My Soul is Scottish

The perfect place!

There was no set plan for this holiday; just a need to get away. So today on a whim, I decided to drive out to a little gift shop in Goleen. The same crazy, winding roads and an hour later I ended up in the village of Goleen.

Turns out where Google maps had pinned the gift shop was actually a coffee shop so stopped in for coffee and the most sublime coffee cake I’ve ever tasted. Cost next to nothing, which continues to blow my mind and I parked off in a window seat with a book. Half the village must have stopped in for coffee and everyone seemed to know everyone else. I love people-watching in places like that. Turns out the coffee shop is also the post office, which closed for lunch while I was there. The lady sat behind me and I asked her about the gift shop. Turns out the post office was also the gift shop until last week but she’d be happy to call the lady if there was anything particular I was looking for.

A few people came in and dropped off letters and cash while the post office was closed and while I was finishing up my coffee, the mobile library van pulled up outside and a few people sorted out their literary needs for the next few weeks. This tiny village is exactly how I imagine my dream life. Sitting in the coffee shop, catching up with friends, reading a book and a mobile library is just a cherry on the cake.

The post office lady suggested I drive to Mizen Head, which is the most southwestern tip of Ireland and she pointed me in the general direction. I stopped at the corner shop for a drink and there were 2 people in line waiting to pay. No-one behind the till. The owner was apparently out doing a delivery and ‘would be back at some point’, so we all just waited patiently. That would never work here. That shop would be empty by the time she returned. But there it made perfect sense. The 2 guys were catching up on each other’s news while we waited and the lady eventually came back in, no hurry, and attended to her customers. I frikking love it!

Mizen Head was windy as all hell but there was a gift shop and I’m now the proud owner of 2 more books. Yes, I’m sure it’s a disease and no, I don’t care. Sitting watching the ocean crashing into the point was therapeutic. I’ve missed the ocean so much. Listening to the surf and watching the waves made me realize just how much I’ve missed it. It’s driven home how much I crave the simpler things, like how life goes on in that little village. Quite, unhurried, simple. Sometimes you don’t know what you need until it’s put right in front of your face for you to look at.

These little guys were just posing for photos outside the gift shop

Driving home I followed the mobile library van for a bit then turned off back to Kilcrohane. There was a little burial ground along the road, so I stopped. The grass was completely saturated so left my shoes at the gate and headed in barefoot. The ground between the head and foot stones was raised; it’s as if the ground never settled over the bodies resting below. I spent a bit of time there, just walking among the stones, some of which have been there for centuries. What stories lie untold under them? I always wonder…

The names on the stones had all faded but the ground never settled over these graves

Timoleague Abbey Ruins

I’ve been waking up at 10am since I’ve arrived. Madness…. feels like I’ve slept half the day away. I didn’t have anything planned for this trip, other than R&R, so on a whim, took a drive to Timoleague to see the abbey ruins. Another white-knuckle drive and stopped for fuel along the way. I went to pump petrol and this elderly gentlemen insisted on pumping it for me. He gave me directions to Timoleague, told me to stay in Ireland, then went on his merry way.

The abbey is in the middle of a tiny village, where the only thing that was open was the corner shop. There is a preschool opposite the abbey and I had the ruins to myself. Old and new graves fill in the nooks and crannies in the abbey, along with more graves outside the walls. One grave dates back to 1603. I sat next to that one for a while, having a one-sided conversation with Eoin. His headstone is written in Gaelic and is incredibly well-preserved. Others are way more recent and haven’t fared as well.

I walked around all the graves, and one of the little kids at the school saw me and yelled GRAVE ROBBER. I had to laugh even though he was very serious about his accusation, even going so far as to call his teacher to inform her of the goings on in the cemetery. Given there were signs around warning against the hazards of grave digging, maybe he was right to be so mad about it.

There was a headstone for a Gaelic authoress and this is her story.

The doorways and arches are around 5ft so you need to duck to get through them.

I’d initially planned to stop at a castle on the way home but I spent more time than expected at the abbey, so the castle can wait until some other time.

Drombeg Stone Circle

After breakfast I headed out to the stone circle at Drombeg. It was another white-knuckle drive off the beaten track, down 1 lane country roads but I got there eventually. Slight ding to the front of the car swerving to avoid a crazy woman who didn’t slow down to pass but thank the pope, I took the all-inclusive insurance, so we’re good.

There were a few people there when I arrived, but they left soon enough so had the place to myself for a bit. I can usually feel the energy of a place but oddly, I didn’t have any feelings at this place. It’s still beautiful but it lacked the energy I would have expected from a stone circle.

