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11/02/2019

In which York was trod and airheads are dissed.

Saturday had been planned for a while - a day in York - not a jolly out though,  no, this was serious stuff. We were off to check out the University of York for Youngest.  I, recalling how far we trogged around University of Lancaster for Eldest, thought that it would be a good way to clock up some miles for my #walk1000miles challenge.

I managed to squeeze my much improved and getting thinner ankle into my boot, set up my 'strava' (my mileage logging app) and took my knitting (for in-car entertainment of course). We had to be there for 10am so it was an early start. Wow the weather was foul!  Storm Erik was playing out too and to show his presence he'd kindly tossed down a few trees and branches down along the way (so kind...)

Anyhoo - we arrived in good time despite Erik's truculence. Youngest - usually fairly ebullient was decidedly unsure and chattered nervously however once we'd signed in and started the programme of events he suddenly became very quiet. The talks given were interesting - albeit a little light on information but we had been promised more details in the afternoon as we were to be taken on a tour by existing students where we could chat to them and ask them questions.
What is not very clear are the words on the sign .. it says ..
DANGER - thin ice keep off (must be very thin, the geese were swimming)

I quietly took a look at my 'strava' and saw that the miles were quietly stacking up - I'd reached 3 miles just walking around the campus between the talks. By now it was lunch time, we'd found details about housing and finance among other necessary things and we were suddenly starving.  One cafe later (fresh sarnies and hot tea have magical properties I am sure) we made our way to the afternoon programme. This time we had to meet at the department were Youngest would be based, the students would go and meet the lecturers who'd taken them around and chat to them while we would meet the present students who would give us an insight to uni life.

oh boy.

We walked out. If we had to hear a silly little girl saying .... literally, like, oh yeah.... one...more...*!!*//!! time I was going to shake her...... I have never met more vacuous pair airheads as these two - I did originally write a slightly sharper account of them but felt I needed to retract ... **

What did they take us to see?

Accommodation? Nope
Library? Nope
Anything ? Nope - unless you mean three bars and a hall where they have regular 'soirees' .....

Before you think - but they are young etc - the Lancaster University talks were also given by students and we saw all the varieties of accommodation available, where the library was, the laundry, recycling, dustbins - whoa! What a difference......

Youngest will be happy here.

Any hoo - having turned around and walked away with a ...this is the best bar- literally ... ringing in our ears, we walked to York.

What a breath of fresh air - 'literally'.

We walked through fields away from the university and tumbled into some allotments - it was wonderful peeking into sleeping secret gardens, adorned with winter hardy leeks or kale and hosting the most characterful sheds and lean-tos. The allotments gave way to suburbia then to historic walls and finally we found the river. Full to bursting after Storm Erik induced rains.

York centre, despite it being off-peak season and a rather blustery and cold day was full of folk, so we did a quick yomp through the Shambles and one or two other famous places then returned to the riverine walk.
This too was full of folk but they were all walking with a purpose rather than congregating for shopping or meeting up with friends. Eventually it was time to turn back so we followed another route back to the university - this time through a military training grounds - with the most amusingly appropriate yet different road sign. It tickled me :)

We returned to the uni - back to the pre-arranged waiting place (a warm reception room in the departmental building) and sat and sat and sat. My tired ankle was giving a good impression of toothache and I was ready for home. But no sign of Youngest.

About 3/4 hour after we'd arrived, the airheads and their group of bored-silly parents wandered in and joined us. They looked fed up and cold. The airheads both gave us a sneaky sideways look as they walked past us - pah. I felt vindicated at going AWOL.

Youngest eventually appeared - in his usual languid loping gait - He seen the library.....walked past some accommodation ... visited a few lecture halls and he'd had a very successful afternoon and enjoyed it.

Oh oh oh and my mileage??? A whole 11.10 miles - wow!


Durham Uni in a fortnight... 

** I am saddened that, at this day and age of proactive equality, girls still feel the need to act and appear silly and helpless - I don't want to say 'man up' although until there is a better genderless way to say get a grip (oh - hey - I'll use that one :) ) those silly silly girls need to 'get a grip and man up'.

