1. Appearance Versus Reality



I have stopped using my scales.  Yep.  I have gone from weighing myself everyday (sometimes twice a day) to nothing.  When I started thinking about my little project: 50 Ways to a Better Me,  appearance was one of the top issues I knew I needed to address in order to be happy.  The title of this post is ‘Appearance Vs Reality’ because when it comes to my appearance, what I see is not necessarily the reality.  The more I thought about this concept in connection with my happiness, I realised the power of the scales.  A good number made a day magical; I floated through the day on some sort of weigh in high, but a bad number could be completely destructive - a good day could go up in smoke like a nuclear bomb had been detonated.  All because the numbers on the scale did not meet my ridiculously high/impossible standards.


It might sound shallow, but I am sure a lot of people will understand, how I look (and weigh) affects how I feel.  CPD has taught me that the voice inside my head can be a total bitch;  that voice inside my head does not let truth get in her way.  I am constantly fighting a battle with her.  She wants me to feel bad and she will find something, anything to focus on and rip apart.  This post is a definite reminder that what I see isn’t necessarily a reality, but more importantly there are things I can do to keep me feeling good about myself:  Step 1 was making the decision at the beginning of January to throw away the scales!


Ditching the scales was not the only positive step that I made at the beginning of this year.
As I write this, I have been virtually sugar free for a month!  A month!  In Belle Imagination’s world that is a lifetime.  I have done this before, a long time ago to lose the final baby weight pounds.  It has therefore come as no great surprise that I feel good. It is, however, a very welcome reminder of how positive the results are. I have more energy, my moods day to day are better, I am sleeping better and the slow lethargic feeling just isn’t there anymore.   And, bonus, because I am not constantly looking at the scales, I am focusing on the changes to my body; without the scales this is a new point of reference.  I can look at myself in the mirror and admit I look okay.  I now pay much more attention to the fit and feel of my clothes, and, right now, they feel good.  As a result of this, I am enjoying trying and buying new clothes.


Giving up sugar is not the only thing that has helped me make changes to my body.  I have made a commitment to regular exercise.  I have a fitness buddy, I have fitness DVD’s and I am running a few times a week.  I am not giving myself a hard time, but when the opportunity arises to do a little exercise, I do it.  There are countless studies and examples of research that show how exercise is good for the mind, and that has certainly been the case for me.  When I am active, I am happy.


A happy consequence of making the conscious decision to have less sugar, is that I am more likely to make better decisions when it comes to food in general.   I know where my weaknesses lie. I know that I am an Upholder, and so I know that if I put rules and routines in place that I can help myself achieve whatever I want.  This all gives me a feeling of control. That I am not a slave to chocolate and junk food.


However, as positive as this all is, I know that it can change so easily.  The 50 Ways to a Better Me project is all about reminding myself of what works for me.  Therefore, I feel the need to end the post with  small warning:  this won’t continue if I don’t work at it.  This won’t succeed if I don’t stick to my habits.


Goodbye scales: it was never really that nice knowing you!  Hello Belle Imagination: you look great!




Little Update:  January is over!  I am pleased to say I made it sugar free for the month (yay me). Now the real work begins: keeping unhealthy foods low and spirits high.  I also want to point out that I very much believe that my project is about lifestyle tweaks and changes that will impact my life positively.  While I am always going to try and make the healthiest choice for me, I am not going to deny myself.  Last night, I had takeaway and a few glasses of wine and was very happy.  This morning, I did a little two mile run and had a healthier breakfast, and am very happy.




Let me know what you are doing to promote a healthier, happier you.



Next time:  Welcome to the Circus: tightrope walking, juggling and spinning plates. (Work/life Balance)

50 Ways to a Better Me...

50 Ways to a Better Me

In the beginning…

Let me introduce to you my new project: 50 Ways to a Better Me. This project was very much inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s ‘The Happiness Project’, and is designed to help me do something that will, ultimately, increase my happiness. For me, this is a loooong term project that I intend to use my blog to document. 

However, before I can begin my 50 Ways to a Better Me experiment , I have to start with what led me to this idea.  So here goes *insert deep breath here*.  

I hate the word ‘depression’; it conjures up so many dark, brooding melancholic images, and tends to make people want to turn off and find something more pleasant to read, but, unfortunately, I can’t write about improving my life, if I don’t at least acknowledge why it needed/needs to improve.

