Send & the City

27/11/2025

Our pals at Awesometistic CIC - immersive theatre for anyone who felt like they didn’t fit.

22/11/2025

For good. 💚

My 93 year old nanna sat across from me today as I visited her in the home where she lives. She asked me a total of 7 times how old is Walt now in the hour that I was there. She looked at me blankly each time, seriously not knowing the answer to the question. She told me she was going to see the new Christmas decorations at tea time- she said clear as day she had not seen them before because she hadn’t been in the home over Christmas - she was wrong of course she’s been in two years now- but I didn’t want to scare her so I nodded along. As I do with a lot of things. I hear with dementia and memory loss that you are to mostly go along with the little things as to not scare the person going through it. As long as it’s no harm.
It’s sad to see her this way- she doesn’t really know who I am now, she gives me a look when I go in as if to say she knows me but no idea where from. She often tells me that my dad didn’t have a child so I laugh and say well where did I come from then! She laughs but I can see her brain furiously trying to figure it out.
she asks about Walt a lot. She knows he exists but she thinks of him as an average little boy. She will say how’s the bairn as she forgets his name. She doesn’t understand autism, and it’s hard to talk to her about him because she forgets he doesn’t talk. She says things like “oh he will be colouring in” “riding his bike” “going out with his friends” “enjoying school with all of his mates” - all of which he can’t do.
It’s not her fault, she doesn’t know or remember or maybe she doesn’t understand it. I told her today he doesn’t talk - and how he gets my hand to sometimes ask for things and other times he doesn’t know how to ask for anything so he cries. The look on her face was haunting, she asked how old he was, 7 I say. And she said will he ever speak? I don’t know I say.
Did he ever speak? - yes he did actually. Way back at 9months old. She looks more confused now and I wonder why I even started down this path. Sometimes I find it hard to lie about him because the white lie is hurtful to me I guess.
At 9 months old it was around April and my work wanted me back so I tried to do a few days a week. Looking back I don’t know what I was thinking- though Walt had started to talk it had been a tough 9months of screaming reflux and colic. Or so they kept telling me but what it actually was was autism mixed in with those things. There was some early signs but we put them to the back of our mind. It’s early, give the bairn a chance. He’s not even a year yet. People would tell me and I would just think well if it comes to us it comes to us. I can’t do anything about it.
I went back to work like I promised myself I would. I loved my job and the people I worked with - I was a bit of a work a holic often doing long hours and staying behind.
Back then I couldn’t imagine not going back to work- plus I couldn’t afford not too.
I knew the day I went back and pryed myself away from Walt that I wasn’t going to be staying. I knew in the first day pulling up in my car that actually Walt needed me a lot more than this job did. Deep down I knew I probably would have to give up this little career that I had built and progressed through over the last 5 years.
It felt sad and still does sometimes but when you have a baby- suddenly nothing else matters to you/ just them. Just their happiness and their safety and a job- I never thought I would start not to care because I loved the people: but fact is I would never love anyone close to what I feel for Walt.

My first day back my husband sent me this video I’ve posted. Walt had said his first word. I opened the video on my lunch with the staff and I had cried and cried. Mam mam mam I could hear him clear as day. The first time I’d left him and he was asking for me. I was reassured by some gorgeous ladies on my table that I would never shut him up now and I’d soon be demented by his mam mam mam all the time. They laughed it off. No big deal. Gav got it on video anyway, I felt better and thanked myself for sitting with my staff rather than the managers who won’t sit for lunch with their staff because they somehow think they are better. I would rather be with the staff everytime, they are the same as me. No better or worse - just human. I will never forget that table of people who reassured me and got me through and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I finished the day and raced home hoping to hear his little voice.
I didn’t of course for a few days- but it lasted weeks.
Then suddenly as mam came so did nanna and dad. I really felt like we had passed an autism suggested diagnosis when he started talking I felt this massive relief.

Of course it wasn’t to be and I didn’t know then that they can start talking and then one day it just stops and they regress. I didn’t know about autism like I do now. Self taught expert now but then I was blind.

