Ticking Boxes.

It's been a while!

I've met someone.

I'd given up on meeting anyone to share my life with and was starting to accept that my life could be just as fulfilled and happy whilst on my own... and then I met M.

He has turned my life upside down.  There are so many things about him that are perfect for me.  I don't especially buy in to the whole- there is one perfect person for people, or that there are people out there made for each other... however, with M so much feels right.

For a start, he is a Pirate.  Well, not quite, but he works as a navigator at sea for five weeks at a time and he manages a crew of staff on board.

He works out.  He used to play rugby.  He has amazing shoulders and has the nicest, kindest eyes I have ever seen.  He likes rock music; he knows Eddies (my rock club).  He is caring and treats me like I actually mean something. He is intelligent, successful and grounded.  He is a gentleman, and he is the first real man I have met who is willing to actually earn my affections.

After our first proper date, he went out to sea.  We spoke every day for five weeks while he was away and we just find things to talk about.  It just falls into place.  When he came home, we had a day at the zoo (we both love animals); he took me to an amazing Michelin star restaurant in Birmingham which is just the best, most incredible meal I have ever had in my life.  He took me to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for an amazing performance of Otherllo and he also crossed off one of my bucket list items by organizing a trip to Gruyere in Switzerland where the HR Giger museum is.  It was MIND-BLOWING.  Such a place of beauty being up in the mountains; fresh, crisp air, chocolate, cheese and just the best company I could have asked for.  It was just a perfect weekend.  We even had a huge storm on the first night for which we donned our rain macs and went and sat up in the castle grounds of Gruyere and watched the lightening lighting up the whole sky, mountains and valleys.  We were both in awe of it.  Gruyere was home to these amazing, rare little humming bird moths which I had great fun trying to photograph.  I managed to get an awesome photo of one too, which I am chuffed with.  We spent an afternoon in the perfectly decorated Giger Bar drinking cocktails, Absynthe and hot chocolate with meringues and cream ( a Swiss special) and loved every minute.  It feels right.  Finally.

After an amazing weekend, we spent Tuesday in Lincoln where M's new boat is moored.  It was great to see him so happy and smiling... and we're using the Marina as a neutral place for him to meet my folks next weekend before he heads back off-shore for his next five week tour of duty.

For the first time in a long long time- I may have finally found someone worthy of my heart and trust and love.

Happy :-)

Ahoy Me Hearties!

On Friday I set my Out Of Office notice for a whole week off:  One of the small treasures of the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

I have the same week off most years, work permitting in order to use up the last of my annual leave before the end of March and also to avoid any trace of menial work on my birthday!

On Saturday the flat was decorated with Palm trees, parrots, pirate coins and candles.  Sails and rope, lots of flags and lanterns; even some pirate cupcakes adorned the treasure chest laden table! Friends donned fancy dress for a Pirate themed birthday party.  Cocktails were made, Rum flowed, Lanterns were set to soar into the night, two hilarious games of Ring Of Fire were played and a good night was had by all. Much love to everyone who came and made it such a great night. :) 

Just proves that no matter how old I get, I can still act like a great big kid and reaffirm my inner Pirate.

I have much planned for my week off.  My birthday is being celebrated on five different days this year so it's not a bad way to see in my thirties!! Today was kicked off with hangover breakfast pancakes at a nearby Creperie, then after tidying up the flat from last night's festivites and catching up on some sleep, I was treated to a nice family birthday meal at The Whittington Arms.  I repeated the same mistake I made a year or so ago when I ordered a prawn dish in there; forgetting once more that they come WHOLE. Shells, Legs, Eyes, Heads, Tentacle-y bits.  WHOLE.  And covered in sweet chilli sauce.  By the time I had finished it was scene of pure prawn massacre.  Carcasses, tentacles, disembowled shells, heads, countless legs.  Oh god.. the legs.  Thank god for the finger bowl and napkins! Still, a lovely time was had by all and it was nice to have all the immediate family (in England anyway) around a dinner table again.

