A few months ago, when Bobbie (our youngest) announced that she was planning on making changes in her life and moving up to London to live with her boyfriend, I thought, “Good on you, Bobbie”. It wasn’t like she was a young girl leaving home for the first time; she hasn’t lived at home full-time since she left for her second year of university down in Plymouth, where she carried on living until just over a year ago. Of course, Plymouth is only forty miles away, not exactly on the doorstep but not remote either; and then she returned to Dawlish to live independently in Mary’s ground floor flat under the old Porch Galleries, which was on Granny Porch’s doorstep, but everyone respected her “space” (so to speak). I thought of myself at her age – a young mother of a seven year old Jim, living in Australia, travelling back forth, not quite knowing where to settle, and very much involved in my own life – and I understood exactly why Bobbie felt the need to spread her wings.

Bobbie has been packing away her things and preparing for the move for weeks; she has taken some suitcases up to Martin’s already, to lessen the load; she has been talking about the last weeks of her work at Totnes, the last days, the goodbye party, the last day… We knew she was going, it was no surprise, we have had months to get used to the idea, we have been excited for her, we have been happy for her… but it hadn’t hit me yet…

Even yesterday, when Mum phoned in tears saying, “Oh Sally, I know I don’t see that much of her, but I shall miss her. I’ll miss the knowing that she’s there…”, it still hadn’t hit me. It struck Mum first because Bobbie left the flat yesterday; and Mary was struck next because she came over to say goodbye as we were packing things into the removal van; and Mary said, “I shall miss her, Sally; just not having her there will be funny.”

Bobbie came home with us last night. We had very well-cooked (slightly burnt) chicken for dinner (I had put it in the oven to cook while we were at Bobbie’s flat for the final packing into the van), and Madeleine came over later to spend the last hours of this era with her childhood friend. Bobbie walked her half-way home and Chris and I went to bed. I found it hard to sleep. I think Chris did too. He had restless legs; they wriggled every ten seconds (I kept count) and when I could stick it no more I called out into the darkness, “You kick your legs every ten seconds!” After that he made a valiant effort to control the jiggling.

I must have gone to sleep eventually because Chris woke me at ten to six this morning with a cup of tea that I couldn’t face. Bobbie was getting ready upstairs when I walked through the kitchen; Chris was somewhere else; the tumble-drier was tumbling away and a hot damp fug was in the air; and with nothing better to do, and no-one to talk to, I decided to take a shower. While I was still in the shower Chris called through the door, “We’re off now”.

Damp and in my bathrobe, I stood by the front door and hugged and kissed Bobbie goodbye.

“It’s so exciting for you,” I said, trying to be cheery, “and it’s not like we won’t be seeing you. We’ll see you soon – won’t we?”

“Yes, of course,” Bobbie replied, “I should think we’ll be down in January.”

“But we shall speak on Skype and phone?”

The door closed against the dark rainy morning, I thought about January , three months or more away, and Christmas disappeared, and then it hit me…