As we close one chapter,
the pen is gradually inking up,
preparing itself to write the next.”
©️ Mie Hansson.

As the vibrant trees of autumn shed their fiery leaves, twisting, turning and dancing on the chilly autumnal breeze 🍂  unburdening the heaviness of their branches, welcoming in new life, new beginnings and a calming wintery light, as their enchanting shadows cast the most magical moving pictures for our delight.
As they, embrace the forever changing seasons, and the hardships that they may bring, they teach us with their earthly beauty, that in the miracle of life, the roots of something new frequently lie in the decaying husks of something old.

As with mother nature and the seasons, Life is also all about new beginnings, be it a new year, a new month, a new day, a new hour, a new minute or a new second.
When we learn to accept life is just a set of new beginnings, we can truly understand that we have the power, to take the opportunity to start a fresh when ever with choose. We do not have to wait for the New Year to start a new beginning or even a new mindset. 
We are the writers, of our own chapters and creations.
We have the power to create new destinations, new dreams, new lives. We can’t change our yesterdays, but we can write Intriguing Scriptures and develop beautiful memories. We can start afresh, better ourselves, learn understanding and teach wisdom, whenever we decide the time is right. 
We do not have to be tormented by our past sorrows, our failings or regrets, because we are the ones whom hold the tools within our souls, to better ourselves. No one else can do this for us. 
We need to look within and begin to believe in ourselves because each and every one of us, is born to create and create we will. 
Take a fresh page, pick your tool and write your own happy everafter. And if mistakes are made along the way, don’t fret, turn the page and start anew.
And as we age and look back at our masterpieces and the wonderful memories we’ve made, our souls will overflow with love for the life we soulfully created.
As I sit and write these words, I can not help but reflect on my own life and who I have become as a person.
I can say, I don’t always like what faces me in the mirror. I’m not the prettiest, the tallest or the smartest tool in the box, but I believe that I’ve always tried my upmost to be kind, caring and considerate. 
I’ve always tried to listen, to be there for whom ever needed a caring ear, and to not judge or discriminate.  I’ve tried to stay true to myself, to better myself, to understand myself, to believe in myself and to love myself.
It’s hard, truly hard and I fail daily, especially with the self love, self judgment and self worth parts. 
I struggle with understanding my own emotions, as I feel deeply and I’m often told I care too much, especially about what others may think of me. 
It’s not that I want to be loved by everyone, I don’t, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I wholeheartedly understand that and in truth wouldn’t want it to be any other way. 
I believe in true unwavering friendship/love and only want people in my life who love me for who I truly am. I’ve been hurt too many time by fake friends/relationships over the years and I’m too old to waste precious time on none meaningful relationships. I want to only surround myself with love and understanding instead of lies and deceit.
I truly feel that life is a battle against oneself and to win the war, it takes decades of learning and understanding about who my spirit is. And until I work that out for myself I will always be at war with my own being.

Over the last nine months, I’ve tried hard extremely hard, to love myself more. I’ve judge myself harder than ever before. I’ve questioned my character, my heart and my outlook. The emotional journey I recently been on, is down to a breakdown of communication and Judgementation, which sent me into a whirlwind of self doubt and loathing.
Self-conflict has destroyed any faith I had in myself, in my capabilities, in my intelligence, and in my self-worth. I have fought and I’m still fighting against my inner voice which tells me, over and over, that I’m a Pitiful excuse of a human being and that I am  not worthy of anyone’s love. 
I questioned every single thing about my personality and over and over again I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not worthy of people time, their friendship or their love. 
The situation and the emotions that followed, sadly made me also question my little corner of the interweb that I call intwinned. 
Why would anyone want to waste their time reading the tosh I try to write?✍️  
The thought, “I’m stupid and I’m just embarrassing myself,, especially with my awful grammar and horrendous spelling mistakes”, keeps playing over in my mind and I’ve very nearly closing Intwined down many, many times. 
Instead I chose to close myself off and write the bare minimum about myself, my life, my emotions. I’ve been guarded.
It’s beyond sad, as I started Intwined as a sort of therapy, a way to find my voice and speck openly about my emotions, my passions and my dreams. 
As I look back over those 9 months, I can’t help but to be angry at myself for emotionally torturing myself on a level greater than ever before and I am determined to change this rigourous self loathing, as I know deep down, that I am a loving, caring kind, considerate person, who listens and will give my all to my people. 
I love wholeheartedly and am devoted to my family and my passions. 
I know that I need to stop caring about the ones who don’t like me or don’t want me in their lives, it’s them who miss out because it’s better to have an army of family or friends around you, to love upon than hating on them. 
Love and light will also stump out the hate and darkness. So I chose to fill my entire being with Love and light and snuff out the darkness, the depression, the self loathing and the hate that other may have brought against me and I brought about myself. 
So it’s time to turn the page and create a chapter full of beautiful emotions and relationships, starting with the relationship I have with myself.

