‘I watch my daughter’s eyes brighten’

Vicki Scott

In the sun-baked Spanish port of Vigo, reflects on love, life – and letting go as a parent

We have arrived without sunscreen. The sun is reflecting off the white concrete of the university campus. A jagged shadow of a lone pine tree straddles the car park, offering little shade. Horses and sheep graze on the parched scrub between the science and international departments.

This moment of my daughter’s departure has loomed large in our family psyche for months. In those air-conditioned offices she is negotiating accommodation, course enrolment, timetable, banking details and bus pass. She is stepping out like Laurie Lee, disembarking in the Spanish port of Vigo on an Erasmus exchange programme. Meanwhile I, fanning the flaming air, wonder how much longer opportunities like this will be available, these gestures for adventure, learning and independence that stretch the umbilical cord.

Siesta prevails. It is too late for the forms to be processed today so we drive into the tiered city for some tapas. Our car is a counter in a game of snakes and ladders. Directions prove useless pitted against the diversions caused by roadworks hammering the cobbled, criss-crossed, one-way streets. Eventually,

delicious shade cast by the Galician granite buildings and tree-lined avenidas leads us down to the marina where I watch my daughter relax. A fleeting feeling of vicarious excitement extinguishes my sense of loss.

Next day it is down to business to find future flatmates and a place to live in this exuberant fishing port. Our first rendezvous is outside Cafe Macumba in Rúa de Urzáiz and a flat on the seventh floor. This one, with its rotting window frames and mouldy bathroom tiles, is not for us, and we say goodbye to fellow

She will share her flat with three other girls, a mini United Nations

flat-hunters Will and Zana and wish them luck. We orienteer around the city, dodging the roadworks this time, past kiosks oozing strong coffee, the contemporary art gallery and the fashionable shopping centre of the El Corte Inglés. On a small balcony overlooking the sweep of the harbour, with the laughter of children in a playground below, Jessica signs a contract. The flat is bright and well-equipped and she will be sharing with three other girls, an Argentinian, a German and an Italian; a mini United Nations. Her landlady assures me in broken English that she will look after her. She has a daughter herself. As we leave we spot Will and Zana still house-hunting. They wave at us.

Jessica’s journey launched, we sip beer at plastic tables on the promenade of the

Rúa Cánovas del Castillo waterfront. We gaze out to the Cíes islands. There is still time to catch a ferry to explore the white sands and blue lagoons of these emerald islands. I watch my daughter’s eyes brighten and feel the cord snap.