Twenty one years ago I was wheeled into the operating room for a scheduled Cesarean section. I was about to become a mother for the first time. I had four miscarriages previously and at 38 years of age, it was a lifetime’s dream about to come true. I was terrified at the prospect of such a major operation. That was indeed my greatest of worries. I wasn’t worried about the baby. All the scans and progress monitoring showed everything was just fine. On the contrary, I couldn’t wait to meet my son or daughter! I was absolutely bursting with excitement!

“It’s a boy!” the doctor said from beyond the blue curtain shielding my view.

And with those words, I had a son. A SON!! Tears flowed as I heard his first cries. Then the nurse brought him over to me, all swaddled and with a scowl on his chubby little face, and I gave him his very first kiss.

It would be the first kiss of daily kisses for 17 years, 7 months, and 17 days.

That is how long I was blessed to have him in my life.

Twenty one years ago today my son, Brendan Bjørn, was born. He scored a 9 on both his one and five minute APGAR scores. A perfectly healthy boy, they said. The next day they told me he was failing his newborn hearing screening in one ear but not to worry because it was likely amniotic fluid in the ear. They’d retest before we were discharged from the hospital in a couple of days. I didn’t worry. I just snuggled with this miracle baby. My beautiful boy, Brendan Bjørn.

By the time we left the hospital, he had again failed the hearing test in his right ear. They ordered an ABR test to be done in a couple of weeks. I really didn’t think too much of it at the time, and why would I? They said it would be fine. But by the end of October, our world had come crashing down. The ABR showed profound sensorineural hearing loss. His 2-week well baby check up uncovered that his head was too small. Microcephaly. That, combined with the deafness, led to further testing and a CT scan of his brain. The diagnosis: severe brain damage in utero caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV).

I don’t want this blog post to be about CMV, though. (you can learn more about CMV here)

I want to focus on him. Brendan Bjørn. Today, on is 21st birthday, I want to celebrate the pure goodness, love and light that he was. He was truly BEAUTIFUL. He had a smile that could light up the darkest of rooms. He didn’t have words but his eyes radiated his love and happiness. His laughter elevated the worst of moods. And he absolutely adored his younger brother! There was no bond like theirs. It was such a tremendous sight to behold.

Twenty one. A lifetime ago, but just yesterday.

I nearly think it would do a disservice to his memory to elaborate on how broken I am without him now. I am, but may today not be about that. May it be a celebration of who he was and of his birth 21 years ago.

Happy Heavenly birthday, my sweet, beautiful angel Brendan Bjørn.
Sending you “a million kisses ‘cuz I love you a million times”

Forever and always.

Today marks 10 years since I wrote my first blog piece. At the time, Brendan Bjørn was in the hospital…yet again. He was going in for a procedure the next day, so I titled the piece, The Night Before. As I read it again now, I’m brought to tears. I can feel everything that I was feeling as I wrote it. The memories still so present. The pain, the struggles, and yes, also the joy at being blessed by being his mother. And I was truly blessed by him.

He’s been gone now for 3 years and 3 months.
I’m not the same person I was before.
I’m still not sure who I am now.
I’m not sure what my purpose is anymore.

Recently in our disabled community here in Ireland, another beautiful little boy, Harvey, left his parents and family all too soon. Like my son, he too had scoliosis and other health concerns and waited inhumanely, suffering, on the spinal fusion/operation waitlist. And like my son, this beautiful little boy garnered the attention of the media as his parents fought tirelessly for the timely, proper, healthcare their son needed. Also like my son, while their son did eventually get his operation, the damage done during such a horrifically long wait while his twisting spine did untold irreparable damage internally, it was heartbreakingly too little, too late.

Ireland is rallying around and calling for things to change for our children with additional healthcare needs. I hope and pray it will finally be the moment for that change!

Harvey’s passing and the flurry of attention to it on social media the past few weeks has triggered my anxiety and PTSD. I mention this only to highlight the toll this journey can take on a person, especially a lone-parent, nursing-level carer of nearly 18 years. The anguish of all those years of fighting, struggling to keep Brendan Bjørn alive, to receive all the healthcare and services he needed – and deserved – comes rushing back to me in waves that nearly drown me emotionally at times. Looking through all of the photos in attempts to help support this media storm call to facilitate needed changes has been extremely difficult for me. I’ve tried to publicly share on social media, once again, Brendan Bjørn’s own scoliosis journey and the grave injustices that occurred along the way.

