University Challenge Latest

Lizzie has spent most of the last few months worrying away at finding a university which might both meet her demanding criteria and accept her onto the course she wishes to follow (that's BA in Illustration, for anyone interested).

Mrs The Millbrooker and Lizzie have gone to open days in most corners of the world, tramping through campuses (campae?) large and small. The choices got narrowed down and we've reached interview and portfolio reviewing time.

Tuesday saw the intrepid pair boarding the iron horse to Cheltenham. The course leader there gave Lizzie one of those important life lessons for the professional (in any field); I paraphrase: "Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can draw....unless they're a professional." It's a hard lesson, but a good one. Proud parents, siblings and friends will always tell you that you're very good at something; yet they probably know nothing about the subject. I once had a similar lesson about my attempts to be a rock star. It should be noted that I am not now, nor ever have been, a rock star despite lots of people telling me that I was good (poor deluded fools). In Lizzie's case, she is good enough to cut the mustard professionally - but it's a long road. Cheltenham offered her a conditional place on the spot (it might become unconditional, the course leader couldn't calculate her UCAS points).

Which brings us to yesterday's trip to Southampton. The headline shot shows Lizzie and Mrs The Millbrooker being tired after getting up at the crack of sparrow fart. We reached Westbury at 10 in the morning having left home at 0650. The onward train whisked us to Southampton after an hour in Westbury station's less than salubrious environs during which we had a quick fill-up of cup-a-soup and a sausage roll from its kiosk .

After an inauspicious start to proceedings in which the university's admin seemed to have fallen apart, Lizzie disappeared into the depths of the illustration department to emerge a short while later grinning from ear to ear: she was offered an unconditional place there and then. So we say "ya-boo-sucks", in a not remotely childish fashion, to Bristol and to Bournemouth which failed to spot her nascent genius. Unexpectedly, we also bumped into Mike (an old mucker of Dozybean's from Frome) who is studying at the same uni. Mike is a (cough-cough) shy and retiring sort and took no persuasion whatsoever to get in front the camera to pose with the triumphant Lizzie.

With Southampton in the bag there's still Brighton to try for, but now there's nothing to lose - hooray!

Being the sort of family that knows how to celebrate good news in style we had a picnic at Westbury station on the way back:

And a proper celebratory bottle of yummy stuff from the "don't you dare drink that stuff, it's too expensive pile" once we got home. Unusually for a student Lizzie is not of the hard drinking school. Mrs The Millbrooker and I polished off said bottle and Lizzie contented herself with a nice cup of fruity "tea". Cheers:

We say "well done, Lizzie". Goodness, but Millbrooker Towers is going to be quiet come September / October as the two remaining younger people move on to university. Here's one last shot, for this posting, of the clever young lady slurping her hot beverage to mark the occasion of her Southampton success: