Thread 42 Corona GCSE Cohort - 👻Creeping it Real for Oct22

[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 advice to be had.

previous thread

Hi all

Just a bit about train strikes in case this affects anyone's DCs. East Midlands' contracted cleaning and engineering company is in a local dispute with Unite. They were on strike last Thursday and Friday and again on the 17th and 18th. There was major disruption across their routes - and in the North, Transpennines' continued daily raft of cancellations due to not training enough drivers (plus a skeleton timetable anyway!) caused havoc.

Caught loads of us/people out in the Manchester - through to Liverpool or Sheffield - Nottingham area!

@icanbewhatiwant Risk and Monopoly are... both really long and tedious games. Playing boardgames is one of my big hobbies (both kids enjoy it too, and my DW will join in with games that last less than 90 minutes). Have you tried any "co-operative games" where the players are a team trying to beat some tricky situation? "Pandemic" is a really great one. (It came out years before our current pandemic!)

During lockdown I ordered four big new boardgames, and now all of them are due to arrive before Christmas (massive production and shipping delays). Looking forward to some family time with those when DD is home.

I love board games. DS plays some reluctantly and DH refuses. DD was my board game partner

@NCTDN Yes, we're holding off on some games until she's back. Two of ones on order are long, co-op, "legacy" games and so we're resigned that she won't be in the team. Luckily I have a few colleagues who sometimes come round. And there are some games with fantastic solo modes, depending on what sort of thing you like? Every bit as enjoyable to me as reading a book or playing a video game or watching a film!

I'm sure you've already tried working on your DS and DH but happy to suggest things. A shame!

Board games are a tricky subject in our house. DS's autism makes it very hard to accept losing. DH and DD can't spell for toffee so anything like scrabble is out. I used to live playing them with friends when I was younger but we've struggled as a family, now everyone keeps picking their phones up and getting distracted.

DS loves monopoly (yawn) but we have got a shorter version which is time limited. We all like Trivial Pursuit and the Game of Life. I quite like Cluedo. We still like a game of Uno or Top Trumps occasionally.

Eternal knicker supply 😂
DD struggles with concentration with a lot of our games but likes Munchkin. DH, DS and I tried Pandemic during lockdown but couldn’t win at it which felt very of the time. We also like Catan and Exploding Kittens.

Games are much better with a group. But it's only ever me and ds2 so I think that limits it. We've just played exploding kittens. That was a good game the first few times times we played it, but I find it boring now. We play scrabble sometimes. I used to play chess with them but it involves too much concentration now, especially now all the dc's can easily beat me. Ds3 doesn't like loosing either, we've had many a board game flung across the room when he's not winning. He can be like that now still. I'm open to suggestions of 2 person games, thanks.

@Volterra Oh no! Takes a while to get the hang of Pandemic. I think it gets the balance mainly right.

@icanbewhatiwant "Port Royal" and "Forbidden Island" are both relatively cheap and relatively quick to play, and are good for two players. "Wingspan" is nice, thoughtful/calm, but it's a bit more pricey and it can feel a bit like you're just doing your own thing and then you see at the end who has done best. (That could be good or bad.)

Most of my boardgaming has been with three or four. We've sometimes had whole-day sessions of some complex six-player ones which were a lot of fun but took a while to organise. And "Gloomhaven" took over our dining room table for roughly two years!

A friend of mine speaks very highly about "Jaws of the Lion" and "Sleeping Gods" which he played two-player with his DW. Those are both ongoing story type games, where you play an episode at a time over many weeks. JotL is a lot more complex than SG though, more like Dungeons and Dragons but without the need for someone running the game.

We love quirkle, good for mathsy people and so pretty! We went for a meal at DS's GF's house and played Balderdash, which we all really liked, but you need at least 4 people.

Great suggestions for shopping for that time of year I don’t want to mention that is approaching, thanks !

And as a five-minute kids-and-adults timefiller, it's very hard to beat the chaos which is Dobble! (If you can sit around a table where everyone can reach the middle.)

@Alsoplayspiccolo Glad you had a good exeat, they are precious!

@Decorhate 😅Can't figure out whether they looked old because we were young then or that they were definitely looking old? I've looked at photos of that generation alongside mine now though and they definitely look aged not just that, but they acted old as well. I distinctly remember going to church with mil and her asking the usher if she could be seated nearer the exit as she was 'elderly', she was about 58 then .

Confident is a good game to play at family gatherings. You can do well even if you don't know the answers. Good to play in pairs if mixed generations.

Does anyone play 'Rich dad, Poor dad'? DH and I went on a course yrs ago we had the intention of hitting it big in the property market. We were all encouraged to buy the board game which DH duly rushed out to get. It's never been unwrapped.

We have a supply of small games to take on holiday - Uno, Dobble and Bananagrams. DD has our new copy of Fluxx after we lost the original one. She can bring it home at xmas and if it’s not been opened I’ll keep it. It’s a good one for people who struggle with strategy (me) or who lose focus between rounds (also me). Plus you only have to learn the most basic rules, and the rest build themselves as you go along, so good if you can’t remember rules to games (um, also me).

@Decorhate Senior interrailing is quite a thing these days! So you may have your opportunity yet.🚂🚄🚉

@DontCallMeBaby the dc's get so annoyed at me checking the rules constantly. I can't remember anything, also ds3 will make rules up in his favour.

We like dobble and also have monopoly deal the card game. That is good fun and doesn’t last too long. Trivial pursuit party is a quick game of that and seems to have fairly easy questions so is accessible. I had to buy it second hand from eBay as I don’t think they make it at the moment.

will look up Confident as @EwwSprouts recommends. It sounds as though it may solve the problem of the one person in our family who lacks confidence in their intelligence and knowledge so therefore gets very grumpy if we play a usual trivial pursuit type game.

Sorry to hear of the DC who have been struggling. So sorry to hear that Bath is not for DS @Volterra but I am pleased it was an easy decision to make and I bet you all feel lighter for it. Good luck with sorting the medication.

DH and I quite fancy ‘grown up’ interrailing one day, which basically means hotels not hostels we think!

@mummyinbeds you might want to head on over to this thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4651067-choosing-alevels-what-to-do-for-law-degree?page=2&reply=120612458

but mind your blood pressure!

@279Nouveauxnoms , it isn’t for him now whilst ill, hopefully will be for next year when he is well 🙂

We've got Dobble and Harry Potter Dobble (which DD always wins). I have bought Marvel Dobble for her Christmas stocking but she'll only be able to play with DH.

I have heard of Dobble but have no idea what it is!

DS used to be obsessed with Ticket To Ride. We just normally play board games at Christmas. DH sulks...

You can definitely play Ticket To Ride with two people ican!

It's a very clever picture recognition game. Each card has about 10 pictures on it. Any pair of cards will have one matching pair but rhey are not necessarily the same size and they are all topsy turvy. Person to shout out the match wins the pair. DS's occupational therapist recommended it for his dyspraxia about 10 years ago.