* Driving Home for Christmas * - It's the 2021 Christmas Chatter Thread!

Redredrobin

princesskitty29 

 

Redrobin how is your DD doing now?

 

   Dd is doing ok although she has had a further two fits injuring her ear again and hitting her nose blacking her eyes ! At least now if she is injured I can just call the district nurse now she’s on their radar .  Since the ear fit she has gone ocd on cleaning her room . I love it ! 

   Christmas wise I have hubby’s main gift it’s a shaving set made in Sheffield, not cheap but I know he will love it .Having realised I’ve got more than enough for Dds birthday I’ve put a couple of items away for Christmas.
  One more day of shielding thank god I’m back to work Friday. I have an enormous amount of respect for those who have had to shield from day one , six weeks is more than enough for me . 

mandco

Spendless  Happy Birthday to DD   
fab news on the drama school offer she may end up with several offers but its always a relief to know you have a place for definite.   Are ds and company coming home over easter?  
Thanks for the heads up on the easter eggs it never occurred to me to check the regular dark chocolate ones

Redrobin poor dd is really going through it at the moment. I bet you can't wait till Friday I honestly don't know how people coped with having to shield for so long.

Princesskitty  belated Happy Anniversary.  It must have been great to actually be able to mix with people again esp with the lovely weather fingers crossed it lasts over the easter weekend  

Ds has his interview today so fingers crossed that goes well - he actually off school today as he's not feeling well complaining of a headache/stomach ache normally I don't like him having time off unless he's really ill  but they've had 4 cases of covid in his year this week     He's taken some paracetamol and gone back to bed which is usually a sign he's genuinely not feeling well so I'll get him to do a lateral flow test later to check
Meant to be seeing sdd and the grandkids over the weekend but will have to wait and see how ds is 

Going to do some easter baking with Taz today and maybe have picnic in the garden for lunch as its nice and sunny

Spendless

mandco - Thanks. She had a lovely day and beautiful weather. We have a hot tub here and a karaoke machine. Her boyfriend came over and fetched his guitar and they had a great time singing and having  a picnic in the park. She loved the cake I had made so much she refused to cut into it yesterday so as not to spoil it -lol. Today she has some of her mates over for a2nd day of celebrations. It's a lot colder today though.

She also got another offer come through yesterday. This is on the reserve list for a foundation year at one of the best private colleges in the country and she's having an interview for another drama school as we speak. It's looking highly likely that this year, due to a combination of her age, covid and impact on education that we will be looking at a privately funded year first, but we were accepting  of that situation a few weeks ago. 

Yes,  DS and housemates are coming to us for the whole BH weekend. Though I've not seen details I suspect they come under the same student rules as previously when they class as 'my' children  as the housemates aren't returning to their respective homes due to the same reasons as previously.

Spendless

The housemates are back and already eating me out of house and home -lol, Due to DD's 18th birthday celebrations we haven't done a grocery shop this week. DH told son sorry we haven't got much in at the minute, DS opened up my brimming store cupboard and said 'Is this what you think empty shelves look like?' hahhaha. We had a bbq yesterday, I taught son and girlfriend my late MIL's german potato salad recipe to have with it. Then later they ordered pizza! Me and husband were still stuffed from the BBQ. I'd forgotten how they act when they've had little food in for weeks and all of a sudden they have access to loads.

Mum is having another op on her leg today. Can't remember if I said but the mole though not Cancer at the minute will turn so if left unchecked, so it's being removed deeper/wider than before. Thus time she's got a load of ready meals prepared, but I've said I will plate her and my Dad up a roast dinner for tomorrow. As this means I'm catering for 8 (7 meat eaters) I'm thinking of pork as a cheaper option. 

This afternoon me and DH are going to friends. We last did this on Christmas Day! The drama school interview DD was doing in my above post, went really well and daughter was pretty much told that currently her age was counting against her and they'd like to see her apply again in a future year - watch this space. 

mandco

spendless glad dd had a great day even if it wasn't the way she'd hoped to celebrate. 
Its shocking how much they can eat esp the boys mine are younger but blimey can they put it away you'd think they'd been starved I honestly don't know how they do it or how they stay so slim.
Fingers crossed dd gets into the college she wants - I'm sure it won't be cheap but we do want we have to for our kids and its a huge achievement to have been offer a place at one of the best.
Good news as such for your mum not great she's had to have more surgery but at least it was caught early before it turned and hopefully this op will be the end of it. 

I'm doing roast pork tomorrow - It was alot cheaper then the lamb or beef and honestly looked far nicer too - we went to costco and even there the options were very limited and expensive which is unusual. The cheapest piece of beef they had was over £30 

Ds interview went ok he's been offered a place on the level 2 course as with a if you get the grades you need we'll move you onto the level 3 one if you want so very happy with that as at least now he has a college placement. On the plus side the level 2 is 3 days in college and 2 days work from home so I think he may opt to stick with that one anyway even if he gets the grades.
He's feeling better and his lft came back negative which was a relief - they had 3 more cases of covid at his school this week and around 150 students that now have to self isolate all over easter and for most of the easter holiday- many very unhappy parents as you can imagine.