Water hole that was used to cook food. Water was heated by adding rocks from the fire which would bring the water to boiling in about 18 minutes.

Water flows into the pit from a little stream to the left

Standing at the altar stone looking back at the portal stones

View from the top of the hill of the full circle

The little stream flowing under the rocks into the water hole

After Drombeg, I drove back to Kilcrohane and passed a sign for a burial ground, way off the beaten track. When Google maps goes offline, then you know you’re off the grid. The cemetery was next to some chapel ruins and there was a car parked there. Met an old man in the cemetery and he said in all the years he’s been going there to see his people, he’s never met a living soul. We chatted for a while and he told me that once a year on 1 November, they have prayers there for the dead. The place was completely overgrown.

Irish graves don’t list date of birth, only date of death, which is odd. Apparently that’s how it’s done here. Date of death and age but no birth date. What a lovely guy. He told me to stay in Ireland, find an Irish farmer and move here. Well, if you happen to have a spare one of those lying about, please let me know!

I stayed for a while longer and walked around. I find the dead make infinitely more sense than the living. They only speak when there’s something important to say. In one of the walls in the ruins, was a little gap filled with coins. Not sure what the reason is for that, but I like it. Most of the headstones were faded to the point where the names are illegible so said hi and moved on.

Nature is claiming back the life that rests here.

Little pile of coins in the walls of the ruins

Chapel ruins almost completely overgrown. I didn’t even notice the church until the old man pointed it out.

Took a drive down to the point. With the fog rolling in it felt like I was driving through the clouds, along the winding one lane roads. Thankfully there was a coffee shop at the end of the road so had a cup of tea and some scones with jam and cream. The little Irish lady was sitting there, working on her sewing and we got to chatting. She told me find an Irish farmer and stay. Forget the rat race. Twice in the same day…. two strangers. Same message. Co-incidence?

The point at Sheep’s Head peninsula. The fog was rolling in so stopped at a little coffee shop for tea and scones. Delicious!

Ireland 2017

I arrived Saturday totally exhausted after a full day working on Friday, an overnight flight and a 5 hour drive. Tra Ruimm is way off the beaten track. Kilcrohane is the nearest village and there is literally nothing around here. Just green fields, heather-covered hills, cows and 1 lane roads made for 2 way traffic.

The roads are about a lane and a half wide; some places just a lane. Speed limit is between 80 – 100 kph but as the farmer who owns the cottage pointed out, it’s a maximum, not a target! I found religion on those tiny corners!

Saturday night was bar none, the best nap I’ve had in years! For the first time in years, I slept without earplugs because other than crickets, it was total silence. No cars, no honking, no sirens, planes, people or life to be heard. Pure heaven! THIS is how I imagine my life. So far off the grid that Google maps goes offline, the internet signal is dodgy, the people all know each other, the village shop is open when it’s open, closed when it’s closed and the nearest town for fuel is about 40 kms away, along with the decent-sized grocery store.

Today I took a walk down the hill to the coast, past cows and through mud. The walk UP the hill was another story altogether. Oooof I’m unfit for hills! The views are just gorgeous and the solitude and silence has restored my balance in a way I’d only hoped it would. Last night the farmer’s wife popped in with a bag of breakfast ingredients. What an angel! The best bacon and sausages I’ve had in years, fresh eggs, some milk and white pudding, which I hadn’t had before. Was a bit skeptical about the white pudding but it’s always good to try new things. Holy cow, YUM!!! I’ve already hit up Google to find where to buy it when I get back stateside. I’ll probably have cholesterol when I get back but I really can’t find a damn to give about that.

Irish coffee has been the first order of business every morning so will be ramming my luggage full of proper coffee before I leave.

When you just need to pull the plug on it all

Another pile of paperwork has been flung into the void in an attempt to get my name updated in all the official places. When I opted to change my name last year, it was to ditch all the baggage that was tied to it. All the misery and heartbreak that came wrapped up in that name. It never once occurred to me that trying to be more myself would be such a barrier to living the life I want in the place I need to be.

Had I known that going back to Scotland would have meant keeping a name I hated, which would I have chosen? Every week that passes makes it harder to believe I’ll ever get home. I used to share my dream with my family and friends and one by one, most of them have told me to let it go. So the dream goes back in the box when I’m around them, while I paste a plastic smile on my face pretending it doesn’t matter. To the 4 people who are helping me keep the faith, I love you guys to death and you’ll never know how much it means that you still believe in me.

