Last weekend I suffered empty nest syndrome for the first time. It's always been just the two of us, but this summer my kiddo nephew came to stay with us after he graduated from university. It's been a delightful summer having him around, and we went out quite a lot, like having picnic with the Queen at Buckingham Palace gardens, and hubby trained him to do grown up things like drinking whisky.
All happy times must come to an end, and last weekend it was time for my kiddo nephew to start his masters course. Although its only about 30km away in central London, it was still a little sad travelling into London to help him move into his accommodation.
Apart from when I went to pick up kiddo nephew in July, it's been a long time since I went inside student accommodation. It was quite interesting to see how they differ from my days. Kiddo was one of the first to move in and we got to snope around the other rooms. For nearly £200 a week, the rooms are a bit on the small side, that's London for you.
This is the common room to chillout, and students can have a game of table tennis here or just laze around watching TV.
I think there were three accommodation blocks here and a courtyard in the middle.
Although term time hadn't started yet, it seems some students were already partying hard with mannequin. Either the students were so drunk they forgot to bring half of mannequin back home, or mannequin was enjoying himself so much half of him didn't want to leave the party. Good to see they didn't forget the facial mask.
Amazon had a locker on premises, smart move to make it more convenient for students to buy online. And seems like many had started already. Just look at all the cardboard boxes they dumped on one side of the courtyard, along with the buckets and waste bins the cleaners had left around.
After kiddo settled down, we walked over to London Bridge for dinner. Due to me being in Taiwan, and Covid since I've been back in the UK in the past 18 months, I've hardly been in London. I didn't realise how much I'd miss it and what a lovely city it was, and still is. I spent some really nice years in London and am so happy that kiddo nephew now can enjoy the same experience as me.
We choose a very nice restaurant for dinner. It was by the River Thames, next to the Tower Bridge. The view was amazing. It was like a semi farewell dinner to mark the start of another chapter of kiddo's life. From now on, it will be just the two of us again like it used to be. I'm not sure how parents manage this empty nest syndrome. I imagine the parents are hit harder than the child. When the child leaves home and they jump immediately into a new life with new friends, whereas the parents are left looking at an empty bedroom at home.
It's been a few days already, and it feels a bit odd with kiddo gone. The good thing though.... kiddo started taking driving lessons during summer, and he's going to continue with his lessons here. That mean's he will be back every weekend. I'm going to bribe him with good home cooked food, hopefully he will drop back for dinner after his driving lessons!!!
