All grown up

I'm sitting here in the study, staring at the empty space on the floor where for the last few weeks my elder daughter's worldly belongings - or at least that part of them she had with her in Uni halls of residence for a year - have sat patiently waiting to be taken to her new home.

The new home for which yesterday, at 12:30, she picked up the keys and moved in.

A lovely place it is too. As I commented to the other families assembled while Nat's housemates collected their keys: at least three orders of magnitude better than anything I ever lived in as a student. It has brand-new carpet throughout, not the threadbare rags we walked quickly over, on account of them being so sticky-dirty they threatened to hold you down forever if you stood for too long in one spot. It has bright, modern, NEW decor, not the damp and peeling Anaglypta that provided a depressing back-drop to our evening revision sessions. All the furniture is new, including (double) beds and mattresses, so she won't have to sleep on a lumpy, sagging, stained, single bed like I did. The kitchen is equipped with every modern appliance - separate upright fridge and freezer, washing machine, tumble drier and dishwasher, combi boiler, kettle, microwave and cooker. We had a cooker, a kettle and a small fridge. Laundry was dragged around the corner to the laundrette, or taken home in the holidays for Mum to do. In a house of 6 blokes, I'll let you guess which was the more popular option.

No, I wouldn't have wished my digs on my worst enemy, let alone my own daughter, so I'm very pleased she's found such a grand place. Didn't stop me having a small pang as she waved us goodbye and closed her own front door to spend her first night alone in the place though.