GCSEs 2018 (16) - The Final Countdown

[mmzz]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3304925-gcses-2018-15-the-reckoning?

chicken have you tried an AeroPress? Much less messy than a cafetière, almost made for bedrooms
My friend used to have to go to her in laws for Xmas dinner every year, along with her SIL's family etc. She hates Xmas pud so MIL bought her a Viennetta EVERY YEAR, which she didn't eat and would get produced again and again throughout the year whenever they went round She only got out of inlaw Xmas dinner by having her own children!

Wait... having children gets you out of Christmas lunch??

Finally got to the pub with my DB & sneaked back 8nto the house with a travel mug containing Tarquins Rhubarb & raspberry gin with light Fever Tree tonic. The landlord thought it was inspired and very helpfully put in th ice up to the lid. Can confirm that a 12oz glass Keep Cup is the perfect size and it actually looks as though it contains summer fruit squash.

I find the coffee issue is best resolved by taki g the afore mentioned Keep Cup (with all hi t's of gin drained from it) to the nearest branch of Costa. It kills 2 birds with 1 stone by removing you from the senior generation at the same time. If DD was here with me, she would have been an absolute Angel and played board games with mum & dad all evening. She loves the Scrabble challenge of inserting the rudest word she can make which they won't identify as actually being rude.

After "The Final Countdown" last week, I'm going to invite Astronotus to join us in a thread rendition of Terf's Waiting for a girl like you.

Yes, yes, yes. We've avoided all family for Christmas for years, because my parents refuse to travel 200 miles to us and therefore understand they can't force us to do the same. DM can't cope with me trespasing in her kitchen and it gets very terratorial. We did relent last year and did a Premier Inn near the in laws due to their health issues, but it was too traumatic to face doo g it again in the foreseeable future. I don't believe I'm discussing Christmas when the world could feasibly end on Thursday.

Just wanted to say hello to Petal and Astro

Have enjoyed a g&t from a glass this evening but have been thinking of all the places where a g&t in a coffee cup/water bottle would dull the boredom or just smooth things a bit...

Sost I like your idea of consoling for 2nd choice of 6th form with chance of a contextual offer for Oxbridge. That's not on the agenda here though. Would your dgd be hoping to do a Geography degree?

I keep waiting to feel better as super exhausted after gcses, degree finals and 2 DC getting new jobs as well (can you proof read application? Can we do practice interview?) Then I remember that it is so not over until Thursday and I resign myself to continuing to feel strange.

DD applied for a job at M&S. Lots of online questions about personality and situational judgement stuff for Saturday job. It said be honest and DD insisted on saying she wasn't great at finishing things.

She didn't get an interview

I should name change a bit. This thread reads like a family blog

Peggy I'm exhausted thinking about your brood.

I must remember to log out on my desktop in case DH ever has nothing better to do and explores my witterings.

Petal I can't remember if you're a name changer or delurker. Apologies if we are rather innocent/snowflake like compared to the grown up thread, but hopefully we're good value for money.

I've spent the evening at a rather tame 50th birthday party where I had to drive so survived on a very small gin and a very large bottle of fever tree aromatic tonic.

I have been drawn in to the latest 'what the fuck have they done to chocolate?' thread and have found myself spending £20 on an online chocolate shop run by the many times great grand son of the Cadbury founder. I hope it's nice.

There are some advantages to being divorced, no in-laws, and having no parents left. My brother and SIL (damn, an in-law) are visiting on Monday, which is nice but means I've been forced to do housework.

Child of 50th birthday friend is also Y11 and a few other guests also have DC from that year so no escape from GCSE result talk tonight. Mostly about whether we should lurk or go with them to pick up results and A level choices. Firmly avoiding potential grades. Finding out offers to the sixth form have varied quite a lot to externals depending on what subjects they've chosen. Less popular subjects seem to have lower offers to help boost class sizes.

Anyway, off to bed now, dreaming of Love Cocoa chocolate.

The only exam talk that we had yesterday was when I asked MIL if she's heard whether another of her grandchildren got the grades needed last Thursday for the university course she wants? MIL hadn't (heard nor shown enough interest to phone and ask) but was adamant that "she didn't need anything". That seems a bit unlikely because the GCSE results were all Bs, CS and Ds and it's an RG uni (I think).
With nothing else to do, I've been trying to puzzle this one out. Maybe DH's DN did some other qualifications in sixth form that are continually assessed and could result in an unconditional offer? Or the results came out a few weeks ago? Maybe she just persuaded the admission interviewer into an unconditional offer with her passion? Or MIL has just misunderstood?

Does anyone know why you'd get an unconditional offer when you've only got GCSEs?

Montezuma's American Idol truffles....now maybe these results call for treat (not for her, obviously)

I think I've maybe worked out the DN unconditional offer confusion. MIL keeps saying that she's going to . DH and I thought that meant the well known RG university with the same name. I looked it up and the university doesn't even run courses that are in DN's particular area of interest.

