Student high jinks

Patrick's experiencing the joys of Freshers' Week, Australian style! Highlights so far include being abducted with a bag over his head, forced to drink lots of alcohol, stripped naked, dumped in a lake and forced to swim across it; a toga party in collaboration with the next-door Catholic all-girls college (I understand that Patrick's toga was quite short...); and a trip to the Gold Coast to a Wet and Wild theme park. One can only guess.

I've stopped asking, "How are you?" and started asking, "How is your liver?". It seems more appropriate, somehow. Anyway, I gather Patrick's having lots of fun and hopefully it's putting all thoughts of his stupid ex-girlfriend out of his head. Of course Michael and I thought it would probably end in tears (a fact which Patrick knew and found difficult to take, and it was impossible for us not to make it clear that was how we felt - we're not saints, after all), but we've taken no pleasure in the break-up.

Patrick is very like his father: loyal almost to a fault, and I think his upbringing and experience of life has led him to expect a lack of emotional support for him and a requirement to be the provider of emotional support in his relationships with women. Michael and I have fumed on the sidelines as Patrick's needs and emotional state have basically been ignored while he has been as supportive as he knows how for a partner who doesn't understand that partnership is a two-sided thing... Finally he had enough, which was a difficult thing to face up to, and he decided to end the relationship - only to see the girl who'd basically said she loved him forever and wanted to marry him find someone else within ten days. What an unsympathetic, unfeeling, self-obsessed cow, which is basically what Michael and I thought about her all along: all take and very little give. Poor Patrick. I can't tell you how much I wanted to put a comment about her up on her own blog, but as Michael said, if I'd done so she'd probably have taken it out on Patrick, so I've restrained myself. Just. But I am still fuming, and she's lucky she's back in Manchester, otherwise she might have found herself on receiving end of my sharp tongue.

Oh well. That's all over now, and hopefully Patrick's having fun with the girls as well as the alcohol. It's quite uncomfortable thinking about the fact that your 'child' might be having sex, but it would be good for him to have some (responsible!) fun rather than getting involved in a serious relationship straight away. With that in mind, I found him a great badge (to add to the 'Bastard' enamel lapel badge I bought him at Christmas) with 'I've been bad' written on it. I hope it's true...