Creating Sparks That Last & All Things Relationships

Breakfast With a View The point of this outing was to breakfast with a view. It began with a side of misunderstanding. A view we had, from a vantage point up in the clouds of the office block where James worked, what I hadn’t realized was that James had asked whether I’d like a bacon bun from a local cafe or a wrap from the office canteen. I opted for a bacon bun from the local cafe which meant extra time out of his work day, unbeknownst to me. Not only that, he carved time out of his frenetic working day to have lunch we me as well from a different vantage point overlooking the southern view from of his office block. He made time for me! I’m supposed to be making time for us. Which I am, but James proved to be more than willing to go the extra mile in making our dates superb!  I made my own way home after lunch, traversing the 40-odd kilometre’s via train, Metro and car once more. James took the sedate bus ride home later that evening with a demure driver happy to deliver his passenge

Goddess Frump I Have Silver Streaks in my Hair – Deal With It We'll take a Festive break here to celebrate ourselves. Have fun with this article I penned about frumps. 54 Years ago I had no hair, no teeth, couldn’t speak and I cried a lot. People loved me. Today, I have hair, I can speak and I cry only a little. People still love me. My hair has silver streaks in it – and those same people still love me. My teeth are crooked and tinged with a faint acknowledgement of a coffee addiction – still, people love me. My point is, I am a frump and I freaking love being a frump. I will not try to be anything else and people will still love me – for me. For who I really am. For my wrinkles and the silver streaks in my hair. The only expectations I have are self-respect. So long as I maintain my own standards of integrity I am brazenly me. Goddess Frump. That is who I am. It has taken me a long time to get there, 19 615 days give or take. I have spent approximately 28 245 600 minutes

Not Jurassic Park   Only into month 4 of our Date Year and I am already learning so much more about James than I ever imagined possible. Just because we are in close proximity to each other does not mean we know everything about the other – or ourselves for that matter. What you see and know about yourself from the inside is not what your partner sees from the outside. What I do know about James is that the ocean is his calm space. It feeds his soul. The forest is mine. That’s a fundamental difference you might think and it is. But somehow we have made it work for us. I like the ocean and James likes the forest but neither presses our Super Chill button.  From where we currently live, we have to drive an hour either way whether to sea or tree. However, I researched trail walks nearby and came across a State Forest not too far from our home at all. In my now-familiar rush to fulfil an expectation of enjoyment for James, I hurried us into what I was certain was the parking space for the

 What do your relationships look like? 💗 Romantic? 🎉 Exciting? 🌺 Spoilt? 👣 Grounded? Essentially we want our relationships to be all of the above and more. Evolving, growing, openly sharing our thoughts and dreams. If we are to make a long term commitment with the person we have chosen for life, we need to be able to evolve with the ever-changing environment of growth in our relationship; to be able to adapt and strengthen our bonds. ~ For an in-depth look into ways to grow with the changing landscape of love in your life, you can subscribe to receive a free ebook of my tried and tested strategies to improve my 35 year marriage remarkably.

You don’t have to spend a fortune on going out I am a board game enthusiast, James not so much. Our usual Friday evening modus operandi is a home night – a few light beverages, a home-made burger and end-of-week coma in front of the television. It is sumptuously relaxing – until it is not. Repetition creates boredom.  I declared Friday night Board Game Night. But not just any old board game like your run of the mill Monopoly, Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit  - although I would play any of those in a heartbeat. No! I wanted to play a board game that would entice Jonathan.  This game that I got my hands on was called Exit the Abandoned Cabin. For all intents and purposes we would still be trapped inside that cabin if it were a virtual reality game. It was so difficult to navigate our way around the cryptic clues that were given. There were symbols to recognize, numbers to extricate and riddles to unravel and between us, we simply could not get past clue number 2. It didn’t matter to us th

Serendipitous Second Date Sapphire blue skies from the shade of a giant tree February is a pretty warm month where we live in Sydney, Australia. In fact it’s an exceptionally hot month with temperatures hovering around 48C most days, but on this sapphire blue sky day it was a pleasant 30C or round about there. Jonathan and I had set our sights on having a picnic in a recreational area of the expansive grounds of our local shire; Fagan Park. A place we know and love. We could find a quiet shaded area to place our picnic rug and unwind from our busy lives. Yet, it was our busy lives that nearly stopped our outing. James had some work to prepare for the week ahead and as it was already Sunday, there really wasn’t much time left of the weekend. Frantically he clicked away at his keyboard hammering out the required data until he was satisfied with the graphs and tables represented.  Lunchtime was almost upon us and we hadn’t packed our basket because of the uncertainty of going at all. I ha

Tentative First Date Our first Date Event was to try to recreate lost memories. Trying to recall what it was I felt for James and how that felt on the inside. I opted for a lunch on our cultural cuisine. It was my hope that the tastes and flavours of our heritage might evoke the excitement of our younger dating days. As we had emigrated from our beloved South Africa 15 years ago, there were many occasions long lost to our past. Whilst I am a firm believer in not living in the past, I am also a firm believer in the fact that blood is thicker than water. The vast stretch of water that we had crossed to get to where we are today was not enough to erase the density of culture flowing through our veins.  The lunch that I chose to rebuild our hopes and dreams on is called Vetkoek. Not as in an animal doctor! The letter ‘V’ is pronounced with an ‘F’ sound. It is an engorged ball of dough deep fried and filled to bursting with savoury mince. Yes, we used to savour them dripping with melted but