A woman with a smart phone is never truly alone….

  ↑ This is me, out for the day, but still keeping in touch with what my kids are doing wherever they are…

I may have posted a couple of less-than-happy posts over the last few weeks about kids leaving home.  And all of what I said is true.

But.

Enter the miracle that is Telegram…

[Other social media systems are also available]. I could have mentioned Facebook and Whatsapp, Instagram and others, but Telegram is where my kids interact and that is where I am gonna be. You see, there is truth in this fact that a woman with a smart phone is never truly alone.

At the click of a button I can talk to a daughter in Finland who is having earache, watch two sons in Eiker as they build a house, dip into a son and daughter with their respective families on holiday by the sea in south Norway, take a tour round the house a son rents in Germany, see another son on holiday with his wife and baby in Florida, and advise my newly-married-youngest-daughter which plants are weeds in her garden in Turkey.

I have followed along when my kids make dinners in a foreign country when they send a video on Telegram, watch grandchildren open presents hundreds of miles away and say, ‘Thank you, Grandma!’ in broken English, and see babies just hours after they are born instead of waiting weeks till I can travel to visit.

And it’s not just kids who live abroad that keep in touch by Telegram. The rest of the family in the UK  create groups to discuss special birthdays, holidays together, who can fix our drains, and who is going where for Christmas. Today on Telegram I arranged to babysit for one, catch up with the health of a poorly grandson down the road, arrange for one to visit on my husband’s birthday, and take my eldest daughter out for coffee when the builders had gone. Our 43^rd wedding anniversary supper was totally arranged by Telegram without me speaking a word to anyone. Well, except my husband. He still lives with me at least…

It doesn’t completely make up for the fact I miss them all here, at home, where they used to be. But they’re all growed up now with lives of their own and I can’t help but be nosey as to what they all get up to. For years I was the centre of everything that went on at home, now I am on the periphery. But that is where I should be, and I say, ‘Good luck to ‘em!’

However, I can’t help but say: Kids, just keep sending me those updates. OK?