So a brief history of me.  Depression has been an intermittent visitor in my life, probably, since I was a teenager.  In the past, it was successfully treated with medication, and on my life would go.  However, last year, I applied for, and achieved a promotion at work.  Technically, it was two promotions in four weeks, and while most people would celebrate this fact and feel good about themselves, for me, it opened a Pandora’s Box.  Slowly and virtually unaware, I slipped down the rabbit hole that leads to depression.  I wasn’t totally blind to what was happening to me.  I distinctly remember at a department meeting being on the verge of a panic attack as my boss shared with the rest of the dept. my new responsibilities.   On the surface, you may not have seen a ripple, but beneath, I was a raging tempest of fear and panic.  A high pitched voice screamed loudly inside my head, “You can’t do this!”  “You are hopeless; you’ll never manage this”. “What are you doing?  Everyone is going to find out how useless you are.”  At that point I knew this voice was out of control, and not normal, and making me feel terrible, but months would go by before I finally decided to do something about it.   

Eventually, over the course of the following summer, I came to terms with the fact that I was depressed.  It took a long time for me to admit this to myself, even though to those that loved me, it was becoming increasingly obvious.  I felt like I was a  failure, and that if I admitted I was depressed, I would be admitting that I had failed at life.  I am glad that I know now what utter rubbish that is, but at the time, it felt real and it felt justified.

Once I allowed myself the honesty of seeing I was deeply unhappy, I decided something had to be done.  I needed to take action and that lead to therapy (CBT to be precise.)  I always think therapy sounds a bit pretentious and American, but I can tell you with absolute honesty that therapy changed my life.  It changed me so much that I look back on the person I was and barely recognise her.  The best way I can describe my experience of therapy (which was supported by medication) is that CBT was like a key that unlocked the person I really was, or had the potential to be.  When the sessions were done, and my therapist insisted I no longer need our fortnightly sessions, I felt like I had won the lottery.  It was like having a secret that you want to tell everyone, but you can’t articulate properly; it’s just a really great feeling.

I left therapy thinking I was cured.  “That’s it!” I thought.  “ I understand myself, and my behaviour.  I have changed the way I think.  I am fixed.”  Time has shown me that while a lot of this is true, my mental health (another phrase I am not keen on) is something I have to keep working on.   This led me to 50 Ways to a Better Me.  I want to continue to apply the strategies I learnt in therapy to my everyday life, and I want a mental health first aid kit for when things are feeling a bit tough.  Finally,  aI hope that by chronicling my situation, it might help someone else going through something similar.

Therefore, this blog will allow me to record the things I do to make me happy, keep me happy and remind me how to be happy.  

I’d like to end this post by looking at the lessons I learned in my therapy sessions.  They are personal and specific to me, but they might also make sense to others:

1. The voice inside my head can be a total bitch, and sometimes I need to turn her down, or tune her out.
2. I am not a fortune teller or a psychic.  I do not know with absolute certainty how any event will turn out.  The imagined scenarios in my head, are just that: imagined.  Likewise when it comes to reading minds.  I do not know with any certainty, what people are thinking, or why they act the way they do.  The latter, actually allows me to cut myself, and the person I am dealing with some slack: we never know what’s going omg in someone’s else’s mind.  
3. No-one is perfect.
4. Perfection is impossible, and there is a wide landscape between total shit and perfection, and if day to day, I can land in the middle of that scope, I am doing alright.
5. Pause.  Sometimes you just need to stop for a minute, hour, day and gain a little perspective.  Not rushing to make a decision or do a task etc takes the pressure away and gives me breathing room..
6. Reassurance: I need to remember that, for me, reassurance doesn’t help: sometimes, it makes things worse.
7. I need to be more assertive, and being assertive, doesn’t mean I am a bitch.  
8. Look at the evidence.  When that nasty voice gets really loud, I need to look at the facts.  Do they support what the voice is saying?
9. ‘Who guards the guards’. I need to find my compassionate voice.  I need to treat myself compassionately and I need to guard against the things that are going to make me feel bad.
10. I love my life.  On the whole, my life is good and I am happy.  Sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

So, that explains how and why I came up with this crazy (no pun intended) idea to record 50 things that will improve my happiness.   

NEXT TIME: Number 1 on the list: Appearance and Reality.

Connelly’s New Kid on the Block.

Renee Ballard: finally a female detective I can get on board with.

Michael Connelly’s latest incarnation of the classic detective is refreshingly...fresh. She’s everything you’d want in a detective: tough, troubled and intent on justice, but she’s not Harry Bosch.  She’s young, a little vulnerable and a little wet behind the ears.  Happily, Connelly does not feel the need to keep her in a glass box of fragile femininity. She plays by the same rules as her male counter parts, and manages to maintain the cold distance of a classic detective without being a bitch.  She maintains the traditions of the classics: she’s a lone wolf, displays maverick character traits and is emotionally unavailable.  Connelly creates all this but manages to make her cool. Renee Ballard is definitely a detective for the twenty first century.

