Saturday 27 October 2007

Contacting The Empty Nest

When the kids go away, of course you want to stay in touch with them. They'd already spent 5 months in Peru and Mozambique respectively, where we could only chat to them every couple of weeks.

That seemed luxurious in itself, remembering my own travels pre-internet, pre-email and pre-Skype.

Now they are at uni, we have the luxury of being able to talk over the Internet any time they are online with Skype. They call us, we call them, almost every day.

So when a few days had gone by without our daughter even appearing on line, and with news of our own to tell them, my husband decided to send a text. She rang up immediately.

It appeared she had been working so hard on an essay that she hadn't even logged in to her internet account. Who says that students just have a good time of partying? At least we had the satisfaction of knowing that the fees weren't going to waste (she is VERY sociable).

So what was the secret? You need a strong hook to catch these busy people, and we had found an effective one. 'Mum has broken her nose surfing.' read the text.

I don't recommend actually doing this, nor pretending that you have done something equally startling - remember the boy who cried wolf? Maybe store up a few of the more dramatic incidents in life for these 'non-contact' occasions.

Nothing ever happens to you, do I hear you say? Time to start! Look at the benefits - your life spiced up and increased communication with your loved ones!

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