~all change...~

so...

here i am...

after a years break from blogging....

i was walking down from my kitchen and thought of my living 'my little life' and realized i needed to blog...

so here i am...sitting in my bed with a bucket of good strong yorkshire tea, still not using upper-case....i am sorry life is too short!

my life has changed a lot since my last post...

i am still with my NS i am glad to say and our relationship is stronger and more secure than ever. he has become more settled, open and after a couple of very, very rocky moments he finally...finally realized that i am not like the women who have become before-i am not out to lie, cheat and abuse him

also, please meet Arthur-i took him in as an illegal lodger who was living on the cobbles and fed by my neighbour and then myself, and i brought him with me when i moved to live out a splendid retirement in the country.

i am nearing the end of my classical studies degree-this time next year it will all be over. right now i am in revison mode with an exam in june and i am already in panic mode, feeling i know nothing...less than nothing! but already i am thinking of doing my masters with the utmost in support from NS. its a lot to think about which i will be doing over the next year while i finish my degree.

the biggest thing...well two things really...is that i moved from my home by the sea in february...at imolc actually which felt so perfect.

i only moved about 7 miles but it feels like a million miles. i am now back within the boundaries of the new forest national park, still only a few miles from my family home, living in, what i call 'splendid isolation'

i am not totally isolated, but close. 

i now live in a small village with a strong history to the witches of the new forest in a little cottage that was once a one up, one down to the groom who looked after the working horses of the farm here...the stables are still next door but now home to my neighbour and her cat.

best of all i have a garden, a little patio and a shed and...off road, private parking so i will no longer have my beloved car vandalised.

 the french doors lead to a small cosy living room and i wish you could see the patio now...

 the kitchen is up a short flight of steep, narrow stairs and the floor has the oldest and longest oak boards i have ever seen

 i was finally able to plant out my welsh rowan

 oh, did i mention the woodburner?!

the first weekend i put in a feeder and now get...robins, sparrows, blue tits, great tits, gold finches, jackdaws, dunnocks, starlings,  wood pigeons, magpies, the occasional nut hatch and rooks and also wood mice, shrews and bank voles

and oh my but i am happy.

my old flat became awful...the almost constant noise from the art gallery downstairs, noise late at night on the cobbles, noise and smell from the salon, it didn't feel like home and the final straw was just before Christmas i caught my landlady coming down from my flat after using my bathroom...within two weeks both NS and i were looking for my new home.

i didn't hold out much hope of finding anywhere and so was a little half hearted then one morning NS sent me a link to a small, independent letting agent and this cottage had literally been listed only an hour earlier. so i launched an email campaign, suddenly the cottage was listed as let so then phoned only to be offered the chance to view the next day.

i was one of four people who viewed it and after a very anxious week i was offered it because 'they knew i would stay and love it'

two weeks later i was in,,,the same day going down with flu

there then followed the very rocky time with my NS

but it passed

so here i sit, in my little bedroom, drinking tea, hearing nothing but bird song and the classical music from my radio, Arthur is fast asleep on the end of the bed...and i just realized with all this catch up i went off track from what i originally wanted to write...

~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...

~soul mate?~

my gosh but do i love this man

how is it possible...really possible to know that this one person is your soul mate?

how does it feel as if i have known him forever?

in my 51 years i have had two long term, serious relationships but nothing has prepared me for this.

from the turbulence of the final days of my old relationship, a relationship that had descended into the mere friendship, and in the final year or two not even that, i find myself today happy, content and deeply in love.

but maybe love isn't the right word, it doesn't adequately describe how i feel about my North Star...can i find the right word, the right single word? 

i am not sure that single word can possibly exist

i can only describe my feelings in single words or sentences that drift into my mind~even trying to write it down is difficult. in my mind its like a cloud of words and phrases and emotions, all jumbled together in one lovely mass.

i sit here in my cosy little bedroom, hearing the sounds of life down on the cobbles three floors below me and as i often do, i have my phone by my side, the screen taken up with my love, looking happy, sitting on a big red Harley motorcycle. 

yes he is the stereotypical biker/trucker...nearly, but not quite...

