It's like the harvest festival at home right now. I am snowed under in droves of cucumbers, the conservatory is more phallic than Ann Summers and I am having to give them away. The small sweet tomatoes are unbelievably gorgeous we are eating them straight from the vine. Pepper growing has been a complex, but I am getting a few small offerings, and the strawberries are being stolen by the snails and slugs! I am no green fingers however - I prefer them Red, hot! The multitude of fruit and veg come with a dark side too though. The conservatory is a giant fly magnet! (A giant conservatory not giant fly that is!) Courtesy of my Dad, I have a fabulous insecticide pen that you use to draw around the window pane. I would rather have a fly graveyard to contend with on a daily basis than a fly commune. At least they are not buzzing around our heads anymore!

In amidst the roles of mother, wife and midwife, I seem to have lost the 'me', again. I have decided I need something in my life for 'me'. I am not even sure who 'me' is anymore. The something I have decided on is photography. I have spent the last few months seeing my surroundings in a different way. Numerous times I have seen a landscape or an object or a scene and thought to myself - I wish that I could capture that. It isn't going to be easy. There is no way I can afford to stop working full time, therefore it will be something else to fit into my life. But I guess, when you want something enough you can achieve it. I will only regret it if I don't try.

Certainly of late I have felt my role as 'wife' become very trying. Though we are not married, myself and D live together as if we were. We have done since Ali was born 4 years ago. But it is getting harder not easier as I thought it would. How do you maintain a long term relationship, what is the secret? How do men and women poles apart in ways of thinking live under the same roof and execute a life together? Mars and Venus is an understatement. Life plods on only because of Ali, work commitments and mortgage commitments, but it doesn't feel like 'living'. Do we get so used to each other that neither party feels it necessary to make a little effort anymore? What if it's only one member of the double act that is shirking? How do you get them to make a little more effort without hurting their feelings? And how do you stop yourself from 'wandering' while you aren't getting the attention you feel you deserve? (Notice the avoidance of ownership of those statements!) Is that harsh? I'm so harsh - god relationships are tough. I'm just craving a little romance. A rose here, a kiss and a squeeze there - just to remind me why we entered into all this in the first place.