"How did you do this?", and “How did you find such a beautiful man?”, was what many friends asked me. Honestly I wasn't busy looking for a relationship, and strange as it sounds, it just came to me. I am 61 years old and I really thought that I would never meet a man in this lifetime. I have had a few relationships in my life but they didn’t work out. ​

Being your own best friend starts by you developing a great relationship with you! Caring or looking after yourself seems like such a simple thing to do. I mean how difficult is it to brush your teeth, exercise, eat well, etc.?
Yet how many of us take the time to really tune into our body and feel what would truly deeply nurture us, beyond these basic care necessities?
We live in our own body so shouldn't we know it better than anyone else? Doesn't it make sense to be your own best friend? For me it has been a long and winding road getting to the point of even listening to my body, rather than disregarding it.

Grandmothers - how do we feel about them?

As a child I adored my country grandmother and I wanted to be like her when I grew older. She was never rushed, everything was done with grace and care, whether it was sitting in front of her dressing table to brush her hair and apply her rouge, picking fruit or vegetables from the garden, mixing cakes at the kitchen table, it was a pleasure to be with her and to watch her every move. She often expressed her appreciation for my parents, for nature, and for me. I now appreciate her legacy more than ever, as I am now a grandmother myself, and I am aware that how I am as a grandmother is very different to how I was as a mother.

​In my lifetime I have observed many changing beliefs about relationships. The primary relationship that everyone thought about and talked about when I was a young girl was romantic love and marriage. As not every household had a landline phone and there was no social media and no mobile phones, the main focus was on magazines. These were very much geared to romantic love – to ideas of how to attract a man into one's life, what to wear, what perfumes to use and what makeup one should or should not use. The inference being that by doing these things one would catch a good husband and thus live happily ever after!! 
This was all pretty demeaning for women because we were supposed to be objects instead of people!  I suspect as a teenager and very young woman I bought into this all pervading belief.  ​