10 years without Elspeth. She is missed today just as much as she's been missed every single other day. She is always present with her absence. 

"Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends.
Like my fathers come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends..."

Our 11 year old left Primary school last month, and Facebook showed me a memory to remind me of the day he left nursery, which was 18th July 2014. It's one of the most painful images I have. My innocent littlest baby, full of promise and joy at the world, and delighted with his "Goodbye" bag of goodies. It hurts so much because it's "before", and less than a month later, his sister was dead, and we were a family full of broken people. His life wouldn't ever be so innocent again.

Today I got up and had a wash, got dressed and made a brew. I checked my two boys were dressed and were at least thinking about having breakfast.
I had the radio on, Radio X with Toby Tarrant because Chris Moyles is on holiday again. It was one of those mornings you end up running up and down stairs loads of times because you've forgotten something, and when you get there you can't remember what it was, so you go back down and instantly remember.
I made the kids sandwiches (we've only got cheese, so no choices today) and packed their lunchboxes into their bags. Then a moment's peace. I sat down for 20 minutes with Facebook, coffee and a slice of toast.
Time for school. We spent a good 5 minutes trying to get everyone out of the door with the correct footwear, coat and bags, and then had to turn back for a forgotten pair of glasses when we were 200 yards up the road. Dropped the kids off, came home, fed the pets.

It was entirely mundane.

The smiles are a day late this month, as they have been before in August, but that doesn't make them any less beautiful. Sorry if I confused anyone with the delay.

5 years ago we lost one of our children, and that is why #TBCSmiles began. I started collecting my family's smiles to remind me we can do this, and being happy is what it's all about in the end, so making smiles is exactly why we keep going.


A HUGE thank you to everyone of you who shares your smiles with us, they are contagious and wonderful, and really do brighten up my day. Anyone can join in - just use the hashtag #TBCSmiles on a smile on any photo on Instagram!

For the next month if you happen to have a sunflower in your photo, I'm working with Sudocrem and you can enter my giveaway for a sunflower t-shirt if you take a photo of someone with a sunflower, and one person will win a mural for their school. I'm not suggesting cheating, but we won't be asking for proof that it's actually your sunflower - a big grin and a golden flower will be enough...

5 years ago today we woke up to find one of our children had died. I've never gone to bed without checking on everyone in my house since. Each night I tell them I love them, and I'll see them in the morning. They have to answer. They have to repeat it back to me. I have to know that they intend to still be there.

Everyone who loses someone they love to suicide is a survivor. When you lose them you need to know why? But to understand why is the worst that could ever happen, so you can't ever understand exactly why. That door has to stay shut. Forever. Your job is to let those questions go, and carry on.

In the beginning everything seems so hopeless, pointless.  To keep going is the bravest and hardest thing you'll ever do, and 5 years on, I am so proud of my family for fighting through everything.


We have three big grown up kids at uni, something I'm incredibly proud to tell anyone, but whenever I say it, I know there should be four. I know that if she had done a 3 year course, Elspeth would be graduating now, alongside her school friends (well done to all of you who graduated this year - I hope you have something awesome to do next).

Two of our big kids have "moved out". Gone to live in the world of bills and private landlords. One of them has moved in with his boyfriend, and genuinely it makes my heart glow to see them together. Always though, you wish Elspeth could have met him and given her seal of approval - probably by taking the p1ss.

She's never truly gone, she's always there in your head. We all feel it, everything we do is tinged by a heavy atmosphere that we have to claw through to stay in the moment. The unsaid.

In some ways it still feels like this isn't a reality, that I could still wake up and find out I dreamt it. Life happens 'to us' much more now, we have less control over where we are going. I really don't have a good chronology of the last 5 years, just a jumbled mess of memories. It's like my brain tried to hold on to the important stuff, but it wasn't quite sure what that was.

It's the middle of the month again and it's a bit different from this time last year! Although we've had a bit of sunshine, it's been short-lived and a big well done to anyone who has the suntan they already had 12 months ago.

Rain has been quite a feature the past couple of days. My thoughts really do go out to anyone who has been flooded. Losing everything you own so suddenly is far more than I think I can appreciate. It's easy to say "at least you got out okay", but the months of sorting, cleaning, rebuilding, fighting with insurers and living in temporary accommodation are no fun for anyone.


You've all made the most of what sun we had - there are loads of outdoor photos this month and a few children riding bikes. My children also finally learned to ride this month. A lot of things went on hold when we lost Elspeth, whether we realised it or not. We are beginning to catch up a bit now - thanks to our big kids for the nudges and the time spent running alongside their brothers.

