Another special day...

Hard on the heels of Jodies birthday yesterday comes yet another special day in the life of the famille JerryChicken - our eldest's last day at school.

OK so Amanda has to go in to do study and revision for her upcoming A levels but thats now voluntary, today is the very last day when she will have to compulsory attend class and be marked at registration.

To her its probably the end of a very long path that started when she was just four years old, to us it seems like just last week that she was stood in the playground at Holy Trinity Infants School, clad in a smart new little uniform, waving goodbye for four long hours to her tearful mother stood on the pavement outside.

Now at eighteen there is only one step between her being the first in either my, or Suzannes family to attend university next year, the A levels in a few weeks time, but today its time to bid farewell, hand in your locker keys, attend the leavers service (its a church school - bah ! ), and then all down to the pubs of headingley in fancy dress this lunchtime - I believe that her outift is something on an equine theme as I saw the top of her riding crop sticking out of her bag this morning - I hope its an equine theme anyway.

She's promised not to get too blathered this afternoon before ringing me to pick her up, ready to go ut tonight as well, but I don't believe her - let a crowd of 18 year olds loose in pubs that will serve them until they fall on the floor (literally) and there is only one thing for certain - I bet she doesn't make it out tonight.

And of course as a father I sit here and tut-tut and tell her to be careful and not drink too much and behave and, and, and...

...and then I think back to when I was eighteen and recall that Saturday night consisted of cramming as much beer down your gullet as possible and if you found yourself in the car park at 9pm puking up down the drain then all that that meant was that you could start again in a few minutes and still have 90 minutes left until closing time.

Waking up on a Sunday morning inside your 18 year old throbbing head often meant wondering how you got home last night, why do you have blisters on your feet, where are your shoes and where are your trousers, questions that still have no answers 32 years later.

So yes, I'm a hypocrite, and stories of me behaving myself and drinking moderately when I was her age are blatant lies and she knows it and when she walks out of the door they are forgotten, its a game we parents play.

I just hope that at 6pm tonight she, and all of her drunken friends in the back seat keep the noise down to below 150 decibels while I deliver them to their homes.