Daughter: Why are you wearing a hat inside?

Me: My head’s cold.

Daughter: You mean your scalp.

On the 7.45 from London Waterloo..I’m writing in my journal, reflecting on the all too rare, bitter-sweet experience of travelling with my prickly offspring. She peels her sullen gaze away from her mobile screen and turns to me..

Daughter: Don’t leave me your diary when you die unless there are blank pages in it. I can always use paper.

On campus..

Daughter: It’s calm, like the town. However, I’d rather not engage with yet another overly friendly, smiling individual in a purple T-shirt handing out what seems to be an endless supply of ice poles.

We’re on the 8.29 from London St Pancras and she’s restless, chomping at the bit, pulling teeth having used up her Wi-Fi ration of fifteen free minutes..and mine..

Me: Why don’t you read a book?

Daughter: I didn’t bring my Bible mother.

On campus…

Daughter: I have died and gone to hell.

After her Psychology and English Lit PPE exams…

Daughter: Can we get a lift?

Me: What?

Daughter: Commonly known as an elevator in America.

Me: Have you been taking illegal substances?

Daughter: A stairlift then.

Me: You’re 17.

Daughter: Yes mother, I am and I have laboured over two exams this afternoon. I cannot climb stairs today.

She’s making mood shapes with her body, opening and closing kitchen cupboards, sighing with disappointment and apathy as she searches for something to satisfy a fastidious hunger…

Daughter: What’s this?

She scowls at my Alpen cereal box..

Me: Muesli. Try some.

Daughter: Sweet or sour?

Me: Try some. You might like it.

She pours a little into her breakfast bowl..and raises an eyebrow at the foreign substance..

Daughter: Sawdust, something you find on a forest floor, hamster bedding..I could go on..

Me: It’s Muesli’s and it’s good for you.

She adds milk, pops a spoonful in her mouth..and gags…

Daughter: Shit with raisins.

Me: Have you seen Benjy?

Daughter: You mean Ian.

Me: Well?

Daughter: Hold on…I’ll just check the ‘find a feline fool’ app on my phone.

Exams are looming…she’s focus and diligence personified, her head buried in a psychology text-book as I open her bedroom door and offer a late morning snack… toasted bagel with Nutella…

Daughter: I’m slightly disturbed.

Me: Why?

She holds the bagel up to the light..turning it this way and that…

Daughter: It doesn’t have a hole.

Me: It’s still a bagel.

Daughter: No mother, it is not.

Idris Elba with his fine, six-foot something, velvet, chocolate self is in my living room waxing lyrical about the benefits of Sky Q’s new features..

Daughter: Why you acting like you don’t have a man. Put your tongue back in before you trip on it.

Daughter: What kind of name is that for a cat?

Me: It’s perfect. More to the point it’s…

Can’t help myself…

Me: Purrfect..

A narrowing of the eyes, a slight tilt of the head, the exaggerated arch of an eyebrow tell me I’ve gone too far..

Daughter: Stop.

Me: It’s a lovely name.

Daughter: I won’t be calling him that.

Me: It’s in memory of Baba.

She looks at me as though trying to fathom a Mensa challenge..

Daughter: Baba’s name was Ebenezer.

Me: You can’t call a cat Ebenezer.

Daughter: What about Klaus?

Me: Not happening.

Daughter: Declan? Bob?

Me: No

Daughter: Alfred? Tobias?

Me: No

Daughter: Ian it is then.

Me: Have you ever stared into the eyes of a fox?

Daughter: Yes, because that’s what I do. Just the other day, instead of going to the West End with my friends, I picked up a fox, held its furry face close to mine..

Me: I’m being serious. They don’t look away. It’s both unnerving and mystifying..

Daughter:Why are you so weird?