It was tempting to think that, with the Student officially off the books at home, my list of worries regarding said Student would become shorter. Ha! The last laugh’s on me.
There are, of course, different grades of worry nowadays. There are the continual, minor worries about whether people can still get rickets from lack of fruit and vegetables or catch some sort of disease from unsanitary living conditions (It’s one room, for heaven’s sake – I’ve left antiseptic wipes but they are still in the packet.)
Then there are the general, everyday worries about the regular club nights in the city, which, as every parent knows, becomes a place full of potentially fatal obstacles and unnamed wickedness as soon as you have children.
By this stage, you have managed to survive the parental panic attacks brought on by school skiing trips, the end-of-school girls’ holiday abroad and sitting next to a learner driver who has just realised she has accidentally worn her “slippy” shoes. “Just saying, you might want to give me advance warning about stopping, mum.”
Just when you think you are managing to live with the new worries, a jubilant text arrives, informing you that the Student and a bunch of her pals have managed to get tickets for one of the big festivals down south in the summer.
This news comes close on the heels of a recent weekend trip to that there London Town with her fella (It’s OK, he’s passed the Mr P firm handshake test). Suddenly, all the news stories about events in London seem to be playing on a loop in my head. These have now been replaced by all the negative stories about festivals.
Mr P and myself have done our best to alleviate all the anxiety by doing things we used to enjoy doing before we had the Baby, including lovely breaks away in school term time, when we used to imagine what life would be like when we had time to ourselves again; when she had grown up and we would not be worrying constantly. Fools.