Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Further education

You'll find discussions about A Levels and universities on our Further Education forum.

Thread 17 - Corona Cohort Summer Vacation to Yr 13, Finding Freedom?

999 replies

Orangecinnamon21 · 14/07/2021 13:19

PLACEHOLDER FOR NEW THREAD ...PREVIOUSLY TO BE FOUND IN SECONDARY EDUCATION

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
FoolsAssassin · 19/07/2021 09:01

Good luck to DD today Miranda

Glad it’s gone ok for DD so far Ealingwestmum and hope it continues to do so. My DD is a language student and immersion is really important, sadly her year have missed out on it but the university has arranged summer school for them with a partner university to get their levels up.

Climate change a massive issue in my family at the moment as they are in a flood hit area and it’s absolutely awful.

crazycrofter · 19/07/2021 09:21

Good luck with the singing exam @MirandaWest's dd and glad to hear travel plans going ok so far @ealingwestmum.

Sorry to hear about the flooding @FoolsAssassin, that must be awful. On top of a horrendous year too.

Dd is supposed to be volunteering at a Christian festival from next Tuesday. She's also intent on having a gathering here tomorrow night for around 15 people (hopefully mainly in the garden). Covid is flying round her year group and I'm really worried she'll have to isolate and then miss next week, but she's not budging. I told her to get them all to take a lateral flow test before they come.... I guess that's all we can do.

FoolsAssassin · 19/07/2021 09:49

Thank you Crazycrofter, it’s horrific. A couple of family members were working until 5am on Sunday. They are still finding people who have drowned in their homes. Petrol has escaped so the whole place stinks of it, there’s no water to clean things, can’t put furniture out as streets filled broken cars, rubbish and mud. Some twats came to gawp and others who kindly came to offer help had to be turned away as they were clogging up the few remaining roads left as the bridges are down. They are hoping to have temporary bridges up today which should help.

ealingwestmum · 19/07/2021 09:52

That must be very hard Fools, on top of pandemic impact it just seems never ending. Countries whose main GDP is generated from tourism, balanced with we all contribute to reducing carbon impact, a fine balancing act indeed.

Good to hear your DD’s uni with a Plan B, the locals around DD’s language school are absolutely delighted to see the likes of DD type students right now.

Good luck with the planning for her gathering Crazy, you can mitigate only as much as you are clearly doing.

AnneOfCleavage · 19/07/2021 09:53

Car lift sharing is v sensible so hope that works out for you Icanbewhatiwant and congrats on your DS having a part time job this summer.

Good luck to your DD for her singing exam today Miranda.
My DD has one of those vocal steamers to lubricate her throat. I'd never heard of them but apparently Carrie Hope Fletcher (just finished Les Mis and starting Cinderella now) uses the same one.

What a marvellous experience for your DD ealing. I'm v impressed by her. DD doesn't even want to catch a local train independently yet. Has she had both her jabs or if just one was that okay when she showed them her proof?

crazycrofter is the Christian festival a children's camp for a week? Is she going daily or sleeping over too? Great experience for her too. I remember doing one when I was a similar age.

Had DD birthday party yesterday and half the guests had to pull out as they'd either been pinged or had COVID. Poor DD was so stoical about the whole thing but was gutted as it was mainly her besties that it happened to. We went round and left cake on a few doorsteps yesterday and she waved from afar. Fortunately no one from her school so she wasn't a contact. It was a very hot weekend but fortunately the flying ants decided not to choose yesterday to swarm Grin

Managed to book a last minute campus tour at Chichester Uni this week so looking forward to that. DD gutted she misses a lie in.

AnneOfCleavage · 19/07/2021 09:56

That sounds absolutely horrendous FoolsAssasin. It unfortunately does attract the rubberneckers Sad

ealingwestmum · 19/07/2021 10:08

That must have been hard for you too Anne, lovely touch from her to cake drop to the absent. DD is double jabbed, just over weeks apart. Controversial I know, but she stated the truth, works with young children (swim camps) and hustled. 3rd vaccine venue later, 3 hours wait, got done, so was persistent and knows much is in the hands of the administration of each site. And she accompanied her friend and both politely challenged the ‘no need even for NHS number, prof of address blah blah’ as age-ambiguous, with success.

