Introducing Agnes

Some people believe in fate; I prefer to think that life is a massive tangle of random threads and we forge our own path by the decisions we make. All those swirling, whirling possibilities.

There were many and varied threads that led to the point where I am, right now, at this particular moment. I could go back to 2003 when we decided to try for another child. My desire to have a daughter surprised me; I adored my two little boys, mothering them was enough, why on earth would I want another baby? But I did. And, luckily, along she came, my beautiful, headstrong, kind, funny, loving girl.

I could go back to 2012 to the decision to move to this village, to this house.

I could go back to the September of that year and the decision to walk my children to their new school along a particular route where I met Helen. And I could go back to a few weeks later and the decision to accept Helen’s invitation to lunch where I met Charlotte.

Charlotte and I struck up a firm friendship straight away. She had an idea for a book for girls and when she discovered that I worked in publishing, she sent me the outline. As a mother of a pre-teen girl it struck a massive chord with me and so I put out a few feelers. No luck, but undaunted we continued talking about the idea over many months’ worth of dog walks and the idea grew and morphed into an idea for a website. Should we do it? Could we build it and write it ourselves? We decided we should and we could. And many, many months later we’ve done it.

We have worked on it as a labour of love, during any spare time we have; we’ve bored our spouses, our children, anyone who’ll listen to us; we’ve dreamed of chatting to Jane Garvey on Woman’s Hour; and we have encouraged and chivvied each other along.

We haven’t done it all on our own, though. We’ve worked with some wonderful people who have donated their time and expertise – a psychologist has written the pages on mental health, expert relatives and friends have checked the copy and advised us, several teenage girls (and mothers) have given us feedback, and we’ve even had material from a couple of blogging friends (thank you Lynda and Gillian).

And now, this morning, Agnes is ready for public viewing. We are smashing an imaginary bottle of champagne onto her hull and sending her out into the wild ocean of the world-wide web.

The whole point of our website is to help girls to navigate their teenage years. It’s full of relevant information, sound advice and inspiration. I wish I’d had something like it when I was growing up.

I won’t go into detail about it; I’ll let it speak for itself. Please click on this link and see what you think. If you have a teenage girl in your life or know someone who has, it would be fabulous if you could help us to spread the word. Thank you.

And now I’m going to lie down in a darkened room for a while and have a little rest. Who am I kidding?! I need to clean the house and catch up on all the stuff I’ve been ignoring. I need to get out into the garden! If you come here for the gardening, there will be more. Soon.

Have a splendid weekend. x