Dirty washing and sisterly rows

Daughter #2’s on a two-week half term and has been working on her personal statement for uni/stage school applications, gaining a first aid qualification at the kids’ club where she works during the holidays and learning a monologue for her next performance, heavy duty stuff.

Oh, that and watching hours and hours of Catfish, Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Coronation Street.

Daughter #1’s unexpected flying visit during reading week (yep, more time off) was mainly down to works on the line which affected the Liverpool-Leeds train where she was visiting a mate to watch the Rugby World Cup final and go to a liquid drum ‘n’ bass night (nope, me neither). The line back to Liverpool was down so she instead came home for a few days at the Rancho Relaxo for some much needed R&R.

After two whole months cooking and washing for herself in halls, the penny has finally dropped on what a cushy deal she had here. Here’s one example.

Even after her bag of dirty washing had been through our Mr Bosch twice, she maintained her clothes still stank of the manky campus launderette where her laundry never dries properly and always smells of damp, even after spending FIVE WHOLE POUNDS on a wash and tumble dry.

Then she showed me a 1,200-word essay she’d submitted for her law course, the question for which I barely understood, but the answer, crafted in fledgling legalese, read like the watertight terms and conditions of an operating system update on an iPhone.

And the rows. Oh my word. We thought our cats and dog fought like cat and dog, but hell hath no fury like a sister scorned. Maybe they do it for our benefit, maybe because they’re used to their own space now and, no matter how old you get or how successful you think you are, the second you set foot back in the family home, you revert back to the petulant teenager you once were - and deep down always will be. That’s my theory anyway.