After the stress comes .... something else

For the past four years my wife has been studying to become a doctor, most weeks away from home in London. For most of the year before that, she was busy doing courses, exams and interviews. Altogether it's been five pretty stressful years, bearing in mind that the economic crisis swept through everyone's lives in 2008.

Last week she took the last of her finals and we had five days of anxiety waiting for the results. She was sure she had failed, which would have meant losing a job lined up locally and resitting the exams in November.

On Monday the results were published. She passed. There's a graduation ball on Friday and the graduation ceremony in mid-July.

As we've said jokingly, she'll be getting her life back and I'll be getting my wife back. I'm pleased and proud and all that good stuff, yet somehow feeling flat and listless rather than euphoric. Maybe it's just a normal post-stress reaction.