Car hadn't come back from garage in time for son's birthday, but we were able to pick up on his actual birthday. More about this later...........................
The main event this week was son's 17th birthday. 17 I can't believe it. I'm now officially old. I always felt younger because son was still a school boy. But there's no kidding myself that I'm young now he's 17. That's proper grown up!
Picture this week is his birthday cake. You may notice a theme. Not that I like to go over the top or anything. It went down well, both in pleasure to see it, but also in taste. So that's all good.
Son didn't want to do anything super special like go out for his birthday. Which is a shame, but it's increasingly difficult to get him out of the house. I'm hoping that it's a phase he's going through, but fear it isn't.
I made a nice breakfast and we curled up on the sofa and went retro. When he was very tiny he was obsessed with the film Cars. We must have watched it about 200 times (at least). So we put this on. I have to admit after a good break from it I did actually enjoy it. So once finished we then watched Cars 2.
Then it was time for the big event. Sky was showing a film called (I think) F1. This had Brad Pitt and was about........ F1. It was what son wanted to watch above anything else. He's lucky it was his birthday. It cost £16.99 to rent!!!!! But as he pointed out, it's cheaper than the cinema - well actually it isn't, but it's his birthday so I decided not to quibble.
The film was hugely boring, but he seemed to enjoy it because he kept telling me off for talking through it. I put my 'behave yourself' head on and managed to keep quiet, but only by playing games on my phone. Which annoyed him a lot!
Then the garage rang to say that my car was ready. I got hold of husband who was at his office and asked if he could get back. Whilst waiting I leapt on the phone to get son insured on my car. Guess how much it was for him - with a £600 excess.................................. it was £750 and that was only up to the end of my current insurance. One way or another this is turning into a £2K birthday!
We went to pick up car and I drove him to a quiet road in Falmer, at least I thought it was quiet. It was single track and no sooner had I parked and we switched places than a van turned up. So I leapt back into the drivers seat. By the time the area was clear and we could start again son was in such a flap he decided he wasn't ready to try. This was fair enough, you need a clear head to drive for the first time.
Returning home we had party food for tea on our jazzy Birthday table cloth (it's had many outings that table cloth) and then settled down to watch another film. I honestly can't remember what we watched. I mentioned I'm getting old.
And that was birthday. The next day was son's induction at school for 6th form. I drove him in and husband drove him back.
Turns out this was a total nightmare. Son didn't get the A he needed for maths in his GCSE's. He turned up, was taken into a room and was basically ambushed. They were insisting he should drop maths, which meant he'd have to drop physics, which meant he'd no longer be able to continue his path to be an aeronautical engineer.
It was totally unfair that they did this to him in this way. I don't think they even realised that they had done it. They'd just come back to work and wanted to clear the decks for a new term. They didn't consider the impact on son at all.
Needless to say, by the time husband went to pick up son he was in a total mess. He came home and I honestly don't remember him being so upset at any point in his life. It didn't help that we also discovered he had about 180 pages of maths and physics homework to do over the holidays that we'd missed.
I ended up spending the afternoon with him talking things through and looking for options. We actually found quite a few. First we agreed with the school that he could stick with his options, at least for a few weeks, whilst he got a feel for whether he could cope with it. We also re-engaged his tutor (we'd done this already actually) to work with him through his A levels.
I also looked online and found some great online A level courses in maths and physics. So if he did have to change his options - once he'd completed his current A levels, he could then give those a go again. Not his ideal approach, but at least it's an option.
The problem when you are young is that the path of life is all set out ahead of you. School, A levels, University, Job. Those of us who are longer in the tooth know that sometimes this path diverts and sometimes your dreams take longer to achieve.
Personally I think that if I was an employer looking for an employee and they had taken their A levels and then, to get back on the path of their dream, had studied and taken a further set of A levels, that's the kind of employee I'd want. Somebody that was focussed on their goal and was willing to work hard to achieve them.
So we'll see what the future holds. But so far 6th form for son has really sucked.
On a more positive note. On Sunday son had first proper driving lesson. Though driving instructor said that the perfect number of lessons was 40. I didn't say anything to son, but he's having a laugh at £60 each!!!!!!!!! We've given son the first 5 lessons and my brother gave him another 4 for his birthday. He's darned well going to have to earn the money if he wants more than that.
So I love son dearly, but when I think of the school fees, car costs, tutor costs etc. etc. plus school uniform, plus, plus, plus. I simply can't get over how expensive life is at the moment.
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