Shocking situation for you all Fools Flowers

ealingwestmum · 19/07/2021 10:08

3 weeks, sorry

Oblomov21 · 19/07/2021 10:23

Zanda Both of my ds's don't finish till this Friday 23rd!

icanbewhatiwant · 19/07/2021 10:51

@AnneOfCleavage thanks. Yes car sharing is the best we can do. I'm all for cutting down emissions, but it's not easy when in a village with hardly any buses (we did walk to the primary school and I cycle to work as both in the village) Sorry to hear dd's friends being pinged. On the plus side, at least she didn't get told to isolate too.

@FoolsAssassin the floods sound terrible, even worse with it on top of covid.

Shimy · 19/07/2021 11:07

Does anyone else have flying ants? Battling another swarm of flying ants in our house. They always congregate in the boiler cupboard. Mounting each other’s backs, some holding hands and some having babies, they trail out of the cupboard and cover the whole floor and start climbing the walls, covering the window. Absolutely disgusting.

It will be ds2’s worst nightmare to wake up to find all the walls covered in black flying ants so it was with glee I went round yesterday spraying them all with the ant killer. I’ve now got masses of black bodies strewn over the floor BUT some are still twitching. I might have to call out the pest control guy who charged £60 2yrs ago to get rid of them yet again.
Rant over.

Monkey2001 · 19/07/2021 11:10

@foolsassassin so sorry to hear that are they in Germany? So many devastating stories reported there. I have family in Muswell Hill whose garden was fully submerged and the neighbour's brand new kitchen was flooded, which is bad enough, can't imagine how your family feel.

Fferny1 · 19/07/2021 11:26

No @Shimy no flying ants here.
But we do have mutant Drosophila .
Clouds that fly in your face in the kitchen. Due to dh's new found passion for compost and his complete bloody inability to close the lid.

They have now developed a taste for Rose and vanilla brioche ...

FoolsAssassin · 19/07/2021 11:36

Thank you all very much. Yes they are in Germany, in the Ahrweiler area of the Eifel which has always been a popular area with German tourists. So lovely to see all the offers of help coming in from all areas of the country though. Sorry to hear about your family and neighbour Monkey

Your poor DD AnneofCleavage. I have been so impressed at how they all just crack on with everything, I think they are a great generation and have high hopes for them all to make a better go of things than some of our generation have done.

Ealingwestmum I am of the opinion the more jabbed the better,

Sympathies to those contending with insects, that’s very of the times I feel.

Shimy · 19/07/2021 11:40

Missed the awful news about the floods in Germany. Hope fools family members are safe. Good on them to put themselves out there to help others.

@Fferny1 Drosophila! Not sure which one is worst I hate any kind of swarming insect 🐜. Swarming Locusts is another nuisance in some parts f the world. Do you need to get pest control in?

ealingwestmum · 19/07/2021 11:58

that’s very of the times

So true. My long time hairdresser of over 25 years rediscovered her christian faith around 10 years ago; progressively getting worse with her evangelising.

I am a non practising anything. Hindu by birth, but remain respectful of others, whatever faith they follow. But I’ve got to admit to the odd shudder as she quotes the bible at me frequently; locusts, plagues and all. And keep quiet to her anti-vax stance to top the 30 mins of pain endured 😱

Fferny1 · 19/07/2021 11:59

@shimy I'm really frightened of locusts. Not helped by my final practical in my zoology degree involved locusts. I was so frightened of handling them I squeezed them to death. Consequently the experiment didn't work at all and I must have failed.🤦🏼‍♀️

I'm hoping that if I keep on top of the cleaning ( difficult with nocturnal teenagers) and all fruit goes in the fridge, hopefully they will eventually dissipate.

@Fools sorry your family are going through such a traumatic time. I hope the destabilised damns have been drained sufficiently to be safe now.

PaddingtonPaddington · 19/07/2021 12:04

DDs driving licence finally arrived today!! So booked theory test for end of summer hols and will be getting her to download the practice app later - is it the £4.99 official DVD’s theory kit? I thought I read a while back there was a better one which was £9.99? Any recommendations appreciated.

Good luck to your DD Miranda

Sorry to hear of self isolations. I fear it’s only a matter of time for all of them and missing something they’ve been looking forward to.

@Alsoplayspiccolo DD had ALIS grades at the start of the year. They were used for attainment rather than predicted grades. There was a test which DD didn’t understand and gave up with (as they are all the things she has learning difficulties with) so her grades are just from an average of GCSEs.