It’s at the point now where I need to choose where to spend my energy. I can spend it on fighting for the what-feels-like-the-impossible dream, or I can spend it around people who drain my will to keep going. So to the people who have constantly told me to ‘let it go’, I will. I’m letting go of being your shoulder, your sounding board, the repository of your secrets and drama. I’m letting go of endlessly nursing your broken dreams and moving my energy back into nursing my own. While it might sound brutal, it’s very necessary. If it can’t be a two-way street, then it can’t be a street at all.

So before you give someone some well-meaning advice advising them to give up something that matters to them, take a minute to consider how it would feel if someone told you to abandon your dreams. If it doesn’t feel good hearing it, then it sure won’t sound good saying it.

This is for H-town.

It’s midnight and sleep is just a pipe dream at this point. Houston is being pounded into the ground and there isn’t a damn thing to be done about it.

Meanwhile, life goes on. The odd prayer is flung into the void, and then everyone is back to posting pictures of what they had for dinner; another post about who went to the gym and what times they posted, as if anyone really gives a shit; another cute picture of a dwarf pygmy goat bunny unicorn; and another request of ‘if you’re really my friend, you’ll share this.’

Sure, donate to this, that and the other charity to help Texas, but it doesn’t all go to aid, does it? Nope. Charity CEO’s are pulling in 6 & 7 figure salaries with all the bells and whistles when people are up to their eyeballs in flood water. Yes, there are charities out there helping, but how much more could be done if cash wasn’t being siphoned off to hefty corporate salaries? Yes, people need to be paid, but if you’re a charity, then maybe a bit more giving and a little less taking? No?

People are suffering, clinging onto what’s left of their homes, barely sleeping or eating because every iota of energy is going into surviving the carnage and for the rest of the world, this is just a blip on their social media feed. Sure, a like here, sad face there, offer a prayer up somewhere else, and then it’s back to scrolling through duck pictures and getting into meaningless arguments with people they’ve never met about stuff that probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things and posting supposedly funny memes about the devastation. Have a fucking heart! This isn’t some funny meme. People have died. There are probably some who won’t see another sunrise. Others have lost everything. How many won’t have habitable homes for months to come, while still trying to find a way to get to their jobs and keep life moving forward while their sanity circles the drain.

Every day people are opening their homes to people in need, sharing what little they have with strangers, while corporate greed just marches on uninterrupted with token gestures of sympathy. Human spirit will always win in the end. Greed be damned.

Sitting comfortably thousands of miles away from people who matter has never felt more bleak than it does tonight. There’s nothing to be said or done that can ease their burden in this moment. Being in a comfy bed with nothing to stress about feels heartless when so many are literally struggling to stay afloat at Nature’s whim with no idea where they’ll be sleeping in the days and weeks to come.

Tia, hang in there. This will end. It has to. And at some point, all will be normal again. I only wish that point was tonight and this was all over. They make ’em tough in Texas. xx

Digging for diamonds in a field of clichés

I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to life is hidden in plain sight in the clichés that we groan at every time we hear them. It’s a bit like getting the same advice over and over but choosing to ignore it because you’ve heard it all before and you still have no intention of taking it.

There are many clichés that point in the same direction, yet seem unrelated. Maybe that’s just a matter of interpretation. What about ‘old habits die hard’, and ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’? How do we customize old fashioned advice to work in a modern world?

Old habits die hard is truer than gravity. Ask anyone who has tried to quit sugar or smoking and they’ll dislocate their heads nodding in agreement, while munching that smoked cupcake. The feel-good factor of destructive habits is hard to argue with. There’s nothing quite like an icing-laden cupcake when you’re having a shit day or a cigarette to take the edge off a stressful situation. There’s a pile of science behind why we choose things we know aren’t good for us, but I’m not a scientist and not in the mood to paste someone else’s research into this spot. Trust me, there’s science and it’s legit.

Humans are generally creatures of habit. There are opposing arguments on whether that’s a good thing or not. It’s good in the sense that in a world of endless options, having a routine or habit eliminates the need to make decisions and as a result, it saves time in our increasingly busy lives. Not having to decide what’s for breakfast out of the endless options out there saves time in the mornings while trying to juggle getting ready for work, feeding the cat and getting kids ready for school. That’s the plus side.

The flip side of the argument is that we live on auto-pilot and miss out on new experiences for the sake of convenience. Life is boring when you eat the same thing every time you look at a menu. It takes the spice out of life. Not to mention, if your habit includes a bottle of whisky a day, that shit will eventually kill you.