It’s been another toll taken, though.

As I write this blog piece on the 10 year mark since my first blog piece, I contemplate what I need to do now for my own well-being. I think it’s time to earnestly, diligently, work on finishing the book I started about our journey. I think it’s time for me to honour Brendan Bjørn in that way. This blog will undoubtedly be a part of the book, but I’m thinking I will be less active in writing here now. At least, that’s the plan as I try to navigate life as it is now, with new struggles not written about here, but which are nonetheless equally challenging for me.

So, on this 10 year blog anniversary, I’ll end it with the final paragraph of that first blog. I dedicate this piece to all of our angels gone too soon.

“But I tuck the covers around him as I sit here on this hospital bed, looking at him while attempting to clear the “somethings” out of the air so I can see him more clearly. And there he is….the most beautiful angel fast asleep without a care in the world. Suddenly, for that moment, all is calm and all that remains is everything – unconditional love.“

If you’d kindly like to help support my efforts while I work to complete writing my first book, you may do so here: https://buymeacoffee.com/addressinglife

It’s been 3 years since I lost my profoundly disabled son, Brendan Bjørn. For nearly 18 years, I was his full time, nursing-level carer to his complex medical and disability needs. I did this as a lone parent. I did this, during some of those early years, while working full time. I did this, some years, while working part time. Mostly, though, I didn’t work outside the home. His care needs were too demanding. They were indeed literally 24/7.

Three years on and I find myself in chronic pain with a number of health issues, the primary one of peripheral neuropathy which has yet to be addressed by anything other than a scrip of Gabapentin that has numerous side effects for me. I’m slowly weaning myself off of it and I’m trying like hell to find a doctor who will do more than hand me pills.

I want to be better.
I need to be better.

I’ve been looking for part time work that I can manage with my health issues. I’ve had no luck at all. Let’s face it, my CV is lacking when it comes to recent professional work experience, I’ll be 60 later this year, and I’m limited in what I can do physically now.

I think I’ve passed the Best Before Date.

It’s extremely difficult to not give up hope on having a fulfilling future when struggling to make ends meet; when being rejected for simple jobs; when not even getting a response to a CV submitted. It’s disheartening to think of the decades of study, the degrees earned, the professional works accomplished, when sitting in a darkened room so to keep the electricity bill from getting too high while selling various less-needed household items just to make those ends meet. It’s disappointing to be used as a full time, complex carer to support a crumbling, dysfunctional health service who provided so little help while I was a carer to my son and who have now, for all intensive purposes, discarded my own health needs. But here, take these pills.

It leaves me often pondering what it was all for, those years of work and study? Did I do any good in this world which will leave a legacy of positive contribution for the generations to come or was it all for naught? When it’s my time, will I just fade out of everyone’s memory, forgotten despite all of those years filled with passionate effort and living? I think about all of this probably far more often than I should. I’m nothing if not open and honest in this blog, though.

It leaves me, frankly put, feeling useless and left to sit quietly in this darkened room hoping to God this debilitating chronic pain will go away so I can once again have some hope for a happy, productive future.

I think I’ve passed the Best Before Date.
May I be wrong.

Today marks three years since I lost my first-born son, Brendan Bjørn. He was 17 years, 7 months and 17 days old. In less than an hour it will be the exact time he took his last breath at 7:44am. I held his right hand. His brother, Declan, held his left hand. The three of us alone in our individual life journeys, which were so intertwined they were one in the same, forming a circle of connectedness with our holding of hands.

Those last breaths. That last breath. The guttural wail which escaped my soul as there were no more breaths to be seen. The boy I gave life to, whose fragile and medically complex life I fought to save day in, day out, for all those years, was gone. Gone.

Some things are seared into a person’s memory like no other.

Some things are seared into a person’s soul, never to be healed.

I’m watching the clock as I type this, conscious of that time and well aware that time will arrive and depart and it won’t actually make a difference to anything. It’s just a marker. Like today. It’s just a marker. For I think of my son, Brendan Bjørn, every single day without fail. Today marks sadness, devastating loss, and truly indescribable pain. It also marks chaos and a change of trajectory in my life, and that of my other son, which I am still trying to figure out but it would seem of late, and apparently without much success.

Some things are seared into a person’s soul, never to be healed.

