Thread 41 Corona Cohort - Autumn Adventures of our Adult Children

[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 !

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@crazycrofter We took DD back today. She’s not fully well but much better than she was. Thank you for asking. How is your DD?

That’s good @BlueMarigold , hope she fully recovers, what an awkward time to be so poorly! My dd is fine I think!

Oh a toastie maker- we got one of those in lockdown and the kids went mad with it for a while - cheese/ham/peanut butter/chocolate spread - and then it sat idle for a year. It’s now in our storage unit!

Re heated airees - I was going to get one but don't think I'll bother now.
I have bought a heated gilet. No idea of it will be any good but I figured it was worth a try!

@PhotoDad We went down yesterday but stayed in a hotel outside of the city and didn’t arrive until 6ish last night.
Taxis into Oxford were circa 25 quid each way so we decided to stay put!
The drive into the city this morning was fab and got to her college at 9.15 - managed to see some of it- but I had to leave at 1 and then the journey out was truly horrendous!
Kudos to anyone that does it in a day from our region!

@ProggyMat for future ref the Oxford Park and Ride is pretty good.

Phew!

When I dropped off DD, it was 4 hours there and 5.5 back (thanks to road closures). In a day. Not our plan, but my DW had come down with Covid and I could only get one day off work! About 30% of the driving was through storms.

I don't ever want to do that again. Fingers crossed.

@NCTDN I sing in a choir which rehearses in a very cold church. Heated gilets are almost uniform! I'm very tempted 😁

@Monkey2001 I also know that the Cambridge P&R is good... but not when unloading a car full of stuff.

We're going to see DD at half-term and won't even attempt to drive into the centre.

@PhotoDad I meant as an alternative to a £25 taxi, not for drop off!

@EerilyDevilled we did biological science visits in 2021 - if we can help just shout - covered Sheffield, Nottingham, Exeter both campuses, Loughborough, Leeds, York, Durham, Lancaster, Leicester, Birmingham. In person visits ....

Southampton online ....

Also did Oxford for Human Sciences .....

@Monkey2001 Oh! Of course, sorry, got you.

Last time we were in Oxford, we stayed in a hotel which was slightly too far for a comfortable walk, but also far enough inside the ring-road to make it a faff to go back out to one of the Park and Rides. As I remember, we caught a bus, but still relied on an expensive taxi to get back in the evening (it was late and the buses were infrequent). Heigh ho.

When we looked at Oxford Brookes we parked on their main campus and then walked into the city, via the health campus. It took a long time, especially on the way back and it was tipping down with rain! Dd declared she hated the uni and the city!

@Seeline I'll keep you posted!

We learned the hard way that cars are not favourable in Bristol city centre. After leaving dd we headed in. Took sooooooo long to get there. Followed signs to a car park - the barrier was too low for our car. Next car park - the same. Third time lucky - found a car park but had no idea how far out of the city we were by that point! Then it took ages to leave the city centre later on!

DS has also talked about the weird burning plastic smell of his brand new toastie maker. Apparently they have three between nine of them though so I think he’ll just use someone else’s. I said sometimes they just need to be heated a few times to get rid of the smell but he didn’t seem to want to try that.

Got a pic of his dinner today th n an unexpected phone call from him and his gf. Lovely surprise conversation 😊😊

He is usually of the two word text type like so many others so particularly nice.

@ProggyMat We got home at about 9.15, after leaving about 7.30 this morning. Completely exhausted and emotionally wrung out! Journey down was fine . Got into Oxford city centre about 12.30 but then hit awful traffic and took a wrong turn which set us back another half an hour. Anyway, got him in. He has a big room, own sink and fridge and shares a shower and loo with three other rooms. We didn’t see any kitchen facilities but he’s not bothered at the minute and to be honest I’m happy for him to eat in hall as I know he’ll be having decent meals!
He walked us back to the car which we discovered had been reversed into by someone else. They left their details and the damage wasn’t too bad so we tried not to stress too much! Saying goodbye was hard though. I felt so sad seeing him walk away from the car by himself and I may have shed a tear or two (or twenty.) Just had a text from him saying that he’s met another Geordie who loves the same bars in town that my son goes too. They’ve also palled up with another lad and the three of them are heading out soon. So I feel better knowing he’s met a few people.
This letting go is hard isn’t it??😢

