• You keep checking to see if they’ve texted to say they’re managing without you. They haven’t … because you’ve only just moved them into their student halls and are still sitting in your car, in the car park.

       • You realise it’s no longer necessary to buy those two-kilo bags of potatoes. They just go green and start sprouting.

       • You also stop buying The Big Milk and switch to the smallest carton. How tiny you are! you think, the first dozen times you spy it in the fridge.

       • Friends say things like, ‘You might miss them at first. But when they come home on visits they’ll trash the place, and you’ll be relieved when they go back to uni.’ How harsh, you think. I love my kids. I’ll never think of them in that way.

       • You realise you could now have sex in your own home without worrying about the kids overhearing. Or perhaps you’re thinking more along the lines of, Shall I redecorate to mark this new chapter? Perhaps your mindset is less ‘shag pad’, more ‘upgrading of cushions’. Either way, it’s pretty thrilling.

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