The question is, are you willing to look at your habits? Driving the same route to work, or sitting in the same seat on the train every day are hardly life-altering habits but what about the rest of it? The habits that hold you back in life and the habits that take you in the opposite direction to the life you wish you were living; what about those? You envision a life of serenity where you do yoga all day but you’re sitting on the sofa watching endless reruns of the news showcasing the world’s misery and mayhem.

Before we go down that rabbit hole, think about this: everything in life is a choice. Seriously. Everything. I can already hear the collective groan of everyone disagreeing with that but think about it. Yes, you hate your job and you apparently have no choice, you have to do it. No, Buttercup, you don’t have to do anything of the sort. You have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to poop; everything else is optional. You CHOOSE your prison, every single day. You could just as easily choose to never work another day in your life but the consequence of that choice isn’t something you can live with. What you’re choosing every day is a consequence. The consequence is the money you’re earning doing what you do, or not earning money. Plain and simple. So you do have a choice. You can choose a healthy meal or you can choose a quadruple bacon deep fried cheeseburger with cheesy fries, a super-sized soda and a dozen cupcakes. Good health or a heart attack on a plate with side order of diabetes. Your choice.

The trouble with our default choices is that they’re familiar. We know what they feel like and know what to expect. Yes, we feel like a sack of poo after inhaling a monster-sized, grease-laden meal but at least that’s familiar, right? It’s an acceptable trade-off for the dopamine hit we got when we ate it. Sure, we’ll regret it later when our clothes no longer fit and we’re out of breath walking up 10 stairs but that’s ok because cuppycakes will make us feel happy again.

Choosing something familiar doesn’t involve risk or effort. We’ve chosen the same thing so often, our brains no longer look for other options and our train stops at the same station every time. Picking something else requires effort and maybe a small amount of risk. What if we don’t like the lemon and herb chicken?? What then? We know we like lasagna so why mess with a good thing? No-one likes change. Sure, the first time you had lasagna was a risk. You were brave and it paid off but what if your luck runs out this time and the new option is awful? I mean, luck has to run out sometime, right? This could be that time!

Anyone living in the United States knows that something as simple as ordering breakfast is a complete mine-field involving 18 decisions in a single transaction. Successfully navigating that mine-field once means that’s going to be the go-to map for that decision forevermore. That’s how we are.

Most of us know what we don’t want so let’s start there. If you know you hate your job, then what habits do you have that keep you doing it? Is there something small that could become a habit that could get you moving in a different direction? You come home and park in front of the TV every night. Could you maybe join a group or take a free online class in something you’re interested in? Maybe you hate working in finance and would rather be a chef. Could you teach yourself to cook? There are enough tutorials on YouTube covering every conceivable topic known to man.

You hate being overweight but you stay indoors all day. Go outside, walk around the block, then pick up your mail on the way back in. You have to go to the grocery store, so how about grabbing items on opposite sides of the store? Grab one item in the veg section, then head across to the meat section way over on the other side. Then pick up the next item next to the veg section then the next item from the aisle closest to the meat, etc. Take the most circuitous route around a place you have to go to. 2 birds, one stone and all that clichéd junk.

It takes a level of toughness to break a limiting habit. To change your life, you need to break the habits that hold you back. A life you don’t want is a tough life, so when that life gets tough, GET GOING. The only people who change their lives are the ones who can muster up the guts to try something different. A habit doesn’t have to be huge to be life-altering; it simply needs to be in line with the life you’re trying to create. Small steps in the right direction get you to where you need to go. Yes, the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step blah blah. One thing to remember is starting a new empowering habit is all good and well, but if you’re maintaining an opposing bad habit, then you’re just going 1 step forward and 2 steps back, which is the equivalent of farting against thunder. Totally pointless. You cannot break a bad habit if you keep going back to it.

Look at any highway on the planet and you’ll notice that any attraction worth seeing has multiple signs pointing the way to it. If something is worth a detour, the signs will start popping up miles before the turn-off comes up. When there are that many clichés pointing in the same direction it’s time to take notice. Your dream life is that upcoming attraction so look at the old faded clichéd sign and decide. Are you taking the exit or not?

40 was a good vintage

Turning 40 terrified me. Hell, I had a wobbly when I turned 39! While the popular saying goes ‘life begins at 40,’ it’s probably more accurate to say life changes at 40. Mine changed more than I could ever have imagined it would in 12 short months.

.I stopped waiting for the right time to begin living.

