Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

LydiaJ

Pyxis wrote: »

At the beginning of the week I got a snow alert for today. Then subsequent alerts have said tomorrow.

No snow here at the mo.

Interesting that some flights for tomorrow are already being cancelled/delayed in anticipation. (Heard on news this morning).

Are you somewhere along the eastern side of England? Places further west and along the south coast still have warnings for today. We're in a "yellow warning" area for today, but the actual forecast says it's going to rain most of the day and just have snow briefly in the afternoon before going back to rain again.

Tonight is the open evening for the sixth form at DS's school. He decided what subjects he wants to do months ago, and his teacher for those subjects all seem happy that he'd be OK with them, so I'm expecting it to be a fun evening for him and me together without any angst. Next Thursday will be trickier. I can't leave work before 4:30. DS's school parents' evening (20min away) is 4pm-7pm, and DD's school chamber concert (20-50min away depending on traffic) is 7pm-10pm. So I have to start by being in two places at once, and continue by teleporting instantly from one place to another. :rotfl:

silvercar

Do you have booked appointments at parent's evening?

Pyxis

No, but I've just double-checked. Looks like might get a tiny bit this evening, and a tiny bit overnight.
Tomorrow looks to be sunny!

Am very confused now!

I've got to go out this morning, but will be back by this afternoon, so if the worst comes to the worst I can pull up the drawbridge.

I need to check my tyre pressures too. They may need topping up.



Edit....crossed with Silvercar! I was referring to Lydia's post!

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

Do you have booked appointments at parent's evening?

In theory, yes. They tend to get increasingly fictional as the evening goes on, though. One person overruns, and then their subsequent appointments get later, and then other appointments get pushed later and so on. The only school I've ever taught at where this didn't happen was a small school where they could fit the entire parents' meeting into a single large hall, and then they had a bloke with a handbell who stood up and rang it every 5 minutes to make people stick to their appointment times. DS is at a much larger school with teachers in multiple locations so that wouldn't work.

DD's item in the concert is a solo - just her singing and accompanying herself on the guitar - so I have emailed the teacher organising the concert explaining the problem and asking for her item to be in the second half of the evening, in case the parents' evening appointments run over. DS is going to try to get me appointments earlier in the evening - but not too early because I can't get there at 4:00 if I'm teaching until 4:30.

silvercar

DS2's school abandoned appointments at one point. It improved the system.

Instead of certain individual parents discussing their child in detail for far too long, in the knowledge that at their next appointment they would go to the front of the queue as their time was bound to be ahead of the other parents waiting, they would speed up as they would have to queue with everyone else for all subsequent appointments.

I'm the parent that thinks if you can't fit in everything you need to discuss with each teacher in 5 minutes, you really need to make an appointment outside of parent's evening.

chris_m

chris_m wrote: »

My snow forecast has been delayed too - was this morning with fairly good confidence, now this afternoon with less confidence.
Which probably means six feet of the stuff by lunchtime

No sign of it here yet - although now the cloud's lifted a bit I can see that Coniston Old Man and the High Street range, 14 and 25 miles away respectively, have had a dusting.

GDB2222

Pyxis wrote: »

True, but that whole thread might then get pulled, rather than individual posts. Would be horrid if this whole thread disappeared for the sake of two or three posts.

It does rather beg the question of how effective is a news blackout anyway!

Reminds me of a certain super-injunction fiasco a while back.

You can stop the press publishing stuff, but you can't stop Faceache going supernova with info, and even if it is pulled later, once seen, you can't unsee it and all that.

With EJ, the news blackout wasn't to prevent you hearing about it, supposedly, but the couple's son. That's what was argued in court, if I recall correctly. Unbelievable as it seems.

PasturesNew

Just a regular couple of Wanted Down Under this Morning.

Blind woman/paralympian and her husband and 2 kids.
Current house - a HUGE ... round ... brick built open plan water tower.
Budget £1.4 million in Aus.

I found their house, they only bought it in 2015.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31453290.html
Originally on for £1.4million in August 2014, its final RM showing price was £1.25million, but the sales info says they paid £1,090,000.

Melbourn. Melanie & Richard Barratt. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088pwx8

She is a physio-therapist. She would have to take an exam to work doing that. She can be a massage therapist while studying.
She could work 3 days, 6 hours/day. She does 10 hours/2 days at the moment earning £10k/year. In Aus she'd earn £18k.
She's employable as a massage therapist, but the man on the programme had no jobs.

Richard isn't so employable. Missed what he does - something to do with programming/similar. He could earn £70k/year, but £80-90k within 2 years. He was disappointed as it's £20k/year less than he gets in the UK.

UK House valuation - they think it's worth £1.3 million.
Agents say "lack of a dining area in the kitchen might put some buyers off". £1.3million, quick sale £1.2million.

UK mortgage £1800/month - in AUS £3290. Cheaper council tax though.

Overall, housing/food etc, £1500/month worse off. He thinks they'd be better off renting in AUS, rather than buying.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

...

Founder member of the Jammy B4st4rds Club

SingleSue

silvercar wrote: »

DS2's school abandoned appointments at one point. It improved the system.

Instead of certain individual parents discussing their child in detail for far too long, in the knowledge that at their next appointment they would go to the front of the queue as their time was bound to be ahead of the other parents waiting, they would speed up as they would have to queue with everyone else for all subsequent appointments.

I'm the parent that thinks if you can't fit in everything you need to discuss with each teacher in 5 minutes, you really need to make an appointment outside of parent's evening.

I'm always the parent waiting behind the parent who wants to talk and talk and talk but when it finally comes to my turn, I am in and out of the chair in 2 minutes flat!

Had it at the last one, the ones before us just kept talking, going way over the time and keeping me and the last one to go waiting. Turns out that they had finally realised that their child was in their final year and had no plans and decided that was the time to ask the college and tutors what the next step should be.

Me and Joe get in and I barely had time to settle my ample bottom before we had finished as apart from congratulations and good luck at university they had nothing else to say as he had perfect grades, perfect time keeping and a very high standard of work (which to be honest was a rather weird and surreal place for me to be, only took 3 children, 18 years and countless consultation evenings to finally get a perfect one!).

We come out and go to speak to his PPT and find the same ones we were waiting for before...they were turning off the lights around the building before we got our chance to have a very brief discussion with him about a couple of points in Joe's personal statement.