Rest Now

Be still now and close your eyes.

Love awaits you on the other side.

Let be gone these painful years,

Let be gone the tears and fears.

Be still now and close your eyes,

I cannot promise not to cry,

But though it may well take a while,

I promise I will, one day, smile.

Be still now and close your eyes,

Let worries, woes just pass you by.

You can rest now, it’s alright.

A kiss goodbye, a fond goodnight.

Unconditional Love

I knew the moment I laid eyes on him he was mine. His tiny four year old face stared at me momentarily before he hid himself in his Mother’s coat.


“He’s shy,” she told me.

“No problem,” I replied, shuffling uncomfortably.

It was not too long later than the confirmation I knew I would get came through.

“He’s mine,” I told my sister.

“No shit!” she responded, “He’s your double.”

That night, the first night I knew for sure that my inclinations were right and he really was mine, I sat in a hotel room with Anje and the little one. I sat on the floor facing her and leaning against the bed he slept on. I just watched him breathing in and out, watched his little nose crinkle up and I cried.

“In all the time we dated I never saw you cry,” she said to me.

“I’m not crying!”

“Liar,” she said.

“He’s just so.... perfect,” I said. “He’s so...” And I couldn’t find the word. I couldn’t find the word to finish that sentence. I don’t think there is a word to verbalise the feeling of your heart popping out of your chest in excitement or every happy emotion you have waited for expelling itself all at the same time. There’s no one single word to say how incredibly happy I felt at that point. So she interrupted.

“I’m sorry I kept this from you for so long.”

“Let’s forget about that. If I hold grudges the only person who will get hurt is him.”

And when I looked at his little hands and feet and his sleeping eyes I knew that I would do anything in my power to stop him from feeling any pain.

Unconditional love. I would have wrapped up the moon for him – I still would.

One day he will be old enough to really demand the full story about why I wasn’t around in those first four years – about why his life started in Russia. And I will tell him the truth when he’s old enough. But I will remind him all the same that anything his Mother did was with his best interests at heart, that she loved him as much as I do.

And she really did.

Wedding!

It’s just over 3 months until I become Chloe’s husband. Preparations are well underway. Flights and accommodation booked for our close family and friends (and us of course), arrangements made for my sister to look after my son for the week and a half after the wedding so Chloe and I can stay on in Cuba for our honeymoon, Chloe has a dress (which I am absolutely forbidden from asking any questions about)....

There’s still a surprising amount to do though. We have to get my parents’ wedding rings adjusted (well, my Mother’s at least) and Chloe has a long list of things related to bridesmaids dresses and similar. I don’t ask questions lol.

My next job is a tux for myself, for my best man and for my little pageboys. My son and nephew are going to be pageboys. My nephew will turn two just a few weeks before I marry and he will be a dapper little dude in his mini-tux.

The fact there is so much to do seems to make the time just fly. It only seems like two minutes ago that I got down on my knee by a freezing, cold, wet canal side and asked her to marry me.

Exciting times.

Love me at my Lowest

There’s a certain strength in love that means you find yourself able to overcome almost anything with the help of that special someone.




My Mother always told me that someone who could love me at my lowest deserved me at my best. It was another “mum-ism” that I just brushed off. But I am inclined now to truly agree. If someone gives you their love when you’re in a pretty low place, it makes you want to be in a better place for them. It makes you want to fight to get back on top. That said, I truly feel like Chloe has given me so much of the strength I’ve found in recent months.



I never believed in an unconditional romantic love. Unconditional parental or sibling love, sure. But I’ve always struggled to believe that romantic love could possibly ever truly be unconditional. Until Chloe. I know my feelings for her will not fade and I know that if we have a bad day, it will never bring our relationship into question. She feels the same and the fact I know she feels the same without ever needing to question is the reason that I know she and I belong together.



I’ve been in love twice in my life. I think I’m lucky. Some people are never in love at all. But I’ve had the opportunity to experience two beautiful loves. The first transitioned, eventually, to a friendship that was beautiful in its own right. I did not know I loved her romantically until... well... until it was too late. But she knew, I think, by the time she had to leave this world.



And then Chloe, about whom I write so much that you are probably sick of her name. But this is the love that will last my lifetime.



For loving me at my lowest, Chloe, and I’ll always strive to be my best.

Little Boy, Big Smile

There is nothing quite as good for the soul as spending some time with a happy child. And this post is dedicated to my little boy.


This is a lad who’s been through a lot but is finally at his “happy place,” and delights in the world once again.

