To Ante, This is a little letter from David's mam, Maria.


Dear Ante, David and I are very much looking forward to you coming to visit with us soon this year and we are already tidying up and getting ready and making plans for your trip. We will love to see you and we think that you will have a nice time here. Ireland is different in many ways to Croatia but we think you will enjoy the new experience anyway.

But David tells me that your mam is a little bit worried about you coming to Ireland and I am a mam too and I know how your mother must feel as well so I have written this little letter and I think that if you gave it to your mother to read that she would feel better and let you come over.


First of all Ante, it is very important to do what your mother tells you to do, that is the most important thing and also it is very important to me that both your Mam and Dad are happy with you coming over. At the end of the day you must accept and do what both your parents tell you, It is their job Ante to look after you.


Secondly I know now Ante that you are a nice person and you were very good to David when we went over to Split, but before we went to visit you, I did not know anything about you and I was very nervous. I did not know who we were going to meet or what was going to happen, and even Croatia is such a long way away, but we went anyway and everything was fine. But Ante, I did not even let David go to Croatia on his own, and I went with him to help him to get around and go through the airports and find places to stay and get the buses and handle the different money and language and so on, so I understand how your mother feels now and I just really think that if you read this letter for her that she would probably feel a lot better.


So to Ante's mam, My name is Maria, and I know that Ante's mam is nervous but please know that if Ante comes to Ireland that we will help him with buying the tickets to come over and that when he is here, that I have my own little house and car in a little town here called Wexford, and Ante will stay with us and he will be very well looked after. We will bring him out to see all the beautiful things we have here, we have lighthouses and castles and big gardens with lakes and history parks and mountains and fishing villages and rivers and the most beautiful beaches and seas in the whole world, and tell your Mam that I will be with you all the time and you will be safe and well and you will have a great time and it will be the experience of a lifetime.... and at end of May you will be home in Split again..


but Ante if your mother still says No, then you must listen to her for now and there will be another time to come again, even if you are a little older, David and I, will still be here, so please read this letter to her Maria x