Survey highlights flexibility penalty for mums
Despite the post-Covid move to more flexible working, many mums are struggling to get the...read more
After back to school week comes back to uni week.
Now that back to school has happened we are anticipating back to university or off to university in our house. Daughter three is starting university later this month. She’s a bit nervous about it all.
She was up visiting her campus this week with her sister who is studying in the same city. This latter fact reassured me somewhat because I thought daughter two could look out for daughter three, but sibling dynamics are complicated and daughter three is ‘more solvent’ than daughter two at the moment due to having worked for most of the last year.
In fact daughter three went up to visit daughter two to rescue her. For some reason daughter two had thought her flatmate would be around. Instead she found herself in a freezing, dusty flat with a flickering bathroom light. Daughter two has a big imagination and flickering lights are not something she interprets as a good sign. Daughter three took her a onesie and a blanket and kept her company. They toured daughter three’s campus, but, inevitably, daughter three caught a bad cold after sleeping on a leatherette sofa in a freezing flat for several days.
“Is daughter two looking out for you? Has she got you a paracetamol?” “No,” came the reply. “She has been locked for three hours in her room doing yoga.” Oh dear.
“I feel really sick,” said daughter three over the phone. “I am really hot and my head is pounding.” My brain always jumps to worst case scenario. “Have you got a stiff neck and a rash?” I asked, thinking meningitis. “My neck is sore,” came the reply. She added that it could just be the sofa. I told her to monitor the progression of her symptoms and rang daughter two. No reply. She had put her phone on flight mode while doing yoga. Daughter three decided to go to a friend’s house nearby and get some sleep and paracetamol.
The next day daughter three felt slightly better, but as the hours wore on before her return trip was due she started feeling worse. I decided to meet her at Euston, but got slightly lost and dumped the car somewhere near Camden. Anyway, daughter three is back, has medication and is feeling a bit better. Daughter two has gone away for a few days with a friend. No-one is giving me the figures on the gap between the student loan and the rent despite repeated requests. I’ve recounted long stories of my student days existing on porridge…All of this is not auguring well for the year ahead.