Oxford Days/Daze

16th August 2018, the third Thursday of August, was when the 'A' Level results were announced. Imagine my excitement when my son sent me a message to confirm that he had got the grades (and better) to get to Oxford to study Classics.

I probably danced a jig and punched the air a few times. I was alone, in postgraduate accommodation at a Russell Group university in the East Midlands, having decided to take up a contract job teaching English. The years of staying at home to give him the best start in life, and subsequently to manage the son's issues ... vindicated at last! Woohoo! 

Son and husband arrived the following afternoon and we had a great time celebrating at a lovely Thai restaurant. Sadly, the following day, the husband was taken ill, but that is a different story.

On 30th September we dropped the son off at Oxford. Almost literally. We were allowed to stop on a narrow one-way street, unload his gear, and the husband drove off to the Park-and-ride. Meanwhile a couple of second-year students, including the president of the JCR, appeared to help him carry his gear to his room.

Within minutes I was told by the son that it was OK for me to leave. But I could not. I had to find out where the husband was to decide the next step. In the end we decided that it was pointless for him to bus back to the college. I crossed the road to a waiting bus and hopped on it to get to the Park-and-ride.

That was it.

Eighteen years of preparing our child for what he wants to do. He decided that he wanted to go to a boarding school; we created opportunities to get him there. He worked out the scholarship system and got himself there.

Then he decided to get to Oxford, and he's there now. OK, so he wants to be a stand-up comic ....

Over the summer he's learned to cook and proved himself when he became nurse, cook and housekeeper when his dad fell ill and I could not get home. Even after I got home he was keen to show off his cookery skills. (I think God's timing was perfect in this: son did not have a choice but step into the breach.)

Officially he's an adult. He signs all his own contracts. I am now officially redundant from my parenting duties. Though I won't stop being a mother. This was why I decided to get a paid job, even if only for the summer, in the hope that it might open doors to other jobs.

Coincidentally I was at Oxford the week before 'drop-off' to present a paper at an anthropology conference. I sat in a number of sessions which were hugely boring. Ironic, as I had just been teaching incoming postgraduate students how to make effective presentations and here I had numerous PhDs/post-PhDs personify the cure to insomnia.

Anyhow, it was from running around the high street at Oxford that I learned precisely how the 'drop-off' was going to happen, having spoken to a porter at son's college.

Feeling vindicated.