It is a cloudless start to the day, and by the look of it no clouds will appear. It is the sort of blue sky that looks steadfast in rejecting any interlopers, like nuisance clouds.

Anna is home from her travels. Hooray! Last night she slept safely in her English bed at the Old Rectory. Today, we are going to catch up, relax and reconnect. It was wonderful to see her pull up in the car with Geoff yesterday. We sat looking through her amazing photos of Colombia and New York last night.

When I am not with the children, they exist in my subconscious as dependents. In my dreams, they often return to younger versions of themselves. When, in fact, they are young adults. They can legally make decisions for themselves: marry, reproduce and vote: with or without my permission. It is a difficult thing to get your head around. Like seeing an older face in the mirror, when you swore you still only looked forty.

At the beginning of 2003, when Anna and Hugo were nine and seven in turn, we made decisions for them. We made judgments, for better or worse, about their futures.

They both didn’t like their schools at this stage, and they were bumping along averagely academically. I walked Anna to school on the first day of the school year from our house in Elms Crescent, in the Abbeville Village. She was clearly miserable. I asked her, “Are you really that unhappy at school?” “Yes,” was the answer I dreaded.

I walked home, pondering, across the dried out, brown grass of Clapham Common. By the time I opened the front door, I had made a plan of action to put to Geoff.

I rang Geoff at work, and I told him that we should move Anna and Hugo to new schools over the river in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I had that sixth sense, a feeling in my bones. And that we should obviously sell the house.

Geoff had gone with my sixth sense on numerous occasions in our marriage, even if, on paper, they were a bit crazy. I chose Elms Crescent, when it was twice the size, or more, of our first home in Taybridge Road. And it clearly needed a lot of work. It was a good decision long term. It felt like home from the moment we moved in, even with a leaking roof and damp problems.

I rang Queen’s Gate School and Francis Holland across the river to see if they had places for Anna. Both schools had junior and senior schools. (Hugo was not due to move for another year, so he could finish his time at Eaton House. Boys move at eight to a preparatory school for senior entrance at thirteen.)

Francis Holland was full. Queen’s Gate had a few places mid stream in the junior school. Anna could stay there for two years and then go into the senior school at the correct age of eleven. Single sex schools have a different system. It is a nightmare to navigate if you are foreign.

It is notoriously difficult to secure a place in central London senior schools, and, this way, we were getting Anna in early, ahead of the game. She would still need to sit the Entrance Test for the senior school, but she would be one of theirs by then.

I passionately believed (still do) from dot, that one of the most important gifts I could give the children was a first-rate education. Education opens up horizons; it did for me. And if they were unhappy, they could not flourish.

First rate schools were, still are, few and far between in London; academies were a thing of the future in 2003. We had started in the private sector, so it made sense to continue along that route. So Anna went the next day and sat the entrance test for Queen’s Gate. They rang later in the day and offered her a place. We faxed our notice to her current school, Broomwood Hall.

We then put the house on the market, and it quickly sold. I was determined to look to the future and not backwards.

Anna found her wings at Queen’s Gate. She won the singing prize every year. Starred in school plays. She quickly excelled academically. She was in the right place – for her. None of these things would have happened if she had stayed put.

Later I have to head up to London for dinner, but I really want to stay put.