Honestly I can’t even pinpoint a day in my memory when he actually stopped speaking. I can’t remember noticing it massively until it was completely gone. We were dealing with reflux disease and hospital admissions, speaking was the last of my worries really I just wanted him to be okay and we knew he wasn’t, soon allergies would rear their ugly head and speaking got lost.
The love never got lost. The hope never got lost but the words were gone. I started to speak for him, through him and tried other ways but he’s just not got the level of understand yet.
I say YET and I mean it. The power of the word yet for us autism families holds hope opportunities and a glimmer of optimism. Just because he doesn’t do it now doesn’t mean he won’t ever do it. That goes for not just talking of course but all the other things too.

I will never forgive myself for not being there that day he started talking. I only have two or three videos of him talking and I’m so glad Gav got this one for me- but I regret being at work when I could’ve been there to hear it while it lasted. I never got the chance to be sick of hearing him call my name. Only the sadness that he can’t call my name and the desperation of wanting to hear his cute toddler noise or his growing up banter. Or just him shout mam I love you.

I tell my nanna that yes he did used to speak but he stopped and that sometimes happens with autism. She looked at me confused. She asked will he talk again? I said we don’t know. She looked at me with sadness. She asked how old is he? 7 I say , again, and she looks at me with eyes that say he probably won’t now.
I smile and tell her how bloody amazing he is. How he loves cuddles, how he’s poorly at the moment and all he wants to do is touch my face with his face or pull me closer to him, how hes bossy without talking and sometimes can just give you a look and you know your in trouble, how he loves with his whole heart, he shares his love and is obsessed with nanna and granda, how he gets my hand to show me what he wants sometimes, how his smile lights up my heart.
She looks at me with tears in her eyes and says
“Well he doesn’t need to talk does he, he shows you everyday he loves you and he’s happy and that’s all that matters”
I smiled and said your right he is the love of my life. She looks at me and holds my hand she calls me a tough cookie, then she looks up and asks. How old is he again?

You have to laugh, the brain is a funny thing. Whether you’re 7 or 93 these things come to us all. It can be really sad sometimes but you shouldn’t be defined by what you can or can’t do. We’re all human, it’s about your heart and how big it is, how much you care and how much you waste your life caring about the wrong s**t instead of where people love and need you the most. Walt needs me the most so I’m there for him the most and I always will be. We’re together for a reason and he has definitely changed me for good.

In the immortal words of wicked 💚

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good.

16/11/2025

When Walt was one he was more willing to try things. He doesn’t need to speak to tell you his thoughts… 😂

16/11/2025

Pudsey day is always one of our faves simply because they raise money for UK disability children just like Walt. I can never bring myself to watch it because it’s a little too close to home with some struggles we face and also the terminally ill kids make me sob. My hat goes off to any parent of a disabled , poorly or terminally ill child. Stronger than any one in this world of ours. It’s unfair that some people breeze through life no illness no nothing to deal with and others seem to shoulder the world. Children in need is a massive charity to help those families that shoulder the tough stuff.

We thank you BBC Children in Need ⭐️

03/11/2025

Walt’s special needs school - or his class “the lavenders” have a special class bear.
Bear Lavender, she goes home with whoever gets star of the week and goes on adventures with each child.
Well! Walt got star of the week on the last Friday before half term. So we were lucky enough to have lavender for 9 days of bear adventures, we even took her to where she was born and gave her a shiny new heart that beats & glows. She was very brave.
Special bear- special school ❤️

Lilidorei at The Alnwick Garden
Flamingo Land
Metrocentre
Build-A-Bear Workshop
McDonald's
Fireworks Seaham
Super Tramp Trampolines
SunderlandNow
Sunderland AFC
Sheepfolds Stables
Roker Pier

We have been many many many places! Phew! Mam needs a rest!

&walt

21/10/2025

Walt did you make this little lamp for Diwali 🪔at school?