However, Ballard is not without her issues, and Connelly keeps her real by ensuring she is not perfect. She has instinct, absolutely, but she makes mistakes. As you would expect from any good fictional detective, she has a past that defines her character and her decisions. It’s about time we had a a female lead that is not as pure and righteous as the driven snow like many of her female counterparts.

Perhaps what I like most about this novel and this detective is that it seems like Connelly himself is still getting to know his new detective. She does not come with the same bravado that Micky Haller was born with, nor the world weary weight that Harry Bosch inevitably carries around with him. As you read, you get a sense that the character of Ballard is still being formed; like any real person her experiences, past and present, are forming her character, and it’s exciting to see this happening. Ballard definitely holds promise, and I can’t wait to see where the next book will lead.

As you would expect from any Connelly novel, you get a gripping plot with twists and turns you don’t see coming. Ballard is not fresh from the academy and the reader gets to see her doing her thing, and generally doing it well. Impressively, Connelly shows understanding of a woman working in a man’s world, and depsite his previous success in writing women detectives well (Rachel Walling, Kiz Ryder, Eleanor Wish) this feels different: this has longevity.

I encourage fans of crime fiction to give this new kid on the block a chance. She’s breaking a lot of the rules, but you’ll love her for it.

Will I ever feel good enough?

This is the question that has been churning around in my mind, and stomach for the last couple of weeks.

It’s September.

This time last year, I’d accepted my depression was back, and I wanted to do something about it once and for all. And I did. And it was the best thing I ever did. Therapy changed my life.  I felt like a new person: a person in control; a person who believed in themselves; a person who actually liked themself. Other people noticed and commented. I even told some people how I’d managed this transformation. My experience this summer was a sharp, stark contrast to the last one: I was bright and bubbly and happy. I felt part of the fun. I enjoyed all the things I did.

As back to school approached, I continued feeling strong and in control. Things that filled me with self-loathing, I tackled. I bought study guides and grammar books to stop the feeling of inadequacy I carry with me when analysing texts. I followed the strategies I’d learned in therapy. I felt great. I felt confident. The first week back at work buoyed my spirits. My new organising system worked. It made me feel like a I had a strong foundation that would support my KS3 English Coordinator role and my desire to be the best teacher I could be. I did fret about GCSE results, but I didn’t allow my worries to overwhelm me. Again, I used the strategies that therapy had supplied.

And then I got ill. A nasty, rotten, energy zapping illness, and it started to destroy me. I kept working at the pace I had when I was healthy. I pushed and pushed when I knew I was exhausted and gradually the things I had so successfully kept at bay, wormed their way back into my thoughts. Organising a KS3 trip felt impossible. My results analysis was muddled and confused, only confirming the voice that said I was not good enough. My marking piles grew and grew and the more I marked the louder the voice became, “You’re not good enough” and that is pretty where I am right now.

It’s been a loooong time since my last blog post. I took a break because I felt like I didn’t know my own voice. I wanted to write, but I was becoming something I wasn’t: a voice I didn’t recognise, and then time wore on and life got in the way. I thought about possible posts, but nothing ever came to fruition. However, tonight instead of letting myself sit and cry about the feelings of hopelessness that are beginning to circle around me like hungry sharks, I decided to write. I decided without really deciding, to commit my soul to paper, and so here it is.

What am I hoping to achieve? Good question. I think, I’m hoping if I empty my head, I might start to see more clearly. I might remind myself that I am not hopeless or useless. I might remind myself that I work hard and I care, and I do my bset, but that it is okay not to be perfect. That maybe I can’t control everything, and in fact, if experience has taught me anything, it’s that I always muddle through, somehow. In fact, muddling through has served me well. I have a job I love. I have a wonderful, supportive husband.  I have a beautiful, boistrous son.  I have a patient, loyal dog.  I have exceptional friends. I have so much that makes me happy. My life, actually, is pretty lovely. So perhaps, I should just sit back, relax and go with the flow.

Will I ever feel good enough? Probably not. Will I be able to recognise when I’ve done okay?  Maybe.

Short Story

The house proudly perched on the top of the hill.  Although the street itself was quiet, eerily devoid of people, the road that snaked alongside it hummed and moaned with the throb of traffic.  To the casual observer hurrying down the street on their way to work, or to catch a bus, there was nothing at all extraordinary about this house. If there was anything, anything at all, that might be described as ‘odd’ then the more perceptive of people might notice its strange, perhaps sinister stillness.  Nothing in or around this house moved:  curtains did not flutter in the gentle spring breeze; birds did not perch on the ancient chimney, and the black iron gate remain resolutely closed. 

