When you meet your daughter's boyfriend

Poor Tess. Her selfish parents don't live in the city, or even a village. Nah, they live where no bus goes. (Arcade Fire twisted ear worm right there). So when you have your first fledgling romance and your boyfriend lives miles away where no bus goes either, how do you spend time together out of school, away from the glare of over nosy parents. It's tricky. Poor Tess.

And so it was she asked to go visit him, and the only way was to invoke the ancient offspring "rite of embarassing parental chauffeur". She firmly stated his mother would do pick up because we (mainly me she emphasised) were too crazy for public consumption and our house is too messy for visitors. One of these statements is true. Actually they both are. Poor Tess. But there was no way my daughter was being picked up by a stranger and taken to who knows where. She relented I could take her, I negotiated if Dave could come too. Only if we both behaved she replied. I said I'd practise acting normal, but these days it's hard to find references. Anyways, this meant us not only meeting the boyfriend but possibly the parents. Poor Tess. But suddenly it was Dave and I feeling nervous, in fact Dave had a major over protective Dad wobble that could only be soothed through the promise of garden centre mac n cheese followed by cake to recover. This did seem to calm him, as did the emergency pear drops on route ( we are a snifter away from werthers originals at this rate). I was worried at the state of me and the no doubt amazingness of the boyfriend's mum. Needless to say the fleeting doorstep meeting with boyfriend and mother went well. A mutual nod to over protectiveness on both sides made us all smile. Dave and I pulled off non crazy I think and they seemed lovely. In fact it was all very reassuring and we have stepped down from being at the Def Con 3 parental anxiety index....for now anyway...as sprog 1 has his exams starting soon.

Poor Tess. We love you, he thinks you're ace, we know you're ace. And we will tidy the house very soon.