My use of exercise as a release valve began quite early for me. I used to enjoy at the age of about 11 the times we were sent out for a "cross country" run at school. I'm not sure if kids actually do this anymore. When I was about that age it was compulsory. There were times in the winter when you could not move your hands afterwards because they were so cold. They would also throb with pain as the blood returned to prevent you getting frost bite! It sounds like I'm exaggerating but I can assure you I'm not. The shirt buttons were almost impossible to do up and sometimes the PE teacher or a

Today I surprised myself by being drawn to a place I had not been to for some time. It was the local church where at the start of my journey I had visited with my ex in order to attend a Relate meeting. This morning I did not intend to go there and I have not given it a thought for much of the time recently. I suppose I was close and my footsteps just ended up taking me there. There is a peaceful mural / painting on the wall as you enter. The chairs around and beneath invite you to sit and look at it. Its a view of the island of Iona and the tall stone cross, a symbol to the arrival of

It’s a week now since I moved house. For those of you who have not been following my story, here it is in brief: I was a stay at home mum for 20 years, having given up my career to look after the children and support my husband (both of us well educated and with high paying jobs which involved travel etc). Marriage a bit rocky, I organized couples’ counseling. Day of first session I came home to find a note on the mat and he was gone. Long story short, over the next six months or so it emerged that he had been lying to me about all sorts of things for years. I petitioned him for