Almost A Year

Well this is embarrassing isn’t it? Almost a year since my last update, despite the protestations of my cousin Jayne! Well nothing to be done now except to rip the plaster off and bring you up to date.

Let’s start with Sam this time. He did really well in his GCSEs, including a 9 in Maths, and nothing lower than a 7. He’s gone on to Bay House Sixth Form to study Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Chemistry (though he’s considering dropping Further Maths, which is a very normal thing to do). We’re starting to explore universities now, probably to do Economics, Finance or similar. Obviously in this time of COVID-19 the process of browsing universities is something of an unknown, but on the upside it may save a few extended drives.

Lauren did equally well in her A levels, with two A stars and an A (and she believes she was one mark off adding a star to that last A, a factlet I suspect will stay with her forever). That was plenty to get her to her choice of Exeter to study Law, which she was doing quite successfully until we made a dash down there to rescue her. So now she’s studying from home, which isn’t really the experience she signed up for, but she’s making the best of it. One of the adjustments she’d had to make was hanging with the posh kids: Her 6-person hall has 4 public school students and 1 who went to a state boarding school, and that sort of balance is reflected on her course as well. It’s not something I can help her with, as I left Southampton Uni in part because of the high percentage of Jeremys, but she’s found friends there that she can get on with whatever their backgrounds.

Claire and I are working from home, as so many are, though in my case it was happening anyway as my physical office is in the process of being closed. I hadn’t quite imagined I’d still be sharing an office, but despite Claire’s clicky keyboard it’s mostly OK!