Don’t have to speak to know- he’s proud of what he did for this one. And I can tell you- all he did was sprinkle glitter 😂😂😂✌️

Work smarter not harder is your daily advice from our Walt 😂

Happy Diwali 🪔 my neighbours celebrate and they’ve told me Diwali is all about -
Good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.
Me and Walt can get on board with that message.

Everyone needs light over darkness 🕯️🪔✨

to those that celebrate and those learning

15/10/2025

Got to see walt in his little class today. I can 100% say me heart is so full.
I never even thought we would find him a place in school let alone go into his class and see his smiling little face- totally calm and happy and then see me and his nanna and his face literally light up and start happy flapping.
We went on a harvest festival Walk to the church with the rest of the little lavenders & donated food for the food bank. All the bairns did amazing.
I never thought I’d get this and I am bursting with pride and happiness.
Well done Walt ❤️
I fought hard for this school for Walt’s place in the world as a child and to see him fit is nothing i can fully explain. I just want every autistic kid to have this.
Thank you to Walt’s school and everyone who helped us fight. 😭💕

05/10/2025

Walt had a lovely time today getting his photo taken for Awesometistic CIC in the Metrocentre to support the autism community. They are shouting, posting and creating a world in which autism has a voice and showing many people that autism doesn’t have a “look”

There were 100 spots for lovely autistic people to have their photo taken, support the cause and be on the big screen in the metro centre.
You can see Walt’s photo and message on the big screen on 7th December at the every ten minutes ❤️ little star ⭐️

02/10/2025

Naughty little elf 😂❤️- when your child is autistic and normally runs away from other kids cause he’s scared - your proud when he dares pull someone’s hair! 😂🥴😂
😂✌️

30/09/2025

Ok it’s been a while since posting so have two in 24 hours! 😂❤️✌️ please join the campaign or share far and wide 💙🧡💛💚🩷

Dear Trump. ( I can’t bring myself to address him as the P word or even MR at this point) I wasn’t going to have my say, sometimes it’s better to be silent when faced with such ridiculous comments. If Walt was getting bullied at school the first thing I’d say is ignore it. (Or maybe I’d say punch him back)
However this has gone beyond bullying. This is a man with such a massive world power, standing up and saying things that not only hurt over 50% of the population- the women Trump - in case your not following- but the comments hurt me personally on a deeper level than I ever imagined.
I have no idea how you managed to become a person of power in your country - let alone twice- the best of a bad bunch I’m told- or he’s a really good salesman. For me I think you’re the one with the biggest pot of gold and a good few secrets about everyone who put you in power.
I used to look at America and think WOW, an amazing country with all this history and patriotism. I think of the 4th of July and all it stands for, your freedom and independence of the the American people, as you only move farther from that dream here in 2025 with your crazy leader.

Usually us little people of the UK aren’t expected to wage war on a bully that’s bigger that us- but as Hugh Grant reminds us in Love Actually, “And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger.”

