North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Maureen

I have, as I say in Whitley Bay was in Countess Avenue, but I was in Claremont Road and I was in Windsor Avenue and then there was Ashbrook, we were all over the place (...) we never stayed in one place, ye know, really too long.  And we always seemed to be moving up country like, Monkseaton, West Monkseaton and then into Shiremoor and that was the last house that I was in, was in Shiremoor.  And er, as I say I went down to Birmingham and I met this man, and got married in Birmingham Cathedral and then I was at that time in Northern Ireland ye see and I just couldn’t believe that I did have family ye know somebody that could be so close to me.  I am just that close to him ye know.  Course he, the same, he used to have distant relatives but now we are living over here.  Er he was here, he was with me for four weeks and then er he come back over to England and we decided then, was me daughter she said she’d pay for our fare to come over for my birthday and Mother’s Day in March, ye see and our anniversary.  So she paid for us to come over but my husband doesn’t like flying, well he’s never flew, but he didn’t want to fly.  So we come by ferry and bus over to Carlisle and then Alex he come over in the car to pick us up and er we ere here five days and of course my husband he was out and about looking around.  He said, ‘there’s some nice houses round here,’ and er we went home again and then Alex and his partner come over to us in the February, beginning of March and er.  So then they come back and we come back over here for another, it was coming up to Easter time and we would have been longer but it was coming up to Easter time, and had to go back for Easter and on the last day Will says to me and Alex, ‘I wouldn’t mind moving over here.  Going to have to come over here for operations and that in Sheffield for his head and stuff like that’, and he says, ‘I wouldn’t mind trying to get a house over here’.  Well on his walks we’d had found, seen and estate agent’s number and I had written it down on the back of a book and I had even tried phoned up about a house a bit further up in Blakelaw and she says, ‘no it was under offer’.  So when I went home I decided to scrub the number out and never thought no more about it, till as a I say my husband turned round and er said that he would like to live over here.  I would never have asked him to come and live here.  It had to be his choice ye see.  So er, when I went home we were sitting talking and I went, ‘I have got that estate agent’s number’.  So I had to go and start looking and try and transcribe the way I had actually written it out.  I had even used the bottom of the page for a note I had ripped it out and wrote something on it.  I could have easily have just ripped the whole page out.  So then I phoned the number and she says, ‘hello’ and I says, ‘I am just enquiring, have you anything in the Blakelaw area for sale?’ and she went through her books, ‘no that one’s under offer, no that one’s sold.  Oh, she says, oh hold on, not unless you are interested in a three bedroomed bungalow’ and I says, ‘oh could you tell me the address please?’ and she says, ‘yes, it’s er 6 Waltham Place’ and I went, ‘pardon’ cause I thought I’d, I thought I had wanted to hear this and she says, ‘er, 6 Waltham Place’ and I says, ‘never’.  She says, ‘yes’ and I says, so I started to, and I asked her how much is it?  She told me and I put a lower offer in and she says, ‘hold on a minute’.  All that Friday, it was a Friday, the phone would come backwards and forwards until I, we come to a price and I says, ‘I’m going to buy it’.  She says, ‘where are you at?’ and I says, ‘Northern Ireland’.  She says, ‘what!’.  I says, ‘Northern Ireland’.  And she says, ‘and how are you buying a house over here unseen?’ and I explained the situation.  ‘Oohh,’ she says and she got all excited.  And she says, ‘that’s a lovely story, like something you see on Surprise Surprise with Cilla’.  So that was alright.  I phone up my brother and I says, ‘hello’ and I says, ‘do you know ye neighbours at number six?’ and he went, ‘no’.  Ye have to know this area, the houses are actually, they are like wee squares and they are all numbered awkward.  And he says, ‘no’ he says, ‘I don’t’ and I says, ‘well I’m afraid you do now’ and he says, ‘why?’ and I says, ‘I’m just after buying it’.