It’s now 7:11am. I’m not sure what I will do to mark the day. Later today there is bringing Declan to a friend’s birthday celebration. I think Brendan Bjørn would be happy to see his little brother smiling with friends. For me, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’ll try to light a candle somewhere. I’ll look for beauty somewhere. And I’ll try to remember this is just a marker of a day, though it may often feel like the weight of the world. To be honest, pretty much every day lately has felt like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. But that’s another story for another day.

7:24am now. I’m going to stop watching the clock, finish typing, post this blog entry, and hold my breath until that time passes.

Some things are seared into a person’s soul, never to be healed.

three years.

Today, 18 March 2025, is the 35th anniversary of my mother’s passing. I sit here now wondering how can it be 35 years ago? But, it has been and not a year goes by that I don’t miss her and wish I could talk to her, hug her, and hear her laughter where her bright blue eyes would disappeared into the happiest of squinting slivers. She died 18 March 1990 when she was just 60 years old. I had turned 24 only a few months prior. It was far too young to lose a mother. As I look back now, contemplating how this is the year when I will turn her last age of 60, hindsight tells me just how right that statement is: 24 is far too young to lose a mother.

I try not to let myself think about dying as young as she did. I have a young son who is 6 years younger than I was at the time my mom died. As I continue to currently struggle with some health issues, I shudder thinking of leaving him behind and alone at such a tender age, God forbid. Honestly, it scares the crap out of me. I’m determined to not let that happen, to do all I can to improve my health where possible, but I also know life doesn’t always go how we hope.

Never mind for now.

Today I won’t focus on that dread. Instead, I will focus on who my mother was to me. Who she was as a woman. Who she was as my mom.

• She was a light in an often dark childhood.
• She was the person who taught me to be tender and loving.
• She was the mother who insisted I eat the lima beans in the mixed vegetables, something I never did, much to her dismay.
• She was the mother who trusted her youngest of 4 children, me, with carrying out her final wishes upon her passing.
• She was the mother who showed compassion when I asked her if what my paternal grandmother once told me was true, did she want to abort me? I had to ask her while I had the chance. No, she never thought or said that, she reassured me.
• She was the woman who fell in love with a married man and pined for him as their love was never going to go any further than an affair.
• She was the broken-hearted woman who would cry listening to her favourite song, Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce.
• She was the woman who struggled with alcohol, chain smoked cigarettes, and loved bacon.
• She was the mother who taught me to have good manners, who loved to dance in the living room, and who entrusted me with the safekeeping of the family photos and heirlooms.
• She was the woman who liked animals more than people. Her words.
• She was the mother who, now divorced from my father, left me, her youngest child of 8 years old, alone on my own too many times, with no dinner, no breakfast the next morning, no reassurance throughout frightened nights alone in an empty home, left to fend for myself.
• She was the mother who my father had me ‘spy’ on at 8 years old by writing down the times she came home, or should I say didn’t come home. He said it was for court. Talked of going before a judge as he and I sat one day on the steps leading up to my bedroom. Mind you, he made no effort to make sure I wasn’t left alone all those nights. Just spy on her. Take notes, Tracy, as he handed me a small notebook.
• She was the woman I loved – and still love – beyond measure. She was my mother. The woman who I watched crying as she stood on the front door steps of our family home as my father drove me away a year later, age 9, after filling me with promises of a better life which never really came to fruition.
• She was the voice I longed for on the other end of the phone for so many years of my childhood, moments that filled me with joy as I held the yellow phone typical of the mid-seventies to my ear, as she asked me when I could come visit.
• She was the woman that my father said I was just like, “a jezebel” he’d yell. I was about 10 or 11 years of age so of course had no idea what that word meant, I only knew it wasn’t good. Nothing good is ever said in drunken rages though, is it?
• She was the mother I returned to as soon as I was old enough and able upon hearing she was diagnosed with cancer.
• She was the woman who I joked with that her auburn hair fuzz growing back after months of radiation treatment reminded me of a kiwi fruit. I can still see her rolling her eyes at me, hear her saying both my first and middle name as if one name, all the while smiling at the humour of it. To this day when I see a kiwi I think of that moment and it makes me smile.
• She was the mother whose hand I held for the last years of her life as she battled cancer.
• She was the frail woman whose body slowly failed and faded away before my eyes, just as my first born son, not yet born, would do 32 years later.
• She was the woman who, with the sharp eye for a nice pair of muscular legs on a man (an eye which I did happen to inherit, truth be told) said to the young man bringing in her oxygen tank to her hospice bed two days before she died, what nice legs he had. And yes, she was right but I’m sure I blushed more than even he did!
• She was the gentle voice who softly said to me she wasn’t hungry as I tried to feed strawberry ice cream to her on what would turn out to be her last day. I’m not hungry, honey, I’m ok. I love you.
• She was the first dead body I ever touched (my son being the second), missing her passing away by mere minutes. I had to be sure in some grief-stricken level of disbelief, as I reached out and gently shook her shoulder with my trembling hand. She was gone. She was gone.
• She was a woman who was far more than my simple words could ever say. She was creative, kind, gentle, loving, fair, a fighter, a lover, and so much more. She instilled in me many positive qualities. She taught me how to be – and indeed how not to be – and for all of that, I am eternally grateful.

