Fantastic A levels achieved, and now your teenager is off to Nottingham University!!
So your precious child, is off to Nottingham University...
You've spent all those years raising little Jimmy. Firstly getting him to sleep through the night, eat solids, then as he grew you taught him how to tie his tie and shoe laces for school, you coached him how to master his front crawl on camping holidays in France and how to be a team player in the local football team on a saturday afternoon.
Then as he hit his teenage years you encouraged him to speak nicely to girls at parties and to study hard for his GCSE's. Perhaps he got a job in the local coffee shop & earnt his independence travelling to London and further afield all on his own during the school holidays. Then he did his Duke of Edinburgh & got great A levels results. You've tried to encourage him to only drink responsibly, and alternate with soft drinks.. a now, horror of horrors, he's leaving home and going off to Nottingham Uni to try out real life.
Well I don't know about you, but that's what I remember by parents doing, and that's what I am in the process of doing with my own 3 sons who are all now teenagers, but there's one thing that the modern parent does which I don't remember my folks ever doing:
Settling your child into Nottingham Trent University or University of Nottingham
Here at Nook & Cranny we are inundated at the moment with parents who are taking a week out of their busy schedules to bring little Jimmy up to Nottingham Trent University (NTU) or "Uni of" (as it is known). They drop him off at the campus, rush to the nearby Waitrose to fill his fridge with delicious morsels of healthy food, and they then leave him to settle in. But, (and I have yet to ascertain whether Jimmy knows this or not!), they don't go straight home, they stay close by in case they get "the call".
They spend a week in a delightful modern serviced apartment in West Bridgford - just a couple of miles away from Nottingham town centre, where they can enjoy all that cafe culture and river walks, countryside and Farmers Markets have to offer whilst laying in wait, just in case little Jimmy needs a mercy dash - perhaps he will run out of fresh Coriander or some other equally disturbing fate will befall him!
I jest, many of our clients here at Nook & Cranny are families of overseas students relocating their offspring to another country as well as to a new life of independent living, and perhaps the UK parents are having their own little celebration of long overdue freedom. We often welcome the overseas students back for each of the holidays if they have to leave their halls of residence whilst the University holds vacation conferences, and often parents and siblings come over to stay with them & catch up on family time. It's a great way to get to know the local area as a tourist as well as a student.
So, however you are thinking of dropping your child off, don't forget, that when you wish to pick them up, come to visit, or celebrate the graduation which will come round in a flash, you know where we are, but take my advice - don't tell Jimmy!
RSS Feed