Thread 40 - Corona Cohort , Falling into Autumn 🍂

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and support to be had !

@ealingwestmum i have dh on find my friends. It never seems that accurate. I find it doesn't work a lot of the time, says location unavailable. I always joke about it and say he's turned it off so I can't see him.

@Seeline ds1 didn't used to read the WhatsApp messages in the app. I think he can see them pop up on his home screen. So when he was at university it would show as unread and tell me last seen a week ago. So I'd panic that he hadn't been on WhatsApp. Ds2 refuses to have WhatsApp. It's for old people, apparently.

We had findmyiphone for the whole family but DS1 came off a couple of years ago and DS (the one off to uni) got a new phone a couple of weeks ago and came off it then. I would have liked him to still have it for the first few weeks of uni but 🤷‍♀️

We don't have any tracking in our house, for me it would do more harm than good and I would hate to be tracked myself.

Sorry you've had bad news @Zebracat.
Gosh I have no tracker on any of my family's phones. I think it would worry me if anything, rather than reassure.
I am trying to resist the urge to micromanage Ds from afar ... difficult as by & large he's not answering my messages. I just hope he hasn't lost his passport yet.
Love the Nottingham Turquoise curtains & good luck to the weekend movers.

DS turned the tracking stuff off his phone about two years ago. When he was driving here I could track him with his black box but he doesn't have his car up in Notts so I'm in blissful ignorance about where he is or isn't spending the night... 😬

I've just been speaking to DS on the phone, he got in at 3am after a good night out. He has found the bus stops is up and out exploring the city centre now.

That's good news @JustHereWithMyPopcorn . I keep reminding dd there's a city centre with shops.. so she doesn't have to buy absolutely everything she could possibly need before she goes. She's not listening though. We need to go out again tonight for a hot water bottle, some Primark socks and various other 'essentials'.

Thanks @Zebracat , great idea, but you're right, any outfit will probably also need to look good! I'm sorry to hear you've had bad news. Hope your girl is having a really good time and feeling settled, so that when you have to tell her it doesn't upset her too much.

I've barely looked at the 'find my iphone app' since we moved as ds has nowhere to go/no way of getting there out here! I'm waiting for it to hit him and for him to start moaning about it. He could get a bus to the nearest large town and get his old friends to meet him there, but it will cost....

Totally get the aversion to tracking. We’ve learned the hard way in london where phone theft is rife, especially the targeting of young people so tracking has been to aid swift recovery as well people, the latter only in emergency!

I know what you mean omnishambles. I used to turn mine off when out just to see if DH could resist asking me where I’d been. Have a little of Ican’s DS2 in me at times :)

We all have Find my Iphone but strictly for emergencies / have they left work yet (Dh works very variable hours and rarely lets me know) / lost phone purposes. I do very occasionally get tempted to track a bit more and remind myself that it’s effectively the same as eavesdropping and you might find out something you’d rather not know. We have it on Ipads too and I got myself into a panic on DS’s first day last week, when you open the app there is a map with all the devices and you zoom in on the one you want. I opened it and it was showing DS’s ipad as being in Suffolk not the Cotswolds (we live in Hampshire). Panicked a bit in case he’d left his door open and it had been stolen but told myself it was probably an IP address glitch with the uni wifi. Texted him and said could he call when he got back to his room and asked him to get his ipad out to check if he had an app on a pretext. He did and then I knew the ipad was safe. This sort of thing is why I try to use it as little as possible. I’m happy to have it myself on the same basis.

I don't even know how to track a phone tbh.

The most functional aspect of DD’s halls ‘flat’ of 5 so far, is the use of kitchen cupboard units that double up as whiteboards for the room mates to send messages to each other, including communal food ‘eat me’ type msgs.

They even have a yellow and red card list, of people who have fouled a Housemate, with internally agreed rules of name and shame. Sounds fierce as I’m writing this, but apparently the don’t mess with us attitude has served the group well, and I have to respect the girl power in action!

I don't think either of my DC would agree to tracking, unless they were off travelling by themselves or something. In our wider family whatsapp group we sometimes share location when we are all converging on somewhere but that's it. For me it would add a layer of worry I think, as others have described.

My 2 always refused to be tracked except when they first started driving long distances, they will both share location on WhatsApp in that situation.

DS was very excited today because his boss will not be at the hospital so he will be running the lung function tests for the clinic by himself! I think it has gone a long way to reconciling him to all his best friends going away. He may see some of you tomorrow in Nottingham as he is helping GF to move into Broadgate Park.

Important update of the day: DS has been on a tram 😂

@singingstones congratulations to your DS using a tram - I got very confused driving along the tram tracks yesterday 😵‍💫

Such good experience for him @Monkey2001 !

I'll have to remind dd about the trams. She hates buses as she never knows where to get off, so she'll always use the train if possible in Birmingham. But trams also have proper stops like trains don't they?

Ooh exciting tram use! I really want to go on one! @singingstones

@mummyinbeds😱 DH got fined for driving on the tram lines when the went for the original open day.