Despite it all, and maybe because of it all, to me,
she was the person I loved most in this world
until I myself finally became a mother 14 years after losing her.

To you mom, all of my love, always. I hope you’re keeping your beautiful grandson, my precious Brendan Bjørn, in loving company until it’s my time to join you both. But may that be a very long time from now.

One year ago today (late February 2024), I sold “Brendan’s Bungalow” to the HSE Disability Services for the Southeast Region. I never thought I would move from that house – and in hindsight it is a tremendous regret that I’m struggling to deal with now – but I was having an emotionally difficult time in my grief walking by the room, multiple times a day, where my beloved son passed on in May 2022. As I said, I now desperately regret it.

The agreement was that the 4/5 bedroom, disability modified bungalow on half an acre would become a respite centre for disabled children like my late son, Brendan Bjørn. There is no other respite centre in County Wexford that can accommodate a profoundly disabled child who requires an overhead hoist. In my late son’s bedroom, there is just such an overhead hoist system, new and top of the line.

This home was to become a place where other disabled children, like my son was, could find comfort and laugh and fill the house with that special love once again, just as he did. This home was to become his last legacy.

A year on, the house continues to sit empty.

I drove by the house a few days ago. To see our former home in the hollow, disrespected, empty condition it is now literally makes me physically sick. I feel as if all of our memories, all of the respect due to my son…just EVERYTHING…is being trampled on with callous disregard. It feels like losing him all over again, and I can’t bear that feeling.

I have tried to uncover exactly why our former home still sits empty and I receive repeated replies about planning permission, budgets for ‘required’ work and HIQA requirements. Frankly, I hear bullsh*t because I know that where there is will (ie: political will), there is a way. I see so much spin from the Government about how they care about Disability Services. Article after article about needless expenditures from the Government from bike sheds to walls to unused art scanners, all tremendously overpriced and unnecessary. What IS necessary is respite for families with disabled children.

There are only two other respite centres which were offered at one point to my son when he was still alive, and neither of them could accommodate his needs. They were old, narrow hallways and doorways, tiny bedrooms where his wheelchair wouldn’t even fit, and no overhead hoist to get him in and out of a specialised bed (which they also don’t have). How they pass regulations I have no idea when I consider what I’m being told now about why our former home isn’t yet being used as a respite centre.

There is absolutely NO reason our former home can’t be used currently in the agreed upon way: As a respite centre for physically disabled children, even if it’s a day respite centre to begin with. I discussed this with the then-manager of the HSE Disability services and she fully agreed.
A year on, there is a new manager and they are telling me the home may likely be used for kids without physical disabilities. I may sound harsh here, but it’s children with severe/profound physical disabilities who have no options at all for respite in the region. It is for those children – like my late son – the home was intended for, agreed to be for, when I sold it.

I feel betrayed by the HSE Disability Services. I am hurt and angry. I am disappointed and heartbroken. I feel appalled.

And to be clear, toward myself I feel much of those same emotions, topped with regret, for having sold our home to the HSE in the first place. 2024 was probably the most emotionally challenging year of my life as I look back on it now. I thought I was doing something beneficial. Something good in Brendan’s name. Instead, 2024 turned out to be rife with bad decisions, lost dreams, failure, ill health, and the tailspin which comes with the grief of losing a child you fought for nearly 18 years to keep alive, but in the end, couldn’t.

If only I could turn back the clock. If only.

It still sits empty.

