Don’tcha just love it when an idea turns out exactly as you hoped. This is one of those moments for me. The only thing about this shot I didn’t visualise in advance was the monochrome – that’s because the most colourful thing in the shot was the dining table and that detracted from my almost petal-less daisy. The shot has been in my mind since Tuesday when I cut the grass in Cornwall and chopped down loads of wild flowers (weeds to the half-empty) in the process.

I’ve always been fascinated by love, though sometimes disappointed by it too. I can never quite work out why it is that when one person is deeply attracted to another person, the object of the desire doesn’t always reciprocate. What is it that makes a bond between two people? Why does the bond sometimes break? Why can someone love so much, yet it’s not enough for the person they love? Why does love sometimes turn to hate?

Who can say – I don’t know of anyone who can definitively give the answers.

For me, there are moments when I am so insecure in my love that I find it hard to believe DM actually does love me. These moments come at times when I least expect them and eat into my soul until I find a sign that justifies to me the reason for pouring my heart and soul into this relationship. He is usually oblivious to my worries until he either does something that pulls my equilibrium back into shape or he gets that killer comment, out of the blue ‘if you don’t love me then please tell me…..’. His usual response is surprise and shock – ‘of course I do why on earth do you think I don’t’.

Why am I so insecure? Who knows, maybe it’s just that I can’t believe my luck sometimes – it took more than ten years to see this love come to fruition. Ten years of flirting, ten years of not being ‘available’, ten years of misery (for me anyway). I torture myself regularly with ‘but when we first flirted I was a tiny thin thing, how can he still like me now I’m not?’ ‘I’m not worthy’ ‘he’s much too clever (he’s got a degree) to be with someone like me’ ‘he’ll run off with a thin pretty blonde (just like his string of exes) one of these days’.

Of course he won’t – he does love me and that makes me the happiest woman alive. But it’s a lottery (or as scientific as pulling the petals from a daisy) – sometimes you win in love and sometimes you lose. This time it’s our turn to win!

Last year I was lamenting my friend John's stroke - now this poor man is facing cancer too - as I said last year 'John, you CAN beat this thing'. I was getting pleasure from shopping two years ago and that doesn't happen often!