Get back, funky cat

If my day out last November accompanying Natalie to her interview day at Manchester University could be called surreal, then today's trip was like being drawn back into that nightmare land of exams and, more to the point, results.

As we drove from Manchester to Huddersfield the radio news was full of reports that today was the day half a million students would be receiving their 'A' level results. We already knew. We were on our way to college to pick them up.

Although we arrived in Huddersfield town earlier than results were supposedly available there was still a fairly strong current of students wending its way collegewards. We elected to stick to our plan and breakfasted in the little coffee shop which Nat and her friends frequented. Later, hearts firmly in our mouths, we made the short walk to the college gates. "See you in a bit then," said Natalie, her nonchalance belying her undoubted trepidation as she crossed the road and disappeared past the throng of students who were already gathered by the gates, their congratulations and commiserations communicated only by body language at this distance.

The wait seemed endless. After the first hundred years Blythe and I were starting to get a little hungry again, breakfast having been so many decades earlier. But we only had to wait another three hundred years before Natalie appeared back at the gate accompanied by her boyfriend. She crossed the road and handed me her papers, beaming. The results were good. Very good. But the grades were slightly at odds with her offer from Manchester University. One equal with the requirement, one higher, but one lower. We headed off for the village to give Mum the good news and also to get on the Internet and find out whether Nat had, after all, secured that much wanted place.

Manchester has a very enlightened entrance policy. Their courses are so oversubscribed that they only offer places to students whom they really want to attend. They hand-pick them at interview not just for academic ability but for what else they can bring to the party. Natalie, being skilled in many extra-curricular activities and interests, is exactly the kind of student they look for. Their offer came with a promise that, even if the grade quota was not quite achieved, she would still secure her place.

Even so, those minutes between leaving college and arriving at the house, and the extra minutes standing in the hall while Natalie rushed upstairs to the computer to check the university admittance website added another couple of hundred years to the morning.

"I got in!!" she shouted from the study.

We all breathed again and time resumed its normal pace.

With the next three years now mapped out before her and most of the worries of the last two years beginning to be replaced by worries of what is to come (for such is life, leaving one worry behind so as to confront another), we drove home and celebrated first with another afternoon in the company of the X-Men (I'm starting to make quite a handy Ice Man with my slow ice beam and my shards) and later with a trip to the Nawaab for an excellent curry dinner and a glass of mango lassi.

I've spent most of the latter half of the day fairly bursting with pride at the achievements of my first born, and also reassuring Blythe that there really is no pressure to equal or better the "bar" Nat has set. We shared a joke about that on the way back to the car this morning, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness to the humour. I never knew what it was like to have an older sibling, but I guess sometimes it can feel like you have to run just to stand still. For me though, there is never any of that sort of comparison between them. Both my daughters are wonderful, each in their own way. Each better at some things than the other, each with their own unique qualities, their own outlook on life and their own path to tread. I see my job as just being there to provide a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear when they need to share, and to move some of the rocks off their path when necessary. What else is a Dad for? Oh, yeah, a cuddle now and then :o)