Art.

I did something today that I haven't done in a long time. I dusted off my beautiful 35mm SLR Canon camera and realised how much i missed being a photographer.

For two years of my life I spent it working with my head in a sketch book dreaming up ideas of what i wanted to create. For a very brief moment there (well most of those two years) I doubted that becoming a journalist was what I wanted. For those of you who don't know me, my whole life the only thing I ever wanted to be was a journalist. Yet I took the 2year photography course because I didn't know what else to take and well because it seemed like an easy choice. Definitely not easy, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world. A world in which you can create exactly what you want.

There was nothing I loved more than taking my camera, going out, and taking photo's of anything that made me smile, made me frown, was ugly, or pretty etc. It was a way for my to express myself through the images I chose to take.
Whilst studying the subject a few of my favourite Photographers included Fashion Photographer Nick Knight whose work screamed high-end fashion with a pinch of fantasy. Dream-like if you will. And the work of David Lachapelle was mesmerising and enchanting. His work oozes colour and draws you away from your world and into his. His fake, crazy, insane work of art.

Whilst I adore being able to express myself through words, there's nothing quite like using an image to speak a million words. Because in alot of cases, images speak the words we are too afraid to say

I Love You

I Hate You

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

So Christmas is now officially over. It's not quite time to take the tinsel down and put away the tree but it is time to start thinking about what the next 12 months are going to be like.
Every year we make these ridiculous resolutions to ourselves and after a week (maybe a month tops) they've fallen to pieces. For me New Years is a time to reinvent yourself, with a good excuse as any to make decent and important changed to your life. It gives "A fresh start" a whole new meaning. This years going to be different to past ones. I'm not going to fool around with unachievable and insane resolutions.
My usual resolution list tends to include the following every year
* Vowing going to go to the gym twice a week
* Eating more healthily
* Not spend so much time on Facebook
You get my general flow, they're not exactly what i would call... meaningful!?
The past, maybe 4 months of my life, have been crazy, insane, eventful, exciting and disheartening. It all made me put my life into a different perspective and it's given me a different outlook on what i want from my life. Granted I'm 20 and how much can i really want from life right? But I'm a very emotional and impulsive person and that for one can make life more than a little interesting.

So this year there are just a few things on my to do list.
> I intend to take small steps to mend rifts in my past which affect my life now
> I want to let go of all the small things that upset me
> I'm going to take every opportunity that comes my way.

I believe in fate and destiny more than anything else. More importantly i believe in my destiny and that everything in my life happens for a reason. So this year I'm not going to force fate and predict my destiny. Because I've already learned... You rarely get anything you ask for.

Simply, In 2010, I'm going to let things happen

One moment in time

I've been neglecting you all. I'm so sorry
But I'm back, and goodness me what an eventful few months it's been. Or even an eventful few days.

As seasons change and pass me by i look at my life and ask myself where has it gone?

I really felt like I have learnt a lot about myself the past few months. Something has changed. The dynamic's of my life have shifted considerably and put things into a new perspective.
I had battles with friends when i was least expecting it, and I'm not going to lie, it threw me completely. I wondered for so long, how could someone who meant so much to me, just change and cut me out the way he did. Even now it's not the same. And it wont ever be the same again. I also wondered how one of my closest girlfriends could just disappear from my(or rather everyone) life for weeks on end without so much as a word. Was it something we did? Something we said? Or something you had to deal with alone?


I recently let someone go from my life. And it's so weird because i would have done anything to avoid it, yet it had to happen. He was someone i clicked with. Someone who made me smile and laugh, and I've not had that for a long time. I also want to thank him. Because without realising he taught me a lot about myself. I don't know how crazy its going to be... but i feel like... something, a chance has passed me by.

I dont know what has compelled me to write this today. I feel like something has changed and i cant quite put my finger on it.

I'm not sure if this blog has much sense. It's short and sweet but I just needed to write

Until next time my beauties, i shall be drinking myself into a merry state and enjoying the sweet vocals of Florence & the machine <3

My world. Your world. Our world

There are some things that you cant escape. Some things that you cannot run from. Some things that as much as you wish you could, you simply cannot change. If there's one thing in the world that I wish I could help towards its poverty.