So that's the weekend gone already!  I have a brilliant week off planned.  H has treated me to a spa day so my birthday celebrations day three kicks off tomorrow with some sort of Yoga class, then food, then a facial and a massage to top it all off.  Just what I need.

Tuesday is my actual birthday and I'm dead excited to be carrying on reliving my childhood by being taken to the Harry Potter Studios in Watford. Wednesday I have a free day, and then Thursday I'm back on the birthday train for a last and final farewell to my birthday week with a cocktail and curry with work colleagues!  Sunday I will be off to Nottingham to see family for Mothers Day... and wo betide, before I know it it'll be back to work and into April!!! Thankfully I already have the first weekend booked off for a mystery trip to an unknown location!

All I can say is...

 

Semi-Charmed Kinda Life.

One of my earliest memories is of me spending hours looking at my Mum's charm bracelet. I remember it as a big, chunky, treasure of silver which used to jangle a lot.  I would love looking at all the tiny details on each individual charm and hearing my Mum tell me the story behind it- where the charm was bought and for what occasion.  Some of the charms opened- she was bought a little church one when she got married, which opened to reveal a tiny little silver bride and groom inside.  I loved it- and it still sits in my Mum's jewellery box.  It's full of stories and memories, and paints a picture of my Mum's personality and life in tiny little silver pendants.

 

I was bought a charm bracelet for my 20th birthday and it was soon filled with little charms that summed me up perfectly.  It's a beautiful thing and whilst I don't wear it often in fear of losing some of them, I would be devastated if I ever lost it.  I love that it is unique to me, the places I've been, the things I love and find funny.  There's a little camera, artist pallet and handcuffs (bought before I joined the Police I might add!); there's also a spider on a web to mark my insane fear of spiders and a pumpkin containing a tiny mouse, because of my love for Halloween and Tim Burton.  There's a squirrel (Uni chums will get this), a graduation charm, a pirate flag, a chequered flag for my love of motor racing and a little Shakespeare as people who know me well know I love Stratford Upon Avon on a sunny day in Summer.  There are charms from the Peaks, Lakes and Cornwall denoting some of my favourite places in the UK. There is also a butterfly- a symbol for something that only about three people in my life know about.  My old bracelet is shown below in the first two pictures.

 

 

My charm bracelet has been full up for about five years.  While my Mum's was filled slowly over many years, mine was filled in about five, such is my love for completing things I've started!

However, this year for my thirtieth, my work colleagues clubbed together to get me a new charm bracelet- one of the new Pandora charm bracelets, shown in contrast in the last picture. 
The style of these bracelets are far more commercial and slightly less unique; Pandora shops are all the same, carrying the same stock and there's no little pirate ships or pumpkins- the old style charms you can pick up from quirky little jewellers and you can always find ones you've never seen before, even now, if you know where to look. I actually love that I've been bought a new one to start a new chapter.  Perhaps this one will be filled more steadily, and while the charms may be slightly less unique, each one will have a meaning as to when they were bought, by whom etc.  More subtle maybe, more understated as I guess my thirties may be- and that's no bad thing either!

Here's to a new chapter of charms.  :)

Dream.

It's been a long time since I blogged about a dream I've had... I don't think I sleep well enough to remember most dreams I have these days... or should that be nights.

Last night I dreamt that Abu Hamza got moved to Walsall and this meant I had to do loads of work around him to pass on to my team.  Then during my lunch break I went out and bought loads of hair bobbles and earrings with pirate symbols on them.  It wasn't clear if the fact that Abu Hamza has a hook for one hand was the link between the two events, though I suspect it might have been.

Wierd.

Slink Inked.

So last Monday, I paid someone some of my hard earned squids to stick an inky needle in my back. Loads. It hurt at times but I'm really pleased with the result. I was even commended on my bravery by two of the tatooists... especially for a first timer like me, but credit has to be given to my good friend Mark for coming with me for support and talking to me for an hour to keep my mind off things.