Sorry @BlueMarigold i hadn’t realised she’d been unwell - such a worry but hope she’s better now

Thanks @Fruitygal

@NCTDN Bristol is fine if you avoid the actual city centre. Fairly easy to park around cathedral, then everything walkable. There is a carpark which has an open section which might be best if you have a tall vehicle - College Street Car Park Bristol BS1 5UU. Street parking free near the centre on Sundays (Hotwells Rd if coming from Clifton), you can walk to harbourside. Feel free to ask if you want tips another time.

It”s hard to keep up with this thread! Glad that they are all now installed. DS is pretty quiet but is responding to messages and has sent a spontaneous one to me and DH separately.

Hoping to meet both DC for Sunday lunch In Bristol in a few weeks if we can work out somewhere to meet . I’m loving the new house and so pleased we moved, lovely catching up with family and friends we haven’t seen for years which distracts nicely from an empty house .

@Monkey2001 thanks x

@Zebracat Re your last line - you would think not but I had to help out someone at the weekend whose wife absented herself as the refugees they are hosting arrived…

@BlueMarigold sorry to hear your DD had been ill, glad she is feeling well enough to go back now and hope she isn't stressed about missed work, sounds like coming home was the best approach. Much better to get better etc.

Had a nice weekend with DH. DD apparently slept until 4.00pm yesterday. She went out with different friends Saturday night (found people from the Wirral) and I think got in around 6.00am. She decided that she hadn't had a lie in the whole time she had been there so went for it.

Still no proper timetable on her App, but they did send them another way to access it. Thankfully DD did ask for help around 11.00pm last night and discovered that Mum can find things miles away as well as at home ;-) She was very grateful that I found it and she knows where to go this week. Heavy timetable though. Week 3 (this week) is 23 hrs contact time, then varies each week between 18-22 hrs for the next 5 weeks. She has three 9.00am starts on some weeks and Friday finishes at 6.00pm which isn't great.

I've decided I'm going to buy the lakeland airer with the cover and put it in DDs room.

I've heard good things about the heated gillets (can't remember who mentioned those).

Good luck today to those starting their courses, I suspect DD is going to be shattered with 7 hrs of contact time, in various buildings today. This is where her dyslexia will tire her out. Hopefully it will get easier once she works out which IT package helps her. I suspect she hasn't tried any of it yet so will be a steep learning curve.

Re food at Nottingham - DD said it was fine, only had 1 really bad meal (first day raw pasta) yesterdays Sunday roast was better than lasts week too so all good there.

On the laundry front - she has no plans to spend her money on laundry apparently. I pointed out that technically it was our money and that is why she had a certain amount to cover that! She plans to bring it all home in a few weeks plus is doing some washing in her sink.. @crazycrofter we need to get them together to get laundry sorted! :-)

@Piggywaspushed Hope the toaster comes good for DS. Did he go clubbing the other night in the end? will he go again? :-)

@KingscoteStaff congrats on the hockey teams, I would have suggested uni rather than medics just to expand social scene, but can she play for 1 team Bucs and another team Sat league?

@Heifer - that's the problem, Medics 1 and Uni 4 are in the same league. She will play BUCS cricket and may possibly squeak into the 4th BUCS riding team as well. She is very organised (Granny's genes, not mine...) and has been warned that once you get into 2nd/3rd year Med there is very little time for 'extras', so she wants to give stuff a good go this year!

Actually, I'm most proud of her for signing up to do backstage crew/follow spot for the Musical Theatre Soc!!

@KingscoteStaff I realised they were in the same league but didn't know she was going to play other sports too :-) I thought she could play for Medics on Wednesday Bucs league and Uni Saturday league (or visa versa). In that case I would go definitely go with the Uni team as more likely to be progression up the teams to higher leagues as they will have more teams. My DD would love that problem - trying to find out what hockey is available to her at the moment.