Who's the Daddy: From hazmat suits to en suites

It didn’t. It wasn’t even close. In the end it just about fit into two Mazda 2s, mine and the boss’s. Aged 19, and after the most well-timed gap year in the entire history of higher education, it was time for daughter #2 to fly the nest and get her own place before her university course starts in Liverpool this autumn – with 100 per cent funding, of course, courtesy of the Bank of Mum and Dad that’s open 24/7. We never close.

Back in the day, student accommodation contracts roughly aligned with term dates, starting in late September and ending in early summer. Not these days they don’t, well, not in private housing anyway.

Daughter #2 and her mate’s watertight lease runs from July 1 to June 30 next year. So after spending the past 15 months working in a supermarket and in a school, she’s currently living it up in a very nice and very large flat in Liverpool city centre with nobody to tell her what to do or when to do it. Jealous? I know I am.

Moving day was fraught, it always is. But if collecting the key from the letting agency was exciting then turning it in the lock and stepping into your own place for the first time is beyond incredible.

The state of our old student house in Lancaster in the early 90s was so bad that the neighbours called Environmental Health out on us.

We came home one day to find half a dozen men in hazmat suits mucking out the back yard and the woman from next door with her arms folded, tutting.

Daughter #2’s place is an absolute palace in comparison. For starters it has two more functioning bathrooms than we had – it has two bathrooms and hers is en suite!

Heavens to Betsy, an en suite bathroom!

I’m going to get this out of the way now, so here goes.

*Clears throat*. Kids today, they don’t know they’re born. And check the date on the calendar while you’re at it and mark it down as the day I finally turned into my father.