Dear six year old Marti

Dear little Marti,

I am extremely proud of you. You may not realise it right now, but you are going to go on to do some wonderful things. Right now, you're already a badass. Sure, your mum makes you wear glasses and an eye patch until lunchtime, but you take it in your stride. Secretly: I think you quite enjoy being a pirate. Your stories are the greatest and you always make people giggle. 'Marti, say cat.' 'Tat?'.

On Pirates and Princess Day, you don't want to be a princess, you're the most badass pirate in a flamenco dress that school has ever seen. You proved that when a teacher said: 'smile princesses' and you scowled at the camera. Moxie. So what if your princess baby brother turned out to be a prince? You still got to dress him up in lady's attire from Gran's trunk. Best. Sister. Ever.

In short, I hope you're enjoying every minute of being six Marti, becuase it doesn't last long. I think you're almost tall enough to ditch the booster seat now, but by the time you're older you'll never top 5'1. Life gets more complicated, but people become a lot easier to read. Everybody feels the same, no matter what front they put on.

I hope you like these pictures I dug out lovely. It makes me laugh that I found them in black and white- colour was a thing in 2007.

Lots of love,

almost 16 year old Marti xxx