2017 seems so long ago, now .....

[Xenia]

Continuation of our previous thread.

Seems odd to have all dc in proper career jobs, Seens like only yesterday I was changing their nappies.

Yes, it is quite an achievement (although I still have my older son looking for a job so I am not sure I have even reached that stage yet but at least he lives alone, has his own house and is independent).

A very late reply, yes they bought a house.
What's happening with you all?

Great news.

We are definitely entering a new phase, as DD has offered to host us and her brother for Christmas in her new house. Discussion has started already. Turkey crown or chicken for a small oven? Is she responsible for the Christmas stocking? Luckily she will be on a 9-5 outpatient clinic rotation so gets Christmas week off.

DS has moved into his new University owned flat, unfortunately overlooking the staff nursery, so wfh will be tricky. Luckily he gets an office within the faculty, with his office hours pinned to the door. I am slowly tidying the house, and am making piles of stuff that belongs to them. They will be expected to sort through, and chuck/recycle anything they don't want, and then I have found a website where vans already going where they live will pick up part loads. That said DS seems to think that his childhood bedroom remains his London pied de terre. (Which actually I quite like.)

The next task then will be to sort out POAs. Early but after a nightmare with my mother, early seems better than late.

Great news.

We are definitely entering a new phase, as DD has offered to host us and her brother for Christmas in her new house. Discussion has started already. Turkey crown or chicken for a small oven? Is she responsible for the Christmas stocking? Luckily she will be on a 9-5 outpatient clinic rotation so gets Christmas week off.

DS has moved into his new University owned flat, unfortunately overlooking the staff nursery, so wfh will be tricky. Luckily he gets an office within the faculty, with his office hours pinned to the door. I am slowly tidying the house, and am making piles of stuff that belongs to them. They will be expected to sort through, and chuck/recycle anything they don't want, and then I have found a website where vans already going where they live will pick up part loads. That said DS seems to think that his childhood bedroom remains his London pied de terre. (Which actually I quite like.)

The next task then will be to sort out POAs. Early but after a nightmare with my mother, early seems better than late.

No idea why it posted twice 😀

@Needmoresleep, that’s a result! I can’t see DD offering to host us at hers 🤣 But we haven’t had any Christmas discussions yet. I think she’s planning to go to her bf’s family for Thanksgiving, but not sure if she’s talked to him about Christmas yet!

We are still sort of in the student phase as DS is doing his SQE year and living at home!

We've done the POA stuff with my father, as you say it's better late than never.

Christmas sounds like it will be fun with your family. I'm not sure of our plans but last year they did an internship far away from home.

What is the SQE? @bigTillyMint ?

I forget to say, that's my current uni student. My other one is doing their masters at the moment, they're on their last year now.

It’s the professional qualifications to become a solicitor - Solicitors Qualifying Exams I think - replacing LPQ previously. Bloody hard 🤣

DS2 had a weeks induction into his new grad scheme last week , 90 of them in a hotel for 3 days.

i sent instructions- do not get drunk & do not sleep with anyone! ( there is always one in each intake that is talked about for the next 10 years!)😁

he did say that they company told them they had 20k applicants for the 90 grad places which is an astonishing number.

My goodness, that's more competitive than Oxbridge applications/places.

Good luck to him. He's done so well.

My view is things are now more competitive than ever at graduation stage because we have a lot of people competing, more people going to university in the first place and quite a lot of competition from brilliant students from abroad for jobs like London law firm training contracts.

Good luck with the SQE (solicitors qualifying examination) to the *Tillymint" child. We know people who just started that course now too. However my twins were under the previous similar such course - the LPC (legal practice course). Both are the post raduate exams on the way to qualifying as a solicitor.

The various doctor children on the thread seem to be doing well including hosting a parent for the meal. My oldest has hosted us for Easter but is quite a bit older and married with children so not quite the same thing as hosting parents in first house, but lovely all the same.

My oldest son has found another job locally to him in Oxfordshire which seems to be going fine so far - in a warehouse - he seems very keen on this kind of job - postman 4 years, delivery driver 4.5 years. This is fine ( I type through gritted teeth) - he is stable, happy , obviously not in the kind of job I think his degree suggests he might have had, but these are his choices. His brothers and I had a nice visit to him just after he started the job 2 weeks ago and for the first time of 10 years of full time work he has no weekend shifts and works in normal hours - so no getting up at 5am or finishing a shift at 1am. I do think that is a huge improvement just in terms of having a normal life, not having to worry if a family Christmas event clashes with a shift etc. He works mornings but that should be enough to cover his very modest expenses for now and perhaps it will give him time to do something more interesting in some afternoons or start a business. I live in hope.

One of the twins this week signed a permanent contract too - in0house solicitor. He was already there on a maternity cover (in London) but they seem to like him enough to have made a new role for him and with more varied legal work. So I am very pleased (his twin already has a permanent in house solicitor job in London - working from home all but 1 day a week and his brother all but 2 days a week). So they are both home an awful lot. Work has changed hugely since I started in 1983.

