Flying the Nest (and Missing the Sidelines)

This blog is a personal one, but one I felt I wanted to share...

There’s a strange, quiet shift that happens when your children grow up and begin to fly the nest. As a mum of two sporty children, I always knew this day would come—but knowing it and feeling it are two very different things.

Now, one of mine is all the way in New Zealand on his gap year, playing rugby and carving out his own adventure. The other is at university, continuing her love for the game whilst fitting some work in for her degree. I couldn’t be prouder of them both. Watching them grow with kindness  and independance everything you hope for as a mum.

But alongside that pride, there’s a quiet grief that isn’t talked about nearly enough.

For years, my weekends were defined by 'precious' car chats, muddy pitches, school matches, and the 'howl' of mums on the sidelines. Saturdays with the school crowd, Sundays with the club mums — we were a team in our own right. We celebrated, commiserated, froze, laughed, and cheered together for nearly a decade. Those memories are stitched into my weekends like muscle memory.

It was never really about winning. It was about watching them give it their all, week in, week out. It was about belonging—to a team, to a community, to a shared experience that quietly became the rhythm of life.

And then, almost without warning, it changes.

Now I travel to Cardiff when I can to watch my eldest play, holding onto those moments. The rest of the time, I follow from afar—messages, updates, results. It’s different. Quieter. A little lonelier.

With the annual yearly school highlight of the Rosslyn Park 7s tournament about to happen, I find myself missing it all—the trips away, the chaos, the camaraderie, the sideline chats, the “howling school mums ", and the incredible teams that shaped so much of our lives. Those years were full, noisy, and completely consuming—and I wouldn’t change a second of it.

Life is moving forward, as it should. I’m finding new ways to spend my time—through work, padel, even art. There’s space now that didn’t exist before.

But that space carries something with it.

A sense of loss. A kind of grief for a chapter that has closed.

And while it may not be something we often talk about, it’s real. Because those years weren’t just theirs—they were ours too.

And what a privilege it was to live them.