Post luncheon thoughts

I've just had lunch with three of my mum's dearest friends; it was organised a while ago, but turned into an impromptu celebration of my PhD plans. I ought to mention here that my darling lovely Mummy died in 2008 from a brain tumour, diagnosed only a month before her death. I was living at home in Devon then anyway, temporarily, but made the move permanently to help look after my little brother H, who was 11 at the time, and my Pa.

Leaving London for good, and taking a year out to try to make some sense of my life resulted in my applying to do an MA, as I realised I had been longing to return to an academic life for some time. Learning for learning's own sake was something Mummy always believed in, and with her gone, it dawned on me that I believed in it too. Doing an MA allowed me - even more - time to think things over, as well as the flexibility needed when looking after a child; I could easily nip off to pick him up early if he wasn't well, or watch his swimming gala without having to take holiday from work.

So I then applied for a PhD, knowing it was one of the only things in Devon that I would love to do, rather than do because I had to do something. When I was originally turned down for funding, it only then struck me how much I wanted it for its own sake (there I am again with the journey being as important than the destination). I found my self feeling adrift - without funding there was not a chance that I could pursue my academic dreams.

And then more funding was found; I interviewed for it; and now I have it. It's strange because I feel more settled, and content, than I did yesterday, and perhaps because my aunt, and then my mother's friends all said the same thing - that Mummy would be so proud. My mother, in common with many others I'm sure, had a knack of knowing what I wanted before even I did. Her friends reminded me today of the short time my boyfriend (now husband) and I broke up from each other, and how she was so cross with me - with us! - for not realising what we had. I never had an inkling. She let me find out for myself, and when I rang her, as early as I could one Sunday morning, wailing that I still loved him, she laughed and said, "I knew this would happen!"

I feel that she would be saying the same thing now. I've worked for the BBC, for Radio 4 and the World Service, absolutely sure at the time that I wanted to be a radio producer. And then I KNEW I wanted to be a barrister, and got as far as getting a scholarship to read Law before Mummy became ill. But now, with the PhD in sight, I realise that it is what I wanted all along; that an academic life is in itself a worthy one, and that my dear Mumbo, as I called her, would be saying, "I knew this would happen!"