My local supermarket looks like Barbie's wardrobe has exploded all over it. Everything is inexplicably pink. For a moment I'm confused, until it clicks. Ah yes. It must be October. 

October, for those who are colour blind or live in a cave, is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I feel oddly ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, it's a cause close to my heart. On the other, I'm very well aware of it already thank you very much. I do not need a vomit-inducing ocean of pink to remind me. And I feel like breast cancer has an unfortunate tendency to hog the limelight - and the funding, and the research - to the detriment of other, less glamorous cancers. As if there's anything glamorous about any of them.

But today, for one day, I will put my misgivings to one side and shout from the rooftops, because today is the second ever Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day.

I've written a little bit before about how it feels to have loved one with secondary breast cancer (the short version: it feels crap). What makes it even harder is the extreme learning curve that hurls you upwards into a confusing world of metastases and taxotere and stages and prognosis and a million acronyms that you have no hope of ever understanding. At first, I thought my mum just had really bad luck. Imagine getting bone cancer when you've already beaten breast cancer! Then, later, I learned she actually had breast cancer in her bones, and began to understand just how unlucky she really was.

(By the way, if you're still wondering what exactly all this secondary breast cancer stuff is all about, allow me to direct you to this wonderful comic. Its creator's wife was diagnosed last year with Stage III breast cancer and he sums up in a few lines and letters what a hundred detailed booklets and websites can still fail to make clear. Also, this one. Weep.)

I'm not saying it would have been better if I'd known secondary breast cancer was a possibility. I would probably have spent the decade between my mum's primary and secondary diagnoses worrying about every ache and twinge, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But it's scary how many women who have had breast cancer don't even know what it is or, more importantly, what to look out for. And on a purely selfish level, it would be nice, once in a while, not to have to explain to a well-meaning person that words like "cure" and "battle" and "better" don't actually help. Secondary breast cancer requires a different kind of positive thinking.

The bigger issue is that primary breast cancer - its prevention, its treatment, its care - dominates the fun runs and the research budgets and the public understanding of what breast cancer is.  It can sometimes feel like the medical community has turned its back on secondary sufferers, preferring to concentrate its precious resources on the victorious finality of a Cure, instead of on the slippery and amorphous concept of Control. Yet many women who have been treated for primary breast cancer will one day have to face the sadness and terror of a secondary diagnosis (we don't know how many, because nobody is even collecting this data), so isn't it time we started paying attention to them too?

So, today, I would be ever so grateful if you would share this link - like it, tweet it, +1 it, print it out and stick it on your notice board, I don't care. Breast Cancer Care is a wonderful charity for all people affected by breast cancer. They have made a big difference to me and my family and they really deserve our support. 

Thanks team.

There is a distinct autumnal chill in the air. The brief warmth that flared up at the end of last month has fizzled out as quickly as it appeared, and Autumn is well and truly upon us, necessitating the purchase of cosy winter coats. So what better way to pass a wet October Saturday afternoon, for a girl temporarily without a husband and with absolutely no plans, than sitting alone in the darkness with nothing but her wildly beating heart to keep her company as a tragic love story unfolds across a silver screen?

No, I did not go to see Johnny English Reborn. I went to see Jane Eyre. And I adored it.

From the muted colour palette and spine-crushing corsetry to the restrained passion of the central performances, everything about it is beautifully understated. I was utterly spellbound from start to finish and actually continued to wander around in a dream for a good two hours afterwards. So much so that, as I strolled through the shops in a cinematically-induced dwam, I found myself inexplicably lusting after dresses such as these: 

I can't imagine why.

And the lusting didn't end there. I hesitate to admit this, but I don't think I've ever read Jane Eyre, nor have I read Wuthering Heights (oh, the shame), so I spent much of the first half of the film trying to remember which of them was the crazy-first-wife-in-the-attic one. That question was answered soon enough, and promptly replaced by far more pressing issues: namely, where can I find myself a Mr Edward Fairfax Rochester and can I get him to run away with me immediately?

Byronic heroes are a bit of a weakness of mine (in literary terms, you understand). One only has to glance at a list of typical traits to understand why. "Intelligent and perceptive". "Self-critical and introspective". "Mysterious, magnetic and charismatic". "Seductive and sexually attractive". "Having a troubled past or suffering from an unnamed crime". Hello, bad boy. Mix in a bit of period style (floppy hair, billowing sleeves, offensively long sideburns) and SWOON.