🚍

Phillippe.
October for us, started in the most delightful way. 
We packed our overnight bags and jumped in Phillippe our trusty camper and headed to Warwick, where we spent the weekend with my sister Kerry and Brother In-law Smithy.
We visited, Warwick Castle and The Castle Dungeon.
The castle itself was fascinating, the grounds were beautiful. For me, The Castle Dungeon, was by far the best part.
Warwick Castle is fantastic for children, my boys would have loved it when they were younger, however if I’m honest I’m not sure I would go again without children, because the entry fee is extortionate, as were the price’s for beverages. 
On top of that, you also have to pay extra for The Castle Dungeon, which was worth every penny, it was great fun.

🌼

Garden.
With the weather being so awful, I have only managed to get out in the garden a handful of times.
I managed to plant out my bi annuals but still have all my bulbs to plant and cut down my dahlias, after the first hard frost. 
Last year I dug out all my dahlias and stored them over winter, this year, I’ve decided to leave them in the ground and hope for the best. With all the rain we have been having I’m taking a huge risk but the autumn weather has been playing havoc with my health, so needs must. I would rather risk losing the dahlias tubers than drive my body to exhaustion. It’s extremely frustrating being trapped inside, when our garden is looking unsightly, covered in soggy leaves and broken branches. It saddens my heart to seeing my little haven looking so unloved. I long for a dry spell so I can out there and get her looking the best she can be for the time of year. I so very much miss being able to spend my days pottering in the garden. It my happy place and I feel pretty lost without the freedom it makes me feel. I fear it’s going to be a very long depressing winter. 🥶 

🧶

Crochet.
It’s been a while since I picked up my hook and lost myself in crochet, with the heavens raining down upon us, pretty much none stop, there has been plenty of time to work on my current project, my Phoenix bedspread, which I am making as a surprise present for my Uncle Kevan. It’s been such a pleasure to sit and stitch my afternoon away.
It’s getting so big now it’s taking a afternoon to stitch just two sides, and even though it’s slow going it’s been a joy. 
Each stitch made, is entwined with the love I have for my uncle. He’s beyond special to me, he always has been one of my favourite people in my life and I can not wait to give him his blanket or as I call it, a hug in a box. 

It’s more than just a blanket, it’s love at its  purest. It’s warmth and cosiness is a thousand hugs from me to him.

I am currently stitching away on part 8, so only 4 more parts to go.

At the end of Part 7 Phoenix measured 58 inches by 58 inches unblocked.

I have used so far used 42 skeins of yarn, at £3.19 each, costing a total of £133.48 so far.

And I’ve stitched 3444.0 yards (3149.2 meters), 2100 grams worth of yarn.

It’s looking very pretty and I can not wait to gift it to him. I so hope he loves it.

🧐

Family History.

I’ve kind of been having a break from actual research, and I’m missing it already. 
Even though I haven’t done much research as such, I’ve been slowly writing a few life stories ready to share with you.
I’ve written about the life of Annie O’Connor, who is the sister of, John Cornelius O’Connor, my Great Great Grandfather. 
I believe Annie, is the key to finding out more about the O’Connor family, after receiving her birth certificate. I believe we now know the maiden name of their mother and have confirmed that Annie was not born in Ireland like we first thought, which means their sister Rosina, was not born in Ireland either. You can read all about Rosina’s life here.

I have also been patching together the life of their brother, Thomas O’Connor. 
Thomas, has always been near on impossible to research as we only knew his name. 
With a lot of hard work, I feel I am very close to tracking him down. Although there are many, many gaps in his story and lots of questions still to be answered, I have put together what I believe to be his life story, which I will share with you over the coming weeks. 
I must clarify that there is still a lot more work to be done to prove my research is correct. 
My findings may be wrong but I feel very strongly about documenting my research journey, as well as the final destination. Even if I haven’t traveled along the correct path, as in life it’s not the final destination that matters most but how we got there, mistakes and all. 
I am currently writing about the life of one of my hubbies ancestors Jane Smith, Marks 3rd Great, Grandmother. 👵🏻 
All certificates have finally arrived so hopefully I will have it ready soon. 

On the subject of certificates, I always try to buy as many as I can, so I am able to give you as much information as possible and to check I’m on the right track. Unfortunately with the price of living getting so god damn expensive, I’m going to have to cut back on the amount I buy, which is extremely frustrating. I will include all the information you will need if you decide you wish to order them yourselves. At £7 each for pdf certificates and £11 for paper certificates, it works out very expensive to buy them all. Take Walter Hilliers life story for example. I brought his birth and death certificate as pdfs (£14) his two marriage certificate which you can only buy as a paper certificate (£22) I also purchased his two wife’s death certificates (£14), his mum, dads and stepdads death certificates (£21) and marriage certificate (£11), Walters, 8 children’s birth certificate (£56), his brothers birth and death certificates and some of his his children’s and aunts and uncles death certificates. Add to that my two monthly subscriptions and the last will and testament purchases. As you can see it works out very expensive. (I wish I hadn’t started calculated them.😖) 
I hope you can understand why, I’m going to have to cut back, times are beyond hard right now. I will continue to buy the essential ones but will have to be picky.
I’m sorry. I sincerely hope it won’t put you off reading them.

I think that about sums up the month of October so I will say my normal too-da-loos and leave you to your day.

Stay safe, stay true, stay you.
Too-da-loo for now.