As an advocate for my son and all autistic people in the world I cannot just hear what he has to say and not have my own say back. Regardless of who he is and who I am in the world. The fact is Trump has undoubtedly waged war upon the strongest community of all time. Obama only said yesterday that what hes done is “violence against the truth” but we can all wake up and choose violence - what a world that would be.
He probably picked out disabled people as he thought they can’t fight back- but my god he is so so wrong. You see there are a community of us now- as autism figures are only rising- that have unimaginable strength, we are already in the fight of our lives, we wake up with our battle face on - wearing battle scars from yesterday and for some of us that’s actual scars where our children have punched us. We are already in fight mode and we’re coming for you. We not only battle our children into school, into clothes on a morning into eating breakfast, nappy changes and beyond but we battle a system that is broken- we fight endlessly for our children’s rights to a education, to support, to live a better life. We fight to be heard- we use our voice when our children cannot. We fight for services, for funding, for appointments and answers. We fight with anyone who will stand in the way of our sons or daughters calm and happy. God. We fight with the old people in the supermarket giving us the judgement eyes as we try to calm down an epic melt down. We fight our justice system, our councils for the right school, we wage war on our own rules and regs because they are not right for OUR son or daughter. So, Trump. What’s one more fight? To us it’s just a day in the life. We’re used to fighting for our kids, our family, our peace our freedom and independence. Sounds like you’ve forgotten what your own fight should be.
For you to stand up on your world platform and say taking Tylenol, known as paracetamol elsewhere, "is no good" and that pregnant women should "fight like hell" to only take it in cases of extreme fever.
He said after a study conducted in USA there is a direct link between autism and paracetamol.
So first off - his administration did say in April that they were going to find the cause of Autism by September/ so I’m not sure ? Did they just run out of time and blame the first thing they saw?
Second- the “study” if you can call it that- was based on 46 studies from the review and 27 of those had some link. But another study, published in 2024, found no relationship between exposure to Tylenol and autism. It was conducted by looking at a population sample of 2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 to 2019.
Luckily most health organisations and charities responded by saying do not listen to this advice as it’s dangerous and has no weight at all. Thank god I didn’t see one organisation agree with him in the UK. Trump is moving forward telling doctors not to prescribe Tylenol for pregnant ladies but another old school drug that used to treat cancer patients which sounds a lot more scary if you ask me.
In April, I blogged about the administration saying they were going to look into autism and the cause/ to see if there is any treatment and I still think there should be some degree of this- but you can’t announce your finding a cause in April and magically have a cause and cure by September. It’s not an epidemic it’s a neurological disorder. It’s not covid. From the man who wanted to inject bleach to cure covid his opinion already doesn’t hold much weight. Not for me at least and hopefully everyone else too. While I do believe we need some sort of scale for autism we need more research and more support but most of all this is not the way.
Trump is literally lying to the world/ there is no link between pain killers and autism. The experts in this field who’ve dedicated their lives to the science must be so angry. The time and effort that people with an actual medical or science degree put into the very small amount of research we can afford and one little speech from Trump and years of their hard work is questioned. What Trump is doing is fear mongering - scaring current autistic people, blaming mothers and putting people at risk by giving out false information.
The time we spend shouting to say you are wrong is time wasted that we could be shouting for support.
Personally, the fact that you can sit on the biggest platform in the world and talk about people like my son as if you want to eradicate them from the world makes me feel physically sick. The fact that you have probably spent less than 24 hours with a profoundly autistic person, you cannot even have scratched the surface on what they go through and what we as carers go through every single day. Last but not least- a group of old men standing blaming women, shaming us that we might have had to god forbid use a pain killer in the one of the most painful times of our lives speaks volumes for where you stand on the emotional well being of women and their place in our society against a man.
America must be a scary place to live right now.

The National autism Society in the UK have started a petition against your very words and we as a community are looking for signatures for our government to stand up against what Trump is saying and support us. Over 25000 people have signed in 36 hours. - I did tell you, you’ve picked a fight with the wrong people.

Click on the link for more info and to sign.

https://act.autism.org.uk/page/178427/petition/1?fbclid=PAVERFWANIJ2ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp8jFlCEZTqpD01Qb0ZLpekrVMzc_GN5ak9vDf9xVnNkKCrwZmUZrCNNbdPDX_aem_WpNCubWI3dwENXjyb21L1

I've signed the National Autistic Society's open letter because I won’t let baseless claims distract me from the real issues autistic people are facing. Will you join the campaign and sign it too?

