Justaweebit, I'm glad your DD is finally out of isolation and has managed to get some shopping in for her household.
Panttwizzler, your trip to O sounds great and I sort of wish my sons had wanted me to visit either of them before lockdown preferred not to have that 'parental invasion', especially in the last few days before lockdown. I've only spoken to each of them briefly, once as email is our mode of contact but as we all like writing and DS1's emails often make us laugh, it's working out OK.
Ofteninaspin, thanks for the suggestion about DS1 joining a sports' team. Yes, he did join college level tennis and badminton but was then in isolation and so of course all sports are cancelled. So that's not going to work. His main other society can't function now either, as it needed to be face to face but he's still doing some that have always been remote/online.
He met someone coincidentally at his college the other day who he got on well with but feels he'd now be unlikely to see that person again, given all the current restrictions and they're not doing the same subject either. However, it gave him hope that there might be people out there even at his own college who are on the same wavelength as he is.
I'm clearer now about what's happening with his supervisions. Basically, they can pick a title for an essay and also have some flexibility about choice of text and whether or not they choose to write an essay at all (!?!) So this means it's not possible to do the supervision on the essay as his supervision partner may not have done the same essay, the same text or even have written an essay at all. I still find this a very strange way of doing it and not at all what I know about other colleges for the same subject - but that's how it is.
Meanwhile, DS2 continues to have a fuller experience at O, has a lot more work than DS1 at C and has just found out that his choir can still go ahead, as it's deemed educational (albeit with social distancing and masks) but it does seem his college is doing everything it can to help students have some kind of experience other than sitting alone in your room studying. He's very happy.
He can still get out to the Rad Cam too (with booked slots in advance) but in Cambridge, DS1 thinks the University Library is closed and only allows collections of books and he's not needed to go there so far, nor has he used his college library either as he hates the idea of studying for hours whilst wearing a face covering.
Both seem to be coping well enough with such an unusual first experience of leaving home and university life, although only 2 weeks of the entire term have been anything like 'normal' in flavour, what with being stuck in isolation for a fortnight each and now lockdown till the end of term.
I really hope they're allowed to come back home when term ends and can't see what else would happen if this isn't allowed. Who will pay the extra costs of enforced accommodation at college/university?