However, I just asked google maps for universities in the area and there is another university in the same town, and that does run a series of courses that are in DN's area of interest (and are currently advertising places in clearing).

The obvious thing would be to show an interest and just ask, and then send a congratulations card but that is against the unwritten rules in DH's family.

mmmz and would it get any brownie points for being nice? My in laws seem to actively reject kind thoughts or consideration, it's like I've posted them some dog poo if I should message DH's cousin to see how he is (split up from wife and kids, living at home with frail parents). When I fell out with MIL in March it was a relief to know I never had to have anything to do with them again. Christmas will be interesting....(they all live within 10 miles of us) I might go on holiday alone...

mmmz I suspect you're right! I think she probably misunderstood the unconditional offer but it's a shame she didn't find out the details for you - and us. I want to know if they did some other course now...
Stickerrocks you are quite simply a genius! Although I now have grave suspicions that no one is drinking coffee from those mugs.
Ellen oh no! I feel chocolate temptation.But I've already eaten everything I shouldn't on holiday so will have to hold off for a bit.
My PiLs have their foibles but I realise I'm lucky we can just pop down for day trips! Also you can be very straight with them and they don't take offence. And they voted Remain and are very pro-Europe despite only ever having been to Austria. Once.

Brexiteers here at MIL's. Well travelled, almost everyone in the extended family either lives abroad now or has done for several years in the past. They like the individual countries within Europe but are not pro-EU as an institution at all. For DH's family it's all about sovereignty and the debts that Southern Europe owes German banks which they cannot pay back, so the German taxpayer will have to cover instead (this bit went over my head a little). It's all going horribly with the Brexit negotiations and "Mrs May" has been a terrible disappointment. There will be a showdown at the party conference next month.

^^ this was DH's and MIL's conclusion the day we arrived and now we don't speak about politics any more as it's bad manners! And why would you want to talk about something interesting when you can discuss Attenborough's nature programmes and remark on the weather once an hour instead?!

TerfTerf we went away (as in, not at home and not family) for the first time ever last Christmas, to Budapest and had spent Christmas day itself under cloudless skies in the Szechenyi Baths, while back at home folks couldn't get out of their doors because of horizontal rain which meant no escape from family all day.... I strongly recommend it :)

szechenyispabaths.com/

goodbye I agree! And we have had many fabulous Christmases away thanks to DH's job (Tokyo, Seoul, San Fran, LA, Kuwait, Houston, Seattle) but DH insists on a belated turkey feast with in laws when we return. I've gone along with it for a quiet life but not this year! He'll have to cook it himself for his ghastly relations

Terf if your DH knows that you won't be going and therefore it will be awkward, then surely he would prefer to just not go out of his way to arrange a belated Christmas lunch, which presumably no one is expecting anyway?
Or have I misunderstood and the lunch will be on the 25th?

Just imagining all those mum's sitting nervously in their cars outside schools on Thursday clutching their ''coffee'' mugs :):)

Suggestions for the anthem for the next thread:-

Pessimistic Alternative: Waiting for the End of the World

Factual option:I'm still waiting
src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/R1iAtoX9DKk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> k]

Optimistic choice: Here comes the Sun
src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GwmVfewqu7I" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> I]

As long as we don't use
Waiting for a train

Although at least we know the results will come, which is more than can be said for trains at the moment!

mmmz you underestimate DH! He's quite obtuse and will think that I'll just do it like I always do. He'll ask his rellies, who will bellyache for days about whether they feel up to it or what day would be best, then they'll pick a day and I'll be told. Maybe I will cook it all and then go out before they arrive They only come from about 1 til 3pm, just enough time to stuff themselves and outdo each other on gifts for the kids. MIL often doesn't take off her coat...

Ok - so we are on page 19 so if we decide ona new name for the next thread (assuming it will be thread 17 by 23rd) how about the title (because did literally lol when I read it) :

GCSEs 2018 (17) I spy something beginning with "R"

I have Abba songs stuck in my head frim Mama Mia

Waterloo Finally facing our Waterloo

mmmz it may just be me, but your link for Here Comes The Sun doesn't seem to work, so - on the grounds that it's a great choice/ song -

For thread titles, GCSE results day thread, 3rd time lucky? Neither The Reckoning, nor The Final Countdown have got close!

I was banished to waiting outside the school gate for DS1 but DS2 let me collect them with him. We don't get envelopes at their school, just a sheet of thick A4. They used to have the breakdown of UMS for each exam/module but I'm not expecting raw marks to be on it this year now that UMS are obsolete. No chance to dissect results vs grade boundaries unless you can be bothered to hunt down the member of staff with the computer print out. TBH, unless there are any really unexpected disappointing results I'll be happy not to know. The review of marks seems a rather pointless exercise otherwise.