Saturday, July 18, 2009

All change please

Once more, there has been too long a gap between posts. Two very busy months have passed, and the resident minors have taken their exams, so they now anxiously await results. Penultimate son and foster daughter have officially left school, and have instead spent much of the summer cluttering up the house with their friends, all polishing their skills at poker. There's mounting excitement at the prospect of leaving the nest for academic pastures new, as we book accommodation, complete student finance forms, and start to collect living essentials for their new lives. Subject to exam results, these two will be heading in opposite directions to study, leaving youngest son at home for his final A level year.

At present all the resident minors are non-resident for a couple of weeks, having headed off for a bit of Mediterranean sun and luxury with their Dad. The house is deliciously quiet and, for the first time in months, is almost tidy. It isn't just the tidiness I appreciate - it's the fact that it looks exactly the same when I get up as when I retire to bed, the same when I come in from work as it did when I left in the morning. I find such changlessness calming and peaceful.

Meanwhile, we are now in the countdown to eldest son's wedding in September: suits are being bought and hair
appointments booked, hen and stag parties are in the diary, and I even have my hat. I'm not sure how radical the change will be for the two of them, though. Whilst their ontological status will of course be transformed, they already have a happy and stable life together, and my biggest wish for them is more of the same.

Second son and daughter, who have been sharing a flat in Islington, are moving, too; he to a single flat and she back to Sheffield for a while. This delights me, since I see much less of my London children than I would like, though they have always been generous with their hospitality. I gather second son is planning to acquire a motorbike, a travel decision which makes sense for someone in his position, so I shall have to suspend my reservations. Daughter, with a much better sense of self-preservation, has instead arranged to borrow my car when she needs it, contributing the occasional tank of petrol and acting as chauffeur for me once in a while.

My own summer has been less exciting, mostly spent marking exam papers. In an attempt to get the maximum done in the minimum time, I have been starting work at 6.30am and finishing around 10.30pm, weekends included - a quite dreadful regime, but one that started to feel worth the
pain when I was asked to mark enough additional papers to buy a Radley handbag. The final batch are, as I write, packed up for collection on Monday, and for the first time for weeks, I shall be able to spend the rest of the weekend curled up on the settee with a book and a clear conscience. Even the limited time I managed to spend with my lover this summer was overshadowed by the need to continue marking, and we probably won't get a proper break together now till the autumn. We have much work yet to do on our joint project, and little time over the summer to tackle it.

But the minors are not the only ones with change on the horizon. I too have exciting new plans, having been appointed to a job to die for starting in January 2010. It is a new adventure for me, with younger students and a quite different kind of community, but one that allows me to fulfil long-standing ambitions in an institution that is the very best of its kind. I shall be sad to leave a place where I have been so very content, and learnt so much; but the time is right to move on, and I pinch myself daily to be certain that this isn't just a happy dream.