LEAVING HOME (3)

I put my younger son on the train to Basel this morning. After a year playing handball full-time at a (fee-paying) sports college here in Denmark, he has managed to get a contract to play semi-professionally in Switzerland. It helps that his goalkeeping coach on the Great Britain national team is a Swiss with lots of contacts, and that he himself spent a year in Switzerland as a 16-year old (and so can speak Swiss German). But it's still a big break, not least becaue he will be the understudy for the Swiss national goalie.

My son left home last August, but it still felt different this time, perhaps because Basel is quite a bit further away than Aarhus. It's been just us two at home for the past couple of weeks, and he hasn't really done very much. Getting up around midday, going for a run or other form of physical exercise, eating meals I prepare for him, lying on the sofa watching the Tour de France, complaining that there is not enough food in the fridge, and updating his Facebook page. I suppose I could call him a lazy git. But I am not so old that I can't remember how demanding it is to be a 19-year old (now, from yesterday, a 20-year old) boy with no commitments.

Besides, it has been enjoyable having him here, watching various sporting events like the Tour in companionable silence punctuated by the odd discussion about strategy. I shall miss him.

Walter Blotscher