2 January 2025. Last year, 2024, was filled with countless struggles, likely on the back of poorly thought out decisions, those likely under the influence of grief tinged with desperately desiring changes. Quite the vicious cycle. The year ended with Christmas being the most lonely I’ve ever had, and frankly the most disregarded I’ve ever felt. Anyway, it’s over. Whew! On to the new.

So this is me, now landing in 2025 with no resolutions. Only hopes.

Resolutions have a way of adding pressure that leads to self-disappointment when they go unmet. Frankly, I have enough of that left over from last year, I don’t need more of it. So, hope. I’m going to write down 15 things – some big, some small – I hope will come to fruition. I’ll have to work at them, of course, but hoping sounds so much more positive and warm to me than a cold, hard, resolution.

Here goes, in no particular order:

• I hope to find a doctor, or doctors, who can finally resolve the debilitating peripheral neuropathy in my feet which has been plaguing me for about 4 years. It’s grown worse and keeps me from being nearly as active as I once was; as I want and need to be. Handing me a script for Gabapentin isn’t the answer. I hope to find one.
• I hope to finish one of the two books (if not both of them, I say cheekily) that I am working on by the end of 2025 when I’ll turn 60. (60?! That can’t be right!)
• I hope to find the self-confidence to not colour my hair anymore and just let it go grey…and be proud of it.
• I hope to lose weight.
• I hope to become more healthy.
• I hope to be less depressed.
• I hope to have less anxiety.
• I hope to be the best parent possible to my wonderful son, Declan.
• I hope to learn the art of letting go while holding on.
• I hope to visit friends in Scotland and Yorkshire during the year.
• I hope to develop more inner peace.
• I hope to make new friends, ones that are true and present.
• I hope to be a good friend in return.
• I hope I still have a positive voice in disability and carer advocacy that will result in much needed improvements in those communities.
• I hope to release the dark despair while gaining the lightness of hope.

Here’s to hope. May we all have more of it in 2025.

For you, my angel boy, Brendan Bjørn, because you were the embodiment of hope, and for you Declan, because you give me hope for the future.

It’s the 1st of October 2024, your 20th birthday, and you should be here with us, my beautiful son, to celebrate. As we have done the past two years on your birthday without you, your brother and I will light the candles on your birthday cake, sing to you, talk about you, and shed happy and sad tears in equal measure.

20 years ago today, you made me a mother. You should be here still.

Today, your brother and I are moving back to County Wexford. It seems somehow fitting that it happens to be on your birthday when we return to the county where you spent your last five years of life…and where we said goodbye to you on that unimaginably painful and traumatic day in 2022. The time between now and then has been filled with such uncertainty, moving here and there and here again, breaking down, being lost, and making bad decisions amongst all the pain and confusion.

I’ve sadly discovered that most people don’t understand and thus can’t empathise with the trauma of losing you and just how deeply it has affected me since.

People don’t or can’t comprehend what it is like to have fought so desperately hard to keep you alive and healthy every single day for nearly 18 years, only to see you waste away before my very eyes.

It shattered my spirit.

I am indeed my own worst critic, frequently filled with disappointment in myself, but it’s obvious that some others share that disappointment in me, too, because when I’ve reached out for help or even simple compassion in recent months, it’s been refused. “You always land on your feet, Tracy” and “You’ll figure it out somehow” are repeatedly heard. Then at other times I’ve been met with complete silence, which honestly feels even more dismissive than directly being refused help or a compassionate ear. The sad irony of all of that is it results in me feeling even more alone, more lost, and even more resigned to the feelings that often overwhelm me.

Breakdowns come in many forms I’ve learned.
2024 has demonstrated mine.
…I say as if anyone was actually listening.

But alas, here we are at today. Your 20th birthday, my sweet, precious, beautiful angel boy. I close my eyes and focus on that handsome face of yours with the beaming smile and eyes full of love and joy. It gives me moments of peace.

I will never forget the moment you were born and the doctor said “You have a boy!” I will never forget that first look, that first kiss, our first snuggle.

I will never forget that last look, that last kiss, our last snuggle.

And I pray that I never forget all of the countless cherished looks and kisses and snuggles over your 17 years, 7 months, and 17 days on this earth with me.

Happy 20th birthday in Heaven, Brendan Bjørn. Thank you for the gift that was you for the years I was blessed to have you with me. How desperately I wish you were still by my side! I hope and pray that you and the angels are celebrating this very special day when you first came into my arms, just as your brother and I will be celebrating it with you lovingly in our hearts.