It's healing nicely and I have to go back in 3 weeks to have a check up and a touch up if required. Woop.

The Pirate Investigation.

So I think I want to be a Pirate.

Lets look at the evidence:









Exhibit A. A selection of my clothes... ALL containing skull and cross bones.












Exhibit B. The pair of shoes I just bought... sporting a Pirate symbol.














Exhibit C. *dribble*











Exhibit D. A screen shot of my current desktop complete with a Pirate Hat adorned Mr Boyd.


and lastly, Exhibit E...













Pirate Slink... fancy dress party 2005 complete with sword, stripey socks, eye patch and bandana.

I don't know where this obsession has come from, neither do I know if you can call it an obsession if I haven't been completely aware of it. However, it's not just me- this phenomenon has seemingly spread to my younger sister Vix (see below), who also informed me today she was has been invited to a Pirate Party!














This all prompted me to ask the question: Where has this Pirate obsession come from?

I have delved deep into my childhood to discover the answers, and here are my findings:

Okay. My first thought turned to this ---------------------->

Pop-Up Pirate, the game that many of us had when we were small I'm sure. It seemed this was to be merely my first encounter with the my Pirate Destiny.
I believe this game belonged to my older brother who also spent many an hour playing with Pirate lego, Pirate playmobile and so on. I must have been pretty much surrounded by pirates as a child so this was bound to have a long lasting effect on me.

Here's my brother when he was little, possibly about 8 or 9 years old... look closely at his clothing. Stripes, a scarf, belt with big buckle and a parrot on his T-shirt... blatantly Pirate. (Thank god he's in Japan, he'd kill me if he saw this). He also owned a Pirate ship which I think is still in the attic somewhere. My first piece of evidence was in the form of a photograph of Drayton Manor Theme Park... the photo plainly showed the Pirate Adventure ride- which happened to be my favorite at the time... mainly because I was way too small for most of the other rides and I pretty much hate anything that moves faster than I can think- no jokes about my brain speed please. I remember many a holiday to Cornwall. Hell, we still go there now, and I think we all hold it in our hearts as our family holiday destination. Cornwall, aside from being a holiday destination famous for pasties, piskies and cream teas, is also famous for Pirates. Lots of them, and a quick internet search will pick up many a tale and legend.

As I trawled through lots of family photographs spanning over some 20 odd years I should think, I found a pattern emerging. On most holidays, my family were able to track down large galleon sailing ships! My dad does have a fascination with boats so I think that explains it- but just how many photographs I found of these damn galleons was incredible, and now I too have seem to get drawn to these big ships when I see them. I even took a photograph of one last holiday in a place called Charlestown- another famous Pirate place.

So, even our family holidays were tinged with Pirate activity, visiting Pirate locations and playing on galleons. Look on the left and you'll see my brother playing with a cannon aboard one ship.

On the right here, my poor father experiences Pirate torture as my brother and I develop our blood thirst at a young age.

My little sister was born in 1989, and even years after these photos were taken, our family holidays were still including visits to sailing ships- possibly to train up the new Pirate in our midst. In the picture below, my sister could be no older than three and yet she finds herself at the helm of another Galleon. Incredible.

To Conclude:

Wether or not my family has REAL Pirate blood running through our veins is yet to be proven, but the overwhelming evidence suggests that it's a trait that we won't escape.

Holidays were tainted with Pirate activity, spending more than average amounts of time on large galleons and sailing ships. Echoes of this at home seeped into our lives playing with Pirate games, wearing Pirate clothes (in my brothers case) and playing with Pirate themed toys. The visiting of Pirate heritage still occurs on family holidays today.

It seems the Pirate instinct has lain dormant for some time and has gradually been re-awoken. Unable to pull away from the magnetism of the Skull and Crossbones symbol, The Jolly Roger has crept into my families wardrobe, decor and right into the core of our being.

It really is no wonder I just HAD to buy those shoes.