And the sugar that dripped from the violin's bow made the children go crazy

Ahh, lovely day.

Was woken at an ungodly hour by Shortstuff, who was far too lively for someone who'd been up in the night after a nightmare.

Removed him from our bed because John was still valiantly trying to sleep. Made porridge. Didn't have a hangover.

John and I had a gloriously lazy morning after dropping Sherlock at school, coffee, picked up my bike, more coffee, until John went off to see Dr E. So, to fill the time while he was gone, I decided to bake a brown sugar choccy cake with chocolate treacle icing. Which turned out very well - but the icing was way too much to fit on the cake! John helped me dispose of some of it though ;)

Sherlock thoroughly enjoyed having a slice after school - we ran to the school, because a. I need more exercise and b. it meant we could cool down by walking home. Neat.

So, the other day, Anon asked: "Do you have any advice on how to mentally physically and emotionally prepare for a new relationship having left one that was far from good?"



That's a really hard question. I've thought about it a lot - and when I thought I might have an answer, I had to have a bit of a re-think.

I guess, first of all, you have to forgive yourself. Quite a lot. Which I don't do very easily.

I think the first thing is to repeatedly remind yourself that whoever you go out with next is not the person who treated you badly. They won't react the same way, they won't do the same things. It's not easy, and it takes a long time to try to convince yourself - I don't know how long, I'm still doing it.

You need to be ready. I don't think there's any way to know if you are, until you meet someone who you think you might like to be in a relationship with. I didn't think I was, but when John came along...I was. Well, sort of.

It was definitely a lot easier for me once John knew about Bry. I mean, telling him wasn't easy. And I can't imagine that situation ever will be... but once he knew, I did feel better.

Ah, see, I don't know if I can really answer this at all.

Last night, at the tennis - which I was really looking forward to watching John enjoy - I realised that, as John got more...passionate, about it, and Federer looked like he might lose, I was scared. And, you know, we've been together a while. I've watched him watch tennis before. But...I suppose I got very used to things like that being 'my fault', and...I don't know, it took quite a few deep breaths to remind myself that it wasn't John I was scared of. It was my past experiences. And they weren't going to be repeated.

So, yeah, I think...you have to be patient with yourself, and forgive yourself a lot. And if someone comes along who you like, then they have to do all those things too. And if they don't, then they're not the right one.

Above everything, respect yourself, and treat yourself like you'd treat others. And it isn't easy. But you can do it.