There are time when I think I'll never hear true silence again.  Ever.  

Then, when things are truly quiet, I miss the noise.  The cacophony that's entered my life and now is a marker, for me, of its completeness.

Christmas is coming.

As is close scrutiny of the Argos and Toys R Us catalogues by our children.  They watch the advertisements for toys in-between children's TV shows attentively.  They watch out for the references to the latest, most popular toys in the media.

Their behaviour, and our resigned reaction, is no different to that of so many other families.

It wasn't always that way.

We met Mary in a contact centre.  A Council building used to facilitate meetings between children in care and their birth families.

The room was laid out in the style of a sitting room.  Sofas in bright colours, slightly worn.  Children's toys arranged in boxes against one wall, some strewn around the floor under a coffee table at one end of the room.  The remnants of an earlier meeting.

Anonymous.  Neutral.  And yet poignant.  The children's toys a constant reminder of the reason we were there.

I started writing about our adoption journey to provide a record of it.  Both for us.  And for our children.  I wanted to chronicle their and our story before those memories lost their intensity or receded into the mists of time altogether.

Unintentional consequences of writing the blog have been wide ranging.  

Developing the discipline needed to write regularly (and sometimes failing miserably at that).  Invitations to write guest pieces.  Invitaitons to write regular columns. 

And an invitation to speak at a conference about adoption in Ireland, organised by University College Cork.

I was interviewed last week.  As part of a university research project into fatherhood.

The questioning, as always in these cases, was friendly.  Encouraging.  It also caused me to consider a number of the answers.  Challenged my views.  My perceptions.

That is all quite usual.  Less so were questions about my motivation in becoming a father.  In and of themselves not unusual or out of place, but fascinating nonetheless in the respect that they caused me to contemplate my past actions.  Interrogate the decisions we made.

I came across someone this week in a setting completely unconnected to adoption.  

As is usually the case, our conversation turned to our children and then, inevitably for us, it went on to cover adoption.

One of the consequences of moving to Australia is a fairly, no very, severe culling of our belongings. 

For example, do we really need to take the files containing bank statements going back to the 1980s that fill our landing bookcases?  Or how about the set of espresso cups and saucers that, after five years of living in our home, remain untouched on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard?

Questioning whether something has sufficient emotional value to pack it away and take it half way around the world with you is a good test of what you find important.

Friends came to visit us recently.  Friends who have just been approved as adopters.  They came to meet the children and to talk, as so many prospective adopters do, about our journey and what they might be able to learn from it.

We talk to many people about adoption.  Some in groups.  Others come to visit us.  They stay for a cup of tea.  Ask what they want to know, what they need to find out.  Then they move on, onwards on their journey, we hope, to a new family as warm and life changing as ours.  

Whilst not anonymous these interactions are usually fleeting.  A rest stop to gather information along the way for those we encounter.  Another tap into our experience for us.

I've talked a little before about the stories we tell our children at bed time.  I thought I should expand a little on the routine we follow.

Tonight has been no different to most other nights.  We have both spent some considerable time settling the children into bed.  Staying with each until we are sure they have slipped into a settled sleep.

If you read the more general Blog part of my site you may have seen the news that we are about to move to Australia.

As part of our preparation J spent a week visiting his new workplace.  He wanted to check he would fit with the organisation.  He wanted to ensure its culture matched both his style and values.  

He wanted too to get a feel for the place, to assess whether we would fit in.  Be happy,

I was asked earlier this week whether I would encourage our children to search for their birth families later in life.

The question was prompted by one of the seeming myriad of television programmes dealing with adoption that appear on our screens at the moment.  This one followed the searches of a number of adoptees, now adults who were looking for their birth families.

Foster parents really are the unsung heroes of the UK's adoption and wider child protection system.

Caring for children sometimes rejected by others.  Children who are often hurt and damaged.  Children who almost universally have been through trauma, or pain or both.

I've been working on a blog about our interaction with and experience of the Foster Carers who cared for our children prior to their adoption.

Completely coincidentally I was approached by the National Fostering Agency who asked if I would host a guest blog for them about the fostering system.  Foster Carers really are the unsung heroes of the adoption system as far as I am concerned, so you can imagine I was very happy to help.

So here is the first every guess blog on my site.  I'm very proud that it should come from the National Fostering Agency's Layla Grant.

Our son moved in with us on a Friday.  I've talked about his week of transition in two earlier posts, 'That awkward feeling' and 'It's a gonna be a GREAT race'.

Our son settled with little trouble.  He slept through his first night soundly and happily.  Even if we didn't.

When we talk about our children and the work we have done, and continue to do, with them, we often describe our role as having to help our son and daughter not only understand their pasts but also re-interpret and reframe their lives before coming to live with us.

I wrote a post for the US website Those Four Little Words a few months ago, which was published last week.  

Fairly innocuous I thought.  Describing our journey to adoption, our choice as the adopters for our son and in the process a little of his history.