❤ What I've been doing during my long silence... ❤

I know I promised I'd get back into my blog and cataloguing my collections and I really did have every intention in doing so... I still do, but something totally mind blowing happened to me and as it turned out the best thing ever!

As you know, towards the end of 2016, I lost my Dad and for a long time I really didn't have much interest in anything to do with Social Media, socialising and certainly not showing off my dolls.

 I didn't want to go anywhere, see anybody and just cut myself off from the world for a while... Until one day towards the end of January,  I discovered I had a message on Facebook so I checked it out, it was kind of odd as already that month two guys I was friends with in my teens also got in touch.

Les was an old friend's ex boyfriend, I rescued a rat from a girl I knew who wasn't looking after him and got Les to give him a good home,  the other was Lee former guitarist in  Acrimony (I loved that band!) and Lifer he was another old and now ex-friend's ex boyfriend whom I met when she introduced us when I was 12!  

I hadn't seen either of them for around twenty years. Catching up with them both really helped take my mind off the crap time I had been going through and of course as Lee, loves music and is still in a band (Woven Man), he put me onto some very cool bands to listen to which I had no idea existed! 

 I was loving all the new Doom Metal, Thrash bands and Stoner Metal I was discovering and then the most amazing thing happened...

I got a message out of the blue from a guy called Paul, we met in school when I was 16 (he was 14) after being introduced by a mutual friend.

 We both loved Slayer and Acrimony (he was/is friend's with the other guitarist in Acrimony - Stu' O'Hara, who now plays for Sigiriya)... As soon as I saw him I was smitten, by the time lunch break ended we were a couple.

Back in those days there were so many good local Metal bands and we used to go to gigs most weeks, there's never been much to do in "The Valleys" if you aren't old enough to get into one of the Village's 8 pubs.

The cinema (run by a group of volunteers) gets a few films each year, a couple of weeks after they've been shown in Swansea's UCI - not all of the films they show make it this far into the mountains though so unless you want to see the same film repeatedly for 3 weeks or don't like the other two that are going to be shown you're a bit stuck, especially now the swimming pool - open air mind you, pumped full of highly chlorinated river water, and only open during Summer months - has now shut down... there's nothing here for teenagers.

So we'd either hang around in a huge group inside and spilling out of  The Bus Stop listening to Metal on someone's Boom Box or following local bands, which had the added bonus of meaning we could get into local pubs to watch the band and while we were there... get drunk!

Anyway, long story short, I was stupid, I broke it off with Paul and broke both our hearts.

I moved away to college, moved back, got my Degree in Fine Art, had a Son and after years of disastrous relationships decided to give up on the whole idea.

I never did forget about Paul though, or stop regretting letting him go.

 In the mean time he'd done much the same except his Degree is in Electrical Engineering and he doesn't have children.

While we were catching up, I found myself feeling the same way about him as I did all those years ago... I guess it was inevitable that we'd end up on a date, well one date led to another, to another and...

In April 2017, we went to Bristol to see Acid Reign, a band he introduced me to all those years ago.

I met the bassist Pete Dee just before the gig and got his autograph on a poster I managed to snag from the Ladies, after the gig I got the other band member's as well, except for Marc Jackson the drummer 'cos I was drunk and got confused!

Since then we've seen Alice Cooper, Max & Iggor Cavalera, Overkill, Shrapnel, The Mission (UK), Children of The Gravy, and had a holiday in Shropshire.

Last month we went to see Sigiriya, are going to see Saxon and Diamond Head this week, we're booked for Cannibal Corpse in March, the Frost & Fire Festival in May and Iron Maiden and Power Trip in August.

I've been having a blast.

I haven't had much time for dolls, but I have got my hands on a few new BJDs which I'm happy to say Paul has helped me re-string - he doesn't understand the whole "Doll thing" or Doll Customising (He'd never heard of this before I told him) but he says "If it makes you happy it's all good" and as he knows about wires and electrics, he's perfectly happy to help me wire up my dolls houses too- what a guy!!