A day out with my daughter

Yesterday Ally and I had a day out travelling to Canterbury for a look around and to have a squint at her accommodation for the first year of university. We had a few jobs to do on the way, involving collecting tickets for her expedition to Paris in a couple of weeks time. 

The wonder of the internet is that she was able to book everything online and then collect the tickets using the machines at the station. The only problem was that the machines at St Pancras didn't seem to recognise her Amex card. Still we managed to get the tickets and she now has 12 bits of varying shape and sized ticket and receipt for two people to travel to Paris and back. I wonder if a day will ever come when we can do without paper.

In Canterbury we walked up to where she will be living for the first year. The house looks like it's being renovated at the moment. A considerable amount of building has been taking place nearby on the site of an old warehouse and the drive of the house looks like its been relaid by the developer.

From there we walked back into the city. Canterbury looks like a city in change. Lots of new development work and renovation going on, although I guess that will all be slowing down at this time of credit crunching recession (are we allowed to use the 'r' word yet?).

From Canterbury it was back to London and St Pancras to wait for Anne so that we could all travel hone together. She was delayed a little, so that meant Ally and I had time to explore the new station. I remember the days when I was a student and would inevitably arrive at St P's station just in time to miss the train home to Nottingham. This meant a two hour wait for the next train and the station was somewhat rundown and with very little to do but find a bench and try to get comfortable for an hour or so.

Now, St Pancras is a bustling international terminal with lots of shops and cafes in which you can lose yourself for an hour quite easily. We usually end up in the coffee shop upstairs. Yesterday Ally took her nice new MacBook with her and discovered St Pancras wi-fi. It's the best sort of wi-fi, it's free!

Things are going to be very different for Ally as a student compared to the 70's when Anne and I were at university, and, I suspect, it will be very different for us as parents of an undergraduate too!