Thread 52 - Covid GCSE Cohort - Autumn 24 - Start of Uni Yr 3

[Oblomov24]

2024 Autumn, start of year 3 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.

51 Previous thread - 51.

Lovely to catch up. Ours has been here for an early fake Christmas and all the trimmings, 5 full on days which included her finishing a group project with 1 of the 3 doing absolutely nothing, a haircut, an antique shop hunt for Bambi, a dash back to Birmingham for her forgotten passport, a requisitioned inhaler to replace the one she assured me twice, quite tetchily that she had , before flying off to her wonderful boyfriend for Christmas. Lovely to see her, but it’s much more peaceful when she leaves. I worry about her so much, her allergies were quite bad , and I asked her 1 day if they were affecting her eyes, which were red. She told me that I was very rude, and it was makeup. I didn’t mean to be rude, is red eyeshadow a thing?

How lovely @Delphigirl, your party sounds like just the tonic to break up the more sombre responsibilities associated with our elders. Enjoy!

And to you all, however you celebrate the holiday season…enjoy 🎄

That sounds fab @Delphigirl - enjoy! Glad to hear of young people back home and happy times - as well as slightly stressful ones! @Zebracat I haven't heard of red eyeshadow either! Sounds like she's doing well though, on the whole and it's great that the boyfriend is lovely?

Dd has been bombarding me with her plans; as well as friends, study and two jobs, she's now trying to fit in visits to her boyfriend's family - which is two homes in different locations, a few hours apart (and 3 hours plus from here!) - Mum and stepdad/ Dad and stepmum and various step siblings. It was quite sweet - they're going to be with his mum for NYE and ds will also be on his way to NZ so we'll be alone. I said it's fine, we'll go over to dh's family as usual, but she was very concerned whether I'd be ok with his family, without her and ds to keep me company! I reminded her that I did this for several years before she was born!

Photodad I too think your dd's dissertation sounds very interesting indeed. I too miss the illustration, drawings, pictures.

My favourite childhood book was Lord of the Rushie River.

Good luck for party Delphi. Love a good party me.

I remember an illustrated Austen, and the Pickwick papers. They seem like the refinements of a bygone age, although at leat women get to keep their own money now. @crazycrofter she is doing really well, and th boyfriend is so lovely, and his family are very welcoming which is important because they are all in Denmark and he lives at home. She is a sweetheart.

@Delphigirl Sounds a big event when a marquee is involved! Is it a special celebration? We've just come in from dinner to celebrate my parents diamond anniversary. Quite an achievement!

@Zebracat Glad you've had a lovely few days.

@PhotoDad Your DD's dissertation appeals to many of us. My favourite as a child was this edition amazing illustrations

Lovely to hear about all the homecomings and parties .

DS comes home tomorrow and DD breaks up from college too. In less good news though, my DMum fell and broke her hip yesterday, however she is in very good physical health and I think will make a good recovery (had surgery today, the NHS has performed superbly for her so far). She might not be home for Christmas and DF will need a bit of support at home too. It is turning into a December ritual here, driving up and down after work (about 45 mins cross country) to see one or other of them in hospital it was DF's turn last year, at least I know where to park, where everything is there etc. We think we can work round existing festive plans fairly well so that's something.

We just haven’t had a big party for ages so decided we would skip Christmas presents and throw a whopper instead. Around 100 I think, although the young ‘uns are crap at rsvp-ing. half our age, half 18-30. Should be fun!

Really sorry to hear about your mum @EternallyDelighted . Aurgh. Glad she is doing well though.

@EternallyDelighted sorry to hear about your mum. Hope she makes an excellent recovery.

Party sounds amazing!

Not been on here for ages. Sorry to hear about people's misfortunes
DD is home from Austria and DS breaks up from college today, so hopefully it will help me start feeling Christmassy!

Thanks all re mum, I think she will make a good recovery, she picked herself up and walked home on it after falling and is mainly concerned about getting back to her exercise and dance classes, all of which have stood her in good stead. However she is showing early signs of dementia, so that is going to be a concern. But we already knew that.

@EwwSprouts I had that book as well and loved it, that's the one that sprang to mind when I read @PhotoDad's post! I wonder if I still have my copy somewhere.

