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.

At least it is over. When my father died no one else wanted his second hand car except for me as mind had recently died and I was sharing and old one with my son so we used the value of the car to off set my 100 hours of work on the estate I think from memory as my fee. Anyway the bottom line was I had to drive it quite late from the NE down to London and I was so tired. I will always remember that journey on my own - the children came back by train or flew actually I think. I had to keep stopping to pinch my arms to keep me awake. I think it was not just all the things to do at a funeral but also the stress of it is .

After he died like needmore our connection to our parents' and childhood town/home had gone as there were no aunts/uncles, first cousins, siblings up there so we have not often gone back.

Yes, don't take any decisions about anything until a bit of time has passed. We did get on with putting our parents' house on the market and had trips for masses of house clearance.

On a happier note one of my twins called about his costume for tomorrow night - he is going as a pirate and had thought he might want me to send a childhood toy gun down first class today to arrive tomorrow but he decided it would not be a good plan. I think he's right - even imitation childhood toy guns are probably not wise to brandish at night.

My DD is a Halloween nurse and I agree it's not a good idea to wave guns about at night.

I get quite conflicted around this time of year. I was raised a Catholic so cannot approve of Guy being burnt at the stake. But then neither can I approve of the American cultural imperialism that is Halloween.

DS is in the US so that is OK. The Business School he is attached to is throwing a Halloween party for the PhDs. I wonder how much they will charge.

The Business School is fairly high ranking and apparently charge MBA students $150,000 for the year. This means that they have good catering for their events and DS seems to have largely lived off MBA leftovers. Trouble is that this year he is doing some marking/teaching for the MBA course so is terrified that he might be recognised when on one of his foraging runs. Perhaps a Halloween mask is needed to preserve his anonymity.

Sam here Need. We did have a bonfire on 5 November at home even though we in theory would have been on the side of Guy Fawkes so it was an interesting discussinon every 5 nov but did not do hallowe'en although went to mass on All Saint's day the day after.

The big thing arond 31st has only relatively recently come to the UK anyway from the USA and seems to be a night to destroy the teeth of children with sugared products. Trick of treating is partiuclarly awful in my views as it is blackmail and begging so I am glad it has not caught on everywhere in the UK.

I'm glad everything went ok, Needmoresleep. It sounds like your mum had a lovely send off. Well done for not rising to your patronising SiL! I have one of those too. She's very good at telling everyone else what they should be doing while doing bugger all herself.
I'd also echo the sentiment that you don't have to make any quick decisions. After my dad died an elderly neighbour told me I didn't have to do all my grieving at once. I was just 21 and didn't really get what she meant at the time, but it's a phrase that's stayed with me and has come to make a lot of sense.

I'm not a huge fan of Hallow'een but the trick or treaters we get tend to be very young and very polite. My mum and MiL are both in their 80s and live alone so simply don't answer the door. At the primary school where I do most of my work we advise the children only to call at houses where there is some Hallow'een decoration on show.

Trick or treating seems to have waned here in the last few years. Fireworks haven't - fortunately my dog never minded and he's deaf now anyway.

Some wise words on funerals and deaths... I've just realised this thread is probably responsible for a vivid - and cheerful - dream about DM!

Ah, that's lovely that you had that dream about your mum,Errol. My friend has an elderly chocolate labrador who can't hear the fireworks anymore. My friend knew she was properly deaf when she stopped looking up hopefully at the rustle of a crisp packet. 🙂

Not many trick or treaters called last night. I think the demographic of where we live is changing. We moved here 18 years ago having lived just a couple of streets away for 10 years before that. The area was full of young families then. Those children are now grown up but the parents haven't downsized, bringing in new young families. The cul de sac we live on doesn't have any children of primary school age anymore.

We had just one ring on the doorbell, which we ignored as we stopped getting treats in after no one at all turned up a few years ago.

DD and her bestie are hosting a Halloween party tonight. DD deliberately chose a smaller room than her friend partly because its cosier but also in the canny knowledge of which would be used for parties.

@ErrolTheDragon, how sensible

Work began on DDs flat on Monday (flooded basement sitting room needs membraned) at 8am. It is noisy and dusty - not great for them, but at least she's getting out to the gym/library!

BTM, good its happening before it gets really cold, though a pain nonetheless. I hope the landlord made them a reasonable offer. One tip is that they might ask that the landlord provides them with a prof clean, or that he lets them off any such requirement at the end of the tenancy. Plastering is amazingly dusty. If no agreement they should take photos as insurance in case of anend of tenancy dispute.

DH stopped trick or treaters years ago by buying in apples to hand out. Then word got out that it was worth commuting from our gritty bit of inner city to prime Central London, Eaton Square was a favourite, where rich American expat families would be handing out candy by the bucket load. (This was a decade ago so maybe things have changed.)

@Needmoresleep, thanks, that's good advice - will pass it on. The landlord has offered what we think is a paltry amount, and the students haven't yet replied to his offer as they can't agree whether to take it or try to hold out for more

Hope your DD gets it sorted soon bTM; it's very inconvenient for them.

We're hoping to visit DS towards the end of the month. He has a few assignments which will be complete by then, so we can enjoy some time with him.