Heal the world
Make it a better place

I do believe that I live through rose tinted glasses. I view the world in the way that I want to see it. For all its goodness and happiness and life. When in actual fact thats far from the reality of it.
Like you, coming from a developed country, I live in my little perfect bubble thats impenetrable from the outside. I never want for anything. If I want food, its put there on my place. If I want to wash, I just jump in the shower. If I need a drink its there in the tap. Yet take it all for granted. I know I do, but i've only started to realise just how blessed I really am.

For you and for me
And the entire human race

I've never been to a country crippled by aids. A place where there is no running water. A place where children are literally dying by the side of the road.
I cannot possibly imagine some of the horrors that Third World Countries must live through, and yet there we are complaining of our steak isn't cooked the right way. What sort of world is ours, if we cannot help pull others out from a place we would only describe as hell?

There are people dying
If you care enough for the living

Something I've always wanted to do is travel to a poverty stricken country and in some way no matter how small, do my part to make it that little bit better. To dig a well, to build a house, to take a bag of clothes, everything counts and I intend to include it in my plans. And whilst I'm unsure of when I can do that, in the mean time I donate £3 a week to Oxfam to make whatever change I can. Because that £12 can change the lives of an entire family. I'm also sure that I can deal with the fact that its one less night out a month.

Make a better place
For you and for me

I'm no preacher, thats not what I intended. I just believe that we should all open our eyes and not let the little things matter. To take off our rose tinted glasses and see the world the way it really is. As a place that needs help.

I left my heart... In the Highlands

'Where is your favourite place in the world?' My answer without hesitation, is Scotland. No matter where I'v been before, New York City, Jamaica, Africa, nowhere comes close to Scotland.
I've been coming to Scotland for... aslong as I can remember. Every holiday whether it be Christmas, Easter or Summer we would spend them in Scotland. Sitting on aeroplanes as early as two, looking for the care-bears hiding in the clouds, I remember it as if it were yesterday. Perhaps its because we (me and my two sisters) basically spent our childhood growing up here, that i feel so.... Patriotic about this country.

I'll start from the beginning. My mamma, Angie, was born and grew up in The Outer Hebrides, on a tiny little island called Eriskay. Having to learn English at school her first language is Gaelic. Talk about Scottish right? As one of nine children, i have aunties and one uncle a plenty! My mum was the only one to move South so natrually we have more than enough places to stay when we go to visit.

We would usually visit Edinburgh, were most of the family live, and it’s the one city in the world to make me feel so alive. A city bursting to the seams with character, the charming dated look of the city and the delightful accents are just a few features that contribute to this beautiful city. Every time I book my flights and I know im headed to Edinburgh I feel a surge of excitement I cant explain.

This holiday was different however. Just a stopover in Edinburgh provided us with just enough time to cram all the family into one afternoon (it was a miracle!). From there we hit the road and travelled north. And boy do I mean north. After travelling through ‘The Kingdom of Fife’ and ‘Perthshire’ we hit the Grampian Mountains, and I was hit by a view I had never in my short 20years seen before. The sprawling mountains into the distance, the hilltop houses standing alone in a field of wilderness, the sun setting into the distance, it actually for once, rendered me speechless. For I wondered how on earth I had never seen such natural beauty before. My book lay untouched next to me as I struggled to take my eyes off my surroundings. Little did I know what lay ahead waiting for me, for 1 hour north of Inverness we eventually reached Sutherland, our home for the next week. We had finally reached the Highlands. Here roads are not roads, they are little bendy lanes sprawling through the scenery, every corner you turn you come across a Loch, every second you are surrounded by cows and sheep (never in my life have I seen so many), everything about this place is different to the South. Everything is better.
From spending my days exploring Loch Ness (no, as hard as I looked I couldn’t find Nessie), to taking in the beautiful golden sands of hidden beaches and travelling to the most northern point of the United Kingdom (John O Groats) and taking the ferry out to The Orkney islands where we spotted the cutest seals in the world, everywhere I went I was fascinated. Pictures of these places just do not do it justice. You have to be here, to see it, to smell it, to really see its true beauty. The hidden waterfalls just a ten-minute walk from the cottage, the most beautiful little stream just outside my window, the baby Calves playing in the field across the stream, everything was perfect. I was even woken one morning by a cow moo-ing outside my window!
For me it was so exciting to experience this kind of life for a week. For I would never have realised it was here if it wasn’t for my mum bringing me.

