You should, of course, but it can't be easy.

Which is why I felt for our friends Steve and Jill last Friday night as we raised a glass to their daughter, Sophie, below, and wished her "bon voyage".

We first met Sophie when she was a quiet
ten-year-old – albeit one who burst into life when she stepped on to a football pitch.

She was the outstanding player in a decent White Rose Ladies Under-10s side for which our own daughter made her competitive debut what feels like many moons ago.

Sophie was also, in 2000, the first girl to be selected for the Leeds Schools FA team.

Now a bright and bubbly 18-year-old, she is about to follow her dream by moving to America to play senior college football while furthering her education.

Sophie joined Leeds United (now Carnegie) Ladies as an Under-12 player.

She and our own footballing female family member were separated by reason of their ages until they caught up with each other as teammates last season in the open-age reserves.

Tomorrow they will be separated by the Atlantic Ocean as Sophie leaves to take up a scholarship at Murray State University in Kentucky, USA.

It's a fair old way from her home in Woodlesford and I can imagine the whirl of conflicting emotions her mum and dad must be feeling – in fact I could see them etched on their faces last week.

I can't possibly share those emotions – yet.

But that will come, of course, and probably sooner than I think. The hardest thing for any parent must be to watch their youngsters fly the nest and, next year, we may well be in Steve and Jill's shoes. Emily has yet to make up her mind about whether she will aim for America or seek a university place in England.

Whichever path she chooses,and, selfishly, I'd prefer it to be the latter, it means she'll be moving out all too soon. In fact, in just the blink of an eye from when she was a babe in arms.

I hope the next year goes slowly but I know it won't.

At least if Emily does opt to take a similar path we'll still have our "baby" – but at 12 going on 20, I'm sure Eleanor will not be too far behind her sister.


Ooh Betty, it's a whoopsie

CALL it supreme irony if you like, but on the very day my article berating cat owners for allowing their animals to poo in other people's gardens appeared in print (last Thursday to be precise) I returned home to find someone's dog had done what Frank Spencer, below, would have called a "whoopsie" on my front lawn.

I am now developing a persecution complex.

I believe the animals which inhabit the homes around Normanton Towers are ganging up on me.

Every time I look at a dog or cat (or, indeed, bird) in my street I get the impression that it is laughing at me. I clearly need help and if anyone can suggest where I can get it I would be most grateful.


'Golf? It's just a walk with a big stick'


MRS S and Mark Twain appear to have a great deal in common.

The author of Huckleberry Finn - real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens – famously described golf as "a good walk spoiled" and Mrs S shares, or at least shared, a similar opinion with me the other day.

We were sitting in a grandstand overlooking the 18th green at Royal Birkdale on Saturday when she turned to me and said: "It's just a walk with a big stick."

Now, apart from crazy golf, at which I'm a scratch handicapper, I'm not a golfer and Saturday was only the second time I have been to a major golf tournament.

However, it confirmed what I felt after my first experience, down the road from Birkdale, at Hoylake, two years ago.

There is something rather special about watching golf and it's because you can enjoy a good walk in the fresh air rather than being tied to a seat or corporate box.

Hence, both Mrs S and I felt invigorated by gulping in lungfuls of fresh seaside air as we trudged our way round, and sometimes over, Birkdale's famous sand dunes, just outside Southport.

There is also an element of big game hunting in golf in that you set out into the wilderness to try and spot not the big five animals but the big name golfers.

There was no Tiger this year but dear old Colin Montgomerie, above, was pulling his best "bulldog chewing a wasp" expression as he battled the windy conditions and the 'Great Pink and White Poulter' was a colourful sight through the binoculars

Mrs S, from being unsure about accompanying me when I first raised the subject, ended the day as a complete convert and was speaking enthusiastically about the prospect of driving up to Turnberry for next year's Open as we drove home.

But she had another observation to share. "Did you notice," she said. "How many dads and sons were in the crowd? And how relatively few women and girls were there? "It's a very sexist game."

And I couldn't disagree.