Happy holidays to all - we have DS back from Notts, his girlfriend is here too for a few days and is clearly coming down with the winter lurgy that has affected so many. I'm very sorry for her and desperately hoping she's not leaving the infection behind for all of us for Christmas!

Final DD will be home Monday and I'm looking forward to a family (hopefully germ-free) Christmas.

Lovely to hear stories of Christmas returns! Sorry to hear about your mum @EternallyDelighted .
Collected DD on Wednesday - managed to miss a 3 HR closure on the M25 both ways!
She is trying to get one of her essays completed before Christmas, and afterwards hopes to get some volunteering sessions in at the 'local' National Trust place. I say local - it's about 20 miles over narrow country lanes or via the M25 - neither of which she has any experience of driving, and I'm not sure dark winter weather is the best time for trying them out. I suspect I'll end up driving her and spending a lot of time in the café!
She wants to end up doing some form of gallery/museum/conservation/archiving work after uni which seems to be very hard to get into without experience - which virtually always means voluntary rather than paid. Ultimately I think she'd like to do a Masters of some sort, but will need to save up for a bit - most seem to be 2 year courses - ££££! I'm happy to support her volunteering at this stage rather than getting paid work during the holidays if necessary.

@Seeline Good luck to her! My DD has conservation/museum work as her Plan B if the freelance art doesn't work out. She has singled out Lincoln's two-year programme (Grad Diploma + MA, but loan only available for the second one) and has been volunteering for several months at a museum close to her uni (rather than getting a paid job...) I'd be very happy to compare notes at any point!

@Seeline DS thought he would like to go into that sort of conservation at one point although now he’s more keen on the outdoor type he is still very interested in working for a heritage organisation. He has volunteered over several years with our local museum service and a local private museum, we are off to the light trail at that one this weekend.

DD has had her first uni offer (UCAS went in a couple of days ago), she is chuffed to bits as it’s very achievable.

Well done to dd @EternallyDelighted - where's the offer from?

Ds has amazingly submitted his form to his old school, but they're sitting on it. He's put three choices so far - does anyone know how you go about adding the others, once it's gone to UCAS? He's found Economics and Politics at Surrey and is keen on that as they're high up in the league tables and he thinks a BSc would be better than a BA. Half his personal statement is about Philosophy though as his three choices so far are for PPE.

I'm worried Surrey accommodation will be very expensive in the later years!

@crazycrofter Surrey is my old Uni! DS has also applied there.... There didn't seem to be the mad rush for accommodation when I was there but not sure how much it has changed (was a while ago!)

There was someone on here with a Surrey student I think.

DD’s offer is Lincoln @crazycrofter , she really liked it there.

I thought Lincoln was a lovely city - never been there until last year.
I can feel A level stress starting to build in le house. DS is putting a lot of pressure on himself to get very high grades

I’d never been to Lincoln till we went for the open day, we had a lovely weekend up there. It is going to be tricky if DD wants to go to any offer holder days now though because she works Saturday and Sunday and that’s contracted hours not casual, she does get annual leave, but it has to be booked some time ahead.

That’s great news @EternallyDelighted ! I’ve not been to Lincoln - it’s on my bucket list of UK cities to visit!

Lincoln's a lovely city! (My DD has pointed out that whenever any Brit mentions anywhere the standard reply is, "oh, lovely part of the world.")

Home from the Lakes. To find a letter (and cheque) from HMRC which finally sorts out the English side of my late father's financial affairs. I also now have a rather fine certificate from Jersey's "Judicial Greffier" (ie Clerk to the Royal Court) which will allow probate there too. The end of a long drawn-out process is in sight.

We are having more issues here and I need some advice.

DD1 crashed the car. She is fine which is the most important thing. She was a named driver on my car insurance and the car she was driving used to be mine but I got a new one and kept the old one for the girls to learn in. She was listed as the main driver but the insurance was in my name.

Now she wants to buy her own car with her own money and get her own insurance but every time we type in the insurance details for a quote it says denied. I guess no one wants to insure a newish driver who crashed a car. How do I get round this?

We were expecting the price to go up not actually getting declined from everywhere! If she buys the car and it’s in her name, will it be too complicated to do the insurance under my name again?