Surprise

Carenza's birthday at uni.

We’ve been restraining our parental instincts in order to give the twins some space at uni.  On their birthday recently, we didn’t invite them home nor did I arrive on either of their doorsteps with cake and candles. 

But on the Friday evening just after their birthday, Carenza turned up at our house.  She had put a few history books in a bag and caught a train home.

We went for a country walk on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon with our books in front of the fire.  Compared with the pressure cooker of college life, dull domesticity  obviously looked attractive to Carenza, just for a weekend.

However, although Carenza was mostly stretched out dozily on the big red sofa, her social faculty was alert and she always had one eye fixed on her texts, tweets and facebook.  Arguably, her mind was still at college, but she had managed to teleport her body home for free food.   But quite soon, her schoolfriend Cara appeared and out they went together, and our nest was empty once more.  

Carenza went back to uni just after Sunday lunch.  We were really pleased she’d come to see us.  Maybe we didn’t need to have bent over backwards to give her space.  Or maybe she felt able to come home BECAUSE we gave her space.