yes he has the whole long hair, beard, tattoos, piercing thing, he drives a huge 18 wheeled articulated truck Monday to Friday, sleeping in it when he has exhausted his allowed driving hours each day, he comes from a highly dysfunctional, abusive family from a poor area, he is poorly educated and his language would make a dockers toes curl, and yet...

and yet...

he loves animals, he loves classical music, he loves dressing smartly and always looks immaculate, he loves shopping and vintage items, i am slowly bypassing my old vegetarian ways and taking a vegan path and he is following me~happily, openly, finding joy in the food i cook us at the weekend.

this man has slowly opened up the previously private parts of his life~meeting his two daughters after they kept asking to meet me and meeting his eldest brother which was the biggest, final hurdle.

he has let me fully into his life and i have allowed him into mine.

and yet

love still doesn't adequately describe us

he has become my all, my everything

he completes me

it is as if my whole life has led me to this man and this time

that i have finally met the person i have always meant to be with

~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.

~time~

where does the time go? 

how has it been since my last post all these days~weeks have drifted away?

how easy it is to let the time drift away like leaves in a slowly moving stream and forget...

of course not everything is forgotten...

i sit here, tucked under my covers in bed, up in the roof of my old home overlooking the cobbles, my hand curled around my second mug of tea, Classic FM, as usual, coming from my radio. its just getting light and the sky over the old town quay is dark grey and full of rain.

time passes quickly in my new life. 

i have been here for nearly a year now and my life has its weekly routine of work, shopping, housework, my studies and taking my mum out and about. in the evenings its all about cooking and getting myself settled down with a book and my ever present radio.

my weekends are all about my tramper.

my beautiful, blue eyed, rough voiced, truck driving boy

we have just passed through the most difficult week of our 14 month relationship, when it had reached the stage of perfection i could have only dreamed of a year ago. we spent the most wonderful nine days together over yule and on new years eve in the space of a couple of hours it went from perfection to him nearly ending it and last week we barely spoke.

i wont go into it now, the hurt is still there but slowly fading for both of us and please don't think badly of him for he did not betray me nor i him.

i was distraught although sent him my usual messages so he knew i was still here and committed to him, i ate very little and by Friday was looking dreadful and struggling to hold the tears at bay.

By that evening i was heartbroken and went to bed in tears having convinced myself it was all over~within ten minutes my phone rang and in the next 20 hours it rang another six times and each time we talked and slowly started to laugh again. in the day following we spoke again twice and made arrangements for next weekend. 

so we survived~despite everything we still missed each other and love has won.

while i never doubted i wanted the relationship to survive he needed time to think and i feel joy that he chose to fight for us and not just give up as an easy option.

yes~our relationship had become perfection and see what he bought me for Christmas...

meet Babette

he knew i have had three previously and thought how suited i am to them...we drove all the way to Suffolk for her, a 440 mile round trip.

so we have had our first, serious blip in our relationship and survived

~loving~

loving 

such a small word

such a word to be easily used with no meaning

or misunderstood

in reality a huge, complex beastie that can equally tear the heart apart and bring fathoms of joy all in one day

i love my tramper

i love him unreservedly

i didn't go looking for love

but i found it in him

i imagine some other woman meeting this man would have walked away or caused him to walk away months ago

he is complex, very complex

he has a difficult history, a victim of child abuse, life spent in children's homes, reform school when the authorities didn't know what to do with him, a step father who 'encouraged' the older brothers to take him out and fight him, two failed marriages, one at 19, where both women openly cheated on him.

he knows of the abuse perpetrated on his older siblings but he can only remember violence perpetrated against him, although after nearly a year with this man i have picked up on odd little things that make me wonder if the abuse was more and he has it effectively blocked. 

he admitted that he has been keeping a wall between us but last weekend, after a lovely day spent together I finally asked if the wall was still there

'what do you think?'

'we both want the same things'

this 'Markism' means, no, the wall is coming down

its taking time, its slow, but its coming down, tiny piece by tiny piece.

I have, against my nature, been deliberately keeping this relationship slow, not rushing, not demanding, not pushing.

I need him to know that not all women are the same. That I am different.

I know he trusts me now, it took months for him to trust, but he does.

On a few occasions his guard has dropped and he has said he loves me. When I say a few , I can count the times on one hand but at the same time I know he does by other means or the way he will look at me.

