This week, that beautiful blonde baby and I are off to look at universities…how did this happen? I don’t feel any older, certainly not old enough to have a daughter who is leaving in home in less than 12 months.
It beckons a new chapter chez Kershaw, one where Issy is alone in having to put up with parents who still like to dance around the house (just stopping short of twerking), sing the wrong words to everything that comes on the radio and horrors, sometimes still hold hands while watching TV or walking the dogs. She is not amused and is already planning a jail cell style calendar marking off the days until she too can flee the nest (another four years, which might as well be a life sentence in her eyes given that there is no time off for good behaviour.)
The arguments over who has borrowed a new mascara/Top Shop knickers/Ugg boots without asking will be a distant memory and I suspect we will long for the days when we couldn’t even hold a conversation downstairs for being drowned out by hormonal banshee style screaming and insults being traded in between loud slamming of bedroom doors.
A bit of me is excited about always having a good excuse to jump on a plane back to the UK to pay Livvy a visit. (This has nothing to do with any shopping/socialising opportunities whatsoever.) She has already asked me to compile a recipe book of her favourite dishes to take with her, although this could be a red herring to allay my fear of her existing on daily MacDonalds, KFC, greasy spoon fry ups and baked beans. I am going one step further and buying her a spiraliser, which turns courgettes, sweet potatoes, apples and all sorts of other fruit and veg into spaghetti or noodles. Something tells me this might not get as much use as the corkscrew but I’ve got to try.
In the meantime, there is nothing like the prospect of a chick flying the nest to make you realise that you really just need to make the most of them while they are on loan to you, screaming matches, hovel like bedrooms and make-up caked bathrooms and all.