No flying ants yet here but we always get them on the patio, so will keep an eye out.

Shimy · 19/07/2021 12:11

@Fferny1 They get locusts a lot in my home country and so I became quiet accustomed to handling them. What I hate most though apart from the swarming is the smell. They have a particular faint smell that make you want to heave a bit. Theses are the colourful ones. I’m talking about not the brown ones, whatever their names are.

crazycrofter · 19/07/2021 12:14

Eek, I’m not liking the sound of all these swarming insects!

@AnneOfCleavage it’s a full on festival I believe, with music/teaching for the adults/kids clubs etc. She’ll be camping with a friend. She’s also going to a teens camp later in the summer.

Dd has died her hair black and is fussing that she’s missed bits. I’m trying to work and getting very distracted by the drama..

Hattifatteners · 19/07/2021 14:23

@PaddingtonPaddington our DD used the official DVLA app at £4.99. It seemed to do the trick, she passed at the first attempt. Now keeping the fingers crossed for the practical test in September. Grin

Zandathepanda · 19/07/2021 14:39

Fools that sounds horrific in Germany. As if there isn’t enough going on already.

I have decided not to plan much this summer- and if we can, then we will go away but it will be last minute.

AnneOfCleavage · 19/07/2021 15:43

Sorry if I'm reading it wrong ealing but did you say she got her 2nd jab over a week apart? Ooops, just realised you clarified it in next post. So 3 weeks. Wow, that was lucky. DD has had her 1st but I asked at the vaccination hub where we volunteer and they said no less than 8 wks even though she's a Marshall and 'at risk' (their words). I have one booked in but it's after 10 wks as couldn't get an earlier one as we're away in Devon but if there's a spare at the hub and she's practically 8wks I bet they'd do it.
Ican Yes she was v lucky not to be a contact. She doesn't have the app so escaped that but obv would isolate if a contact and got contacted by T & T. We also car shared to secondary school with another family who lived close who DD met on the bus.
Sorry to hear your family have flood issues too Monkey and Fools I didn't realise your family were in Germany. So feel for all the people involved in floods there and here too. I also agree that our young people will be so much more resilient as a result of having to be adaptable with this pandemic.
Yuck to all the insect stories. I am practically itching all over with the thought of it all. Shimy that in particular sounds horrific Shock
I'm not any religion either but if I have to put one down I would say I'm more Humanist. I too am v respectful of what anyone wants to believe in and think probably all our DC are too as they're taught all faiths in school RE lessons probably across the country I would think.
crazycrofter that sound a fun festival and she'll have a blast. I loved the campfires and singing as someone always had a guitar. We'd cook jacket potatoes in the fire in tin foil #dangerous Smile

EverythingDelegated · 19/07/2021 16:13

@AnneOfCleavage sorry to hear about the birthday, will be interested to hear what you think of Chichester, which campus are you looking at?

@FoolsAssassin that's awful for your family with the flooding, its horrendous. I am increasingly worried about climate change.

@ealingwestmum regardless of climate change concerns I still think its important that young people have the opportunity to travel and experience other cultures, society needs people from different countries to be able to work together effectively, well done to her.

@Shimy we're away from home for a few days and haven't had flying ants here yet but we do get masses of them at home and had several huge ant nests in the garden and block paving again this year, hope they've gone by the time we get back.

@Fferny1 we find strawberries the worst for attracting fruit flies into the kitchen, we compost most stuff but strawberry stems go straight in the main bin and are kept in the fridge before eating.

For all sorts of insect infestations we have been using diatomaceous earth, its a ground up mineral, it dries out insects, safer to have around pets than chemicals (we have cats). I had an ants nest in my rockery which was killing the plants there and it got rid of them, I also use it when the compost bin gets too full of flies.

icanbewhatiwant · 19/07/2021 17:05

We just had an email from school about the start of the school year. I can't help thinking it's a bit early because things may have changed by then. Year 13 to go in on the Monday 1st Sept. for LFT. Then start back weds 3rd. Ds3 in year 8 doesn't go in for LFT until 8th sept. starting the next day. They will have tests in school again like before. But only voluntary. Hmmm...will have to see what things will be like.

Ds2 can have covid vaccine mid Aug. as he's 18 mid nov.