Last night we had FaceTime and at the end of the call he said 'well i better let you go' but instead of ending the call he sat there a if he wanted to say something else, I could almost hear the words forming in his mind, hiding behind his lips, his eyes. Then he smiled and laughed and said goodnight.

I know what words were behind this, I could feel them, hear them whispering to me, almost taste the words he was holding onto.

*****

when I think of his past it breaks my heart.

he has a photo he keeps out of him meeting the boxer Henry Cooper when he was about 14. In order to deal with the beatings he got from his three older brothers he took up martial arts and I think this photo has something to do with it. Looking at the picture of this young Mark, I think of all he had gone though by this time and I could weep.

Early in our relationship he kept telling me that I should be with someone more educated and when he knew he was going to meet my Dad he asked if he would be disappointed that I was not with an educated man. I explained its not the education that makes the man for me and my Dad wants me to be with someone who makes me happy, whether they are educated or not. It took some months but he finally stopped asking these questions~he finally realised that he is the man I want in my life.

Finally, after meeting two brothers and their partners, I knew he was serious when I finally, in the summer, met his youngest daughter and her partner and his adopted daughter...he brought them up as a single parent and loves these two girls so very much and I think he had to be sure of me before meeting them and a few weeks ago he told me that his youngest has told him that she is glad he has met me. 

Trust

this damaged man trusts me with everything and you could say that this is his way of saying he loves me

~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

~demons #2~

I have had a weekend of two halves

the good and the just plain horrific

Saturday was good, I kept myself busy, went to the market for food, went for a walk and had a cup of tea looking out over the Solent and a slow walk back home. I sat reading and listening to music and mark phoned late afternoon and we spoke for maybe two hours or more and then messaged each other.

during the course of the conversation, I cant even remember what we were talking about, he said that we were not a couple.

he said something similar when we drove home from Scotland, saying he didn't believe in the whole 'boyfriend/girlfriend' thing and that we should enjoy whatever it is we have between us without rushing to give it a label.

since then however I have noticed that when he talks of me to other people he calls me his girlfriend...

I can understand his reasoning, he has a fear of being hurt and of the loss of his independence but to be honest the comment on Saturday  threw me a little and even though throughout the conversation he spoke of our plans for the summer...going camping in his new motorhome, returning to Scotland and of our 'relationship' I went to bed feeling sad.

something in me wanted just a small bit of commitment, just a tiny little label.

I woke up on Sunday with my anxiety levels through the roof and tears threatening to fall. I sent him my usual good morning message and settled in for a morning in bed, drinking tea, reading, listening to classic fm and eating toast.

finally the tears started

the hours rolled on

the tears continued

no message came in from him

the tears continued

I managed to step on and break my favourite vintage plate encouraging more tears to flow

I sent a message to P asking to talk later

P messaged back saying he would phone later

the tears dried up

sadness settled in side by side with my anxiety

P phoned...

P naturally knows about M and we spoke about the situation and his feelings and while he admits to feeling horribly jealous he is actually fine with the situation. we both know we have too much history, too much of a connection for anything to destroy it.

oh my but did he make so much sense.

he made me realise I have absolutely no foundation for thinking M is in anyway trying to back out of the relationship and despite not calling us a couple everything that he does and talks about with me signifies that we are in a serious, committed relationship while at the same time allowing us both to be our own independent selves.

that we do not need to place any kind of label on our relationship.

early on he told his family about me, his brothers and daughters all know about me. I met one brother and sister in law on our first 'date' and even went to their home over boxing day, his work mates know about me and he has enlisted them on several occasions to take photos of him by his truck to send me, he bought me beautiful dm boots, after several nights staying in his motorhome where I took my own crockery and mug he keeps it in his in his motorhome saying 'this might as well be kept here' and after his first visit to my flat left behind his shower gel in my bathroom and pyjamas (so I could wear them!) he messages me to say he is missing me, has told me decorating the interior of his new motorhome is my job and he has said in a very quiet voice on a few occasions that he loves me.

he has even been and had a piercing, 'my ring' to mirror one of my own because he said he wanted some connection between us.