I've lost 2 posts I've drafted as crashed this morning and Wednesday night. I was going to post how zen I was feeling the night before as had decided to stay out of it, not nag DD at all even though she hadn't packed yet etc.. I had told DD that I wasn't going to nag her at all and that we were going to have a lovely dropp off etc, she laughed and agreed that would be much nicer. So I left her to it, didn't moan when she went out with her boyfriendnotboyfriend until 3.00am. I didn't moan when she was in bed yesterday morning when I left for the train.. I didn't moan at all, I didn't shout and I didnt even say I told you so. BUT it was hard.. Basically despite me buying her a new iphone 3 weeks ago, she left it until the night before to sort it out - and it didn't transfer in time. She didn't want us to leave us at uni without the use of her phone, only had wifi access. So instead of helping her unpack, sort out the room, walk acround campus with her I was stuck trying to sort out her mobile from approx 2.30 - 5.30pm. I won't go into all the tech details but basically despite us thinking it was a massive problem as the phone wasn't showing on my sky account at all, we just needed to remove the sim card and put it in again and it flippin worked! DH politely explained that things often don't work first time which is why we don't leave them to the night before. She also hadn't activated her new debit card, or added the bank app toher phone and hadn't thought to bring details with her. Oh and this you will like - she had forgotten to get backpack so DH took her out shopping whilst I was on the phone with Sky helpdesk..

The worse part of all this was this meants at at 6.00pm when we did walk around her hall abit, the common room was heaving and she didnt' want to walk in on her own.She tried to join the Halls snap chat group but she left it so late it was full up - this has now been sorted thanks to @crazycrofter DDs. DD went back to her room, politely asked us to leave so she could finish sorting out her room and said she would go to the common room at some point. She went at midnight and it was empty..

Thankfully she went down to breakfast and met someone to chat too, then took herself off for a walk and smiled and said hi to 2 other girls who stopped and chatted to her, gave her their snapchat details and they said they would arrange to go to the gym sometime, they were from a different hall, but any contact is good. I faced timed her at lunch time and she agreed that she would go into the commonroom by 3.00pm and have a restart day today whilst others are still arriving. She text me a question earlier but when I tried to call her to reply she said she was out and she would reply whenback so Im guessing she went into the commonroom and is chatting so all good. I have been a mixed bag of emotions, but none of them sad tbh, Just extremely frustrated with DD, but also worried she was going to hide away because things didn't go smoothly to start with. To be fair I should have had more faith in her that although she does find it hard she can push herself and once the ice broken she is fine. She mentioned that she thought it would have been easier in flats rather than halls but I don't think so long term, she will have far more people to become friends with, but it's just that start is harder.

Re room - we thought it was fine, she has an ensuite room which was decent. Not the biggest room I've seen but certainly not the smallest either. The waldrobe though, no way enough storage for DD! Same shade of curtains :-)

You leave your DD’s room looking neat but a bit bare and then her 2 older cousins (both v arty) visit midweek and take her to Home Bargains…

Grrr. Birmingham doesn't take post in so my plan to send DS hi retainers has failed. The bloody postman didn't put them through the door, even though there was plenty of room to do this. They have now gone back to the delivery office so DS will have to make his way there tomorrow. It's apparently a 25 minute walk.

Annoying.

Re tracking. DD has Findmyphone enabled but I'm only to use it if really needed ideally.

It looks like those that went a week ago have now settled in well and any teething issued sorted. Sorry if that isnt the case for everyone, I'm trying to back track and read all the posts I've missed.

Well done for the tram use, that will take DD days to get to, she is still walking around the campus, said she went for a walk on her own to the Biology building but couldn't find the entrance so decided to go back another day. She has a full on week from Monday with the Welcome week so I know she will like to make sure she knows where she will need to be. She has 2 days to get herself sorted.

I forgot my hair appt today, I was busy trying to help DD and completely forgot about it - felt dreadful, will make sure I compensate hairdresser for lost £, made another appt for next week..

I am giving myself the day off today housework and sorting out wise. Just going to watch some tele. DH is working all weekend so will get plenty of time to myself to start planning my next phase (well I may start planning on Monday) ;-)

Come 1st Oct - I want to start the new/old me.. Loose weight, become more active, more social again (have already started that),declutter declutter declutter the house, more housework done, find old cookbooks of food both DH and I love, and start on our business accounts and tax info once more. Plenty to keep myself occupied.

Hope everyone else is ok, getting used to things, and good luck to the late drop offs

The rooms all look great and big. Here is ds's room. It's very small. The shelves are fairly bare because he didn't want to take anything else. I surprised him with a photo of the dogs, so that is on the shelf. I am standing by the wardrobe to take the photo. The double wardrobe is of good size though. Ds is in all the photos, so I've turned him grey, hopefully you can't see him through.

@Piggywaspushed that is very annoying! What will they do when they receive parcels then? Surely they can have a central point?
@KingscoteStaff that looks like DD1’s room. DD2 has various fairly lights around. I forgot to take a photo. I’ve asked DD to call me as not spoke since Wednesday and obviously BF is with her so gawd knows when that will happen. I was so upset for her but DH and I are all talked out. What will be, will be. It’s her life and we are here to support the choices she makes. That’s what I’m telling myself because that’s what DH tells me when I get upset. I am so pleased to hear all of your DC settling in and having the more usual start. Just wanted that so much for ours. She’s a lovely, kind, fun and loyal girl. Just a bit shy.

*spoken

Oh @Heifer what a pain about the phone. You never know which way its going to go, I have just transferred my mum to a new one and it was easy peasy as she had virtually nothing on it but I am dreading trying to do my own which could do with replacing as it is Very Full Indeed.

For anyone’s DC struggling with buses, trams etc in the big cities, I highly recommend the CityMapper app, I bus all over the place in London with it now instead of just using the tube, it is far better than our local bus app and covers most of the main cities (including Nottingham, I just checked).

This is DS’s room, it has a great view but standard dingy curtains