Thank you.

Hello!  It’s been a while since I posted anything here, but now that it’s September and backtoschool, lots of people have been asking about Ted and his education, so I thought I’d let you know what happened over the summer.

The response to the blog was totally amazing, over 23,000 hits to date!  Unfortunately the Daily Mail and their online readers chose it as a reason to redefine the word ‘vicious’; the Daily Express devoted a whole page to my life and where I’d gone wrong, in their not-so-humble opinion; even a Daily Telegraph reader accused me of ‘jumping on the autism bandwagon.’  And it’s a bit odd to be driving your car, on the school run, listening to a breakfast radio show discussing your life as a phone-in (“Would you sell your house for your child’s education?  Call us NOW!”) but without exception, the tweets and emails I received were absolutely fantastic.  Even though our world is coming across a bit shit at the moment, please believe that there are some really amazing people out there.

One in particular.  A couple of days after the blog, I received an email from someone I’ve never met.  Nothing new there, except they were offering to pay for a year’s school fees for Ted.  I KNOW.  A year.  The whole lot.  For a year. Just in case you’ve forgotten, that’s £31,000.  For my Ted, who they don’t even know.  Safe for three terms.  Just because they are kind, really kind, really really kind.  And they can, and they wanted to.

Well.  As I had already turned down twitter’s lovely offers of a justgiving page and comedy benefits etc, I said no to this too.  It was – well, too much.  I couldn’t take it.  I burst into tears.  But they insisted.  “Think of what’s best for Ted” they said.  I rang a very wise person. “Take it.”  So I stopped crying, and thanked them instead.

(I won’t be divulging who this is, because they wish to remain anonymous.  That’s the very least I can do.)

I still can’t believe it.  I still haven’t found the right words to say the kind of ‘thank you’ I feel.  I have no idea how to behave towards this sort of kindness and generosity, I didn’t know it existed.  A simple ‘thank you’ is not enough, but it has to be, for now.  Thank you.

So he’s off on Tuesday.  To the school of our dreams.  He can’t wait, I’m dreading it, but of course I’m excited too.  It’ll be a new life for both of us.  I’ll keep you posted, if that’s OK.  I honestly want to thank all of you, everyone’s been so supportive and helpful and just lovely.  I just want to run round to each of your houses and hug you all personally.  I’m sounding like a beauty queen now, so I’ll shut up.

One thing, before I go.  When I first spoke to this wonderful person, they said “I just want you to know that the world can be like this.”  I often read about people in far worse circumstances than us, and I’m sure you know many others in horrible situations too.  Please pass on our story to them, because they should know that the world can be like this too.

Thank you.

(PS If you’d like to thank them too, please leave a comment here.  I’ll make sure they see it.)

---