A letter to my daughter…


You have always been “interesting”, from the moment you arrived (the wrong way round) in fact even before that, at the12 week scan the ultra sound technician informed me your placenta was low and it would need keeping at eye on, which in a way sums you up perfectly. You didn’t sleep, you wouldn’t eat, the only child I know to sniff something or lick it and pronounce “I cant eat that it smells/tastes/looks funny”.

Interesting I suppose is much better than good (i.e. boring) you were the first person to use the first aid room in a department store in the newly built Trafford centre (the Temple of Excess of the North West!) You were squirting perfume and you squirted one in your eye, the only silence I heard that afternoon was the sound of you taking up the biggest breath ever before you howled the place down, I think it served as a warning to us all perfume in your eye hurts, you cried and cried and the nurse said this was possibly the best eye wash and all natural, you smelt of Calvin Klein Eternity for days (as did your bedroom).


You liked to collect everyone’s dressing gown cord and once you had tied them together (like someone escaping from a window) you attached them to the top of the bannister upstairs, not for you walking up and down stairs in the usual way, you would hurtle yourself from the top right down, land in the kitchen where you would get out a can of aerosol “squirty cream” and squirt a mouthful before climbing mountaineer style back up to your room.

There was plenty of scary moments, but thankfully never any dull ones. You wont ever take no for an answer and the whole family can clearly remember you asking if there was a “reputable retailers” when we were on a family trip to Blackpool, you had birthday money that was burning a whole in your pocket and had seen something advertised on TV as “available from all reputable retailers”.

I have wanted to put my hands very firmly around your neck and gently squeeze, and/or massage. You have the ability to make me wonder where on earth you get all your traits from, well, as the raw ingredients were sourced from me and your dad, I guess we only have ourselves to blame, I wouldn’t (couldn’t) swap you for the world


Love Mum