"Didn’t your parents love you?

I remember people saying to me, in fact, it still happens.

'Oh poor you.  You were sent away to (grimace) boarding school.  Didn’t your parents love you?'

There’s so much to unpack here.  Probably years of therapy for the right person.  But for me - it was complete heaven.  I loved school.  I never got homesick.  I started as a day girl and within a couple of weeks had managed to coerce my wonderful headmaster into persuading my mother to let me board.

All the best bits of school happened outside of the working day (in my humble opinion).  The summer term in particular.  I’d get woken up at dawn to go on an early morning ride.  I can still hear the wood pigeons flapping and cooing from their lofty perch in the stables.  Smell the boiled barley cooking for the ponies in the kitchen.

After a busy day and supper '(goldfish pie' or 'floating meat' - maybe even 'dead man’s leg’ - I didn’t say it was ALL perfect 🤢) We’d be found climbing the cedar tree in the soft glow of a gentle evening on the lawn outside the honey coloured chapel or playing tennis or putting away the chickens.  Reading a book in the box gardens or picking raspberries in the kitchen garden with Sarah C (if you happened to be one of her favourites 😂) Life was good.  It was a very special way to grow up.

We are moving far away from Dorset soon and we didn’t want to drop Merlin in at the deep end.  We wanted to bring him home every Friday for the first term.  Toby and I did a lot of soul searching.  And number crunching.  Was it time?  Could we manage it?  Did we really need to buy anything for ourselves ever again?  No, probably not.

Being a parent is about sacrifices after all.

I think sending him away is actually the highest form of love.  It hurts us but gives them the freedom and opportunity to flourish in the best educational environment imaginable.

Our own parents struggled and sacrificed everything for us.  We would do the same for our boys.  Jesse is happier than he has ever been.  @bry has worked its magic for him and now it’s Merlin’s time.

So last Sunday we dropped Merlin and his pony off at school.  It made me less worried leaving Merlin, knowing he has his golden Buddy with him and Jesse is just next door in the senior school.  But, bloody hell, we have been missing him like crazy.

I’d forgotten how brutal it was for us, the ones left behind.   Jesse has been boarding for years now and is so settled and comfortable at school that I’d forgotten the anguish we went through for the first term.

It’s been such a joy to have Merlin home this weekend - Jesse didn’t want to come home as he is busy with cricket and revision for exams next week (see, settled lol 😂) - we went swimming in the sea this morning.  A perfect, calm day.  See-through crystal waters.  Tea and fruit salad picnic for breakfast.  And then lunch at Endsleigh.  Bliss.