Exhausted Wallet

Before I started my own PGCE course I was preoccupied with fitting Perran and Carenza out for university life.  I was trying to ensure that they had no need to fret about equipment/toiletries/stationery as they struggled with living independently in a strange city, making new friends and launching on their studies.

In fairness we probably got 90% of our crap together.

Since, however, I started my own process of being beat over the head with course information, college information, placement bumph and assignment rubrics, I have rather taken my eye off the ball. 

That was why, on Saturday, Perran, Nigel and I found ourselves in the Bristol branch of Wilkinsons dragging a trolley heaped high with all the things that we had thought would be in Perran’s room already – lamp, chest of drawers, bin; and a few things that we had left  at home – cushions, sheets, air freshener.

We were not alone.  There were hordes of young people in there, each trailing a trolley of bargain household items, each tailed by one or more harrassed parent. 

“Do you think these are all freshers?” I asked Nigel as we stood in the queue to pay.

Meanwhile the father ahead of us got to the front of the queue.  Nigel peered as he took out his money.

“Thin, well-worn wallet,” he remarked, “Definitely the parent of a fresher.”