The entire week has just made me fall even more in love with Scotland then I was before I left.
So there you go. Now you know my secret. That I am indeed having a secret love affair with Scotland and you know what? I don’t think its ever going to end.

Addiction

Sex? Drugs? Alcohol? Music? Sports? Work? Shopping? These are just a few of the countless addictions many battle with every single day. It's got me thinking, Whats my addiction? What do I feel so passionately about that I have to do or else I get all clamy and nervous about. It didn't take me long to figure out the answer. Writing. Whether its Blogging, writing an article, whenever I have a pen in my hand or I have to many thoughts I write.

There's a fine line between passion and addiction. What defines the difference? Surely you must be passionate about something you have an addiction for? Before I really thought about this I would have said I have a very deep passion for writing, and I do, but my addiction, its in me. My emotions, my thoughts, my dreams, my desires, for me its imperative to get them out into the world. I'm a very emotional person, very creative, very imaginative and its all reflected in my words and my writing.

But addictions can drive wedges and destroy lives. Addictions can kill, in the most tortured way, watching someone suffer at the hands of fate and a person not having the self control to control their addiction.
You would never take a pen away from a writer, take a guitar off a musician, take a football off a football player, take a boat from a sailor. So I often wonder why we justify taking a drink off an alcoholic? I don't in anyway condone Alcoholism, its just merely a question I wonder when put into this certain context.

My Writing makes me feel excited. My mind overflows with ideas, creativity seeps through every inch of my skin, and my fingers tingle when touching the keypad on my computer, I feel completely on top of the world because more than anything, I'm completely satisfied with what I'm doing. Am I weird? Or would you say that you have similar experiences to your addiction?
I feel incredibly blessed to be able to write as a career, because if I couldn't, I honestly havn't got a clue what I would do. I mean, I cant shop for a living can I?

I ask you, what do you feel most passionately about that borders on addiction? What couldn't you live without?

Sexy in the City

We despise them, we loathe them, we love them, we hate them, were amazed by them and we want revenge on them. Yes I'm talking of a game between sexes which is becoming just as much about women as it is about men.
The game? Cheating!
What makes a cheater? Is it right to have a passionate love affair? Can a cheater make a relationship stronger?
It often makes you wonder, when did cheating more about love and less about sex. For at least half of everybody who cheats claims 'but I fell in love', and perhaps some of them did.
Sex is everywhere. Every club you walk into. Every corner you turn. For now every innocent drink you buy for someone, the game is raised, and nobody even cares 'if you are already spoken for?'.
If you think about it, there's a significant difference between one night stands and a full blown love affair outside of your committed relationship. On all levels its hard to forgive if they continue to go back for more.
I've had the unfortunate experience of being hurt in this way myself. But lucky for me it's always a deal breaker. If you cheat, you get out. That's the way I see it, but for those in real long term relationships, for those engaged or even more so, for those married and with children, theres a lot more at stake, and a hell of a lot more to lose.

A question I have in the back of my mind is, can cheating make a relationship stronger? Could it make you sit down and re-evaluate the relationship and find out whats going wrong, whats missing, and where it can go from here. Perhaps it doesn't always mean over, maybe it means stronger?
However in some shape or form, a hurt lover always wants revenge. Either that or they believe karma comes back around. Because in this world nobody gets nothing for free.

Men, Women, Lovers, Partners, Husbands, Wives, Children, Brothers, Sisters, Parents are so often caught in webs of lies which threaten to blow apart lives.
The next time you cheat, dont think about getting your rocks off. Think about the heartbreak your causing at that exact moment you slip between the sheets.