our separate ways. usually i would have followed him back to his lane near Wickham but Babette had failed her MOT and i wasn't happy driving her down the motorway and home again alone.

but his last words to me were 'i will phone you later...' he then followed me down the road, beeping his horn as i turned off to the old town quay

and did he phone?

he did...of course he did.

and i now get two maybe three calls a day from him

when i think back to the man i first met and the man he has now become my heart just bursts.

while he is not the kind of man to be overly affectionate in public, i know...i only have to look into his eyes to see the love he holds inside and how much he has changed for the good.

~the wheel turns~

so its imbolc

a turning of the great wheel of the year

everything is waking up, the days getting longer and lighter...its not overly noticeable but its happening.

in my tiny flower bed in my old flagstone courtyard there are green spikes pushing up through the earth and a few tiny snowdrops showing their faces to the cold.

here on the cobbles its a bitterly cold day with a good wind blowing up river off the Solent and working its way along the cobbles. i am squeezing in a mug of tea before i have to change out of my comfy clothes and return to work...only for two hours but i am increasingly unhappy at having to drag myself out at 4pm and getting back around 6.30.

so, a few weeks have passed from my last post and my heart is full of the joy that is my relationship with my North Star.

i find myself smiling...smiling a lot...something i rarely did in my old relationship.

the first weekend after our 'blip' and what Mark calls our 'first argument' started a little awkwardly and i was not surprised, but it only took a few hours together to return to how we were. we went vintage shopping and visited S and S in their new little home. I stayed over and cooked dinner for us before making my way home down the motorway.

from that point i started to get 2-3 phone calls a day from him and i could feel the difference in him.

the second weekend, we again stayed in the motorhome near Wickham and it was at this point he finally, honestly, admitted his feelings for me, saying he thought he would never love again...

i know...

right?

this man, this beautiful man, so damaged by an appalling upbringing and two horrible marriages was finally able to put voice to his feelings and open up. i had to ask just one question

why now? after so long?

his reply

because i trust you

~when two becomes one~

I am back at my little old quay eyrie after two weeks travelling around with my tramper , spending time in Glastonbury, on the Kennet and Avon canal and at our new bolthole in Keyhaven, only a few miles from my home.

i would love to say it was all sunshine and roses but it was far from that~putting two independent people together in a motorhome 24-7 for the first time was hard.
very hard
on a couple of occasions I was close to coming home...yes really!
because of serious issues from his childhood, combined with trust issues from his adult life he has problems with anxiety, change, commitment and a whole host of other things I can only really guess at and so mark found some things difficult. I picked up on this and so gave him space when I was able...setting up my deckchair outside and reading with tea, or walking myself into Glastonbury from the campsite.
He has told me that when he is being moody its because of him, not me or us...just him and I trust him in this. he is the kind of man who, if something isn't working, he will walk. he hasn't walked and we survived an almost difficult two weeks where I did nearly walk. But I refuse to give up on him because of his problems while at the same time I refuse to just lay down and take it.
This is a revelation to me and shows me how much I have grown, how independent I have become...that I can acknowledge my control over my life and to refuse to hang on to something that isn't working.
Luckily it is working and I hope given time the trust he says he has in me will develop and he will feel able to start to break down the barriers he has built around him and that we both know we got through the two weeks without actually walking away from the relationship I think will help strengthen our bond.


Today I am home.
I had the opportunity to go into Fareham today with Mark but chose to come home and get myself settled and will possibly join him later back in Keyhaven...he has fallen in love with this area and has decided that it is where he is going to park up at weekends with Big Bertha.

I have to say its lovely being back home, in my own space, with my belongings around me.
I unpacked, sorted washing and went out to buy the essentials, bought my usual latte from Drifters, here on the cobbles and been listening to my usual classic fm.

I am in autumn/winter nesting mode now, I have brought down some blankets from upstairs to lay over my seats....a red and white wool blanket with Nordic style patterns and a vintage Welsh blanket in greens and blues, I have candles burning in my Victorian cast iron fire place, incense burning and lamps on rather than the main light. Voices are still coming up from the cobbles and rain is starting to fall...we have been told to expect some wild weather tonight and tomorrow as the tail end of the hurricane is coming in.

~the other*North Star~

of course I couldn't update my blog without talking about Mark

the man who I call my 

North Star

yes, he is still in my life, more strongly than when I last posted about him being in my life.

my anxiety about our relationship has eased a great deal. When I first met him he told me that being with a tramper is hard...

hang on, some of you may not know what a tramper is...

a tramper is English slang for a long distance lorry driver who will sleep in their truck.

My love has been a tramper for about 25 years, he drives a 44 tonne, six axel, 18 wheeled truck Monday to Friday, driving from port to port delivering shipping containers full of goodness knows what, eating and sleeping in his truck where he has a bed, fridge, microwave.

its a solitary existence, regulated by strict time constraints, although new telephone technology means he is able to talk with his fellow trucker friends during the long journeys. At the end of the day he will either have parked up on an industrial estate or in a lay-by for the night and either fall straight asleep or watch something on his iPad that I will have downloaded for him at the weekend...this week he is onto season two of Game of Throne!

so yes, he told me at the beginning that being with a tramper is hard...and oh my it is.

we rarely speak on the phone during the week, relying on messages on our phones or the odd email, when he forwards me something. So much depends on the frequency of our daily messages...how busy he is, how tired he is at the end of a day, some days its such that he just needs quiet time and I may get nothing more than one or two messages.

Months ago that would have sent my anxiety levels through the roof...as my previous post has shown. These days I know better. we have spoken about it, of his need for quiet time for whatever reason and he reassured me that its nothing to do with me or us...he just needs some time.

But our relationship is thriving and strong

since I last wrote about our life I have met one of his other brothers and his girlfriend, on their canal boat. we have been there twice, sleeping in Big Bertha and spending the day on the canal. More importantly I have met both his daughters, not because I asked to meet them, I didn't want to push him, but because he felt it was time, he wanted us to meet each other. This it is how its been...I let him lead the way when it is comfortable for him. He has many barriers built up around him, has trust issues because of being badly hurt, it takes time for him to trust, this is why I follow his path.

My North Star

one of our favourite times is when we have our tea and toast in bed, either here or in Big Bertha, we sit and talk, joke and hold hands

this rough, gruff, tattooed tramper, with language to make a dockers hair curl, with his long hair and beard, whose beautiful blue eyes and smile gives his true soul away, who has vowed to be faithful and true to me...I love him so very much