He’s taken a real interest in what I do for a living – SEO and other online marketing related tasks. After giving him a very basic talk about what the point in SEO is, what it does and why it’s good if your website is top of the pile, he was quite interested as to how exactly it was done. He’ll ask questions and I’ll find a way to explain it in a way I think he will get. He has no qualms telling me if he doesn’t understand;

“What does that even mean, Dad? Is that even English?”

It’s with inspiration from him that I’m working on a “real beginner’s guide,” to SEO techniques – tried, tested and proven. That website will be live, I hope, in about a week and I will of course post a link. The focus will be on non-commercial sites really – aimed at bloggers or freelancers who want their sites to appear for some of the terms related to their topic matter.

It’s not just my work that he’s interested in though. He’s taken a real shine to writing. I write compulsively. Every single day. I also take breaks where possible to go up to the village of Haworth in Yorkshire to sit on the moors and write. This was something I used to try and do alone but I am inviting my son and Fiancee to come with me when I go this weekend. My son has taken to writing stories and poems a lot. He loves it and I think he will really benefit from the inspiration you invariably get from simply immersing yourself in the open air and taking in some of that good old nature stuff. Chloe also writes, albeit not so much fiction. She writes some great, thought provoking content though and is potentially up for a regular slot for a big technology column (more to come on that as we hear it). So it will do us all the world of good – me, my Fiancee, our boy and of course our two absolutely insane dogs.

But I am going off topic. Basically, on top of his interest in my work, in writing and so on... my little one has found himself particularly loving football and taking an interest in tennis again (he went off it for a while despite a clear talent). He’s got so much more energy about him these days. He’s very excitable. And it really makes my heart leap from my chest to watch him laugh his way through life just like any boy of 7 should be doing.

I like it this way, where his biggest “ouch,” is a grazed knee acquired from skidding across gravel in his (now ruined) school pants. Ouches like that can be fixed with a bit of TLC.... and what I am coming to learn is that ouches of the heart can be, if not fixed, stitched up at least, with a bit of time, a lot of love and an open approach.

So here’s to my son, my ‘mini-me’ (as so many call him), my raison d’être, the source of my smiles.... Seek happiness, son, and you will find it. Be open to being happy, and you will be.

Cuban Promise

As I look into thine eyes
Beneath those clear blue Cuban skies
I'll promise thee eternity,
A life of love and smiles with me.

I'll promise you my heart and soul,
Delivered not in part, but whole,
I'll love thee till my days do end,
My soul mate, lover, wife and friend

"I Don't Want to See You Anymore"

“I don’t want to see you anymore.”


I heard that line yesterday evening and it’s the first time in my life I have been HAPPY to hear it! Nope, it wasn’t from a loved one, but from my counsellor.

“You’re doing absolutely fine. Honestly, I don’t feel that you need a weekly session like this. I almost feel like you’re counselling me now,” she laughed. “You know where we are if anything changes, but you’re doing great.”

We’re going to have a closing session next week and a follow up a month later to make sure all is well. But that’s it.

I feel incredibly relieved. I took the decision to start a programme of counselling in 2010 because I needed to face up to grief I had ignored for many years. Ignoring it meant that every single time something else went wrong, I would bottle up some more and it surfaced as anger and pushing people away. That’s not something I wanted my little boy to replicate, so I decided to go to the pros and get some help with dealing with this stuff.

The first 6 or so sessions were agonising to be honest (as I'd been warned they would be, actually). Talking with a complete stranger about things you don’t even feel comfortable thinking about alone is a really painful experience. Dealing with emotions that are traditionally “not manly,” and finding a way to communicate it is really surprisingly difficult. Those opening six sessions opened so many floodgates for me and I seriously considered quitting during those weeks. But I stuck with it and I’ve essentially learned how to handle emotion. It sounds really bizarre to say that. Some people are just automatically good at doing so and for me it was a frikkin difficult thing to learn and incredibly frustrating. But the change in me has been incredible and noted by all of my friends and family. Most importantly, my son communicates his feelings to me more than he did before. I wasn’t expecting that but apparently, children can read our emotions better than we can sometimes and as soon as I started dealing with my own shit, I was obviously giving off a much more open vibe to him. He talks to me very comfortably about how he feels about his Mother or anything else that upsets him, as well as being much more chatty in general.

2010 was a really awful year. As well as my son coming to terms with the loss of his Mother in 2009, I lost a very close friend as well and there was a lot of transition, upset, anger and change on a personal level for me. I was a complete asshole in many ways during the year. It was not my finest year, to say the least.

By the end of the year though, I was feeling like I’d walked a hideous path and finally arrived at an amazing destination. And this year is starting very well. It will arguably be the biggest year in my life. I am getting married in 4 months, moving to a very “family home” type property outside of the city next month and my baby sister is getting married too. It’s a big year.

So today, I’m all smiles. And long may it last.