P also said that I still need to find me, that after being in a long relationship where I experienced so much unhappiness I need to continue to find myself and that could take time.

that's exactly what M has said to me too. To suddenly be free after 17 years, the real me won't suddenly appear. I have to work at being me, at being a single person again, to finding my own path through life.

P and I ended our call and when I looked at my phone there were two messages from M waiting for me...apologising for not being in touch, saying he is missing me lots...later during the message conversation he sent me a link to a motorhome he wants to buy and I passed the comment that it had a ladder to the top so we could watch the night sky, something we had discussed previously 

he just said

'I did promise'

~a love story~

so much has changed since my last post here

my life has followed some tangled webs and I have shed many, many tears but finally come out the other end.

~September-October~

I went to Scotland in mid-September for 16 days to stay with my dad while my step-mum was visiting my step-brother in Australia. while there P slowly started to increasingly withdraw from any online contact and I figured that he was having problems and hiding himself away.

during that time I realised that while there was the strong connection that we both acknowledge existed between us was too much 'baggage', way too much baggage for either of us to cope with having such a physical distance between us.
one day I walked up into the hills behind my dads home and wept the whole way, really wept, I felt bereft because I finally realised I was chasing something that I honestly felt would never happen, that I could not just wait and wait, watching my life pass me by, possibly for nothing.
I reached the top of the hill, sat on a high dry stone wall and still I wept...wept for what could have been, for the dream of an 'us' that would never happen.
when I walked back down that hill some hours later, freezing cold and wrung out of tears I felt strong and brave. ready to move on from my dream into reality.


~November~

from almost out of nowhere came M.
my friend T suggested that I 'put myself out there' on an online dating site, I was honestly unsure and suspicious, but I registered...even now I don't know why I did it.
then one day a photograph came up of a serious, bearded man, with absolutely no information on his profile, unlike my essay that was horribly honest...probably to put men off me.

but there was something about this picture that drew me, I wrote and discarded four messages to him before actually sending one and I didn't think I would hear anything back once he read my profile. however the next night, the 12th November, I was sitting reading when he messaged me, we spoke for a short while then he went off and I was sure I would hear nothing more. but the next day he appeared again and again I was sure I would never hear back from him, his way of messaging appeared very abrupt almost awkward. But again the next day he returned, then again the next day, then again the next day...
seven days later in a fit of anxiety about whether he even liked me I sent him a long message explaining I liked him, that I hoped he wasn't just being polite in talking to me but included my mobile phone number.
I sent it and immediately panicked and spent the whole day in a tangle of emotions, convinced I had scared him off.
that night my phone rang and I answered, not thinking and a voice went 'hello punkwitch'...my nickname I took after shedding the name solsticedreamer (that in itself is another story for another day) and it was him saying thank you for the message and how beautiful and honest he found it.


10th of January 2017...

not a day has passed since the 12th November that we have not messaged each other...
on the 26th November we spent the day and evening together and I met his brother and sister in law.
the phone calls started and we spend hours talking.
on the weekend of the 10th of December we had our first weekend together
On boxing day he came, with a gift of a beautiful pair of blue DM boots, and stayed with me for three days
New Years Eve we drove up to Scotland so he could meet my dad and step-mum. he explained he was 'old school' and it was out of respect for my dad because he was seeing his daughter.
we spent New Years Eve sleeping in his motorhome on the shores of Clatteringshaws Loch in the Galloway Dark Sky Park.
the following Friday and Saturday, in the space of 24 hours, we spoke on the phone for ten hours

we are planning holidays in the summer to Cornwall and Scotland
we are planning to visit a canal boat festival because his ultimate aim is to buy and live on a canal boat and he has already spoken about this life event with me being in it with him.

this man,
this burly, bearded man with tattoos and pony tail, who lives in a big Mercedes motorhome and spends his week days driving a massive 44 ton truck around the country has without doubt become the complete and utter love of my life.
he is handsome, with glorious bright blue eyes, a beautiful smile and is kind, sweet, funny, generous

but it is more than that, much more than that
he once messaged saying
'have we known each other forever?'
it feels that way, it feels he has become part of my very soul, part of the essence of my being


21st February...

my M is still part of my life, and becoming a bigger part of my life every day that passes.
we still message every single day, talk on the phone when we don't see each other at weekends...but importantly we are able to see each other more at weekends and this is my new story...