The smiles are usually a bit of a pause on the blog, this week they're the sole action. As many of you may be aware, 5 days ago I was in hospital having pretty exciting surgery and I really haven't been incredibly well over the past few weeks. I cleverly drafted most of this post in advance because I wasn't sure just what fun painkillers I might be on right now. Fingers crossed most of it is at least legible!


My surgery was a second mesh hernia repair, placed above the first one. My insides were just so weak that despite losing a quite substantial amount of weight over the last few years, I sneezed last April and my intestines escaped. It was a bit of a shocker at the time.

The surgery went really well and I was actually allowed home the same day, much to my family's delight. They're all a lot happier if they can see me - I understand this entirely. My younger children especially understand too well that people can just die unexpectedly, and their need to be there to keep an eye on me themselves is massive.

I know no-one really trusted me to be a good girl, keep my feet up and simply relax, but nature took over on that one. My 18cm wound has very kindly refused to heal politely, so at the moment I am very much doing NOTHING. Literally nothing except taking myself to the toilet every hour or so and drinking lots of fluids - these things are related. There's really no better incentive to make me sit still than yet another bloody stain spreading across my t-shirt and the threat of having to go and be re-stitched. I admit defeat, cleaning can happen next month.

It's that time of the month again and I think most of us in the UK can just about manage a smile, in spite of the weather, Brexit and the whole state of the UK. Politics eh, maybe we should just focus on the weather - and the smiles!

We've reached a really special milestone today and I'd like to thank every person who has ever added the hashtag #TBCSmiles to a photo. The hashtag has been going for a while now and when I started I never anticipated I'd ever be able to say we'd reached 6000 of your grins, laughter and happy moments, but as I looked this morning, that's where we are! It's got to be one of the best and happiest hashtag collections on Instagram and it really does make my face sore from grinning.

I was gutted when I heard this morning that Keith Flint had died. He was 2 years older than me. Something I loved to remind our big kids when they were teenage rebels listening to The Prodigy in their bedrooms.

I really hoped that we'd hear his previous excesses had taken their toll on his body and he'd quietly suffered a heart attack or other organ failure in his sleep. I hoped he'd worn himself out prematurely but at least he'd had fun doing it.

The news that he'd taken his own life made me very sad.

Keith Flint (1969 - 2019) @allontheboard. The jilted generation thank you for the music. Rest in Peace. Love and Prayers to your family and friends.#TheProdigy pic.twitter.com/H3sat9m6j0

— All on the board (@allontheboard) March 4, 2019

I used to feel so disappointed when a celebrity died from suicide. Celebrities have all of those young people hanging onto their words. Vulnerable, confused and impressionable youngsters who will be devastated to hear that they've lost a hero. Now I know there's no point in disappointment, it changes nothing and it's not the right emotion. A person dies from suicide just as surely as they die from cancer. They don't have a choice at the end, because they don't see any possible way forward. It isn't about giving up. They lose the fight.

It's February and Spring is beginning to join us once again. The Crocus are beginning to peep out and the woolly jumpers are beginning their trip to the back of the wardrobe. The sun comes out and so do the smiles....

I've written loads of personal stuff this past week already, so I'll keep this post short and sweet. I wrote a post talking about pressure on children from the education system for Children's Mental Health Week and I wrote a post for Tuesday, our 'Double Cake Day', which would have been Elspeth's birthday - Not 21.

Smiles mean we are winning. They are the reason we carry on, and looking at them reminds us of what we can do. We are not failing.

You are all doing an awesome job and we've had some beautiful smiles as always! Loads of birthdays, Chinese New Year, snow days and lots of adults, which is lovely to see. Anyone can join in, just tag any photo containing a smile, chuckle, grin, giggle or laugh with #TBCSmiles. 

My youngest chose the final selection of big smiles this month and hardly included any grown ups - but if you go to the hashtag on Instagram you can grin along with them all - and there are almost 6000 photos now!

At 21 I imagined Elspeth to be in her 2nd or 3rd year of uni. She wouldn't have cut her hair short, and she wouldn't ever have been a person who wears loads of make up. She'd have learned to embrace her quirks a little more and found friends who loved her enough to get past her tantrums. She would still know more about Kanye West than his Mum and she'd still be the funniest person in the building whenever she chose to be.


At 21 she would love the freedom adulthood brings, she'd craved it for so long, but she'd also be a tiny bit terrified of the world and would need reassurance she was doing okay. By now she'd be more confident with the women she was, hopefully accepting her curves and not already spending her life on the eternal 'diet' we women come to accept and expect. She'd be an okay cook, and she'd live mainly on 3 different recipes, and cake. She loved cake. She inherited her father's love of sweeties too.