I sometimes used to pad out the basket of chocolate by drawing pumpkin faces on satsumas with a black marker pen. Some kids actually chose them.

I like that idea Errol 🙂

No Halloween callers for us. The code is strictly only the decorated houses of fellow school pupils that get visited round here.

I remember when I first lived in a gritty area of London getting the door knocked on by a group of kids without much in the way of costumes, saying trick or treat. I offered them some sweets and they looked at me bemused and said No, you give us money! I explained that no, I didn't give them money at all and they seemed most surprised. I did wonder if that was the London way of doing it!

DS2 has had a visit from DH's brother and wife. They are visiting their daughter in Brisbane and have never had a reason to go to Adelaide so have taken the opportunity to go while he is there.
It's been nice for us to have some photos of him. He sends us pictures of things he has seen and done but not of himself.
I think he's enjoyed having some time with people who've known him longer than 3 and a bit months. He seems to have settled in well and keeps busy, but must have odd moments when he feels a long way from home.
Hope the building work is progressing well BTM. Having the landlord pay for a proper clean afterwards is a good idea. Plaster dust is all pervasive and seems to linger for ages after work is completed.

I was raised a Catholic so cannot approve of Guy being burnt at the stake.

He wasn't burned at the stake. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn & quartered. (He actually fell off the scaffold and broke his neck, so he was already dead before the quartering.) And he was sentenced for treason (i.e. plotting to blow up parliament at the state opening), not for his catholicism. Siding with Fawkes, Catesby, etc. because they were catholics would be the same as a moslem siding with islamist terrorists because of their shared faith.

I am sure you are right. However it was not the view taken during my Catholic childhood, in the days when Catholics and Jews still felt like outsiders, restricted from marrying into the Royal family or holding certain offices of state. Rationality and religion don't always go hand in hand.

Reciting the Catechism each morning before reciting the times tables, with nuns swathed in black ready to wield the cane gives me insight into a good tranche of Catholic literature. DDs childhood was quite different. Even so I assume she will have tales of parental weirdness to tell her own children.

Yes, mjost Catholics would always have been in a sense against or conflicted over Guy Fawkes' night. We used to be divded in the UK as badly as between Shia and Sunni and huge awful damage was done to Catholics (and no doubt vice versa). Prince George is the first royal in recent times to be allowed to marry a Catholic although he is not allowed to be one himself (the royalt family has always beenf ree to mrry jews and muslims etc though - it was just the Catholic ban that was kept up until the 2013 change in the law. Our nuns were happy clappy Jesus loves everyone smiles and cuddles in the 1960s actually , guitars, Beatle songs even , a whole new era post Vatican II but I think it depends on the area and the school.

Anyway we always still had a little bonfire at home as children on 5th and interesting chats about the history of it which most of us still study at school even today.

Back to 2019 my twins enjoyed their 31 oct parties and one has reading week this weekend so a fairly easy time.

DD came home for her study week and her laptop packed up. Luckily all her work was backed up (I have been banging on about backups since she started). She has returned to uni with a new (cheap) laptop, which should last her at least the next year.

Her dissertation tutor seems to be really helpful and has told her that her ethics submission will fail at the first submission and he will help her get it through the second submission. I suppose inflicting pain on people might have some ethical considerations .

I am married to a Catholic, so I'll have to ask him what he was taught about Guy Fawkes. He is currently returning DD to her house and moving her boyfriend/partner into his own flat in Bath. The car was packed to the roof with his stuff. It's like we've adopted another child.

@SMaCM, how lovely that you are helping her bf - I loved having the DCs bf/gfs around as extras to our family, but no longtermers on the scene atm.
Has your DD submitted her research proposal? My DD submitted hers, but I dont know when she gets feedback/next step. I hope she's been backing everything up, gulp!

BTM I think she's submitted her research proposal. She doesn't give me a lot of detail about her studies. All she was talking about was that 1st round ethics would be rejected- she submitted that on Thursday.

Neither of my two are involved with anyone at the moment - at least not to my knowledge.

I am still in touch with DS1's ex gf (even though they don't keep in touch ) and hoping to visit her (Scandinavia) next year.

DS1 is engaged and the wedding is booked for August 2021. We have always tried to be welcoming and she seems to like us too which, hopefully, bodes well for the future.
DS2 plays his cards very close to his chest. He has a wide mixed- sex circle of friends but there's no one special that I know of.
I am very close to my lovely MiL. We have never had a cross word in 35 years even though we are different in many ways.She has been a wonderful role model of how to be supportive at the right times and when to back off. I hope I can have a similar future relationship with the boys' partners.

Congratulations to the future MIL, Latedecember That's very exciting!

Our Ds1 and 2 sound very similar to yours in terms of relationships. DS1 has now returned to Australia to live with his gf. Lovely girl and we're happy for them (if not delighted at it being on the other side of the world). DS2 OTOH has played his cards extremely close to his chest. I'd always assumed he must have some things going on (from my motherly viewpoint I reckon he's quite a catch!) but until last week when he casually let slip he is seeing somebody it's been a strictly taboo topic. and I'm a nosy parker desperate to know more but daren't ask