Who's The Daddy: It’s been fun, but now it’s back to just the two of us

These days, what with our grown-and-flown daughters living their own lives in a different city and on a different continent, making dinner arrangements for the four of us is like trying to knit fog.

Because Daughter #2 flies out to the US at the end of this week for her second tour of duty working the kids’ club on the world’s biggest cruise ship, we brought Mother’s Day forward by a week and booked a table at Dishoom in Manchester city centre for the four of us.

The food they serve is what I imagine heaven tastes like. Our daughters have been a few times and knew what to order. And they didn’t disappoint. Quite honestly, I’ve never tasted food quite like it, well apart from this time last year when me and Daughter #1 went before a Liam Gallagher and John Squire show at the Apollo.

It was great to see everyone. It’s hard to recall the last time all four of us were in the same room together (the freezing January night we picked up Daughter #2 from Manchester Airport after her first six-month stint on the ship?), and that was two months ago.

But that’s the thing about wanting to raise strong and independent daughters, if you get what you wish for, they go off and do strong and independent things.

There’s a theory that grown-up children treat their parents the same way their mum and dad treated them when they were kids. If you didn’t show up for them back then, don’t expect much help when you have a fall and break your hip some time around the next general election.

Thankfully, and it’s my greatest achievement, I’d like to think I have a fantastic relationship with our grown-up daughters. If nothing else, my years of constant pre-school run nagging of “Teeth!” “Shoes!” has meant they both have perfect teeth, and to a lesser extant a shoe collection that would fill a shop.

However, our goodbyes are going to be tough. Daughter #2 has thoroughly enjoyed her two months off. And we’ve thoroughly enjoyed having her around. Shore leave suits her, and she’s made the most of it. Her first week was spent sleeping, after working 160-plus days straight without a day off. After that, seven weeks of doing what she wanted, when she wanted. A holiday, trips away and mollycoddling our one surviving geriatric cat, after Marleyboo’s untimely demise last week.

And once Daughter #2’s been waved off on her red-eye connection to Heathrow, then onto Miami, it’ll be just the two of us again - me and The Boss, rattling around in a big old house full of memories that’s way too big for us now. So last week we put it on the market and now it’s anyone’s who ponies up the asking price.

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