I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions.

Hello there!

Well, I survived it. Yes, my eldest started secondary school a couple of days ago, and she's got off to a fly and start, she's happy, there were a few tears as she was going in, they were mine, not hers.

I think like quite like crazy, but I think a very misty eye and just suddenly overwhelmed that my baby that I had just over 11 years ago has flown the nest

because obviously she's got you know several more years to go before she does that but

suddenly she doesn't need me to take her to school each day and pick her up.

She's walking herself. She owns a mobile phone and I don't know you don't get as

involved in secondary school as you do in

primary and so it's like this whole new world and obviously she's the one who's

going through the massive change but yeah it's a bit of an adjustment for me too. And the particular thing I was so

happy about was that some of you may recall that we moved the girls from their previous school to a much smaller school where

they were in small class sizes.

And one of the reasons why we did this is because my eldest was getting lost in the school that she was in.

She's a sensitive, quiet soul, and she isn't the type who's maybe going to be shouty about herself.

And so she was a dream student as far as the teachers were concerned because

she basically never gave a moment's trouble she worked hard but she wasn't

demanding of the teacher's energy and so she got lost and she was

struggling and summer has changed over the couple of years because she has become more

confident academically but she's also become more confident in her friendships.

I watched her walk into school with two of her best pals and it was just, yeah, I was just so happy for her.

And she's been coming back and talking about,

oh, you know, I made a friend today

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