Return of the year.

I picked my daughter up at the airport last night; she was returning from University and apparently by the time you get to mid-May your brain is so full you need four-and-a-half months summer holiday to recover.

She was travelling with one of those low-cost bunch that give you a ticket for free but charge you two arms and a leg if you forget to do any of the paperwork.

She was wearing three t-shirts, four sweat shirts, two jumpers and five jackets. She had a bag on her back that weighed more than the aeroplane – it took four of us to lift it into the car which then wouldn’t start. She was dragging something even bigger and was holding a huge pillow.

That was her hand luggage.

She also came home with a tattoo on her neck and nine thousand pounds of government student loan debt from her seven months of tuition and parties.

AND I got a phone call just before take-off asking me to fork out another 18pounds so that her cabin luggage wouldn’t exceed international regulations.

“How was the flight?”

“I was hot.”

“Ok, let’s head home.”

“Aren’t we going to a restaurant? I’ve only eaten porrige today.”

We went.

She ate an immense crèpe, a volumous salad and a flagon of vanilla milkshake.

I had a glass of water and watched her.

Then I took her home, where she ate some chocolate, and said goodnight.

She phoned me at work the next morning to tell me about the three days of partying she had planned that meant I would have to pick her up at the station at the end of the week if I wanted to see her again.

“Ok”.

“Oh, and can we go shopping?”

“You need MORE clothes?”

“No, there’s nothing to eat in the house, really nothing.”

I had left her a note reminding her that there was a shop in the village with such stuff.

“I don’t have any money.”

I’m not pedantic but when I got home I opened the fridge and had a look around the kitchen.

Bread, oranges, apples, broad beans, museli, spaghetti, rocket, onions, garlic, salmon, mushrooms, lettuce, cheese (various), asparagus, oven-ready pastry, bacon, spinach, courgettes, peppers (red and green), potatoes (white and sweet), cleriac, olive oil, tahini, peanut butter, jam, tins of sweet corn, a field of herbs and spices and a dozen free range farm eggs.

Oh, and an oven.