29/09/2025

Apologies, I have not posted much since the start of the summer holidays. Truth is I’m going through a lot of crap right now and I needed to rest. I’m not well with an auto immune disease attacking my joints, I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and apparently it’s very likely I also have endometriosis. The joy of being a woman.
The auto immune disease was truly enough to cope with alongside looking after Walt but over the summer my pain increased and has not really gone back to normal. As most of you know I’ve tried so hard this past 6months to get off steroids and I managed it! Woohoo. But the consultant is just trying to put me back on them now with everything I’ve got going on. I have never felt this exhausted in my life. I can sleep for hours and wake up drained - I never knew what fatigue meant until recently - it’s more than tired it’s not being able to keep your eyes open. Literally.
What with all that and getting Walt’s peg fitted and learning how to be a nurse as well as a parent of autism has been a lot.
Most people who have a “walt” with profound autism in their lives will tell you, how they lost friends along the way, no one understands so it’s too hard, friendships come and go and it’s this time know your life “you will find who your real friends are” is a phrase I often hear from m**s at the school gates.
Don’t get me wrong I have these friends on the side , who have no idea what my life is truly like- they don’t mean badly or treat me badly but they do not understand my life at all. But honestly , people usually tell you - you need to go through a huge break up, a loss, a traumatic event, a disabled child a massive life change to really know who your real friends are.
I could’ve listed my real friends - I didn’t need any traumatic event or massive life change to know who would show up. These girls have known each other since school. 25 years of friendships to span a life time. We’ve lived through stupid boyfriends, school drama, nights out, sleepovers, moving away to uni or staying at home, getting jobs, losing jobs, baby loss, weddings, rainbow babies, miracle babies, insane country moves, massive moves to London and beyond, amazing jobs, terrible jobs, losing jobs, illness, and picking ourselves up again. The weather of life is wild, wet and windy and we’re only in our 30s but myself and these girls have been through it all. We have known each other the best part of our whole lives and nothing any of them could say would shock me. If one of them rang me in the night to say they’d killed someone I’d be there to hide the body.

Personally I’ve been through so much in the last 7 years since having Walt and figuring out autism , profound disability and my own illness has been seriously tough. Some of these girls have txt me every god damn day. They’ve got their own dramas of life but they’ve always been on my team.
A lot of these wonder women have amazing jobs, kids, husbands and whirlwind lives and we don’t see each other half as much as we used too , yet nothing feels different when we do. I could still sit and chat for hours on end with any one of them.
Recently I’ve realised even more so that people don’t often get to keep friends from school let alone still trust them endlessly years and years later.
The memories I have about these girls are literally crazy. Everything from dancing in a bath tub in a nightclub, drawing diagrams in history because they had no idea what the teacher was going on about, supporting a few of them when they’ve done fancy dance or drama shows, more recently one of them wrote a play that was performed in Newcastle, one of them I used to leave school with on a Friday and religiously make cheese slice sandwiches before going out to hang about in bus stops, we all ordered Chinese to the bus stop once before right? I have raved the night away with them, one of them I have seen stop traffic to lean on a car bonnet and kiss a stranger meanwhile the rest of us are trying to stop traffic while pi***ng ourselves, celebrated hen do’s, baby showers, I remember going to our schools induction at 11 years old and being made to dance to reach sclub 7. 😂 two of them I speak to every single day without which I couldn’t live. One of them I’ve called bellend for most of her adult life just because her last name is bell and yet somehow she still loves me. I dyed my hair before ones wedding and it was legit yellow. I was the most glow up ever 🥴 in the worst sense of the word 😂
I’ve been on endless Disney holidays with one of them who buggered off and lives in France, though I manage to see her at least twice a year it’s not enough. One of them I walked to school with every single day and I was the worst, always late and my mam used to talk her ear off everyday but she never left me. Not once not ever. One of them is a breast feeding specialist and literally man handled me to show me what to do, one of them was there in my life at a school art trip with a full different school before we officially became friends and she’s worked so hard now she’s a big shot designer and I am SO proud of her my heart could burst. A few of them now have TWO kids and while I think they are insane I couldn’t be more amazed at you.

The memories of these people will last a life time but it’s what they do now that I’ve had the “big life changing event” of Walt thrust into my life. They still include me, they give us space when we need it, they ask questions, they txt and support, even though I can never attend or when I do I spend most of the time not speaking to them and running after Walt. They have supported me through illness, through Walt and more recently my life turning upside down and inside out.

I appreciate them more than I can ever say. More than i can ever repay them. More than I can write here to make you understand the love I have for them.
They are family. My crazy family for which I will always have their back.

Friends do come and go but these bi***es are for life ✌️