Almost there

I've been counting the days - one more to go to be precise. One more day until my gorgeous 23-year-old daughter and all her luggage walks through that Arrivals Gate at the airport and I can give her the biggest hug on record. To make up for no hugs since the first week of July. To be the real thing as opposed to snatched facebook messages, poor internet or frustratingly disjointed skype conversations over the last ten weeks. 

Testing her independence, Kay has travelled alone to another country in another continent. She has climbed Africa's biggest mountain; worked 5 weeks in an ill-equipped hospital; collected £500 in donations to  provide much-needed supplies for the hospital; seen conditions the like of which we just don't see in the western world; been mugged; lived with Masai warriors for a week; shared a public bus for an hour's journey with goats and chickens; sat next to the pilot in the cockpit of a small plane over Tanzania; and dived/swam with turtles in Zanzibar.  She left London on her own and will return on her own, but has met zillions of people on her travels with enough "facebook friends" to crash the system. She's my one and only, my baby, but she's seen more in the last ten weeks than I'll probably ever see. The stories she'll be able to tell her grandchildren (and me)! I can see our throats will ache with all the catching up conversations.

Our reunion will be shortlived - she has to leave London on Sunday to drive the six hours North to unpack and unwind in time for the start of her final (sixth) year of university on Monday. But inbetween, I'm going to proverbially kill the fatted calf. My baby's coming home.
 

The first of three aeroplanes that will bring her home