my favourite photo

Thanks so much for Hot Cross Mum's tag - to show and tell my favourite photo. In this digital age when we have more photos than blades of grass in our garden, this was no mean feat. But I'm a great believer in instinct and not over-thinking, so the first picture that popped into my head when faced with the challenge is the one I'm going for (as opposed to the 254 subsequent ones that i picked after much thought).



This is me and my mum at Daisy's christening. I love this photo for so many reasons, the obvious one being the sheer joy and happiness and love we all share - three generations of smiles. But it also represents the beginning of so many things. A new relationship with my mum - one based on our love of my children, and her being needed once again, after years of being pushed away by an independent, cocky teenager and twenty-something. It represents the beginning of my life as a mum, an incredible journey that I am still only on the first tentative steps of. And finally, it represents the beginning of my writing career - this picture was included with my first ever published article called Mothers & Daughters (www.alanakirkgillham.com/Publishedarticles.html ) that began a new era for me and hopefully the stepping stones towards a lifetime of writing .


The future is impossible without the past, and often I have struggled with managing the two forceful elements of my life - the pre-children and post-children me.... and yet my mum has been the bridge between the two, keeping me sane and intact while while I often unravelled. Three generations of smiles are still smiling, and that makes me happier than pretty much anything else.