For three years, Alfie's resting place had been marked with a simple wooden cross.

We have always wanted to get him a permanent memorial but have never been able to afford it. We spent so much time looking round the internet over the years and sending off for brochures but the prices of these things never ceased to amaze us.

At some points we thought we would never be able to get a headstone for him, at times we were ok with this as we had really gotten used to the little wooden cross that had been with him from the beginning.

We loved his cross and all of the other babies who surround him also still had their crosses so they looked nice all being similar so it wasn't such a big deal.

As with anything connected to losing your child though, moods change from time to time and sometimes we really wished we could manage to get something sorted for him. It is really one of the only things we can ever buy for him to show him we wanted to do something nice for him, as we would with any of our kids.

This is where Alfie has been settled for the last three years at various times of the year and various seasons, he is right on the brow of a hill overlooking the whole city, he has a big tree just behind him and it can be very beautiful and peaceful up there, a perfect setting for a baby's grave. In the winter though, the wind howls around the top of the hill and it can be utterly freezing, makes it very hard to spend a large amount of time there. Take a look.

The quality of each of these different pictures will vary as a lot of them are taken with my phone so as I change my phone, the quality improves.
 

Today Alfie got his new permanent memorial.

It took a while for us to get there but eventually Alfie's home has had a makeover.

Thursday 29th June 2006.

After looking for the three years since losing Alfie we found a fantastic stonemason who could do exactly what we wanted, with no fuss and at a price that didn't go anywhere near the ones we had looked into beforehand. At first I thought there must have been a catch, especially when I saw that they are based so far away from us, but they work in all areas of the country for the same price, no matter how far it is. When I rang to enquire if they could do what we wanted and what their price would be I was amazed. The man I spoke to was really nice, friendly and helpful. A lot of the masons I had contacted before had a habit of being not unfriendly, but they didn't make me feel comfortable and made me feel like a fool as I didn't really know what questions to ask and didn't really know what was involved in buying and getting a stone erected, I had never done it before.

I chatted with a guy called Richard who went through everything I needed to know, assured us that he could do what we wanted and gave us a rough price there and then. I sent him a picture of a stone I had seen before and he told me how much he could make it for, believe me, it was good compared to the original.

I talked with Richard for a while, he was easy to talk to and put me at ease about everything. We talked for a while about how difficult it is, losing anybody, especially a baby and how hard it is to talk to people about things without them going all weird on you, lol.

We decided to go ahead and do this, we had a few problems along the way. Information was not in any rush to be forwarded from the council about anything, we had to wait a while for all of our permissions as the council had a massive backlog to get through but we eventually got there.

Today our lovely tribute for our baby boy was finally installed and we love it, we are very proud to say that this is where our baby is resting.

I only have a few pictures as of yet as it was only installed a couple of hours ago.

I can now get all of Alfie's toys and ornaments back up there and put some flowers in his vase. I will take more pictures as soon as everything is in place and do a quick update.

Saturday 1st July 2006

We popped up today with some flowers for Alfie, the first since his stone went up. Just a couple of pictures as I'm not sure when we will get the rest of his things up to him.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to Richard and to Helena also who must be sick to death of seeing my name in her inbox, lol. We love what you have done for us .

If you are looking for a memorial and you are in England I'd suggest that you look here, I don't know if we'd have ever gotten our memorial if we hadn't have found them, it's worth a phone call.

W. T. Drage and Sons

4 Wold Farm Park, Broughton Rd, Old, Northants, NN6 9RH

0800 085 3452

finememorials@aol.com - www.stonemason.me.uk