The Family Hat….

(The above image is courtesy of my lovely friend Stu of Cooper Photography 2015…yup..we need an updated one!)

Hello 2017! Goodness, haven’t I been a naughty little monkey, not writing blog at all this year? I can’t believe it’s nearing the end of March!  This has turned out to be a long blog….you might want to grab a cuppa…

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, well, I’ve been spending the last few months focussing – almost solely – on my family. The end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 was a bit of a rollercoaster if I’m honest….some of it seems a total blur…but the moment the Consultant entered the cubicle and told us that they had found, what looked like, a tumour in my fella’s lung is still crystal clear. The look on her face, my clammy hands, the edge of the bed digging into my leg; I think I let out an uneasy sort of a laugh, I was thinking ‘don’t be daft, look at him, he’s a picture of health!’….but their faces said it all. So, whilst he endured multiple hospital visits, tests and scans, I waited; stared at pages of magazines, read waiting-room statistics and Googled ‘Lung Tumours’…which I regretted immediately. In just a few weeks, with Christmas sandwiched in the middle, he was back in Hospital for his operation. It was all new to me, sitting and waiting whilst someone you love is operated on….it’s awful. Even with a lovely friend texting to keep me company whilst I waited for my Mum to join my puzzle-book marathon, the minutes dragged horribly. Fortunately, he was home soon enough and aside from a scary re-admittance with an infection, he has been recovering amazingly and I swear that 2 months on from the Op, you’d not have a clue what he’d been through….unless you happen to challenge him to some kind of cardio workout…it turns out that Lungs take a while to repair. I still can’t decide if I’m ridiculously proud or utterly mortified that with a good chunk of lung missing, he’s still fitter than I am.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, partly because it bothers me that there’s been a huge lapse in my blog but also because it’s kind of cathartic….after all, I’ve learnt a lot these past months! I’ve learnt a lot about Cancer and a lot about Hospitals. I learnt that new friendships are just as amazing as old ones and that support comes from the most unexpected places and from further and wider than you can imagine. I learnt a new kind of patience and I discovered a whole lot about myself. Deep huh? BUT, most importantly for me, I learnt the importance of being present, both in my own life and in the lives of the ones I love. As far as I was aware, running my own business meant constantly working crazy hours, constantly thinking about work and constantly feeling guilty….I loved what I was doing but when I was with my family, I felt guilty that I was thinking about work and when I was at work, I felt guilty that I wasn’t with my family! Sometimes months would slide by without talking to friends….I felt like a full on friendship failure.

In those few weeks when my fella and the children really needed me, I dropped everything and put them first; and, in spite of the rough time we were going through, I realised, with absolute clarity, that I never wanted to feel guilty for giving them my attention ever again. Now I see that running my own business means being able to CHOOSE when I work crazy hours and when I say ‘I’m having the weekend off.’ Yes, sometimes I am going to choose to work late into the night and at the weekend because I LOVE my job and I LOVE my clients but I’m also going to remember that I can choose to stop and enjoy time with my loved ones. In short, there’s no denying that owning and running a business alongside having a family means wearing a LOT of different hats but never again am I going to forget to wear the most important one – The Family Hat.

And, on the subject of family, here’s a little of what I’ve been up to!  Photographing families, being a goon, making people giggle for great pictures, running backwards and squeaking with excitement when I catch a moment that fills me with joy.