Meanwhile the very cute 4th grandchild was here with his mother last week and remains extremely lovely. It is so nice to cuddle a baby again and very easy that they bought a house near me.

I did ask a colleague who looks after apprentices & degree apprentices where I work.

Last year they got 2800 applications in 2 days for 50 places. They closed applications after 2 days as they cant review that volume of applications.

Lots on MM say do an apprenticeship instead of Uni but not easy to get as they are so competitive.

On POA, we were thinking of doing ours. They don't start working until someone has lost capacity but need to be done whilst there is still capacity. It is a nightmare if you don't have one, and sadly, I am reaching the age where people, albeit not so many, are having heart attacks or needing emergency cancer surgery. So DH first and then DC as reserves.

DD had to cook Christmas lunch for 20 during her ski season. She is the practical one. DS tried when we visited him in the US and it was very funny. His sister had to step in and rescue him.

The number of applications is astonishing. Well done Eve DS2. I thought my DS was over the top when making 250 applications last year.

My understanding is that it is equally tough for junior doctors where there is apparently only one place for specialist training for every four applicants. (Including GP - the specialisation DD wants to go into is far worse.) I also understand that applications are allowed from overseas doctors, so DD is supposed to study whilst working long hours and difficult, busy, shifts in order to compete with the very best from the rest of the world. (Also though allocation to deaneries is now random, the contractual conditions where she is are significantly worse that in some other places. Indeed some don't expect F1/F2s to work nights whereas she will have nights in five out of six placements so she is at a real disadvantage when it comes to finding time to prepare for exams.) DS is also far more likely to find the public sector he wants in the US. I face neither being able to stay in the UK.

I suppose at least with law as it is so specific (even Scottish law is vastly different) it is more likely to they will stay in England in my case and similarly as to my career. My father's brother left the UK in 1970 for a lovely life as a doctor in Tasmania where he and his wife died, with a house in town and "shack" with land and animals in the country although in his case he quite wanted to return but English house prices had shot up so much by the 1980s they could not afford to do so. His wife had a nephew who was a doctor too and worked in the Solomon Islands or some big island near Tasmania and married a lady out there, where my mother rather hoped my father would emigrate to to practise medicine.

It is a complex issue but we have 18m more people in the UK than when I was born here and record immigration 1.2m (about 640k net) so although that includes lots of students and also NHS workers it does mean there is a lot more competition for admittedly more jobs but probably not quite so many more jobs as there were when we had fewer people. At least the UK is really really popular so we must be doing something right.

As is no secret on here, 3 of my 4 lawyer children were my trainee solicitor in my one person firm as I was just not prepared to fund their law courses and then wait potentially indefinitely for them to find a training place elsewhere (although would have been delighted had they managed it), So it was find a training place with someone else in time or else you are saddled with your mother's firm for 2 years.

They don't start working until someone has lost capacity but need to be done whilst there is still capacity.

I thought they can 'start working' whenever the person needs it to - definitely not just when they've lost mental capacity. We got ours sorted out some years ago, as with wills better sooner than too late.

Errol, you are probably right. What I meant is that you are not giving away authority until either you choose to or you are not in a position to choose. The paperwork just sits there until needed. Though I wanted to wait till DC were independent adults first.

Having dealt with the Office of Public Guardian, possibly the least efficient public body ever, better very early than too late.

DH and I set up a pair with the other as POA and DD as the reserve - I think we did it when she was 18. The thought process was that it was very unlikely to be needed any time soon but should something unthinkable happen it'd be worse to be a young adult without the POA than with one.

I was called in (not as their solicitor) for elderly neighbours on both sides in the last 2 years for their two powers of attorney and a will. I think in one case I just witnessed it all and the other as I had known the lady for over 25 years as the person who goes on the form to say they know her or something along those lines - both of them also had their own solicitors drawing up the powers of attorney for money and health. There are certainly a lot of pages to them these days. It is always a good idea to plan for the future.

I even got my first will aged 18 when I was a law student. Just as important in my view is to make sure people know what you have done and where to find everything. My father always sent us copies and told us where things were kept, I have done the same with my will etc. I also got all 3 sons to do a will when they started buying a first property - I think we did all 3 boys on the same day. Obviously they can change the wills later if they get married in due course.

I remember my father asking one of his brothers to care for us were our parents to die and then the brother went off to work/live in Tasmania with his wife forever although I am sure had the need arisen he would have stepped up and may be we would have moved out there and had a very different life.

Big news DS2 ( one of my twins) has just been offered a transfer to a Sydney with his job . DS1 is in Melbourne since last month working as a doctor in A&E.

I'm really hoping mine don't end up in Aus but congratulations if that's where they want to be. Dd1 is on her second year of GDT, and planning on doing GDT3 amd orthodontics.

What are the grad schemes? D

Congratulations to your DS2 @Carriemac! How do you feel about it?

My uncle (a doctor like my father) emigrated to Tasmania in about 1970s with his wife and had a lovely life out there. Good luck to all the young doctors moving there. My doctor sibling did a stint in Australia - I think it was one of those 6 month things doctors in training do - cannot remember the name of them.