WELL, that's it. The house is eerily silent and unnaturally tidy. No music blares, no mobile phones beep. There is no sound of computer games, televisions, thudding beat, thudding feet or noisy arguments about whose turn it is to do the washing up.

The towels are tidily on the rail, the cushions are neatly on the sofa, the newspapers are in one piece, there are still biscuits in the tin, and that disgusting smell of sweaty trainer no longer permeates the house.

Yes, my babies have flown. This nest is empty. Senior Son has gone back for his third year at Manchester Met and his little brother has just started at Nottingham to do politics. And this column, in this form, goes with them.

Yes, I know they'll be home for Christmas, if not before. Yes I know they are still financially dependent (and how), yes I know that there's still a long way to go. And already I've had to forward forgotten rail cards, tax disc, favourite Arsenal shirt.

But now they are 21 and 18. I have cashed my very last Child Benefit. They are legally adults, responsible for their own lives.

It's a most peculiar feeling.

To be honest, there were times when I never thought we'd get this far. When Smaller Son as a baby cried all night and I nearly threw him through the window, when Senior Son crashed spectacularly through his teens, lurching from one crisis to another. While he went from 12 to 20 years, his father and I aged about 20 more.

Yes, there were times I would have cheerfully offered them free to a good home, swapped them for a goldfish, given them away to a passing stranger, no questions asked.

But somehow we've made it - despite sleepless nights, parents' evenings, casualty departments, dangerous sports and dangerous drinks.

When I started writing this column Senior Son - all shining face and new blazer - had just started at Richmond School, while his little brother was still within earshot at the village school. That was ten years ago and a world away. Where did it go?

I took Smaller Son down to Nottingham nearly two weeks ago. We joined long queues of other parents in overloaded cars - grim-faced fathers, weepy mothers, students on the back seat perched between a duvet, a teddy and some pots and pans trying to pretend it was all nothing to do with them.

We unloaded and said our goodbyes. He was already talking to other lads when I left and when he sent a text next day to say everything was fine, no probs, they'd all been to the bar and hadn't got back until midnight, I felt this great weight lifting off me.

For 21 years my day to day life has, to a greater or lesser extent, been geared to the boys - what they might want to eat, whether their clothes were ironed, if they'd done their homework/remembered their sports kit/been to the dentist/washed the back of their necks. For many years I was on permanent chauffeur duty, always ready to drive hither and yon for the sake of their social lives.

Even when they were older I was nearly always home in time to offer them supper, advise on homework, help with forms, drive them to casualty. If they were ill, I dropped everything to look after them. And even asleep, I subconsciously had one ear open, listening for them tip toeing up the stairs in the early hours.

And suddenly I DON'T HAVE TO DO IT ANY MORE!

Do I miss them? Of course I do. Dreadfully.

Am I sad? Well no actually.

If this is the Empty Nest, then I think I could get used to it.

* This is the last Mum At Large column. However, having got her sons to legal adults, Sharon starts a new column in a month's time on how to survive motherhood. Watch out for Notes from Planet Zog.

Published: 03/10/2002