I love you baby with all that I am, always and forever.

Today is Sunday, 1 September 2024. The start of a new month as we head into my favourite season that is Autumn. It’s not yet 9am and I sit hear watching Declan sleeping across the room from me. We’ve been in a one room holiday let for the past 24 days. Me, him, and our two dogs. Tomorrow we move to a different holiday let. In essence, or is it in fact, we are currently transient; dare I say homeless. I’m struggling with it all.

What’s wrong with me?

I have what’s called Long Covid (You can read a good article about it here). It’s the result of the first covid infection (I’ve had 3) I contracted in April 2020. A few weeks after that infection, I developed what is called Peripheral Neuropathy in my feet. I spent two years trying to get answers from doctors before finally going to a private neurologist, having numerous scans on my brain and spine to look for causes, and along with other symptoms, she diagnosed Long Covid.

What’s wrong with me?

For me, the Peripheral Neuropathy (You can read more about the condition here) in my feet manifests like this: It’s 24/7. It never stops. It is a randomly alternating, yet most often simultaneous, combination of numbness, pins and needles, off-the-chart sharp, shooting pains, a feeling that I’m wearing 3 pairs of thick wool socks, a feeling that my skin is being pulled tight, hypersensitivity to touch where even bed sheets cause great discomfort as if my feet are raw, a feeling that my feet are swollen but they are not, a feeling like something is crawling under my skin but nothing is, a burning sensation, and an insatiable itching feeling under the skin.

Not all of those symptoms occur at once, but every day there are at least 3 or 4 of them simultaneously. I wake up feeling it. I go to bed feeling it. I am never NOT feeling it. I am on Gabapentin at night for it but it doesn’t take the pain or sensations away fully. It also comes with side effects which keep me from taking it during the day. (I’m on a mission to find out if there are any other treatment options because frankly this is driving me around the bend).

The more I walk during the day, the worse the evenings are for me when I end my day. When I do walk, I often can’t feel my feet properly so I may stumble or lose my balance.

What’s wrong with me? Long Covid.

I also ended up with adult-onset asthma, vertigo and that elusive ‘brain fog’ due to that Covid infection. Some people don’t believe in Long Covid, but post viral infection damage has long been known to the medical world. It is real. There should be no doubt by anyone. God knows I wish none of this was happening to me! I do not want feel this way or have this pain or have trouble thinking clearly or making good decisions at times. I want to be fit, healthy, capable, able…but I’m not, and quite frankly, that is breaking my heart. It scares me when I think about the future and my son who I’m watching sleep across the room from me now. My condition scares me. Between losing my beautiful eldest son Brendan Bjørn two years ago and my health struggles of the last four years, I am reeling. I am worried. And I am scared.

That’s what’s wrong with me.

It was just over four months ago that I made a decision to follow a long-time dream of mine: to live in Norway, the country I grew up hearing tales of from my mother; tales passed down to her from her mother who, having being born to Norwegian parents, once lived in Norway. It’s an identity I’ve had since childhood. After losing Brendan Bjørn in May 2022, I started to seriously consider following this dream to live in Norway. Some called me brave for making this move. Others likely called me foolhardy…or maybe that is just what I am calling myself now?

A swing and a miss, but at least I got up to the plate.
A fall complete with scraped knees, but at least I took a step.
A dream that didn’t work out, but at least I followed that dream.
Right?

We are coming back to Ireland.

No doubt, this has been an expensive dream to follow and it has cost me a bit more of my tenuous health as well. I will always love Norway and will return for frequent visits to our family here, God willing. And if Declan so chooses one day, he can return to live here in his adult life. But for me, with my chronic health and disability issues, with my age fast approaching 60, it is simply just too hard for me to make it.

I kick myself now most days.
My heart in tatters.
The should-haves and could-haves flood in as regret.
But at least I tried. At least now I know.

I aim to have us back in time for Declan to start 5th year, back amongst some of his childhood friends. There is a lot to be said for that and he’s looking forward to once again being close to them. Childhood only lasts so long and he will all too quickly be an adult going his own direction, wherever that may take him.

So, yeah. What more can I say? This is the latest news. Getting ready to move back across the North Sea and scouring the internet sites looking for that elusive rental in a select area in Ireland that will allow us to keep our 2 dogs with us until we find a home.

We are coming back to Ireland.
I’m somewhere between brave and foolhardy.
But at least I tried.