Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 17: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

Here is the link to the prior thread:

Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 16: Calmly through the day

Friend and I have 6 children between us aged 8-14. We used to do leisurely walks with pushchairs, go to the playgrounds and have tea and cake. Now we plan route marches of 6-10 miles using the National Trust as a car park, taking a picnic and bribing the DC with tea and cake at the property if they make it round! They (and we) chat/gossip all the way, I hope we’re still doing it in 5 years time!

I've spent most of the day doing HR stuff, including interviewing a woman for a job I have open who seems very promising and will likely get an offer. I'm off tomorrow to help DS pack for uni then off we go on Thursday. The forecast is for scattered thunderstorms as the remnants of a tropical storm move through the area. I'm really hoping we don't have to unload the cars and move him in during a thunderstorm.

Back from swimming and the big news of the day is that in the pool next to us they were playing underwater hockey!
Awesome to watch and they had flippers and scuba gear and everything. DD, me and my Dad who we dragged along were seriously impressed.

Underwater hockey that's impressive Ginger I didn't even know that existed.

Hope the trip back is OK with your DS MissC and no bad storms.

We last took the kids to an NT island last summer. But DS nearly gave us both heart attacks. We got to the top of a steep hill and there were stairs to a lighthouse. DS wanted to go up but no-one else had the energy so I said you go up the stairs, see the lighthouse and come down DS. Great he says and off he goes but after lighthouse he doesn't come down the stairs he walks on along a path which we then realise has cliffs both side, OK as long as he comes down the stairs. Look again and he is 5 metres down a 25 metre cliff with which is about 10 degrees off vertical. I shout DS no that's dangerous get off that cliff. No its not dangerous I'm rock climbing he replies and continues coming down. DH goes up but neither of us can do much as 1 of us is at the bottom of the cliff, one at the top. Thankfully he does climb safely to the bottom and I say why did you do that?. He says there were no stairs this end and you said to come down the stairs so I had to come down the cliff instead.

Jesus - that must have been a difficult couple of minutes Silkie! Have also been paying NT & EH memberships through lockdown. If you had a family membership wouldn’t DC still come under that till age 16 (she asks with no actual real clue)?

Can still just about get DD2 to agree to NT visit with the bribe of a picnic. Went last week with a friend to one NT property - DD2 was was visibly affronted and flouncy when the volunteer asked if she wanted to do the kids treasure trail (she is 13). Was quite funny really. Do have an ethical niggle about whether we should really be NT members, what with them allowing trail hunting (which quite often masquerade as real fox hunts).

Is DS off for the first time @MissConductUS? Wishing you a smooth transferral! DD1 is starting Uni next month (at 26, only 8 years later than norm .. but the right time for her.). Won’t be in halls & as she has lots of local friends her age, won’t be doing any of the usual Freshers stuff (from memory, mostly getting off my face on snakebite and black and snogging quite a few of the rugby team back in my ‘not so glory’ days!).

It is his fourth and final year, @SJaneS49. Uni is four years here in the US. DD is starting her second year at uni, but she remained on campus over the summer to do an internship in the neurobiology lab.

DS has to be on campus ten days before everyone else as he is a Residence Assistant, something he did last year as well. He gets a reduction in his fees for doing it, and a large single room, hopefully with his own bathroom. The early arrival will be good for us as there won't be any crowds trying to move in tomorrow when we're there with him. His uni is in the Boston area, about a four-hour drive for us. We're going up in two cars, one of which will stay there with him.

Today we have to get him all packed up and organized so that we can get on the road very early tomorrow.

How exciting for your DD to be starting uni. Will she be far away?

So quiet house for you at the weekend? Neuro-biology wow! Good on DS for taking up the Residence Assistant role.

DD1 is going to Sussex (to do Artificial Intelligence & Computing). She’s lived down there for the last 2 years and has a wide network of friends (mostly musicians and DJs) so it’s going to be a very different kind of student life for her & I can’t see her hanging out with the 18 year olds. And yes very exciting - she’s spent the last couple of years making music and art and getting fired from waitressing jobs so she decided it was finally time to do something that might make her some money!

One of my friends went to Sussex. She lived for a bit in a house that was at the top of what I’m convinced was the biggest hill in the world. There was quite a lot of mould too. Happy days.

My coffee’s gone a bit cold because someone came in to do something and because of stupid Covid and masks I couldn’t drink it until they’d gone. Maybe I need a straw.

I am half heartedly picking the million apples from our apple tree as the farm which juices them and bottles the result is now open for the season.
It is nice to drink our own apple juice, but DH did this bit last year and I cannot think what came over me to start. Two of the DC helped for about 30 minutes before deciding it was too much like hard work, boring and too waspy.

DH has taken DS's car to the carwash and filled it with gas petrol. He's also gotten DS off the couch to start organizing his trunk full of items other than clothing.

