Thread 51 - Covid GCSE Cohort - Summer 24 - End of Uni Yr 2

[Oblomov24]

2024 Summer, end of year 2 for those at Uni.

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). 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.

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50

We have at least 2 hedgehogs - that’s the most I’ve seen at any one time.

@cantonet I get such pleasure from the Merlin app. It’s also fab to use on holiday and such a delight to see all these strange and exotic birds fill your phone screen

@ewwsprouts definitely mark that! Weekend in a cool city? Rome for culture, food and coffee?

I also like seeing people from this group on other threads but I name change a lot and try not to use the names I use on this group for other things as I have put a lot of potentially identifying info here.

Foxes, foxes, and more urban foxes here. No rubbish vehicle is ever left unturned.

Loving the idea of a cheeky trip away with strangers, not strangers :)

@Delphigirl me too.
We live right next to National Trust hills so we have lots of sheep, foxes, badgers & wild ponies around here but no hedgehogs I've ever seen. Though the local rescue centre is full of them.
It's interesting that hedgehogs sound more prevalent in town gardens.

@EwwSprouts I did 5 Days in Mallorca with my sister's to celebrate my 60th.
We dined at a Michelin star restaurant, did a very boozy wine tasting from 6-10pm which involved drinking lots of it & followed that by a concert that started at 10 after the wine tasting. It was the Luxembourg Phil. and they played beautifully in such an atmospheric setting.
The concert was held in the Pollensa old church cloisters & I was watching the planes like little Pac Man flying high in the sky overhead alongside the Brahms.

That sounds perfect @cantonet!

We have hedgehogs every night (we feed and water them and I am on the list of people who can release rescued ones from our local hedgehog charity once they are fit to go back into the wild so I get to handle them sometimes (with gloves!). Photo is a bit blurry

We have v small garden but are quite near a wood. We generally get hedgehogs every year. Loads of red kites overhead. Would love a baby owl though!

A few hedgehogs in our suburban street, our WhatsApp group is mainly about sightings of them at the moment! We let half of our smallish garden grow wild this year, so lots of bees and a handful of butterflies. Occasional frogs in our little pond. No exotic birds though!

Belated happy birthday to your DS, crazycrofter. DS has a very low key 18th, in contrast to DD's which went on for several days...!

We have spotted a large hedgehog, making his nightly passage through our garden a couple of times this week. We have bifold doors, so we can watch him while watching tv.
We also have a particular magpie (easy to spot, as he has lost his longest tail feathers), who regularly visits the garden to eat the chickens' food and hop up the ladder which is currently propping up the fence.
We also have owls that hoot us to sleep and various bats that fly around the house, as well as a variety of small rodents the cats treat us to....mostly alive!!

look who is having a shouting match in my garden right now

In fact there is also a red kite joining in but Merlin doesn’t recognise red kites

It’s my first ever peregrine falcon from here so VERY exciting!

We get red kites but not as many as a few years ago and I haven't heard one calling for ages, just see them
circling. Since I got Merlin I've been surprised how often we have goldfinches as I rarely see one but getting out the binoculars has confirmed that they like perching on TV aerials.

Unfortunately, at my school, we have had dead and wounded peregrine falcons more than one, who seem to want to zoom into the food room windows. Can you imagine the shock of those inside...

I’m in Oxfordshire and the red kites are numerous and constant here. I see and hear them all day every day. They are also useful if I need to get rid of something dead (eg the dog brings in a squirrel or a bird bangs into a window) - stick it in the middle of the lawn and a red kite will come and get it in about 30s. I once mistakenly put a plate of cooked chicken thighs out to cool for a chicken salad and could only watch as kites swooped down and cleared the plate in seconds!

Am getting that app @Delphigirl !

I took DD on two trips to a red kite feeding station in Wales. It's an incredible conservation story. She got some cracking pictures! She's back in Cambridge at the moment and the thing that made her happiest last week was seeing a water-vole in a local park.

Both taken at Gigrin Farm, which is well worth a trip if you're ever in mid-Wales.

While I'm at it, I haven't shared any of her work recently! This is the house where the protagonists of her current book project live. It's a series of very gently comic stories ("Wind in the Willows" sort of feel).

If anyone wants a laugh at my expense I'm convinced I saved a hedgehog last week. DH came in early evening and said there's a dead hedgehog on the lawn. I went out to have a look and said to it 'are you ok little thing?' and blow me it went 'eek eek eek'! But it didn't ball up any more that it was already so I wondered if it was dehydrated. Put a saucer of water close by and left it but it didn't move. We don't have cat food but I diced some ham finely & added water. Left nearby and that got it up and eating. Scoffed the lot and wandered off towards the field behind us.

We get lots of birds and a fox only recently. To see the gold finch put out a feeder of niger seeds, they love them. I love that a flock of gold finches is called a charm. I think the most exotic bird seen in the garden is a green woodpecker. I wondered why a red ball was bouncing when there was no breeze. (You may laugh at me again)

@Cantonet @Delphigirl Loving the holiday suggestions, thank you. A city break might be the answer. We went to Rome 5 years ago but it's the only Italian city we've visited.

Aww @EwwSprouts . I accidentally kicked a hedgehog last week, I went up to the garden shed after dark and didn’t see it, luckily I kicked rather than trod on it (it was quite a big one). It rolled up tightly into a ball, was still there after 10 minutes, but did go after another half hour, poor thing must have been terrified.

@PhotoDad that is a lovely, old fashioned picture, lots of atmosphere