Christmas is almost here and 5 years in we are getting used to our new sort of Christmas. Some things change in more ways than others. I have a real problem looking ahead and I only started buying presents two days ago, but we're doing it. It'll happen. We're further ahead than this time last year.


We knew doing decorations would be hard and started at the beginning of December, so our living room now looks amazing and we have a huge LEGO Winter Village. When the tree is up it'll be perfect, and it's first time we've felt able to really go to town with the decorations since losing Elspeth.

She is constantly in our thoughts anyway, but now more than ever because she loved Christmas so much. She looked forward to it for months and every Christmas song on the radio or Christmas movie on the TV reminds us of her, and the fact she isn't here. Every gift idea seems it would have suited Elspeth best. In honesty we've kept ourselves busy to stay distracted...

December may be hard, but we've still managed to collect plenty of smiles and I've caught a few of them on camera. We've been to see Father Christmas, Black Beauty, Slapstick and The Forest Of Forgotten Disco's and we've definitely discovered the benefit of woolly hats....

In the UK today, if you are aged 5-34 you are more likely to die from suicide than anything else. It is the biggest killer of our younger population. Just think about that for a minute. More people die by their own hand than for any other reason. It takes away our children, our parents, our siblings, our friends.

But we don't talk about suicide. No-one talks about suicide.

It's really hard to talk about suicide. It's really hard for me to write about suicide.


When our 16 year old died all of the older members of our family had counselling. We'd have been completely lost without that opportunity to talk. To sit away from the children and let it out and sob and be angry and say "it's not fair". To express our worries and fears, to find out if what we felt was 'normal'. To find out if our children's response was 'normal'. To keep us going.

My youngest 2 children were under 7 when they lost their sister and deemed too young for counselling. Children under 7 react differently and in general it's expected they should be able to cope. While that might work in some cases, our whole household was shattered and those young boys had a lot to try and understand.

As time went on and my boys still struggled with their sister's death, we were dumbfounded at how to help them. I built myself up and then emailed a UK charity for children who are bereaved.

I was given internet addresses where I could download information sheets and signposted to another well-known children's charity. The information sheets were more for advice immediately following a loss and didn't really help. They focussed on Cancer and long-term illness. I contacted charity no.2.

Children's charity no.2 simply suggested that what I needed was someone who was actually more used to dealing with our specific type of loss. They directed me to a charity for people who have lost loved ones to suicide. Maybe they were right. Maybe it wasn't children's charities I needed.

It is time for this month's smiles, and it has been a pretty hard month for us. The Summer holidays are full of memories and waiting for results is very difficult to stomach, even if you disregard anything about the stress of the actual outcome.

Our young people, no doubt like yours, worked so hard and all had to keep going when they already had more than enough stress. Our household was not a happy place yesterday and one of our teenager's future career depended on really tough entrance qualifications. Thankfully that wait is now over and it's with a huge amount of pride that I say we will have 3 young people at University next month.

Not getting what you hoped never makes you a failure, it just makes it more difficult to take that path. There are a million more routes and a billion other options. You are so much more than your exam results.


Yesterday marked 4 years since we lost our 16 year old, Elspeth, and it made this week especially hard. I wrote about that yesterday, and I have to thank everyone who sent messages, replied to posts, commented, changed their profile photo or shared a sunflower. You are always there for us, and we couldn't be more thankful. To have so many people who care makes us richer than any amount of money ever could. Thank you.

It's been 4 years since we lost Elspeth.

If you have a 4 year old, all that time they've been alive, she's been gone. While they learned to walk and talk, make friends and use a crayon, she's not gone any further. It's such a long time and she should have done so much, but she didn't give any of it a chance.

Our kids have grown. Our big kids are all grown adults now. Work and thoughts of Uni are filling their heads and it's so hard not to be seeing Elspeth off for her 3rd year. She should be going. She should be getting wasted and staying up all night to finish assessments. Living on 17p noodles and bringing all of her washing home, and expecting me to do it (which I do, because I'm soft).

She should be playing board games with her little brothers, she loved to play and they're both old enough now to play proper games. She should be watching her favourite movies with them, and they should still be happy to belt out songs from Les Miserables.


What I really want to say is that it's all just a bit shit. It's really crappy and unfair. We should have her with us, but because at the moment she decided she'd had enough, no-one happened to ring or send her a message, or knock on her bedroom door, she's not here.

