Advice on a lasting marriage or relationship

During the 30 years now that I have the inmense privilege of knowing Peter Birchwood and be his wife, we have known couples who get married or are in a relationship only to end it all within the seven year itch.

In schools and universities they instruct you in all kinds of subjects but not in the most important of all: How to find the right partner for a long and loving relationship or marriage. It always surprises me that seemingly intelligent people cannot work out what makes a relationship or a marriage tick. It takes more than just a shared interest to glue down a relationship and that is love above all. If that doesn't exist there is nothing to be done. It doesn't matter how many interests you share. The success of a good marriage depends on a mutual life-long project, and see it through to fruition. Having -differences- in interests helps in what the other one lacks, and this way, the couple complement each other. I work on the Spanish and Latin American cases in our company because I speak Spanish and my husband doesn't but he has the necessary expertice and knowledge to solve a case if he understands the problems, so not knowing how to speak Spanish is not an obstacle for him to solve a foreign case. This is our lifetime project now joined by our son who has now come to work with us and our dear co-workers in this project. On the personal side, we do not have very many shared interests, whilst Peter likes golf, I don't, he likes Harry Potter I don't, I like Woody Allen's films, he doesn't. Peter loves car races and I don't but we have found Top Gear and suddenly I now enjoy expensive cars and Jeremy Clarkson is solely responsible for my new developed taste in cars and that when it came to choosing a car I bought a black BMW! before the Top Gear programme, TV motoring was very boring with programmes that would show you how to change some spark plugs and a guy with a bonnet open, really uninteresting stuff, enough to make you yawn. Jeremy Clarkson, the cool James May and the chirpy Richard Hammon have suddenly made motoring exciting, fun and interesting not only for myself but lots of other women too. Thank you guys! I hope to see you in person in your show soon.
Anyway, a basic advice when choosing a partner or husband is to see if your interests or life-style doesn't clash with your own personality. For instance, for a woman, if you HATE parties and late night evenings and entertaing people and would prefer to stay quietly at home every night watching TV. Do not date nor marry a diplomat where there will be endless important social events and late-night evenings. Equally, if you adore dancing the night away till dawn and coming home always late, do not marry a professional foot-baller who has to be early in bed for morning trainings the next day. It is not about shared interests or the lack of them that makes a relationship flounder. Its how your life-style complements each other's personality and tastes. I'm always surprised how seemingly intelligent, university educated people miss on this simple principle. But there you go..

The ' new ' house

Moving to a new house involves getting rid of the old. All those things that you do not wish to carry with you into your new life. The first thing I'm going to get rid of will be all of Peter's extensive collection of Jack the ripper books, these have to go. There is no way that I'm taking that aggro to our new home. (for the exception of Stephen Powell's book) all the rest will be donated to Oxfam.

Ideally, I would like to put them in a bonfire on Guy's Day. Specially the Skinner, Lindler and Morris Hoax Diary. I think is bad luck to take whatever has caused you nothing but unpleasantness and getting rid of this collection will be for me a way to exorcise the demons out of my brand new life. The old clothes have now been neatly packed and are ready to go, then the rest is looking through drawers and ruthlessly throwing away whatever is no longer useful, taking as little as possible to our new home.

Work is advancing there and Peter and I have already chosen the new kitchen and bathroom and its so exciting to be finally able to see this project coming along after all the endless planning permissions from the council that involves having to go through in a listed and historical home as this one. Finally, the archeological excavations are also done and the house is shaping up nicely so by the spring we will be able to move to the prettiest market town I've ever seen. I can hardly wait.

Hygeia ( Health )

Hygeia is the daughter of the first doctor Aesculapius, considered the father of Medicine. She appears with a snake, the symbol of healing, still part of the emblem of the doctor today. She is also an aspect of the goddess Athena and therefore shares her ability to speak to animals and raise the heroic dead.

Reflections on Reading

There are books so alive that you are always afraid that while you weren't reading the book has changed, has shifted like a river, while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone step twice into the same book ? Marina Tsvetaeva.

Our life is a pilgrims progress - that we are strangers in the earth, our life is a long walk or journey from earth to heaven. Vincent Van Gogh

Reading is one of the most rewarding endeavour, with a book our mind can travel to places you have never been to, or feel sentiments that you have never experienced before. At around October I reflect on the books that have given me joy during the year.

MYTHS Pomona and the nature god.

There is a wonderful thought-provoking quality about myths. Something that rings true interwoven in a fairy tale which is timeless. A sort of mixture between a dream and reality.

This picture is about Pomona and Vertumnus a nature god who could assume any shape, and here he is wooing the nymph Pomona. At the beginning he tried to befriend her by disguising himself as an old woman but when this failed, he revealed his true identity as a youthful god; here he is, at the moment when he has just removed his mask.

I liked the idea of painting this myth because I love the story, plus I wanted to paint figures in a landscape and this seemed to be the perfect setting to do both. On the right Cupid sits on the ground next to her and his arrows lie on the ground.

Lincoln

Sometimes you come across an enchanting and unexpected experience and one of those moments was when we visited Lincoln a few weeks back. What a pleasant surprise we had, whilst walking down through the oldest part of the town, with its old fashioned shop-windows just past a corner there it was, this enormous and awesome cathedral bathed in golden light that I never knew was there. For beautiful buildings you think of Oxford and Cambridge but this town rivals any of them and to me, it seems like a well kept secret as the atmosphere is not so crowded as the other two cities are. The cathedral is massive and magical, almost unreal during the night with its finely-kept intricate wooden carvings in the entrance and although we couldn't see it from the inside, it was impressive enough from the outside. Some day I hope to visit Lincoln and its castle with more time to explore inside them. The Cathedral and the castle were built by William the Conqueror. Wonderful buildings that were made to last through the centuries. A real treat.

Back from Ireland !