North East thread 7: the bus chat continues...

[Someaddedsugar]

Just setting this up so it's here

dd got the first one

happy Christmas

I heard about the police from DS today, one his colleagues at work woke up to it all.

The clouds were beautiful.

Merry Christmas all.

I'm so full of freezer party food I can't move.

I got the gift tags last. I worked out the groups but they didn't make sense until I'd had a couple of glasses of wine 🤣

Happy Christmas x

Happy Christmas.

I think the nacreous clouds might be gone for good, now. At least it was my own aches and pains, rather than the flippin' wind, that kept me awake last night.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Hope it wasn't anything too serious re the police @AlviarinAesSedai!

I'm so pleased the wind has died down. I was designated driver today picking up/dropping off grandparents and I really don't like driving in the wind!

Can someone help with the clocks on the GCHQ quiz - what am I missing?

As drugs related @Someaddedsugar .

think about the 24 hour clock and the associated letter of the alphabet ie 01:00 is A but 13:00 will be m (the 13 the letter?)

Thanks @lifelongfrugaleer! It's taken me a while but I get it now 😂

I didn’t get it dd did

Happy new year, everyone.

Happy new year. Hope you all had the new year you wanted

Happy new year! Nice bit of sunshine we're having, though I know it's not going to last.

Bus station news!
https://www.durham.gov.uk/article/23024/Changes-to-bus-timetables-and-routes

Saw that @PickAChew . Still doesn’t look like much room for reversing and the exit is still dreadful.
Plus I think it is ugly and god knows how it cost so much. But on the plus side the park and ride bus is going to drop at North Road again.

A late happy new year 🥂! x

Pleased to see the bus station is finally opening! It feels like it's been an endless project so god knows how the people working on it must feel 😂

Happy new year everyone!

Great news about the bus station, finally!

Hi, sneaking back in to ask a secondary school question and when reading through the thread I caught this one. Hoping some people will have some advice.

We're still planning our move up that way (not at house hunting stage yet, still narrowing down areas) but have been for 2 visits and another next month. We will need to rent first so may not have a huge amount of choice on location ls, but deciding factor will be which school DD could end up at.

Last time we came up we visited a few secondary schools (Hermitage and Fram) but have since discovered they are full, as are Park View and DJ, obviously. Now I know DCC have to allocate a place, but I'm assuming if we're in that area DD (going into year 10) would be allocated a place at Durham Academy (the same place as the Fed @AlviarinAesSedai mentioned?). I only discovered that one exists a few months ago and it seems to be half empty so I'm assuming it's dire?
DD is very academic and just wants to get her head down and get her GCSEs, but she would like to make some friends and would find excessive disruption very challenging. How bad is it?

Other options are move to Bishop Auckland, DH likes the more rural location and I think DS2 could still get buses to EDC at Houghall until he's driving. There's 2 secondaries there, both look ok but I guess may also be full (DCC are a bit fed up with my emails now and have asked for an address to discuss school allocations but of course we don't have one yet!). Does anyone have any info on Bishop schools and if they're full where would DD be allocated if outside of those 2?

Spennymoor, Consett and Stanley are other places we'd likely be able to rent in and later buy. I've looked at the websites for the schools and the Snobe/Locrating sites but any local knowledge would be appreciated. I don't want to move and then find we've got months of school place allocation battles to go through as starting GCSE years so will need as little disruption as possible and knowing which school DD would likely get ahead of time would help no end, especially if we can visit likely contenders.

PS, loved all the bus chat as DS1 was following the GNE news avidly, he's applying to bus driver training when we get up there!

Hi Ragz, I'm afraid I don't really know the schools in Bishop. Hopefully better knowledge will come along.

I don't know anything about Bishop but there's St Bede's at Lanchester - not sure if that's an option if you were at Consett or Stanley? Is there anywhere else you would consider in the north east?

We've got to be able to get DS2 to college at Houghall campus of EDC (not many places do his course but he can transfer here for his s 2nd year). They have buses from quite a few places. Though he's only there for a year and could potentially drive himself, he's likely to be on a scooter rather than a car so I'd rather he didn't!
DH's job will hopefully transfer to Middleborough but he will probably only need to do the commute once there and once back a week (lorry driver sleeping in the truck) so up to an hour would be ok but preferably under 45 mins as he is driving for his job.
DS1 will apply to bus driver training so needs to be able to get to the bus depots (@PickAChew probably knows where they are!) for whichever company he goes with, probably GNE but he will apply for all of them and see who offers him a job.
Location wise otherwise just depends on house prices. Absolute top of budget is £250k for 4 bedrooms and we need a garage for the motorbikes and assorted workshop crap, which rules out almost all the gorgeous period terraced houses and limits us to the not quite so desirable areas!
We need to rent first though as I would need to find a job before we can get a mortgage (and we're FTB), but I'm a nurse so won't be hard. Finding a rental is not looking easy, most of the 4+ beds around Durham seem to be student lets. May have to settle for a 3 bed and I'll sleep in the living room for 6 months (promised DS1 and DS2 their own room as part of the moving deal!). As we have a narrow window to move in (July And August) we will just have to take what we can get!

Have you thought about Darlington? Quite a few secondary options, 20 minutes to Middlesbrough via road, 15 minutes to Durham via train and lower house prices than Durham?

Not sure re bus depots though.

Appreciate it's not as desirable as Durham though re the overall offering.

We'll be visiting Darlington next month (we're staying in an Airbnb in Newton Aycliffe) as I have considered it, yes, but only briefly. Need to have a look around.
It's further from Newcastle which may annoy the teens (they loved it there when we visited but I don't want to live in a city) however I think it's probably quicker by train than it would be by bus from much closer places, so may not matter actually as they won't be going that often, they just want the option. There's a college bus for DS2 from there. Seems to have quite a bit going on (all I want is a leisure centre with a pool and somewhere I can go to pub quiz or see a band occasionally, without a half hour drive like we have now!).
Not sure how full the secondary schools are, I suppose I could ask the council they may give me a hint.