Dear Alidia
I am writing this on Microsoft word so I can copy and paste it to the web page, in the hope it will work!
I forgot to tell you that I did write you a poem, but I decided not to post it on the website. I will explain why another time, and I hope you then understand why I chose not to publish it.
I wonder what you are doing tonight… This time 10 years ago you were 18 months old and we went to a New Year/Century Party at Cranwell. We were outside at midnight watching the fireworks and I sat with you covering your ears and telling you how much I loved you. I have a photograph of you in your gorgeous little red, velvet dress, and you look soooo tired as it was such a late night, but you were such a good girl as always!
Tonight we are here at home. We didn’t want to go out as Ewan is too small to come to a party, and likes his bed too much. But he gets up early too! And even if we didn’t have to get up for Ewan, there are still the dogs, cats and horse to see to, so not much rest to be had around here!
We have booked Ewan’s Birthday Party now. We are going to the same place we had our Christmas lunch and most of the family are coming, as well as a few friends.
We’re just going to have a little buffet and keep it short and sweet. Babies get restless if their routine is messed up too much; I learned that when you were dinky!
I think we’ll be in bed before midnight tonight. Pretty boring really, but if we stay up we’ll only regret it tomorrow when we are exhausted!
Nanna K sends her love, she wrote you a message for Christmas which I will try and put on soon. I haven’t tried as the computer seems to not like the programme very much and crashes every time. It’s reeeaaaallllly irritating, but I AM going to get one soon, hopefully in the sales like I said last time I wrote.
Nanna B also sends her love… In fact, so do all of the family. Do you remember Grace? She is your 2nd cousin, from Uncle Jon & his Auntie Brenda. The two of you used to play when you were younger. She is between your age and Holly’s age, and she is writing something for me to add to this site as well.
Anyway my angel, I had better go and eat something or I’ll pass out. We’re running a little late with dinner as Ewan was a tinker and screamed lots earlier. He has a new tooth coming and didn’t sleep much today so he was very tired!
All my love to you as always, and wishing you an incredibly happy, healthy New Year, full of joy and wonderful things…
Mum xXx
ps, it's nearly 9pm on New Years Eve now xxx
Dear Alidia
I hope you are feeling good and enjoying the snow. It has been quite bad here but nowhere near as bad as elsewhere in the Country, so I hope you didn’t get too cold or soggy!!! I bet you had a few days extra holiday from school though?!
Mike got me with a snow ball on Sunday, and I didn’t manage to get him back so Holly crept out and splattered him for me!
It is Ewan’s first Birthday this week, and he is also starting nursery school for a few hours a week. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone! This time last year I was a huge great whale, but I’ve been quite lucky and managed to lose all the extra weight really quickly. I suppose that has a lot to do with hurtling round after a little man. He certainly keeps us all on our toes!
I have been wondering a lot recently, what you might think if you do come across this website one day. And it occurred to me that it must be very odd and maybe scary after all this time. So I thought I would write a little about what could happen, depending on what you decided to do, or not to do…
If you were to email the address on the website (which would be a very courageous and brave thing to do!) I would respond if it were appropriate. If you asked me not to then I wouldn't, of course.
Until recently there was an auto responder on the email account that would send a message to anyone who emailed me, but I took it off today in case it caused any upset.
Then it really depends entirely on your wishes…
If you said, I don’t want to have anything to do with you Mum, of course I would be very sad, but I would also respect your wishes.
I would never force you to speak to or see me or anyone, because more than anything, my wish is for you to be happy.
Obviously all of us would love for you to be a part of our lives. Those of us who knew you as a youngster would love to get to know you again, and those of us who haven’t yet had the chance to meet you, would absolutely adore getting to know you.
But each of us knows that it would be wrong to push you in any way. So if we were to have any form of contact, you would have the biggest say in how things go as far as I’m concerned!
If you said, I want to speak to you but I’m worried about this happening, or that happening, then obviously I would try my best to reassure you as honestly as possible.
The last thing anybody wants is to disrupt your life, so please rest assured there would be nobody demanding you packed your things and moved in with us, or anything silly like that.
I, or should I say, we, would just love the chance to get to know our Alidia again, and see where things go.
If you said, for example, that you would like to get in contact with Nanna B, I would let you have contact details for Nanna B.
The only problem with this is that, there are some weirdo’s about on the internet, so before giving out anybody else’s details we would have to agree on a way of being certain that we were who we said we were… Like maybe a couple of questions that only you and I would know the answers to. Does that make sense? Or maybe I could pass something on for you. I guess it depends a little bit…
On the ‘other information’ page on the site, I mentioned a few organisations, one of which is called Cafcass. They are a group of people who work for the court, and when families have fall outs, they are specially trained to look out for the children and young people involved, who can sometimes be stuck in the middle.
They are basically an adult voice for a young person. A person to speak on your behalf, and put your wishes across.
I’m sure you must have lots of friends at school who have step parents or Mum or Dad have boyfriends or girlfriends, so you’ll know by now that unfortunately, family break ups are far too common.
On the plus side, that means that nowadays there is a lot more support available for families, and especially young people, during and after break ups in families.
I hope that is enough to put your mind at rest, if just for a little while. If you have any questions that you don’t feel able to ask anyone close to you and don’t want to or can’t ask me, as I’ve said before, it might be worth speaking to a teacher you trust, or maybe there is a special person/department at your school – at Holly’s school they used to call it Pastoral but now it is Wellbeing. If not, maybe SSAFA if you’re still near a station. I know you can contact them through the main switchboard on any of the station telephone numbers.
Right, I had better go and get Ewan cleaned up and ready to go out for a walk now. We had to buy him another new buggy the other day, as one of the cats decided to wee in his old one (well I say old, we only had it 9 months!) and the one we bought before he was born, he just did not like! His new one is cosy and really good in the snow, and it keeps him snug as a bug!
All my love as usual, and tons from everybody else too.
Mum xXx