I bought my first home. I shelved needing a Prince Charming to rescue me and became my own hero. It’s probably the single biggest thing I’ve done that makes me feel like a legit grown up. A sanctuary just for me and I love it! It reflects who I am and I don’t need to make any excuses for my taste in weird music and eclectic art and decor. Finally a room just for my books!

I tackled a mini ‘renovation’ – that’s the technical term for the complete disaster that gutted my home. Now it looks fab and WAY better than it did before. It’s more suited to what I need and like.

I sold my first photograph. Someone out there paid money for something I made! Not a lot of money, but that’s not the point. I put my art out there and sold something. YAY!

My first book has begun; it’s coming out of my head slowly and becoming a reality, one page at a time. How long that will take remains to be seen.

Yoga. FINALLY! 20 years of having it near the top of every.single.list and it’s finally happened. It took a long time to realize that waiting until I had a better body before I could start, was both stupid and a complete waste of time. Yoga means starting where you are, now, with what you have. It’s your journey; no 2 yogis will live the same journey and waiting for life to be perfect and the time to be just right is futile. Take time to care for yourself and your body will give you what you need.

Meditation – DO IT. Seriously.

Instead of burying myself under shapeless sweaters, I’ve worn a dress almost every day since turning 40. Dresses make me happy yet I spent years wearing black pants every day. Well enough of that BS, the pants got tossed so now I couldn’t wear them even if I wanted to.

I’ve started growing my own herbs and food, along with an English ‘cottage’ garden. I’ve planted bulbs and perennials and set up feeders and a bird bath to bring birds and critters into my garden. It’s great seeing the chipmunks, birds, butterflies and one seriously chubby squirrel all parked off in my garden like they own the place. Instead of a dead overgrown mess, there’s a slice of tranquility.

I upgraded my job so now I can get the REALLY good scotch! WAHOOOOO!

I’ve rediscovered aromatherapy and restarted my crystal collection. It’s been more than a decade since I did aromatherapy so it’s starting from scratch again. The esoteric side of life was huge for me in England and it slowly disappeared. It’s coming back.

Old friends have resurfaced and it’s been SO good reconnecting with them. Just shows, the really good ones never disappear 🙂

Who knows, maybe before the sun sets on New Year’s Eve 2017, I will have finished the monster puzzle I started in January. The 18,000 piece bookshelf will be an epic statement piece for my library. Sure, I’ll be 41 but I was 40 when I tackled it so it’s going on the scorecard.

While I cannot be somewhere new on my birthday this year, I’ve got a Plan B: a ticket to somewhere new in October. 2 weeks in the middle of Nowhere, Ireland and I CANNOT WAIT! A dose of Celtic magic in the countryside; just me, my camera and hopefully a wee leprechaun to sprinkle some inspiration along the way. My London ‘husband’ will be joining me for a weekend so mayhem and laughs incoming! God, I’d best pack extra whisky… that sheep farm has no idea what’s about to hit it. Best send 2 leprechauns…

It’s time to take my wine outside to celebrate the solstice and contemplate a Midsummer’s dream for a new vintage. Cheers!

Nature knows…. pretty much everything.

Meditation has taken a backseat lately and it shows in the chaos. I’m a master of creative excuses when I don’t want to do something. Thankfully my OCD hates mess and the garden was starting to look a tad tatty so I went out this afternoon and cleaned up all the sprouting seeds under the bird feeders. My menagerie of critters certainly leave a sprinkling of shells all over the place. Can’t blame them really, not having opposable thumbs and all.

Turns out the garden was just what the doctor ordered because gardening really is the only thing I’ve ever found that switches my brain off completely. When I’m gardening, I just am. One garbage bag later and it started thundering so had to call it a day. Once the sun went down and it cooled off a bit, I took the camping blankie outside and parked it between 2 small bushes and lay down; my head in the garden and my feet on the wet grass. Grounding is something I haven’t done in a while; where you walk barefoot in nature and just feel the earth underfoot. Very relaxing. Well, it is for me anyway.

Life is chaotic. We’re all stuck in varying depths of stress; that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Avoiding meditation lately has basically left me swimming in stress without my floaties. Lying between the bushes staring at the sky is a good place to think. There were also fireflies for a bit of a show. Nature has answers if you’re willing to go there with your questions.

In nature it is literally adapt or die. Plants and animals that cannot adapt to their environment will die. The environment does not adapt to suit them; it is them that must adapt to suit the environment. Trees that don’t bend in the storms will break. Plants must bloom where they are planted or die. There’s no option to relocate themselves to somewhere better if they don’t like their spot. Live in harmony with creatures around them or die. Follow instincts or die. There’s no grey area.