Sdd is coming over with the girls tomorrow morning so hopefully it won't be too cold though at the moment the weather forecast is around 3 degrees its meant to warm up later in the day and she did said about coming over in the afternoon/early evening but they are going to her mums for lunch so I said come in the morning that way they haven't been mixing with others before they come to us. 

more easter baking today and we're going to do an easter hunt in the garden tomorrow 

Hope everyone has a lovely easter 

princesskitty29

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you had a lovely day if you celebrate it or just enjoyed the sunshine if you don’t. We hadn’t invited our in laws for lunch as it seemed like the weather wouldn’t be nice enough to sit outside, however when they came around for tea and cake in the morning it was beautiful and really warm in our back garden so we could have done it after all. We had a nice day yesterday, I think the boys asked me approximately 1.25 billion times if they could have some of their chocolate! It’s lovely to see how excited they get at this age. They had a lot of treats from people so I spread out the surprises throughout the day. My favourite part of the day was our roast beef dinner, oh I really do love a roast dinner! I had two friends come over on Saturday afternoon, it was freezing but we had hot water bottles and blankets and I had made gingerbread, it was just really lovely to have some people over and have a natter. I hope you’re all doing well at the moment.

 

rachsecret I only read Christmas books around Christmas, I don’t know why really as life’s short – why wait?! As we’ve discussed before through you never know if a book with a Christmas title is actually going to be about Christmas or not, it’s always a disappointment when it’s not!

 

slm6005 oh I’m sad you didn’t get Guess Who, it was one of my favourite games! A few years ago I actually bought the original Guess Who on ebay for about £15 as I loved it so much, I was really nostalgic playing it again. My husband and I play it quite often on a games night!

 

Spendless It sounds like your DD had a lovely birthday and that things are going well with the drama school interviews, I hope she gets the one she wants. It’s good they can operate on your mum now before anything happens and you can prepare with meals etc.

 

Redrobin oh your poor DD, that’s a lot to go through, I hope she recovers soon. Like you say it’s good she’s on the radar and can get help quicker. The shaving set sounds wonderful.

 

madnco thank you for the anniversary wishes, we had a lovely lunch in the in laws garden. Glad to hear your DS’s test was clear, what a worry with all of those cases at school! The upper school near here has had a lot of issues with cases recently. And great that your DS was offered a place on the course.

princesskitty29

Oh I made the egg box centrepiece that I saw in the Tesco magazine in the end, I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

StokieBecks

Mandco sorry not interfering but if your son has had any symptoms he needs a proper pcr test not a lateral flow one - they can't be used for anyone with symptoms. Better to be certain especially with so many in his school ill.

Hope everyone had as nice an Easter as they could. We haven't done a lot. Been for a couple of walks in the sunshine but it's a lot colder again today

Spendless

Will catch up shortly with everyone. DS and housemates have gone back. We had some good times with an Easter egg hunt I made them do. DS has refused to do one since he was 13, so that was funny hahahah. A roast dinner, a bbq that my parents also stayed for - they'd just called by and we asked them to stay and join in. Me and DH also got to go and see friends, for the first time since Christmas day.

On a more negative side housemate 2 confessed to feeling like a third wheel whilst here because  DS and housemate 1 are in a relationship and when back home he can do his own thing, he felt trapped here . I felt a bit bad as if I'd known I would have arranged more group participation, but I was very tired from DD's 18th birthday celebrations, which had had to be spread over several days and keeping an eye on my Mum.

 There was also an additional incident when DD's friend made a play for him, despite her having had a boyfriend for the last 2 years and he felt incredibly awkward about it. I won't go into details on here but it's not the first time we've had an issue with her and one of DS friends with this sort of thing. DD isn't best pleased either, especially since the girl was here as her birthday guest and now feels she's outgrown her friend. I've told DD I'm not banning their friendship of anything but if we have guests in future then she's not welcome as I can't trust her around any 'available' males and it's a situation that's heading for disaster.

 We told housemate 2 that he was welcome to come and visit us independently if he wishes. He has also discovered that as well as the money he is due to inherit later this year, there is also a property that will become his. I'm relieved tbh, I had visions of him walking into an estate agent, showing them proof of his inheritance and them flogging him a house with a swimming pool - eeek lol. (you know you're old when you start stepping in to 'parent' your kids mates) Now he can graduate next year, have somewhere to live and think about what he wants to do next without pressure or thinking he's got to spend a lot of money first.    

nic2075

Hope everyone had a nice Easter. I can’t believe we are in April already. Usually the first quarter of the year drags in, but this Year it’s flying in. I think it’s because we are constantly looking ahead.  Looking at dates for when we can do things, dates for possible holidays etc. We will be at Christmas before you know it 😂

My car died on Saturday. It just won’t start, no noise or anything. I had the RAC out and he thinks it electrical, and what he thinks it is could cost over £1000 to sort. I don’t have that to spend on it. Also I still have over 2 years to pay the finance on it. I’ve had it a year and a half and done under 10,000 miles 😞  so there’s been tears and worry over the last few days. I need to wait until an auto electrician gives a proper diagnosis, but he can’t come out until the 16th of April. And my car can’t move, even the steering is locked on.  It’s really bringing me down. I use my car all the time for work and I really like it (when it’s working).