Migrations

At the end of May, and the end of the university semester, our daughter moved out of her student hall of residence - pictured above. By happy coincidence I had been in the same town for work that day, so once my meetings were over I joined daughter and son (who had come through from his university town to help his sister) in The Big Pack.  We filled suitcases and bags and boxes, and ferried them to the car.  Then during the evening my husband arrived with the bigger car (and roofbox) and we filled more suitcases and bags and boxes....

It was a soft, golden evening, the first warm evening of this grudging Spring.  And so happy, with all of us together again.  We drove home through lush farmland and a sunset which proved impossible to capture from a moving car, even tho I wasn't driving.  A couple of weeks later we are in the final stages of shoehorning the contents of one hall of residence room into our house.

Where has this year gone?  Time is flying far too fast.  Perhaps it's the comings and goings that seem to make everything accelerate.  We have our daughter at home for a few more precious days before she leaves for a summer job abroad.  As I write, our son is on a bus somewhere in Croatia, and then he will be home two days after his sister leaves, and preparing for his university graduation.  I am beginning to think of my children as the migrating swallows and swifts which mark the start and end of summer each year.