New home!

We didn’t sleep very well in the hotel last night. Not because we were worried about my daughter leaving home but because at about 10pm what sounded like a massive fight between around ten people started in the corridor outside our room - shouting, screaming, wailing and door slamming. Five police officers arrived about two and a half hours later (it had been going on all that time) and a woman was carted off in a police van. It quietened down after that but I couldn’t get to sleep until about half past three. And there was a smooshed kebab on the carpet outside our room in the morning. Considering it was a four-star Marriott, you’d think they’d have a better class of clientele! :-D

We were much more impressed when we got to my daughter’s university accommodation. It was all so well-organised and they’d gone all-out to welcome the students. There was plenty of parking, with staff directing the cars, and loads of students were on hand with trollies. They not only loaded the students’ stuff on them but wheeled them to the building, too - superb service!

As we walked into the main courtyard, we were greeted with a drummer group, circus performers, a DJ playing up-beat music and there was a welcome tent (I’ve put a couple more pictures in the ‘extras’). As well as her room keys, they gave my daughter loads of info, a beer mat with useful contact numbers on (no doubt that will prove helpful!) and a personal alarm. It turns out that, incredibly, many students had brought much more than my daughter. One girl arrived in a big van with a trailer. Goodness knows what was in that lot! One big, burly guy - who looked like he’d give Tyson Fury a run for his money - had a teddy bear as big as him! It was certainly entertaining watching everyone!

Once we got all my daughter’s things in her room, we took her to Tesco’s to get her set up with food, toiletries, and anything else we’d been worried wouldn’t fit in the car on the trip up, and bought a big box of Krispy Kreme donuts for her flatmates.

Most of my daughter’s flatmates are now in their second year and lived together in the same flat last year but she’s been in a chatroom group with them for a few weeks and they’re all really nice so it was pretty easy for her meeting them in person for the first time. After we left, they gave her a tour of the area and she’s going out with them tonight to a Freshers’ event.

It hasn’t quite hit us yet that she’s gone but I’m sure we’ll miss her dreadfully. I’m pretty sure she’s going to miss the cats more than us, though. She’s already set a time to FaceTime them!