That’s it then, they’re on their way and a big hole has opened up in our lives. It’s not as if we lived in each others pockets, they lived 75 miles away, but we were there for them and close enough to be able to help physically and as well as pastorally.

Teresa and Kevin are emigrating to Australia for at least two years and we will not see them for months, but they are doing what they want to do and  all success in that venture. It doesn’t even help that many other people we know have their children living abroad, in fact our neighbours next door and next door but one have offspring in the USA and Australia. But it affects everyone differently, and I’m no emotional wreck, but I have shed tears today, more because it’s a right of passage for them; not because I have any fears about their future, which I really hope is  successful.

At Brown’s, Islington Green

When we were first told about this last September, it didn’t seem as if it was real, and still doesn’t, like they are going away on an extended holiday. But the detritus which they left behind, stuff they didn’t want to take, reminds us constantly of their recent presence here. They also left their car for me to sell, anyone want to buy a Ford Ka 1.3 56 plate? The other stuff will go in a car boot sale, or the charity shops, or we’ll keep. Teresa put it very well: It’s only ‘stuff’, the important sentimental stuff is in our loft for when (if?) they return or to  dispatch to their next destination.  At least when it’s all put away it won’t remind us of them. It’s the day after they left, and I’m feeling empty and close to tears all the time, can’t shake it off, but on a more positive note, we will at least go and stay with them later this year.

This all reminds me that time is quite fleeting. When we were similar ages as Teresa and Kev, I volunteered to be posted to Germany when I was in the RAF. I got the posting in 1975, and I’ve got to admit, that my parents feelings at the time were not even considered, they were then about the same ages as we are now, so the parallels are quite marked.  In those days of course there was no internet, mobile phones, Skype or any other such communication paraphernalia that we all nowadays take for granted. To contact our parents to whom we were very close on both sides we had to find an International Telefon (telephone) to be able to say hello for a few minutes; the cost was horrendous.  Not all phone boxes were international, so at peak times, i.e. weekends, the nearest ones were usually queued out.  The parents could only write letters which of course we did as well, but anything urgent to impart could take days.  My parents visited us twice, both times in the car and my in-laws never came over at all. We went back three times, mainly because our first daughter was born there.  So I should be able to understand the rationale of Teresa and Kev’s decision, but it still hurts.  Good luck guys, hoping that all works out for you and that your life out in Melbourne goes as well as you would like it to.

See you very soon.  XXX