Welcome to Summer...

Sitting on my bed working dear reader, the light is dim and the central heating is whirring in the background, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm actually writing this during the month of November but heck, no, it's blooming June, flaming June, bright and sunny June....

My new lovely hair thanks to my amazing friend Steve, Looby calls him Stylist Steve, I think he's got magic haircutting fingers.

These last few weeks have offered many challenges and I ended up with an enforced weekend off due to less than perfect weather conditions.  I wonder if it's because I've not been shooting so many weddings this year, usually June is glorious unlike August, statistically the wettest month of the year, one can only dread what's going to happen this year if even June is letting us down!  So here's the thing, the rest of the week looks quite quiet and then on Saturday I have 2 portrait photo shoots, a 3 hour wedding and a 2 hour ruby wedding anniversary party to photograph and then Sunday I have more portraits, Monday I have portraits, this continues right up until Looby breaks up and we have our summer holidays, weather, you have a couple of days to get your act together and then you must let the sun shine through, the clouds must disappear and all of the fine rain which sticks to your clothes and skin must kindly stop for around 9 weeks, in fact actually if it was just nice until around Christmas Eve that would be perfect.  Oh heck, now look what it's made me do, I've just made my first mention of that C word, forgive my kitchen French and lets say no more about it....

Holly with horns, there's a scary thought!

Moving swiftly on and I have to say that apart from the weather related incidents life is pretty good at the moment, it's a gentle pace and I won't win any prizes for my rockstar lifestyle but I'm pretty content and happy and so are the kids and the menagerie I seem to cultivate.

Holly continues to be the laziest beagle in the world, yesterday she decided to get up at lunchtime, we went to Morpeth for lunch to celebrate my 8th Business birthday and as it was raining she went once around the town centre before deciding she'd had enough.  This morning I coaxed her out of bed at half ten but just to get her down the stairs took more effort than it should, she's definitely a teenager now!

So, 3 weeks on Friday and we're off to Edinburgh, Iain is delighted to get rid of us for a couple of weeks, we bought our rail tickets but we didn't buy returns because we don't know where we're going to go for the second week but to be honest I don't really care, as long as there's Looby, Holly and I I'm going to be delighted.

Looby goes to St Marys for 2 days next week and she's dreading it, she still says she doesn't want to ever leave Benton Park and I do know how she feels, when Looby leaves I'll have been a parent at that school for 15 years, it really does feel like the end of an era and the jury is still out on who's going to cry more, her or me!  Every time I think of my youngest child reaching the point of going to secondary school I feel strange, the completion of a life stage I suppose and those early days when all 3 of them were small and the days and nights seemed endless from lack of sleep and I guess I had moments where I wished them to be older, we all do that don't we on the bad days?  If I could stop time for a while right now and have the ability to enjoy some of the best days over and over I'd jump at the chance, I know time travel might not be within my grasp but at least I have the ability to remember the moments through photographs I've taken and those are the things I cherish whilst still leaving enough room in my memory and on wall for cherished moments and adventures yet to come. This last year more than any other has taught me to press record in my mind of the best days so I can replay them to myself on the not so bright days and then if you can recapture that feeling of joy you experienced then, well then you have the ability to always be happy and smile even on the darkest, dullest, and stormiest of June November days.