I frequently find myself indulging in full-length romantic fantasies involving whichever brooding antihero has most recently leapt off the pages of a book and swept me off my metaphorical feet. Hell, even Edward Cullen would do in a pinch. Two souls yearning for each other, smouldering declarations of love, some sort of unexpected tragedy and maybe a bit of riding around on a horse looking manly. Isn't that what a perfect romance should look like?

Well, maybe.

But what happens after the last page has been turned, the last frame has faded from the screen? Most of these epic, tortured romances culminate in a wedding, an engagement, or some similar declaration of everlasting love. Cue passionate snoggage and ebullient strings, as the camera pans away across the windswept moors. The End. Except it's not the end, is it?

Dresses by Louche, available at Joy. All images from Jane Eyre

Whatever. I might be a hypocrite, but at least I'll be a cosy hypocrite. And it has sleeves and does not resemble baby raccoon tails or a character from Sesame Street. Which are always my main criteria in searching for a coat. Along with not being a yellow puffer jacket (I'm with Lauren on that one).

You have my permission to judge me.

It's the story of my life. As a wee girl, I would come up with a million different ways to avoid the monotony of cello practice. Then when I eventually sat down, bow in hand, I would limp half-heartedly through a couple of toneless scales before quickly launching into whatever pretty tune had been assigned that week. Scales were boring. Scales were dull. If I could get away without doing them (and as it turned out, I could, just about), then why bother?

As the rigours of school and nightly homework gave way to lecture theatres and seminars and "independent study", I was always the one who left things to the last minute. I would spend leisurely days eating toast and rolling my eyes at my friends holed up in the library, those idiots, how boring, until I inevitably found myself typing frantically through the night, racing to get the damn essay finished. (Once, I even had to get a taxi to the university to hand an essay in before the 4pm deadline. A taxi. It was a fifteen-minute walk away.) But still, because I was reasonably clever, I could get away with it.

I will admit that in my final two years, when it actually counted, I realised that being reasonably clever wasn't going to cut it forever. I reached deep within myself and somehow found the discipline to put the hours in every day because God damn it I was going to get a first if it was the last thing I ever did. I even managed to get to the library by 11am! Every single day! Oh, but I was exhausted. Self-enforced studiousness does not come naturally to me, unless there is a big juicy carrot to keep me on the right path. I seem to have mislaid my internal stick.

And it isn't only academically that my lack of discipline has surfaced. 

There was a certain dark-haired gentleman who I rather fancied around this time, but who seemed curiously unresponsive to my advances. Perhaps because my advances consisted of ignoring him 80% of the time and then pouncing on him without warning after my third vodka and lemonade. Naturally, my friends and I agreed that I was simply "playing it cool", which was the right and proper thing to do, while the only possible reason that he wasn't falling at my feet and professing his undying love was because he was a dick. Obviously. 

One evening, I resolved to play it even cooler and it was decided that I would not, under any circumstances, allow myself to succumb to his wily charms that evening. My dear friend, who was studying psychology, left a note on my door with the definition of self-discipline written on it in black ink, as a stern reminder of my pledge. She obviously knew me pretty well, though, because the note was accompanied by the promise of a free smoked sausage, if I behaved. (Did I mention I was living pretty much exclusively on smoked sausage, super noodles and cheese at this point? I'm still amazed he could resist me.) 

It remains a source of pride to me that I earned that smoked sausage, fair and square. But he got me in the end. 

It's the same with food, with exercise, with money - always the same. I still eat like I'm seventeen. I don't have a monthly budget or any sort of long-term financial plan. I go to the gym semi-regularly for weeks and then don't go again for a month. I always get up ten minutes (okay, forty minutes) later than I should. And don't even get me started on the decluttering debacle. I diligently combed through my wardrobe (Do I love it? Does it suit me? Will I wear it?) and filled bag after bag with too-tight, too-old, too-bloody-ugly clothes, only to then put the bags back in the wardrobe. So all the crap is all still there, but instead of being hung in nice neat rows, it is piled up in giant plastic bags. And has been for a month. I'm not sure I can call that a success.

Then, of course, there's the writing. I was always a last-minute blogger, staying up late to get posts finished, planning only maybe a day or two in advance at most, but at least I was doing it. Now I can barely scratch out five posts in a month, never mind a week. And in case you might think I am devoting all my spare time to writing mysterious, exciting things, I'm not. I'm mainly looking up leather chaps on the internet, and things of that ilk. 