Howecer, the house was most definitely cared for.  While the windows may not have sparkled in the sun, they were not grey with dust or grime.  The lawn appeared neat in a suburban kind of way, and no tiles hung loose from the roof.  Yet, this house was not lived in.  It did not breathe life like those surrounding it.

Jackson Burns stood at the bottom of the palid, grey stone path.  His cold blue eyes appraised the house before him.  He stared at the house and tried, but failed, to ignore the ripple of fear that snaked its way up his spine.  He sighed.  He knew that this is where he’d been asked to go.  This was a placed he needed to go.  Still his legs would not move.  His thoughts drifted to Father Joseph and the promise he'd made,  and like a man condemned he made his way up the garden path.

They key turned easily in the lock.  He wiped his feet..  He went in.  He felt the rush of fresh air  enter with him and upset the equilibrium.  The new air from outside mingled with the old, stale smell that was typical of a house left empty and alone for too long.  Jackson’s breath hung in the air in little white whips, and he tightened his coat around his neck as he moved further into this strange house. 

Climbing the stairs with bones that felt like iron posts, he remembered Father Joseph  handing him the key to the house and whispering the tales he’d heard.  The old man was dying, but had one last request of the private investigator.  The urgency with which he had spoken, and the fear that lay beneath his frail and faltering voice had convinced Jackson that this was a request he could not ignore.  The church was long since in his past, but he would not abandoned those who had helped him. 

Lying in his large bed, the priest had seemed more like a child than a seasoned man of the cloth.  He was propped up with countless pillows and cushions, and several thick blankets lay on top of his weakened frame.  Jackson could see the life draining away from his friend, and felt a flicker of guilt that it was only now, and under these circumstances that he was visiting his friend. 

‘Go to the house for me; I beg you Jackson.’  He paused long enough to breathe deeply into an oxygen mask, sucking hopelessly at the last embers of his life. 

‘There’s something there.  I am sure of it.  The things I have told you.  You need to see to…’

Again interrupted.  This time by a hacking, shaking cough that filled his eyes with tears and  his mouth with bile.

‘You need to…’

His eyes implored Jackson, finishing the sentence.

‘Okay, okay, old man.  I’ll go. I’ll check.  It’ll be nothing’

The grip the priest had on Jackson’s arm loosened, leaving white imprints on Jackson’s wrist.

‘Thank you.’ He wheezed, closing his eyes.  Their conversation was done.

Jackson reached the top of the stairs.  White doors stared indifferently back at him.  He moved towards the only room with an open door.  It was sparsely furnished:  single bed, a rocking chair that had seen better days, chintz carpet, rug and curtains.  He pulled his coat tighter still.  He moved around the room looking for a sign.  He knew now.  He knew the old man had been right, but he would not, could not leave until he… that’s when he saw it.  Slowly, reluctantly, he moved to the window.  In the far left hand corner of the upstairs bedroom window lay a small, child-like dusty handprint.  Jackson rested his own hand against the glass over the handprint that remained perfectly intact on the other side of the glass.

Then the curtains leapt into life.  Flames flickered and danced from the hem up towards the ceiling.  Jackson sprang backwards feeling the malevolence coating the walls like kerosene.  The rocking chair began to vibrate frantically as it too spawned white hot flames.  He felt rather than heard the hissing of the flames follow his steps as he thundered downstairs, reaching the exit just as the TV ruptured into a thousand pieces.  The door slammed behind him, and he hurtled down the path, pausing for a moment at the gate, to look once more upon that hand print sitting in the corner of the window.  The bay window exploded, firing shards of glass like shrapnel in all directions.  A sliver pieced the skin just below his eye, and blood ran from the open cut.

Jackson Burns turned once more from the house on the hill, fishing his phone from his pocket as he did so.  With trembling hands, he dialled an old number from memory.  It was answered almost immediately.  No common courtesies were uttered, no pleasantries were exchanged, ‘It’s back.’ was all he said into the mouth piece.

 'It's back.'

An Ode to Charlie Parker (fictional detective, not Jazz musician)

Oh Charlie, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

You are without doubt my favourite fictional detective.  As far as I am concerned you have it all. 

You are troubled.  You have a trouble in your nature that seeps between the bones; that flows through the blood vessels and winds its way around DNA.  You are the fresh form of an old favourite.  The outline, so beautifully crafted by Raymond Chandler, has evolved into someone that makes our hearts break.  Like all the best fictional detectives, just as you are troubled, you carry sadness: a sadness that fuels rather than destroys.  Your losses have been great, your burden heavy, and you carry that with you in every novel, on every page, and it makes us love you all the more.

