Back to school and other tales

transition state

It’s 10am on a Saturday morning in late August, our first morning back in Ireland after nearly two months in France, and I’m sitting in bed journalling. The curtains are open and my bedside light is on. It’s grey outside. My younger two sons just came in for morning cuddles, wearing their beloved fleece onesies. Their topless days of a French summer are behind us.

I listen out for the small sounds from my daughter’s bedroom next door: the ruffle of her sheets as she moves in her sleep, the sharp click of the lightswitch, the rattle of her blackout blind being rolled up. But her bed lies silent behind the thin wall, her bedroom tidy and clean. The sound of absence. When the time came for us to come back to Ireland, she stayed. For a few months – until Christmas in fact – she will be an exchange student in the very lycée I attended so many moons ago.

After all the talk of who would get her bedroom while she’s away, both E and D are now saying they don’t want it. And so they sleep in the…