I have written and re-written this blog post over and over again since the horrific events in Nice last week. Words literally fail me and my emotions changed so much over the first few days too, that something I wrote in the morning seemed so wrong by the afternoon.
For those who don’t know me, I moved to Nice as a student in 1996 for a 5 months stint at the university there as an Erasmus student.… Read more
Our teen years are such a minefield of emotions, hormones, confusion and questions. Highs are crazily high and lows are the end of the world. I got off relatively lucky during my teens as I had a decent helping of self-confidence and self-esteem (thanks Mum!) and tended to pick myself up from falls and get on with things.… Read more
Dear Mrs Morrison (my GCSE History teacher),
I don’t know if you remember me, Sophie, but I just wanted to write you this little letter of recognition and of appreciation.
In September it will be 27 years since I first walked into your History class at secondary school. I was 13 years old and I didn’t think I liked History as I’d spent the first two years at secondary school being bored by it.… Read more
To Léna – my 9 year old daughter,
When you were born, back in December 2006, I was very aware that you were only on loan to us for 18 years, when – if we’d done our job properly – you would take off on your own wings to lead your own independent life.… Read more
I honestly don’t know where to begin with this blog post. To say it’s a subject that’s been going through my mind for a while is an understatement – in my blog post drafts I have one entitled “My 5 year old does sexy dancing”… well my 5 year old is now 9 years old, and the over-sexualisation of girls seems to be getting worse.… Read more
To my darling L,
You are 9 years old today, so I want to try and put some feelings and thoughts into words. You are old enough to read and understand this now (far more than on your 7th birthday or on your 8th birthday), but I think it is something that will make sense to you more as you get older.… Read more
To my darling C,
It is your 3rd birthday today and I wanted to mark this day with an open letter, like I did last year and the year before. This letter won’t mean much to you now but I’m hoping that it’s something you will enjoy reading when you are older, and I know I like looking back on these letters and remembering how you were at different stages.… Read more
For those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter, or who are frequent readers of this blog, you’ll know that I gave myself a fairly massive challenge this year. One element was to set up a food blog, and in February Hubs and I launched Franglaise Cooking.… Read more
To my darling L,
You are 8 years old today, and to mark your big day here is this year’s special letter (last year’s letter is here). I cannot for the life of me understand how on earth you can possibly be 8 years old. Surely it was just yesterday that we held you, our first baby, in our arms, this tiny bundle of 2.7kg of joy.… Read more
To my darling C,
You are 2 years old today so I wanted to mark this special day by writing you a personal letter (as I did for you last year too), which will mean much more to you when you are older, and to mark the milestones of this past year.… Read more