I have been going through DS's clothes, and rather than trying to determine what is completely clean, dirty and of unknown cleanliness, I am just washing everything. Load three is in the dryer now. Thank god for tumble driers.

DS is about to go off and have lunch with two of his mates from high school, then he and DH are getting haircuts together this afternoon. It's really a good thing that we took the day off to get all of this done.

DH is off to visit his DM (we hope she still recognizes him) and for some work event. The alarm will ring at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

Oooh @Prokupatuscrakedatus that’s a bit brutal!

@HelenaJustina - yes, it is - I hope to be organized and start my work day early, but we'll see ... if it remains as dreary as it is right now I'll go back to bed.

@SJaneS49 I think your daughter has the right idea. DH works in IT and it's been a really good career for him.

The men are out getting haircuts and I'm making chocolate chip cookies. DS really needs to start packing clothes when he gets home.

Hope your DD enjoys university SJane

My parcel from Joules with my raincoat in finally arrived after its holiday on the Norfolk coast and now we only have 2 parcels left, 1 to collect and 1 due by 7pm.

Silkiecat is still on her shelf, she seems very happy on there, only heard her meow once in about past 2 weeks, that was about 2am as she could see a hole in her food. DH dutifully went down to solve this and she realised she had chosen well with her chosen servant.

A chicken swing looks similar to a childs swing and the chickens can perch on it, some of them will swing, ours will probably just perch. Its like this:

I used to love going on the swings but when I grew up I started to get motion sick. I wonder if chickens get nauseous on swings?

Now I want both a chicken (and a chicken swing!).

DD3 is easing her way back into university life after last year online and the previous three years doing a series of internships after her freshman year, with a change of major thrown in and a definite idea of what she wants to do after she graduates (a masters in public health). She has two more years to go and will end up with a major and a minor, which she's happy about.

I took DD4 to the dentist today for yet another round of fillings. She gets started on a crown next week, and then there will be a follow up visit to take out the false thingamabob they will put over the pared-down molar, and another visit to fit the crown when it comes back from the lab. In between, she's having a birthday and has requested tiramisu as her dessert. I am happy to oblige as it's one of my favourite desserts too. My recipe calls for a bain marie for the egg yolks and Marsala, but that's all the heating involved, which is nice as it's hot and humid again here.

The hummingbirds drank every last drop of the nectar in the feeder so I cleaned it out, killed a good few ants who were also after the nectar, and refilled it. I hope the hummingbirds find it again.

SJane49 - snake and black...that takes me back...
So, now I want a fluffy chicken (one of those grey ones with fluffy legs), a chicken swing and a pint of snakey..
House full of teenage girls again, painting each other's nails and worshipping Wartycat.
DD has launched a campaign for me to get her guinea pigs but as I reckon there is life in the old Wartycat yet the answer has to be no....

DS is finally (mostly) packed. He gets to pick a takeaway for dinner then we'll load up the cars. We're going to be driving up and moving him into his dorm in the rain tomorrow.

It's going to be a bit sad coming home without him.

@Miss, I hope it all goes smoothly tomorrow.

Good luck tomorrow miss. That will be us in a years time and (despite my reputation for being a no nonsense parent and absolutely championing independence) I am absolutely dreading it.

DS casually mentioned on our return home last weekend that that was "his last ever family holiday over" which pulled me up short. I've no doubt he will return when he's skint and it's either holidaying with us or not at all, but all the same

And in mundane news, ChampagneCat's magical cat flap has sent me a message to say it's batteries are low.

The silkie chickens are lovely, we have an all white one and a golden one, about 1.5 year old girls. I am fine with swings but spinning things make me so dizzy, joys of middle age.

Just sorting final things for holiday. If time will do some cleaning / tidying as well. The rabbit and chicken hotel confirmed the wrong dates so am trying to get those amended though its the end one that's wrong. The lady took excellent care of them last year, I think our rabbit was with her 6 year old a lot bouncing all over her house. He's normally found sitting on DS's lap or on the sofa with DS so he would have been very happy with that as DS is like a 6 year old girl.

@Champagneforeveryone, yes from experience you do go through mini mournings at the exits of DC. Though they were complete monosyllabic & narky pains in the arse during their teen years, DD1 and DStepdaughter left holes in our family life.

Not that they stay gone! DSD (27) is back living with us the last 3 months while she decides what she wants to do with her marriage (leave him for good we hope ..but don’t say!). And while we seem to be back to paying for her and she’s using the washing machine & dryer every single bloody night, lovely to have her. DH was up early to make her a packed lunch for work. This leaving us doesn’t seem to be a one way street.

Stepped in rodent kidney remains this morning in bare feet. DCat obviously had a successful night. DDog has vomited up grass. Between them, sure there is some agreement to downgrade the house as much as possible!

Contemplating a bedroom raid on DD2’s floordrobe . Off on holiday tomorrow and a request for washing has produced only one pair of pants. There must be others ..surely?!