The Proposal!

With Valentine's Day almost upon us, I thought I'd share Mike and I's engagement story. I never got to write about it as my brain was fogged with drama and a heavy dose of codeine! So, for new followers, I'll recap how Mike and I met.

One of my best friends Leanne and I met in an unusual way. My pal Mike P started dating Leanne's buddy Lauren. Suddenly Leanne and I were relationship widows, so we formed a singles alliance built on road trips in Leanne's bright orange 1980's car and a diet of junk food, booze and self pity.

Leanne joined an online social and dating group, she convinced me to join too. I'd met my ex online but had been single for 18 months, although I signed up, I wasn't too fussed about being in a relationship again.

Then I met Mike aka VanillaGorilla and I was LilPinkDuck.. I fancied the pants off him but he lived 80miles away, neither of us drove and I couldn't travel on my own in the wheelchair, so I blocked his profile. Lucky for me, Leanne and even Lauren (who would come up for air occasionally!) kept unblocking Mike or Geology Boy, the nickname they had bestowed upon him.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The Proposal

9 Years on, the boy and I have a mortgage, a merged DVD collection and have fended off countless questions of marriage and babies. I was very laid back about the whole thing, I know plenty of unmarried couples who are perfectly happy, but every time we'd go on holiday, I'd wonder whether he was going to propose . 3 trips to Australia, 4 to Spain, Ireland and an epic trip to New York later, my hand came back empty.

From day one, Mike had said that he'd want to get married and have two babies by the time we were 30, so when I turned 30 on June 5th of last year, I was a tad confused, none of these plans had materialised and yet we were still happily together.

A year before I turned 30, Mike and his family had booked a holiday to Disneyland Paris combined with a week in Bordeaux in June 2014. Off we went, to the land of fine foods, excellent wines and the happiest place in Europe - Disney!

Disney was amazing, no matter how old you are, the place gives you goose bumps and sore cheeks from all the smiling. On the second day there, Emma, Mike's sister, told us that she'd booked us in for dinner at Jules Verne, the restaurant inthe Eiffel Tower! I was beside myself with excitement, a trip to the centre of Paris with the best views in the entire city!

So, on June 19th Mike and I caught a (double decker!) train to Paris. I thought he was a tad moody, but put it down to him being tired. As we walked out of the train station, we were faced with the Arc de Triomphe, which is so much bigger than I realised. We started walking/rolling into town and there, in the distance, was the Eiffel Tower, the beacon of France, the monument of so many films and TV shows.

The tower was also a lot bigger than I had imagined, it was also majestic and more beautiful than I'd given it credit for. After dropping our stuff off at a hotel we headed for an early dinner.

My oh my! If you ever get the chance to go to the Jules Verne restaurant - GO! The food was simply exquisite, the service was second to none and the champagne flowed beautifully. I felt on top of the world. The France skyline surrounding us, with blue skies immerging - I felt so lucky, maybe too lucky and I have never been so full in my entire life!

After dinner we went back to the hotel so that Mike could change out of his suit and into his infamous Hawaiian shorts. I felt so full, I started to nap but begrudging left the hotel to make the most of Paris.

We had photos of all the views from the Eiffel Tower and none of the tower it's self, so we headed to the grassed garden surrounding the landmark.

There were hundreds of people doing selfies with the Tower. Coach trips, couples, friends and artists huddled together to get the perfect shots. We were no different, using Mike's gorilla pod fashioned into a make shift selfies stick.

We were about to leave when Mike said he had a gift for me, he handed me a package with his sisters address on the front. I opened the gift to find a pad lock with the words "Lynsey Ellard and Mike Garrick together in Paris". I was silly excited as I'd not had a chance to get a padlock made to attached to the famous locks of love bridge, which was on my bucket list.

Moment's before Mike asked

I hugged and kissed the boy, I was so thrilled he had been so thoughtful and romantic but then he told me to check the packaging again for another gift. I felt another padlock and read the words...

"Lynsey Ellard, I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with U! Will you marry me?"

I looked at Mike, back to the lock, back to Mike and to the lock once more.

I asked "Really??" Mike laughed, I giggled leapt at him at with a kiss then said "Of course I will...... and finally!!"

I was giddy with joy and Mike explained why he had forgone some of the proposal traditions. He said he was too scared to kneel down, as he was worried I'd keel over, sensible as I have trouble standing at the best of times. He hadn't chosen a ring, this was more my influence, I rarely wear jewellery so I thought it best that we chose it together.  If I was going to wear a ring my whole life - I'd have to love it!

Mike hadn't managed to ask my parents hand in marriage as he had flown in from California hours before we'd left for France, he phoned them straight after the proposal, luckily they said yes!

I spent the next hour calling friends and family (running up a £100+ bill!) although I couldn't get through to a lot of them with signal and overseas phone issues sadly.  Then I completed my very modern love story with a very modern announcement on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, with the photo below I put the words...

The boy did good!

The ring we chose together

"What a locky girl I am! We're #engaged! The boy #proposed on a lock of love in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris!"

A very ‘locky’ girl indeeed!  

L x

Feeling like a Red Balloon

Recently, I heard a joke about a red balloon and I thought it would be the perfect analogy to why I haven't blogged for 5 months. Like an old red balloon; I've felt let down, deflated a tad more wrinkled than I did last Summer. 