Animals naturally follow the instincts they were born with. Those that don’t, do not survive long. Humans have instinct and intuition and we spend lifetimes overriding those things. When last did you trust your intuition without question? Or trust your instincts in a shitty situation? Instead we follow the guidelines society gives us, which turns out to be a load of shite most of the time.

We don’t adapt to our environments; instead we destroy our environments in an attempt to make it conform to what we need. We try to contain nature and make it bend to our will. It does to an extent but when it lashes out, there’s nowhere to hide.

Nature takes what it needs. No more, no less. We consume endlessly. We eat too much, consume too much, hoard endless things to pad our comfort and stockpile for ‘just in case.’ Sure, animals stockpile food but considering they have a 6 month nap coming up, that makes sense. We don’t nap for 6 months so what’s our excuse?

Nature follows rhythm. Things rest when they need to and grow when they must. The seasons dictate what needs to happen for the continued survival of things. Rest is necessary. Humans don’t seem to think so. We’re GO GO GO all the time. America has the largest number of unused PAID vacation days of any country on the planet. We apparently don’t need to rest because ain’t nobody got time for that. We work ourselves into ill health and an early grave. We’re so far beyond natural rhythms we probably wouldn’t recognize it if it paraded down State Street naked riding a unicorn.

We don’t roll with the chaos in our lives and countless of us break because of it. We’re so busy trying to get to the greener grass over the hill that we never truly bloom where we are. There are many who do and just as many who refuse to. Instead we keep searching for some elusive ‘better’ out there, never fully appreciating where we are in the moment with all the storms and sunshine that comes with it. We don’t live. To live you have to be aware of the life you’re living but we’re too busy moping over the past or obsessing about the future so the clock ticks on unnoticed. Sure, you are cooking dinner but where is your mind? Planning lunches for tomorrow? Making lists of all the chores you need to take care of before bed? Is it fully engaged on the meal you’re preparing or trying to keep the dog out of the dishwasher?

Out of the endless things to do on this planet, gardening is the only truly mindful thing I’ve found for myself. I have no clue how to carry that mindfulness into other areas of my life but nature has given me a lot to think about.

The storms won’t consume me if I am flexible. There will always be enough so there’s no need to constantly consume out of fear or habit. I’m here now so I need to BE here now. I’ve missed Scotland so much the past few weeks but constantly wishing myself there wastes my life here. Now. That doesn’t mean I’ll never go back. It means I need to look at the view along the road home instead of obsessing over the map of how to get there.

‘Have you met someone yet?’

If you’re a single woman, you’ve undoubtedly been asked ‘have you met someone yet? about a million times. I’m sure other women mean well when they ask, but quite frankly, it’s annoying.

To answer the perpetual question: no, I have not and let me tell you why:

The entire bed is mine with all the blankies. And the bathroom with ALL the cupboard space. The toilet seat is always down.

Everything in the fridge is mine and there’s not a single concession item in this house because I don’t have to cater for little Petunia who only eats apple sauce.

If I don’t want to cook dinner, I don’t. Ice-cream is a perfectly acceptable dinner after a shitty day. So is scotch. The good stuff.

Everything stays exactly where I put it and the only person I’m tidying up after is me.

I can listen to whatever music I want and hog the remote all day long. No-one talks during the movies or critiques my taste in music. WIN!

If I want to take a vacation somewhere, it takes about 10 minutes thinking about it. It’s my money and I’ll go where I please when I want to.

I can spend all my disposable income on books instead of food and not feel guilty.

My chores don’t include doing someone else’s jocks and socks.

If I don’t want to put on clothes, be social or talk to anyone, I don’t. Simple as that. Phone goes off and I’m unreachable.

There’s an entire room for all my weird ‘new-agey voodoo shit’ and hobbies and no-one around to roll their eyes or complain about it.

I love my decorating style where everything is mismatched. There are no communal rules to live up to.

I can move house/city/country on a whim and I have done. Several times actually and more than once the decision was based on nothing more than the swing of a pendulum. All my most important decisions are made that way.

I can spend 8 hours talking to a friend on Skype without someone having a jealous wobble about it. I don’t need permission to spend time with my friends.

So yes, I’m single. It’s going to take someone truly spectacular to change that & I’m not entirely sure that someone has been born yet. And if he has, he’s probably wearing a kilt. Just sayin’.