I keep thinking that one day I will wake up (early!) and get out of bed (eagerly!) and suddenly find that I am diligent and responsible and capable of denying myself that which I want, in the pursuit of that which I want even more; in other words, self-disciplined. I believe this mythical state is known as Adulthood. But so far it doesn't seem to be happening of its own accord. 

So, I have decided I'm just going to have to make it happen, by the application of external factors. In other words, we're getting a dog. A wee little creature who is going to rely on us to feed her, water her, even take her to the toilet. She's going to make us wake up early. We'll have to keep the house tidy and free of chewable things. Somewhat bizarrely, *I'll* be expected to teach *her* about discipline, which sounds like the blind leading the blind. I'm hoping we can learn together.

More details to come on the little lady when we get her - she won't arrive until the start of November. She's a rescue greyhound, she's just about to turn two, her name if Smidgen and if one more person says to me that greyhounds are ugly they can just fuck right off.

How do you keep yourself focused and motivated? Do you think self-discipline comes naturally, or can it be learned? Can you please remind me to feed the dog?

The day after last month's Any Other Party, I was slumped in my window seat on a train speeding north, watching the terraces and fields rush past through the haze of a well-earned hangover, when Fin texted me to say that Edinburgh city centre was in turmoil. Streets were filled with shaven-headed fascist marchers and bespectacled anti-fascist protesters, the police a long yellow seam straining to keep the two apart. Ugly chants and crackling tension soiled the late summer air.

This would be distressing news on any Saturday in Edinburgh, but this was not just any Saturday. This was the day when my dear friend Kristen (who I've written about before) was second shooting her first ever wedding. In Edinburgh city centre. In fact, the wedding was being held in the exact. same. spot. where the demonstration was taking place. 

Ohhh shit.

But I should have known better than to worry. Not only was the bride an APW bride, and therefore more equipped than most to take a silly little fascist rally in her stride, but Kristen was assisting the supremely awesome Lauren McGlynn, who I am confident would take no shit whatsoever from those namby pamby SDL types. She might be a chilled-out American hippy but, believe me, those camera bags are heavy.

I have so loved watching Kristen's photography grow over the last year or so. I've always known she has an amazing eye - I've been admiring her artistic skills since she started doodling on her folder in Standard Grade Geography circa 1997 - but she really seems to have come into her own since she took up photography.  

Kristen was the first of my friends to really share my enthusiasm for the blogosphere, and she began blogging her work around the same time as I began blogging whatever the hell it is I blog here. I've been lucky (and, erm, cheeky) enough to use lots of Kristen's work to bring light and colour to my own ramblings, for which I am forever grateful. So I was thrilled to be able to give a little something back by introducing her to Lauren. (Well, I say I introduced them - it was more like I wrote a blog post about the two of them and then I told Kristen that Lauren was really nice and she should totally just email her to ask her about wedding photography. Which kind of counts as an introduction in this internet world, no?)

Lauren, being the sweetheart that she is, immediately invited Kristen to join her as a second shooter on a forthcoming Edinburgh wedding and, well, I think the results speak for themselves. The full wedding isn't up on Lauren's gorgeous new site yet (have you seen it? It's sooooo pretty) but you can see some of Kristen's 

shots from the wedding on her blog right now, and I could not be more proud of my friend. The fact that I played a very small part in bringing these two together is just the icing on the cake.

As a fairly competitive person (I may have once thrown a Scrabble board at Kristen's head) with creative pretensions of my own, it would be horribly easy to feel envious of Kristen and her talent. In fact, every time one of my friends gets an amazing new job, or goes off to live somewhere exotic, or buys a beautiful house, or loses half a stone, I could allow some small part of myself to feel that sting of jealousy, of bitterness, of why-not-me. God knows it wouldn't be the first time, or most likely the last. But I am becoming increasingly tired of the ways, big and small, in which women endlessly bring each other down and criticise each other, instead of celebrating each others' successes.  Bitchiness, backstabbing, snide remarks, even just a raised eyebrow - I can't help wondering if we are not each others', and consequently our own, biggest enemies. 

Easier said than done, perhaps. And I'm certainly far from perfect. But here are three things I do know for sure:

1. Life is not a competition. 

2. Success is not a finite resource.

3. My friend Kristen takes seriously amazing photographs.

Congratulations, Kristen. You're a star.

P.S. Speaking of Any Other Party, did you read the write-up? So brilliant. I'm still laughing, particularly at this comment - clearly I should have set up some sort of appointment system, or maybe just asked people to take a number. It's so hard being popular. Sigh.

All images by Kristen of What Kristen Saw

SEE ALSO: