Going back to my roots

Visiting Harrogate, where I grew up, is something I've found quite challenging for quite a few years. When I left over 20 years ago there was a lot of friction in my family, and with hindsight I can see that moving away didn't help matters at all. So it came to be something of a place of ghosts for me. 4 years ago I started talking to my Dad and stepmother again after 13 years of almost total silence (that's another story); that was a great breakthrough for me, but things between us are still not massively cosy. No animosity or anything - just curiously quiet. (I think part of the reason I started this blog was to chart me reconnecting with my Dad. I notice there's only been one post about him though, last November. Ahem.)

So it was fantastic when, a couple of months ago, I went there with Kat and Fred. Kat had a trade fair to attend with her fabulous Harris Tweed handbags and manbags, and she was very keen to meet the parents. I'm ashamed to say that so was Fred; ashamed, because he's not seen them since he was 18 months old. We met up with them - in Bettys Tea Room, possibly Harrogate's most famous feature - and had a marvellous time. Fred caused a stunned silence when he tried to amuse us all by saying "Why did you have to have to choose THIS guy to adopt?" This is a delicate subject for the parents, though I noticed Kat come very close to wetting herself silently in the corner. Otherwise everyone got on famously, and Kat said afterwards what a lovely man my Dad was.

This was also the occasion on which I finally explained to Fred about all my parents. He's known for some time that I was adopted at birth. I've been reunited with my birth parents - they're lovely folk - and Fred's met them several times. But I've skated over parts of the whole picture before; now, I've finally laid it all out for him. He knows now who brought me into this world, and who the man who raised me is. He also now knows the woman my Dad married when my Mum died.

That feels very good.