Heading towards year 2 exams (uni 2017)

[brizzlemint]

Starting uni 2017 continued.
Tales of radiators, errant boilers, tomatoes and potato mashers...oh and university students.

Sounds like a helpful chat, rights. Hope his talk with 'the next level up' goes well.

And for Xenia and her patients. Hope they don't have it badly.

I mentioned the outbreak to DH who promptly started googling and reckons we should ask DD if she wants another dose of MMR when she's home in July. Bearing in mind there will be more unvaccinated or partially vac'd students arriving at uni in the next couple of years (thanks to bloody Wakefield) outbreaks are almost certain to become more likely.

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1703309

Hope your patients are feeling better today, Xenia, and that you don't come down with it.
My mum insists I never had chicken pox as a child and when my children had it as toddlers I half expected to catch it but never did so I must have had some resistance.
I was woken by the dawn chorus about 45 mins ago and this was the view from the caravan. Have a lovely BH weekend everyone.

One of my DC who's at Nottingham came down with mumps a few weeks ago - they've had both doses of MMR. Lots of their friends are coming down with it - I don't see this stopping anytime soon due to its long incubation period

Mumps can be quite dangerous for adult males. I hope everyone is OK.

Just realised, that reads oddly. When I referred to chicken pox I was meaning about immunity to illnesses, not that I'm confusing mumps and chicken pox.

Beautiful pic latedec - you mentioned the A55 on another thread we're on 🙂 did you get there ok? It's a rare old journey along there at BH time!

Yes,thank you, Horsemad. I drove down yesterday lunchtime to avoid the Friday evening madness. There's a vintage vehicle rally at Llandudno this weekend so I shared the A55 with lots of fabulous old buses, Austins and even a pale blue Ford Anglia like the one Ron Weasley had.😊
DH has just texted that he's on his way to join me and that traffic's ok so far.

Glad your journey wasn't the usual Bank Hol Fri nightmare! Have a lovely time 🍦🌅

I live somewhere very popular with tourists just off the A55 and avoid it at all cost on a BH!
DS will be home this week and bringing his 2 flatmates, whom I've never met before ( one of whom is driving him home) ....they're staying for 4days and exploring the area! need to be stocking up the fridge

Scary that so many are going down with mumps despite already having had the MMR. And no official advice on having a top-up or whatever - I also thought it could be not good for boys/men.

Rights, your chat sounds really successful IMHO! I hope he can get appropriate support at uni. I saw the father of a poor boy who had died at Bristol on the news last night trying to get them to have a more joined up approach... DD told me that her Personal Tutor told them to not come to her with anything personal when they first started last year

I think I h ad it in 1989 when my older daughter did so my son says I cannot catch it whereas those with the MMR vaccine have a 10% chance of getting it. He says one friend with it has it much worse than he has had it and yet both have the MMR so that is puzzling but perhaps it affects people in different ways.

Anyway both patients are not doing too badly and my son is even working on his essay.

I think the risk with men is it can sometimes affect fertility but that is very rare. It's just bad timing with exams coming up but he seems to be coping all right and feeling a bit better each day.

Rights, your chat with your ds sounds really positive. Not least because he admitted something's not right and opened up to you. It really does sound like his feelings about his course, the drugs and lack of motivation are all tied up together in depression. It's impossible to know whether something like hating your course/ your housemates/ feeling unmotivated is a cause of the depression or the result of it.
I hope you manage to persuade him to see a GP if only to provide medical evidence. It could be needed later on for dispensation/ mitigating circs should he choose to pause the course or retake or whatever. But ADs for a temporary period could be useful just to get him out of this hole and be able to make clearer decisions about what he wants.

@Rights I agree that the talk sounds positive. It's so difficult isn't it; on the one hand they are adults, but they are still vulnerable and need a good support network.

Things here are ok. It's a beautiful if chilly day. DD2 is revising upstairs as her first A level is in 9 days. DD1 has submitted her project for one unit. I am procrastinating whilst 42 of my year 9 pupils are on their first ever D of E practice expedition. I organise it but the school buys in instructors & their equipment. Just hoping I don't get any phone calls! The kids don't know it but their campsite for tonight is only about half a mile from my house Good job there is no phone signal there. One of the kids looked genuinely appalled that she wouldn't be able to phone anyone

Rights the chat sounds like it was positive, your DS has a great Mum.

Malbec - I remember when DD started her DofE 'training' classes she was amused how horrified about half of them were at the idea of a couple of days without a mobile ( except a non-smart strictly for emergencies only one issued to each group by the school).

We have to drive from Skye to Lancashire tomorrow ... when DH booked the holiday he somehow managed to be oblivious of It starting at Easter and finishing at a BH weekend! I somehow think we will again not be using the Loch Lomond route! The weather was good all the way up the Outer Hebrides though.

Those of you with DC renting a house can I ask; did they have to produce their birth certificate when going through the application process?

Message from DS yesterday - needs his birth cert now... Apparently they have to show passport AND birth cert. Anyway, he thinks they will accept a photo of it, so have duly sent a photo over!

Horse no, my DS didn't need his birth cert - just passport.

DD was never asked for her birth certificate. It doesn't make much sense. A birth certificate isn't proof of identity, anyone can get a copy of any birth certificate for a fee.

DD just used her passport and bank statement. Is the birth certificate for a second form of ID or something?

I think it must be SMaCM.

I noticed it says on the bottom of the cert that it isn't proof of ID. Hopefully they'll accept the photo of it.

It was much less hassle signing up for halls, I must say!

I think DDs was just passport both times. Plus screenshots of Direct Debit payment set up over the year

How is everyone?

We had a nice long chat to DD yesterday, she's enjoying this terms options. 3 weeks till exams.

I still have my mumps victims here but they are going back to Bristol tomorrow (with the non-mumps twin who has been here since Thursday). It has been a fairly long stay but they both look so much better now. Both twins submitted an eassy in the last 24 hours too and just have one more each left and their May exams.

I even grabbed each one this morning to make sure they completed their EU elections postal vote which they posted earlier on. I have been eaten out of house and home (financially anyway as they buy and cook the food) but they look much more relaxed and the one that was coughing isn't and his cold has gone too so I think it's been an ice peaceful healthy mini break at home.

Both have also submitted their dissertation topics for next year and I've set up the standing order due 1 June for the house of one where the rent is paid quarterly.. They've both decided not to work at Hampton court this summer (it was only going to be a week or so for an event anyway) despite getting the job but I don't think they want to do it after all and one has friends planning to book a week abroad I think probably somwhere on the Med in an airbnb in late June (once we are back from our family holiday).

I hope everyone else's children are doing okay.

The long mumps visit which morphed into a much longer one probably saved them some money as wheni t was going to be a few days I offered to pay for food at home and that carried on despite it urning into quite a long stay and then to be fair I paid the twin's food costs on his way back from field trip in Spain when he had to use my card (his new one has come now so that's fine and his foreign currency card is working again now too).

Good to hear the mumps lads are on the mend.
DS2 has paid the deposit and first quarter rent on his Adelaide accomodation. They want him to arrive on the 19th July to begin an orientation week before his studies begin on the 29th July.
He's revising hard while trying to sort out all the practicalities of visas etc. Strange to think that 10 weeks from now he'll be there!
CarrieMac, how are your son's Melbourne arrangements going?