Get a load of this weather! It's caused havoc on the moors around where we are, but the extended sunshine has been such an amazing breath of fresh air and it really feels we've 'had a Summer' before the kids are even off school.


The sun has had everyone outside topping up the vitamin D and the memories. We spent an awesome weekend at Timber Festival, we've had water fights, marshmallow roasting and all have so many freckles you could almost mistake it for a tan.

You guys have been out in the sunshine too - and as I went through finding photos I'd missed this morning, I had to laugh at the number of people who were delighted by the sun a month ago, and hoping we had 'a few more days like this'... Your wish was granted.

I ask you to show us your smiles and this month you did yourselves proud. Loads of family photos this month, and I am embarrassed to say that I don't believe we have any photos with all of us in, so there's a challenge for me for next month.

Anyone can join in with the smiles, just tag any smile, grin, chuckle or chortle on Instagram using the hashtag #TBCSmiles. I share 9 of the biggest and brightest each month, today's final bunch was chosen by my 20 year old - may as well keep him busy while he's home from uni for Summer.


These gorgeous smiles were shared by the following Instagrammers:


We had our own smiles too - the weather really helps!


We also saw the two youngest of our 'big kids' finish college and we couldn't be prouder of what they have both achieved already. They'll be spending the next month waiting for exam results. My best wishes to everyone waiting for results to find out where their life will take them next.

For one of our young people, a place at uni is unconditional, and this was their final piece of exhibition work. A truly beautiful tribute to their sister...

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and in case you weren't aware, I collect and share smiles because it helps my mental health. My monthly posts started off as a way to update everyone on how we were coping after the sudden loss of one of our teenage children. I began to realise that every smile was a win. It showed we could do it, life could have good bits, it could have joy. I shared the first few smiles I took and eventually The Brick Castle Smiles, or #TBCSmiles was born.

Since then you guys have shared with the community your most precious smiles. Birthdays, weddings, Christenings, anniversaries. You've shown Grandparents meeting brand new relations and baby's first smile. You've shown sports wins and educational achievements, graduations and first days at school. The ones that always make me smile the most are the ordinary moments (that's a different link up). Kids playing in fields with sticks, a toddler discovering the world, the love of a parent looking at their child, however old. A grown up who has forgotten all about the outside world and has let themselves live in the moment.

I'm grateful to everyone who joins in, you fill my month with smiles. I know that some people have reasons for joining in and sometimes smiles are hard-fought, and I know how much that makes them worth. Each and every one is a precious treasure.

I hope you take the time to check the hashtag too, it's worth it - it'll make you smile, I promise. Anyone can join in, and we have a lot of new people this month, so thank you for coming along. All you need to do is tag any photo on Instagram with a smile in it - the bigger the grin, the better.

Here are 9 of the brightest of this month's smiles, which was a fantastic crop. I think we have all enjoyed this glorious weather...


This month's 9 were provided by the following photographers and/or comedians:


We had our own smiles as well. We've been enjoying the sun too - as much as my pasty lot can manage anyway - and we had a lot to smile about, but I really didn't take many photos. I'm storing most of them in my head.



Until next month...


If you find yourself part of TBCSmiles by accident and wish to be removed then please let me know. It's not happened yet, but stranger things have happened...

This post is for Mental Health Awareness Week 2018 and carries trigger warnings.

For most of my life Mental Health was something I felt affected other people. Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of sobbing into my pillow, not wanting to leave the house, drinking a few too many because it made my reality further away. My life has not been plain sailing, but in general I seemed to skim round all the sinkholes and emerge relatively unscathed.


As a teenager I was a volunteer for MIND, spending my evenings playing pool and smiling yet again at photos of a stranger's family and great times, carried around as precious treasure. A reminder that life can be good, and a reason to carry on. I learned quite quickly about some of the realities of poor mental health.

It's the 15th and time for this month's smiles. As usual you guys shared some belters. I think the snow was exhilarating for everyone and we all blew away a few cobwebs. I've never had so many outdoor photos - not even in mid Summer, and your snow photos made me miss it already and  hope we get it more often. Nice one to everyone who got a snowday, boo humbug to all the bosses and schools who didn't let some of you have a day to play too...


I was tempted to do a special Mother's Day 9 Smiles this month because there were so many family shots. It was lovely to see. Mother's Day is hard for so many people, for so many reasons. For every mother without a child, every child without a mother, every single parent doing 2 jobs and yet getting no card or day off, absent family and missing relations. It's one of the most bitter-sweet of annual events, a reminder as much of what we have, as what we have lost. I hope your day was a good one.