Boy Child Portraits - More Reluctant Models

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This is going to be fun. Truely, if you just look happy in front of the camera for a few shots, we can go home. Really, this is fun. Maybe we can get you a treat on the way home. How about extra game time. This is getting tiring. Are you certain you don't want to loose your iPad privelages? We are losing patience. OK, your iPad has gone for the week.

A typical day around here! Hey, I remember saying the exact same things to my own child a few years back whilst tears ran down his face! I think we did ok. Actually, the boys were very sweet, albeit shy!







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The Love Story Part 6 - The Sydney Arrival

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As diffused morning rays filter through my bedroom window, I stretch luxuriously, prise my eyes open and swipe my phone awake. I smile contentedly as I am greeted with a cheery, "Good morning, Nina. Sleep well? He will arrive today. I caress the space beside me. The time zone difference has been excruciating. It will be a relief to have him here waking up by my side. Sleep has evaded me often over the past seven months. I was restless thinking about what he was up to and only truly relaxed when I knew he was asleep. I caught myself glancing at my watch, calculating the time difference, pondering his whereabouts. Right now, he should be on the train into London to meet his daughter for breakfast at Dishoom or, this afternoon he'll be with his brothers bellowing expletives at a Charlton game. It's a tribal thing. The author of my anxiety was the disbelief that this love at first sight fairytale was actually playing out. This fantastical adventure was indeed happening to me. ...
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The Love Story Part 1 - A Chance Meeting.

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We met through friends and the attraction was instant. A tingling sensation aroused from its sleeping hibernation. A burgeoning sexual energy combined with a sense of knowing that together we would be compatible in every sense. He would quieten my uneasiness and I would feel safe. I would be the spark to his humdrum, the wisdom to his healing. He was recently separated, and I was a few years down the track after my own split and divorce. A horrific affair that ended up with lawyers and court hearings for over 5 years. It was an abusive marriage that lasted over twenty years and I was happy to be out of it. I had become a person that I no longer liked. Through it, my self-esteem around relationships had taken a battering. I had been on a few dates and quite frankly, was exhausted by the entire process. So you can imagine the exhilaration when this lovely man reciprocated my attention. He was safe too because he was an old classmate of my girlfriend's husband. I didn't have to do...
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The Love Story Part 7 - Our Adventure Begins

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NO, NO, NO!!! How can this be happening? How can I be rejected with such casual abandon? For the very first time in my entire life, I have allowed myself to be open and vulnerable, and now I have been shunned. At breakfast, I ask him what is going on for him and all he offers me is... "I didn't think you'd come away with me otherwise."  Right here. Right now. This is my chance to change the trajectory of my life. Should I ask him to leave and head off to New Zealand alone or should I carry on with the trip together in the hope that things will change? I decide to cling to the belief that this is only a fleeting setback. A momentary panic. I just don't want to let go. I refuse to believe that after over a year of messaging and calls and what I thought was our deep connection, our beautiful friendship, this could be it. We have our little love escape coming up. Maybe things will change for him. I should have paid heed to the weather as a prediction of how things wer...
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Zombie Meets Indulgent Sufferers - My recent stay in hospital.

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I arrived at the Emergency Room, wrapped in my toasty blanket. Despite it being 28° outside of my furry throw rug, it was closer to 40°C inside my body, so it felt freezing to me. I slowly moved through the doors like the walking dead emerging from a post-apocalyptic horror scene. The admin nurse took one look at me and bade me sit in the red priority chairs, whilst I waited for my triage nurse to finish her tea. I lowered myself tentatively and, unable to remain upright, lay shivering across all three chairs. The nurse arrived abruptly and suggested emphatically, before she had examined me, that I had Rhinovirus.  I explained to her that, as Rhino = nose and my nasal passages were decidedly clear and my brain decidedly lucid that I begged to differ. She replied, “What do you mean by lucid?”  I pretended that the roll of my eyes was due to the fever and briefly explained lucidity as the opposite of brain fog, then went on to relay my actual symptoms. Above-normal temperature, ...
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The Love Story Part 11 - The Final Breakdown

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"When Twin Flames meet there is a powerful recognition followed by an overwhelming intensity, as a forceful magnetism, draws the two parts of the same soul together.  A constant pull toward each other to reunite." We are inexplicably drawn to each other like dazzled-eyed moths to a fiery flame. As our messaging and conversations resume, we find new ways to bond. One morning on my regular walk in the National Park, I happen upon a pair of Superb Fairy Wren snuggling on a fallen log. Unperturbed by my presence, I continue to watch them. Observing them takes me out of my head and stops me from thinking about how alone I feel and how much I miss him. I resolve to use being present and birdwatching combined to set me on a path of healing. I take it one step further by bringing my camera along to record my journey. A journey along which, he becomes a willing companion. _________💙__________ "Your job as a twin flame is not to focus on your twin but to focus on healing yourself...
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The Love Story - The Final Word

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THE FINAL WORD Present: As I prepare for my return trip to London, I flick through upcoming walks on Meetup hoping I might join one during my stay, when I come across a picture of him from a recent event. A woman, his latest girlfriend I suspect, leans into him smiling contentedly. She seems happy. He looks mildly distressed and lost in contemplation. I suspect he needs to tell her something but he is too afraid. He’s done it again. The Parisian Doctor and I didn’t work out. We did go for lunch and it was all very exciting but I don’t think I was quite ready and there was that niggling feeling that I was being catfished. After Paris, we met up a few more times for walks and drinks where he persistently asked me about “the Doctor”.  I wondered whether it was jealousy or zealousness to have me attached so that I might make a trajectory out of his orbit. I think the latter. Sipping Pinot Grigio at Gordon’s wine bar near Charing Cross station one afternoon, he confessed that ...
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The Love Story Part 2 - He Is My Destiny

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The Love Story Part 9 - Tell Me What Your Heart Wants...

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