2017 seems so long ago, now they're fledgling graduates.

[latedecember1963]

4 years since A Levels and the wait for August and confirmation of where our chicks were about to fly the nest to.
It's been 4 years that has sprung a few surprises along the way, not least this lovely series of threads.

Yes, well done on the job offers etc. and thanks for the thread. I have my Bristol child back for one night, who had a doctor's appointment in London yesterday. Hopefully that was a lawful reason to travel - to see a doctor. He wasn't stopped on the train or the tube and said the most police are in the area of shops near our house about 4pm - at least 6 of them to disperse children coming out of schools. My son says there are lots of stabbings down there but I find it perfectly okay.

My twins have their final law conversion course exams immediately after Easter and start their one year legal practice course in September (living at home). Whether that course will be face to face or 100% online like their course this year remains to be seen. I would rather it were face to face but they will be happy either way I am sure. The online course has been very smooth and easy as you don't have to travel anywhere so I can see the pros and cons of it.

As I said on the other thread, my younger daughter's wedding with 13 guests (and lawful meal after it as the wedding rules change in April (and first on 29 March when weddings become allowed again) ) is in April and we have a week's family holiday abroad booked for July but who knows if that will happen. More importantly the older grandchild (first year at school) was back at school yesterday and very happy to see friends.

Happy Mother’s Day - hope you all have a lovely day. DS is bringing me breakfast in bed - hope he hurries up - I need a coffee after too much Prosecco last night!

😆 @Parker231, enjoy your breakfast in bed.

Happy Mother's Day to us all. Mine are both still asleep; am hoping they will accompany me on a walk, along with a takeaway hot choc later this morning. 🙂

Hi everyone. Thanks @latedecember1963 for the new thread.

I think that my last update was that DD1 had an offer for a PhD at her college. All she needs to do is get a good enough grade this year. However, she had an interview last week with the company she did some work experience with in 2019. That was on Wednesday - marvellous caring mother that I am, I completely forgot about it until she sent me a text after it was all over - my excuse is that I was in the primary school with all the children back and everything else went out of my head. We had a chat later; DD's plan once she knows the outcome is to take the job if offered or the PhD if not. But that might change!

Right I need to take my dad out for a walk by the sea as his daily exercise. It'll be a year this week since he came to stay with us. Hopefully once he has had his 2nd vaccination and given it time to take effect, he can go home.

Lovely to see job offers coming through, DS has agreed a Sept 2022 start date and taking a year out.

As he has dual passport he spending summer helping at a climbing & outdoor centre in Italy and then Sept / October on a euramus funded ecological survey research project with a team of 20 others. He’s not sure about the winter yet, maybe work a ski season & fingers crossed they happen next year.

Well done on the Eve job offer and the Malbec daughter seems to have good options too. One of my twins sent me his CV last night (he and his twin finish their law conversion course in about mid April, probably end of April before course work is in so have until early September off. In non covid times they might have had some nice trips abroad but it is not so simple at present even by May, although their sister has a honeymoon recently booked for May after the UK legislation supposedly will change according to the current timetable.

Anyway CV sending child is going to use a law paralegal agency his sister suggested hopefully to get some kind of para legal job in that summer off or some of it. Their legal practice course runs from about Sept 2021 to summer 2022. I am not sure of the exact dates yet but at least they have some focus and plan.

The Bristol one rang me up yesterday to wish me happy mother's day so he was a day out but that was fine. We had a nice chat and their sister who is getting married moved back into her own flat this week so was very happy there and settling in yesterday when she called me. Her finance has managed to let his London flat really quickly so he will move in with her in a couple of weeks. So it all seems to be coming together for her - just have to hope nothing changes with weddings being allowed once again in England from late March.

Happy mothers day to you lovely supportive lot - how well have all the DCs done since we first started chatting! . I'm a bit sad I won't see the DC today - except on zoom.

As It was 1984 when I had my first there is no mother's day present better for me than no one here (as it is happens so rarely) so I am the opposite of most mothers as I head towards age 60........ And indeed no one is here.

Neither of mine got home last year, first time without them ever and it felt very strange - Covid mania was sweeping the country and IIRC we went into lockdown the following day?

This year, both home and I did get my walk and luxury hot chocolate. 🙂

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

This year (with DS1 at home and DS2 at uni) it's the first time ever they have both managed to get me a card and even coordinated to get a little present. Perhaps they've finally grown up and 'got it'. I'm very happy!

(It was never the gift or card that mattered - just the effort to remember say or do something )

I had a surprise at dinner - DS2 turned up as his (my) car needs to go in for major repairs so he has brought it home from uni . I almost cried i was so delighted to see him.

That's lovely Carriemac

Aww, that's really lovely.

We played Uno over FaceTime, we've got the hang of making it work now 😁

I lost sight of this thread...
DD is very likely to come home to do her finals at the end of next month because of the Internet requirements. So DH has been organising belt and braces... a 4G router as backup for the fibre and a couple of UPSs. At one point he was experimenting with a phone as a 4G hotspot, reception wasn't great so he made a reflector dish out of a colander and tinfoil to boost the strength....he might just possibly have a bit too much time on his hands. I suppose I should be glad he didn't reshape it into more of a parabolic dish.

