I’ve been struck by how much I’ve enjoyed and how challenging I’ve found my course so far. As mature students and adults, we like to think we are worldly-wise but we still have so much learning to do.

As a Mamma of a seven year old and a seventeen year old step-daughter (just taking her own steps into the world), I’m throwing off my labels too – mother, wife, smallholder, school volunteer – venturing out armed with my A4 pad shoved firmly under my arm and my lunchbox stashed in my rucksack. I think my children find it quite bizarre – my husband just peers over his glasses and smiles at me.

It’s terrifying – even more so than 18 years ago when I started my undergraduate degree as a naïve Lincolnshire Yellow-belly who knew nothing about the real world.

As children my identical twin and I had lead an idyllic childhood of exploring the countryside when we wanted. No streetlights, games consoles or dinner bells; we just knew when it was tea time and spent our days playing in woods or climbing trees.

We didn’t have much to do with our peers at school since our nearest neighbour was a good mile walk, and the closest thing to teenage civilisation we had any dealings with was the blessed Smash Hits magazine and the top 40 on a Sunday.

We taped the chart show like a spiritual ritual on an old Sanyo cassette recorder. We LOVED music – we still do. It’s music that found me finally sign up for my “second chance” at University – I was so busy learning about the real world first time round that I just didn’t feel I had done myself justice.

18 years later, it’s never too late to step up and tick that box.

My musing comes from the tragic case of Reeva Steenkamp. She was only 29 years old with the world at her feet and a promising career ahead of her.

Equally saddening were the events that unfolded on 14th February 2013 – a date usually synonymous with love and happiness, yet in a single act, Oscar Pistorius cut short not only her life, but wasted his own young life and plunged both their family and friends into a depth of despair they must carry with them for the rest of their lives.

I couldn’t help but reflect that to many millions of people watching the judgement, it was just an event happening through a TV set; some may even have seen the seven month trial as a media circus – amusing and entertaining in a macabre sort of way.

As I watched the court proceedings – Pistorius looking lost in the dock, and Reeva’s family and friends in the gallery clinging to each other for some semblance of comfort – I found my thoughts wandering to Reeva and thousands of other men and women all over the world who never take their chance for a better, peaceful life free from fear, violence and intimidation from a partner or friend.

For reasons only known to them, they cannot seem to take that courageous step and say enough is enough – for Reeva it was a fatal mistake. It should give us all food for thought that, even if we are not in the unfortunate position to be victims of domestic abuse, it doesn’t matter what age you are – if there is something in your life you are not happy with, then change it.

Do it today – make a list, take that dream, and jump.