Second time lucky?

Looking back on my life so far I am awash with memories both good and bad. Sentimental thoughts stir up feelings of happiness, delight and satisfaction about many experiences and events I have been lucky to experience. Similarly nostalgic thoughts of the past also rouse emotions of regret and sadness.

Whilst I have had many moments of happy events and amazing experiences during my 30 years of life, there have been a few times where for varying reasons I have missed out on an amazing life experience or not been able to do what I really want to do.

I wish I had gone on a once in a lifetime holiday abroad where I could have accomplished my dream of swimming with dolphins, experienced a different culture and seen wondrous sights when exploring and going on adventures.

 I regret not going to college to the course I really, really wanted to do.

I dream that things could have been different so that Lee and I could have had our dream wedding a few years ago instead of putting it on hold, a dream wedding that unfortunately has still not happened.

As I am sad and am regretful to have missed out on a few amazing experiences during my life and have been through a very dark period of time when I was suffering from clinical depression, I now try to live life to its fullest and if I am lucky enough to have a second chance at something I try not to waste that chance.

Whilst I would love to have our dream wedding, would adore to go on a once in a lifetime holiday where I get to fulfil lifelong dreams or go back to college to do the course I would have loved to have done years ago so that I could have my dream job, right now if I could have a second chance at an experience I regret having missed out on it would be the chance to have the dream family holiday we planned but did not have.

As I would love the chance to fulfill our plans of our little family holiday, I jumped at the opportunity to take part in the Ocean Finance Second Time Lucky campaign where one lucky blogger will have their second chance and be lucky second time round by winning their dream experience.

As Lee moved over 200 miles away from his family to live with me in Wales where we started a family together it is very rare that he gets to physically see his family, not helped at all due to the cost of visiting them and a tight family budget that cannot stretch for trips away on a regular basis.

Not only does Lee not get to see his family, both Bug and I also do not get to see them. In fact since Bug was born nearly 4 years ago he has only seen his family from his dad’s side of the family twice, once when he was a little baby and once more when he was a little over a year old. It has now been nearly 3 years since he saw his Nana, Uncle and daddy’s other family.

As Lee moved away from his whole family and friends to be with me and as a result hardly ever sees them I often feel guilty that I get to see my family more often and that if it wasn’t for me he would see his family regularly.

Because Bug has hardly seen his daddy’s family and it has been a long while since Lee has seen them, a little over a year ago we had saved up enough money to visit them. The plan was to have a family holiday together at the same time by having adventures on the 200 mile long trip to visit them along with a special holiday once we were there, having special days out with the family plus a few fun days out alone together.

We planned on reliving memories of my childhood by visiting the picturesque town of Chester and having a fun day at Chester Zoo seeing all the animals.

We hoped to give Bug an extra special time at Legoland Discovery Centre Manchester, the perfect family fun day out for Lego mad Bug.

We would have loved to have a few days at Blackpool where Lee and I had our first holiday together before Bug was born. It would have been lovely to reminisce about our loved up holiday and walk along the pier and beach together as we did when we first got together, Bug with us as the result of our love.

The highlight of our fun family holiday would be getting to spend quality time with Lee’s family. Our time together would give them the chance to spend time with Bug.

Unfortunately our family holiday was not meant to be and we could not have memorable adventures together or spend time with Lee’s family and create treasured memories of special times with loved ones. The miles between us remained and the time having not seen each other grew even greater than before.

As our plans went awry and our special little family holiday to visit loved ones was cancelled it was lucky that we had not booked places to stay and purchased tickets for days out, having planned to go with the flow and book tickets and hotels last minute using our holiday fund savings.

Whilst some people may consider our little family holiday not that big or amazing of an experience, not that expensive and very doable; unfortunately due to our tight family budget the holiday was only doable after a long, hard time of being frugal and saving money and when the money was needed for another reason the dream of our special family holiday to visit our loved ones was burst like a bubble.

Just before our family holiday our circumstances changed and we had to move as our landlord had decided that he was going to sell our home rather than having it as a rented property. Thanks to the high cost of moving including having to pay a bond, month’s rent and agent fees, and lack of money the only way it was possible to move was to use our holiday fund.

We sacrificed the money saved for our dream family holiday for our future. We used it to move to a new area to a new house that would be better for us in the long run.

It may not be the most glamourous, expensive or once-in-a-lifetime experience but our dream experience is very personal to us and experience that would allow us to spend some special time with loved ones who live far away and create memories that we can treasure for years to come.

Now more than ever with a new baby on the way the chance of being second time lucky and having our dream come true would be amazing so that Bug’s family from his daddy’s side of the family can not only spend time with Bug but also with the new addition to the family too.

Whilst I know we have been very lucky this year already to have been blessed with a new baby after 3 long years of trying, I would be over the moon if lady luck shined down upon us once again and helped us be second time lucky in having our dream experience come true with a little help from Ocean Finance.

* This is my entry into the Ocean Finance Second Time Lucky campaign for bloggers*