Has a family FaceTime last night and all the kids seemed a bit glum and stressed it's finals year for all mine

• how are all your DCs?

Hi everyone.

DS is still doing his Masters at home. He’s quite happy with the set up but probably easier for him with it being a masters with lots of self study. He did his favourite module last month on sustainable cities. It’s the reason why he is doing his Masters and how he got his post grad job.
He doesn’t seem to have to do as much work as I thought but his forecast a distinction so must be doing something right. We’re enjoying having him a home (an unexpected bonus from the lockdown). He’s taking his turn in cooking the evening meal and my distance running has improved since going out running with him!

Mine seem fine. One was doing a law job application - just a para legal thing - last night about 4 hours before the deadline which seems a bit last minute to me. His twin is coming back for the Easter holidays from Bristol at the weekend and will stay to do the final law exams in mid April and then go back until the Bristol tenancy ends in mid July (they both start their legal practice course in London (living at home) in September which lasts a year).

Daughter's wedding meal for 15 was cancelled as the new wedding guidance is as mean as they can be with complex rules about eating but as long as the church service with teh 13 guests and photographer can go ahead (and the organist is booked etc and hopefully one singer although none of us, a family of singers, are allowed to sing a single note apparently due to the CV19 legislation - so much for let the people sing). The groom's elderly parents cannot go back to the couple's flat after despite a very long drive down to the church, in London, because that will be against the law too. We think photos after outside in the near by gardens are okay although whether everyone will have to stand 2 meters away from each other I don't know. I have my 2 meter folding ruler I could bring I suppose.........

The Government has now at long last revised the wedding guidance my daughter emailed today to say, to remove the error that weddings with 4 guests were back on on 6 March which was a lie - they are back on on 29 March. She sounds happy however and her boyfriend moved his stuff into the flat she owns yesterday and moves in in about a week when tenants move into his 1 bed flat. They will be quite cramped working from home in her 2 bed but hopefully offices will open soon and she is going to use the 2nd bed room as her separate office so I think it will be fine.

It sounds like everyone else's children are doing okay even if a bit glum or trying to find a good place with internet. I hope ours does not go down for the April final law exams. my neighbour had BT out last week as ours cuts out once a day all around here for no reason. I was worried they would try to fix it and make it worse and I could live with the once a day cut out usually in the evening but may be it's completely cured. My download speed is 35MB and upload.

@ErrolTheDragon I read your post to my DH who solemnly replied that what you need is a 4G router with an aerial on a mast. We had a marginal 4G signal which was overcome with a mobile router and a mast mounted aerial - DH discovered this by dangling off the roof with his external aerial to test the signal strength. I think he too has rather too much time on his hands

[quote readsalotgirl63]@ErrolTheDragon I read your post to my DH who solemnly replied that what you need is a 4G router with an aerial on a mast. We had a marginal 4G signal which was overcome with a mobile router and a mast mounted aerial - DH discovered this by dangling off the roof with his external aerial to test the signal strength. I think he too has rather too much time on his hands [/quote]
DH found a strong enough signal from the back of the house, fortunately.

I'm very impressed by the home-based IT support you are getting from various partners and dc (especially the ones hanging off roofs and lining colanders ). My dh who is an IT professional looks surprised if I complain about internet speed and asks what I expect him to do about it.
We've had a happy weekend call from DS mainly because he's very excited to have bought himself a new bike with the proceeds of his ambulance cleaning job. He's now emptying Amazon of lycra and bike gadgets while planning long rides with friends.
He's working on the 'art' module of his science course now. It is really just art they want (not an explanatory poster or an exercise in communicating that I could see would be useful) and they've been shown a few abstract paintings as examples . DS is not a natural artist so he's writing a poem and setting it to music.

(He did have a few suggestions about what they could do with their art module performed through the medium of interpretive dance, mind you )

Maybe one or two of these scientists may produce better art than some artists do when they claim to be depicting science. I was very irritated by the piece below, shown in the Times last week. Very nice and colourful but not remotely 'depicting a molecular structure'. (if anyone would like to see some depictions of molecular structures, you could try the protein databank's 'molecule of the month' collection pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/motm-by-date)

Have to say I'm enormously grateful for the IT support but there is a price to pay - one has to be suitably impressed by downloads speeds achievable from the top of a ladder/ hanging from the guttering.

The 4G science, running and weddings sound like the parents are just as busy as the youngsters 😂.

It seems they're going to do some testing of the proctoring software which will require DD to come home a week or so earlier than she'd planned to make sure it all works. Sounds ridiculously complicated... Something like they have to have a device eg a phone videoing them, in WiFi communication with their computer ...something our router security setup won't currently allow. Oh well, I expect they'll sort it out.

DD's college has said she is fine to come home for an Easter break so I am collecting her on Saturday all being well. It's my birthday on Sunday so I will have one DD home for that. DD1 only wants to be here for a short time so I am taking her back a week later then collecting DD2, which is not a bad trip.

Had my Covid vaccine today. I wasn't massively impressed by the organisation - it took over an hour from arriving to leaving but at least it's done. My dad gets his second on Friday so hopefully in 3 weeks time I can take him home. He's been here 53 weeks...