It all started in 2007 when our oldest girl, Jessica, went off to university at Kings College London and has now ended with our youngest girl, Hannah, graduating from York University. Both ended up with a 2:1 pass, so thankfully no conflict there! For Hannah's graduation we travelled up on the Wednesday before her graduation ceremony on the Thursday and then travelled back home on the Friday. Fortunately for us, in this "summer of drought" which has seen record rainfalls, the big day dawned sunny and warm. We all had a great time, Hannah got presented with her degree in "English Language and Literature in Education" and then we all enjoyed a really tasty celebratory meal in a Thai restaurant she had been hoping to go to for some time. Does the expense stop here: I very much doubt it!

She's now off to Japan for a year to teach Japanese people of various ages how to speak English as part of a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) programme with the Californian Language Institute and we intend to have a holiday out there to visit her.