Finishing year 13 in 2017 part 2

15th one twin. 16th the other.

2nd October for Reading but the freshers' thingy starts on the 18th September, and his halls tenancy from 15th.

(Getting that accommodation sorted was one of the most disagreeably stressful things I've ever been involved in.)

DD's college is having a couple of days before freshers for the engineers, but even so not till the 27th. Her pal went to Abertay a week ago.

I think some have already gone. 20th here for Bath Spa.

So who's first off? Oxbridge will be last obviously...

We did an Asda supermarket sweep today - DD wanted a navy sheet and a plain duvet cover (for her extra layer duvet to tone with the checked one) and google said they had these. So of course we trawled around for other random bits and bobs - kitchenware and coloured fine liners (she's very keen on them for revision notes).

Feeling a bit more organised bank account sorted , meningitis vac and flu jab sorted, car for moving his stuff sorted, list of things to get diminishing by the day, but did realise I'd forgotten actually school/college type things like pens and files..and paper. Oh well back off shopping I go

Just remembered! Got my ds little great big enormous pile of stuff to take but thought "ooh yeah! He's going to be working as well. He'll need his backpack, lever arch files, pens etc!"

Sorry Haffdonga but

Haffdonga I have just woken DH up whilst trying to suppress my laughter at the image of your evacuation to the car park!!!

How embarrassing - but as you say, reassuring too

Horsemad - a small tale to reassure you. As a family we went to the Edinburgh Festival and stayed in a fairly grotty uni hall of residence flat. DH decided on a breakfast fry up and set off the smoke alarm with mildly smoky bacon . We soon discovered that the smoke alarm was not only linked up to the other alarms in our flat, not only linked up to the other flats in our block, not only linked to all the other blocks in the complex but also linked directly to the local fire brigade. Yes, we were responsible for several hundred bleary- eyed people standing in the carpark in their pyjamas beside a fire engine while the fire brigade checked out our bacon. When we were allowed back in five firemen were waiting in the flat for us to 'advise' us on fire safety. The bacon wasn't even overdone.

Sincere apologies to everyone we disturbed but really be reassured, the smoke alarms were most effective in that student flat.

tobee Grenfell Tower was different though, the residents will have had a choice about smoke alarms and had a choice whether they smoked or lit candles.

I'd put money on the student halls, especially the managed ones, having smoke alarms which are very sensitive and which would be set off by smoking.

DD said no fairy lights either!

Thing is, do I trust them not to smoke inside, light candles especially if alcohol has been consumed? They hopefully have got good fire alarms etc but this fire did happen. So...

Checked with DS's halls and their cladding is being replaced, so obviously ISN'T up to standard at the moment.

New build as well, opened last September!

They all have very sensitive alarm systems and remember that smoking is not allowed in the flats and nor are candles which are the two biggest risk factors.

DD's accommodation dept sent them a video of kitchen fires

bigTilly googled the student village where ds's house is and saw a local newspaper headline from, I think, 2014, showing photos of a neighbouring block in the village merrily ablaze . Everyone got out fine apparently and were re housed but it's not my favourite info I've found. Kind of doesn't exactly surprise me with thousands of 18 - 19 year old cooking for themselves. Didn't tell ds as his a bit of a worrier. And am trying to forget I saw it myself.

From what we've seen on the tv licensing page, Netflix is fine without a license.

As for the cladding, the hall that was allocated has been checked too. This year is the third lot of students in so I think it might have been ok from the start.

I will talk to DD about her viewing. She generally just watches Netflix on her phone/laptop, which wouldn't require a licence?

DD's halls have cladding, but apparently it has been fire-checked and is safe. I hope that is true.

tobee I think you did.

I tried to do something with the postcode we have but all the addresses are room number, flat number etc so we can't do anything yet.

Liney when I applied for ds's online they get you to put in their accommodation postcode in the address finder thing. It then came up with a drop down of what I took to be addresses for that postcode. I get the impression that that was their list for places that had had students from previous years who had applied. Their were house numbers and room letters listed but also a few houses that instead of room letter just had "kitchen, house number 15" or whatever number. Presumably in an attempt to get round that, iyswim. I got him one for his room anyway after dithering, mostly because I panicked he'd get a huge fine if that went wrong. Don't know if I did the sensible thing.

I was worrying about this at 4am this morning. And sort of decided that as DS doesn't watch proper tv at all st home then he should be ok. But I need to check with him about iplayer as he'd be watching it on his computer (not a laptop) which has mains power...more bloody money !

If you don’t need a licence, you still need to tell us
Before you tell us you don’t need a TV Licence it’s worth checking carefully. We do make visits to confirm that a licence isn’t needed. This is necessary because we find almost 1 in 6 people who have told us they don’t need a licence actually do need one. If you are sure, tell us you don’t need a TV Licencee_.

There was a bit in the paper the other day about the tv licence and students. It said that you now have to get one even if you watch just on iplayer but there was a loophole in that if you watch on the laptop and it is purely catch up tv and the laptop is not comnnected to the mains then you don't need one. Connect the laptop to the mains to watch, then you do!

I think they will assume that if you have a mains cable for your laptop then you are using it. They seem to be hot on that kind of thing! How they would tell which flat in a multi-storey block was the one and which bedroom though is not clear....

Talking of multi storey, the fire issue is concerning me.