I've been very conscious that I didn't want to be/ or no longer be "social media martyr". I see competitive status' like "I've only had one/two/three hours sleep" or those who use their twitter feed to give us an hourly pain update, rated 1-10.  Worst of all, those who simply change their status to "I'm so happy/angry/sad" and when asked why, they refuse to answer - why put up a post that you're not willing to elaborate on to a SOCIAL MEDIA platform?

I fess up, I have done some of the above but after watching rather than posting online, I've seen how irritating and depressing it becomes for those reading. Don't get me wrong, we all need a moan or a venting session, it's nice to know there are others in the same situation or those giving you great advice, but do we need to post one the hour of every hour?

The last 8 years of my life have been dominated by 4 court cases (which by the way, I was not the criminal in any way, but I was the one mopping up the aftermath!) including family, criminal and Will & probate cases. It might have been easier to take a law degree! I've neglected my own goals, charity work and not to mention my family and friends. If I posted every time I was in pain, stressed, panicked I would have zero friends or followers!

All the events been exhausting and a few months back I decided to have hypnotherapy, it works very well on me from previous experience, and this time it really helped. So a long story short, the hypnotherapy worked and the cure was realising that I have forgotten to be optimistic, happy and grateful.

So how do you see the positive's in trauma? Well, I have gone back to seeing the bright side; what can I learn from all the cases? In my newly refreshed brain, I see that it has all been life experience; I will make sure I correctly file my Will and last testament, I will follow my instincts rather than fobbing off my opinions. I now know who my really friends are and I've learnt who only befriended me for their own gain and my useful resources - physical, mental or material. 

If nothing else, my memoirs will be an interesting read - split into several volumes!

Bear with me guys!

L xxx

Beaches, Jazz and Goodbyes

If you missed the first few blogs to Australia 2014 series please use the links just below!

Australia 2014 Part 1
Australia 2014 Part 2
Australia 2014 Part 3
Australia 2014 Part 4
Australia 2014 Part 5
Australia 2014 Part 6
Australia 2014 Part 7

The last two day’s we were in Brisbane, Mike wasn’t working, plus we were still showing Mike’s friend Don around, so on the Saturday morning, we decided to take him to Surfers Paradise since we loved it there.

We’d forgotten it was Anzac Day and as we walked through the main city centre, we were surrounded by a parade of all sorts of military units and the streets were thickly lined with onlookers. We stood for a while watching too, we wanted to respect Australia’s history like we do our own.

Aussie Uniform

Once we had made our way to the South Bank train station, we headed south to Surfers Paradise and lucky for us it was a beautiful hot day – perfect for a trip to the beach.

When we arrived, we took Don to the Q1 building (some of you may remember the stunning shots from our first visit to Australia) where you can view the city and beach from 270 metres above ground level. Don was as awestruck as us, and even though we’d been there before we were still in awe of the spectacular views.

View from the Q1

There's a reason it's called Surfers Paradise

The Q1 viewing deck also has a fully stocked bar and restaurant so we stayed for cocktails and nibbles. When we go back one day, I’d love to go for a late dinner there, I can imagine the lights of SurfersParadise are just as amazing as sunny days.

Back on ground level we headed to the beach, which was clean, not too busy and the sea was crystal clear, I was so happy to be back. Mike and I did our obligatory couple on the beach selfie, which is now my profile picture on all my social media. Don, bless him, was really missing his wife at this point, and wished she’d been able to see Australia too.

Mike and I

Before we headed back to Brisbane, we did some shopping, all buying tacky and fun gifts for loved ones at home.

Once we were back in the city, we met up with Pieter, Renee and a couple of their friends. We went to a restaurant called ThePoint Bistro on the South Bank where they served modern Australian Fair, whilst a three piece Jazz band played. Conversation flowed beautifully helped along with copious amounts of wine and beer.

The South Bank Crew became....

Feeling a tad drunk, silly and playful,  we then had to decide whether to go to a chocolate restaurant or a liquid nitrous ice cream parlour called Nitrogenie (a hard life choice, you understand!)– we opted for the latter, where we indulged in huge ice creams (mine being Nutella!) which we took to pub, where we washed it down with yet more booze – full and bloated did not cover it!

...the NitroGenie Crew

The next morning we met up with Don for breakfast in our hotel, I chose to stick to fruit and coffee after the gluttonous feast the night before. Sadly Dons flight was early afternoon so we said goodbye and 

Mike and I opted to just wander round the city one final time.

Whilst in town we went to a shop where they sold tea in traditional tea leaves and imported flavours from the whole world. We wanted to buy Renee and Pieter a gift for all their company and hospitality, being English we felt tea was a fitting gift, we then checked out of our hotel to spend our last few hours in OZ with them.

They loved their gift and we sat with them both and Rennee’s parents for dinner, accompanied by the tea we’d bought (which was the best tea I’ve ever tasted!).

After some very sad goodbye’s (Mike no longer will be visiting Brisbane for work) we checked in at the airport and headed straight for the business lounge. Our flight home was uneventful and Mike’s Dad Tony picked us up from Heathrow.

A cold British Spring Day brought us back down to earth with a thud, although we will not have the perks of going to Brisbane on business, we vowed we would go back soon, as it is still our favourite city on earth – we love you Brisbane!

L x