Growing Pains

Ryan and Mo came for the weekend. We had drinks, funny conversations, serious conversations, walks and pub food. I got tearful saying goodbye to Ryan - he's off to Antarctica, and it will be some time before I see him again. Cambridge is starting to feel like a long time ago, and it's scary. Mo and I have gone from spending the hours every day in each other's company to catching up via email and occasional visits.

I'm not sure I like having to grow up and I miss the holiday camp atmosphere of living in college, where we were closeted away from the real world. It was a charmed life. The smell of autumn, the long shadows and the crisp multicoloured leaves, tell me it is Michealmas term and part of my brain is wondering why I'm not back at lectures, why I'm not cycling along with my scarf billowing in the October wind peddling furiously to get to a supervision on the other side of town. I want to be in Martin's cafe with Mo, drinking coffee and laughing so much my stomach hurts, I want to be in Ryan's room watching downloaded episodes of Southpark on his computer, I want to be talking utter rubbish with a big crowd of clever people in the college bar. I want to be standing on one of the bridges over the river Cam as a tourist loses his punting pole and falls in the river, to the applause of on-lookers, hearing someone inevitably utter the immortal words "that's so Cambridge!".

Then I think of the week ahead. Dinner with my sisters on Wednesday night, dinner with my parents on Thursday: I'm living closer to my family than I have done in over a decade. But this too will be over before we know it; the winter will have hardly begun before we are flung into the middle of an Australian summer and another exciting new chapter in our lives (we hope!).

Sometimes I just have to remind myself to stop looking back, to stop trying to look forward and take a look around me, where I am right now. We are living in a gorgeous old cottage, we have beautiful countryside on our doorstep, my whole family as neighbours, home-brewed beer in the garden shed, visits from friends to look forward to. I miss my past life, but I'm rather fond of my present one too.

But I'm still tempted to kidnap both Mo and Ryan and keep them prisoner in the cupboard under the stairs!!