13 comments:

  1. Hope you find a suitable university. What's he studying? My middle son was the University of Lancashire in 2002

    Julie xxxxx

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  2. My pet hate is female journalists on quality newspapers who write articles pretending to be useless, giggling, girly airheads. Do they really think that we believe they hold down jobs in a highly competitive (for that read cut-throat) environment if they are that stupid? And what are young girls who would love a job in journalism to think when they read those sort of articles? Obviously that you don't need to work hard, learn to write good copy, pass exams or have an opinion as long as you can gush about how you are too stupid to work your DVD or look after your own kids without the help of a marvellous nanny! Sheesh!!!

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  3. How about "buck up and grow up" ?

    I am finding some of the current use (and misuse) of words to be tiresome at best and extremely irritating on a bad day. But I remind myself that Shakespeare was much criticised in his day for using "new words" and finding new uses for existing ones. English is a constantly evolving and living language 😁

    But on a completely different note - oh, a choice between York and Durham. What absolute JOY. 🤪 Does Youngest have an appreciation how I [and maybe many others] would swap places with him in a heartbeat?

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  4. Oh the joy of York - love it - a couple of my cousins' children went there, and were very happy. Airheads?!!!Pff... My pet moan at the minute is starting a sentence with "So! ... " so what!

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  5. I only ever went to the uni of East Anglia with our son....well we dropped him off and spent the day in Norwich whilst he got a feel for it. I loved the city, he was totally anti the uni. He's so independent that he didn't want us anywhere near [I was the same at his age] so he made his own mind up. He chose well...my first sight of the campus was the day he started! Bad parent. They're all so different aren't they. His female friends are very down to earth and feisty! Arilx

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  6. It is a huge parent commitment this escorting of one's teenager to different Universities. My Boy went to three on his own, Syracuse, NY, Ithaca, NY and Temple, Philadelphia. I took him to Kutztown University, PA. Then we both flew down to Florida and he visited Miami State, University of Central Florida, Orlando and Florida State University in Tallahassee. At least the Florida trip we made into a vacation spending two weeks down there and renting an old VW Camper in which we had a lot of fun and stayed at many beautiful State Parks. So good memories with The Boy. By the way in the end he went to Ithaca, NY in the Finger Lake area and only a four hour drive from us. Mum was happy about that.

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  7. My eldest daughter went to Edinburgh, where she still is. A Research Fellow now and tours the globe lecturing, giving papers, publishing books and yet she still over uses the word like......Drives me nuts.

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  8. Um!!! Sounds an interesting time was had by....parents? It all sounds so complicated & nothing like when DD went to Uni. She had the choice of University of Tasmania in Hobart...yep, that was it. We lived on the island state of Tassie & hadn't thought of going further afield back then & both boys opted to go to work & not study any further when their time came. All have done well though. I loved seeing York in winter & I too have a fascination with signs & take quite a lot of photos. Hopefully your weather this week will be a little kinder. Take care.

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  9. It was very interesting for us then time the kids entered college. I am glad that are done and no more worries about what college to go. Wishing your son a wonderful time and great learning at college! I agree with you " those silly silly girls need to 'get a grip and man up'. Yes indeed!!

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  10. I hope the 'air heads' weren't the top students!!
    My pet hate is all the younger generation seem to say 'like' every third word....WHY!!!!
    11 miles, well done doing that on a still poorly ankle.

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  11. I think you were very wise to escape the grand tour of pubs but those two ..like..airheads must have given the impression that Uni life is all pubs and no work. I'm sure other parents wished they had done that too. Hope the Durham Uni visit is more like that of Lancashire Uni. xx

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  12. If there is anything worse than teenage boys it's teenage girls. Why must they shout and giggle and simper- I'm totally with you on this one. Give me the pushing and shoving and loud guffaws from the boys.
    Glad you liked the walk round York. It's a super city and the uni is good. The only disadvantage is it's on a campus on the outskirts of town. In the end it comes down to the best course, cost and future prospects of students. I had sons at Aberystwyth, Oxford Brooks and Sheffield. Sheffield was the best.

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  13. I visited York on 1 December 1991 (the day after I walked out of a job!) and a few years prior to that Beloved and I visited and walked some snickleways. I'd like to have another visit... If Youngest does got there, then you will be able to visit York many times! Am slightly envious! An acquaintance of mine (15 years ago?) was talking about her daughter going to Uni and the hoped her daughter would have a good time there and that getting a degree was not top of the list..... what??? Don't get me going!

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