However, despite, or in spite of that troubled soul, you carry nobility.  Burning within that darkness is a light of righteousness.  It is the flicker of a candle flame, but it burns fiercely, and we are aware that in your adventures there is a higher purpose.  You are the opposite of the evil you fight, even if you don’t always recognise it in yourself.  We will follow you, Charlie.  We will follow you to hell and back, willing you always to return.  We will clutch our books tightly with whitened knuckles; we will hold our breath and sit on the edge of our sofas and beds whispering silent incantations, begging Mr Connolly, ‘Don’t let him die.’

We love you Charlie, because you cross the line.  In fact, you have blurred the lines and broken the rules.  The very nature of your investigations often run against the very nature of the true detective novel.  The supernatural invades; it licks the edges of the pages; it stares us in the face; it is a ‘presence’ in every sense of the word, but it NEVER disappoints;  it NEVER lets us down, and it ALWAYS gives us more, more than we even knew we wanted.

I must be honest Charlie, it is not you alone we love. The characters you surround yourself with are as enticing and attractive as you are.  The monsters that you battle are unapologetically evil, and we love that.  It forces you to be a hero in the truest sense of the word: a disguised and troubled white knight.  The loyalty that you evoke in others, inspires that loyalty in us.  As they recognise your importance, so do we: it shines because of the way they look at you.    This is also true of the fear that you inspire in your enemies.  We thrive on the way you treat those who fall foul of your code of conduct.  We know that they will be dealt with, and we love the anticipation of their downfall. And just as we worry that with each turning of the page you may be written out of our lives, so too do we fear that Angel or Louis may be sacrificed for the greater good.

Charlie Parker, I have loved you since I read the first pages of ‘Every Dead Thing’.  The joy of the crime novel has been mine since childhood.  Nancy Drew was my staple at 12.  One of the best memories of my English degree was the term we studied detective fiction.’ (As an aside, it is also where I was introduced to Paul Auster, and CSI in the same lecture.) I won’t lie, Charlie, I’ve followed Lincoln Rhyme, Alex Cross and Dave Robicheaux with pleasure.  You should know that while Robicheaux came close, no one has created a detective that makes my blood boil with frustration because it is impossible for me to sit down at a bar and have a drink them …until you. I could weep at the unfairness that you are a figment of someone’s imagination.  I could cry a river of jealousy that it was someone ELSE’s imagination that created you.  I would give my soul to write a detective such as you.

And so, now it is time for the next instalment. ‘A Game of Ghosts’ I am ready.

Author’s Notes

This is my ode to the character Charlie Parker created by the wonderful John Connolly (I can say that because I have met him in person, twice!)  These are very much my views, and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing them here, and sharing them with you.   Finally, while I have repeatedly used ‘we’ in this ode, I feel it is only fair to say that I do not speak for all Parker fans everywhere, but really…how could they possibly disagree?

Long Run to Freedom

When did I become a runner?

I have had a strange and sometimes rocky relationship with running.  My first experience of running as an adult was a means to an end: weight loss.  Having just moved in with the man who would one day become my husband, a very happy Belle, had over indulged on pretty much everything, and for the first time, discovered she couldn’t eat everything in sight without there being consequences.  Running was therefore the solution. 

Simple.

Not really. 

Running was a half-hearted chore I would gladly skip given the narrowest window of opportunity.  Add to that, the fact I thought running 2 miles every now and then meant I could eat whatever I wanted and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. 

This process was repeated over and over at various points in my life, always with limited success.  And then I had a baby, a baby that never slept.  And then my beloved grandad died.  And suddenly-I felt suffocated.  Already finding motherhood hard, weight loss impossible and grief inescapable, I looked for something, anything that might free me from these tumultuous emotions.  So, one day, I put on trainers, old jogging bottoms, and a one hundred year old sports bra, and off I went-running.

This was it.  This was the moment I fell head over heels in love with running.  To call it running at this stage might be an over exaggeration: using the ‘Ease into 5K’ app, I walked and ran, literally easing into 5K.  The freedom I had needed was here.  I was alone. I couldn’t think because music filled my mind.  I couldn’t worry about all the things I felt I should be doing.  I couldn’t dwell on my grief.  All I could do was run, and it felt great.

I was hooked.  It was my guilty pleasure.  It felt almost selfish to have this precious time just for me.  Why wasn’t everyone doing this?  Didn’t they know? 

Weeks and months and years rolled on, and still I ran.

 And still I run.

So, when did I become a runner?  The moment I feel in love with running.