Ladies and Gents, we are Nearly There. We have almost Done It. Earlier this month Mr P&P handed in the final draft of his thesis, and tomorrow afternoon he’s defending it.
A comic from (the very aptly-named) phdcomics.com. I'm sure that the spikes are even spikier when you add in a PhD.
I’m not sure whether it’s fair to say “we” have almost done it because I certainly haven’t been the one surgically attached to my keyboard since November, whilst also putting up with a teething grumpy gremlin and an increasingly exasperated wife. I haven’t had to stay up until the wee hours just to get some peace to write, and then get pummeled by tiny elbows at 6am every morning. I haven’t had to deal with the massive amount of pressure that comes with a big deadline.
Nevertheless, I’m going to stick with ‘we’ because in every other way we’ve gone on this journey together. Now we’re about to come out at the other side of it. And what a side that is!
After gallons and gallons of rain this winter (yes, even in Italy), the sun is finally appearing. We will finally be able to let the Bean get all his climbing, running and leaf-munching urges out of his system before he gets home.
This weekend we’ll be at my parents’, together with my brother and his family. That’ll mean not one but three climbing, running and leaf-munching midgets taking over a house that I won’t have to clean up afterwards!
At Easter we’re taking the Bean back to the UK for the first time. Where I will stuff him with crumpets and let him feed the ducks.
At some point this year we will (we will) go on a family holiday just the three of us. I’m thinking southern Italy, sea, and sand that’s just asking to be tasted.
I. Can’t. Wait.
I know there will still be teething, lurgies and 6am elbows. Probably at the weekend.
There will still be work, laundry and toddler tantrums to negotiate.
There will still be moments when being parents to a ‘determined’ sort of child makes grumpy gremlins out of all of us.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I couldn’t be more proud of Mr P&P of having battled his way through it.
