Oh my god, we are empty nesters, we’ll be reading Saga magazine next and taking glucosamine and wearing pressed slacks. No, I hear you howl. It is now 30 years since Thomas was born so we have never had a house with just two of us in it—but we have now. We arrived at Heathrow at ten past five on Friday morning after a rather short night’s sleep. We immediately bumped into the very cheerful Jo who is going on the same project as Josh and saw, briefly, James, who runs Outreach International. He looks like a slightly anguished mad Professor and totally ignored us shovelling Jo and Josh into the group queue and telling them to make sure they were checked in for Quito as well as Madrid where they changed planes. We retreated upstairs for coffee as the check in queue was very long. By around six I couldn’t stand it any longer so Josh went off to go through security. Managed to keep smiling until he had disappeared but then had to have a good cry. Today he will be waking up in Quito in Ecuador and won’t be back until July4th. It was even worse when we got home and I went into his room – that was an error – more sobbing. Anyway everyone keeps saying six months isn’t long! And we are very proud that he is going to be teaching and helping with conservation stuff up in the rain forest.
