October 2008.
The Boy didn't get the As at A level he was predicted, so no chemical engineering at Imperial or even Birmingham, he could have gone to Loughborough, but instead Birmingham offered him a MEng in Materials Engineering, which he liked the look of so thats his choice. We took him to an interview at a company that makes oil filters in S. Wales just before hisd results, he was offered that so he is in Wales for a year. Luckily I took the end of August 1st week in September off. he accepted the job as a Development Technician working in the testing laboratory in Llantrist near Cardiff in the last week of Aug, he was given a start date of 8 Sep ! So we hied off to Wales after finding a couple of flats on the web, 1st in Tonyrefail, dirty and not nice, second in Llantrisant, above a shop and good. We took it, spent £200 on finders fee. Which is a bit of a piss-take as we found it. £365 deposit and £365 1st months rent. Blimey. On top of the £500 I spent on a computer for him, thats been an expensive few days. So we get the flat, and drive him down in 2 cars on the weekend of 6th Sep, sleep on the floor and back on sunday leaving him all alone in the big bad world. The area is quite nice, and he has a 1 1/2 mile ride to work.
The week before all this he selected bits to build his own PC and I ordered them from Sacn, so we went up to Horwich to collect them. That was a good day out. Had a couple of mtb rides with him & the lodger.
The lodger is Js boyfreind, they are living in her bedroom until they find somewhere. Ho hum, I thought they would be here for a long time, but no ! He got a job at Severn-Trent laboratories in Coventry of all places ! (Mrs C took him for the interview using he wizzo sat nav) As I was on hols when he started I took him there the first week, he cycled to Coventry Station, train to town, ride home. After a few days doing this on his mtb, he saw the wisdom of skinny tyred road bike, so I fixed up the winter bike using the frame I had from Pete Varian and he used that.
Now hes buying a motorbike, a Honda 125cc thing as learners are restricted to 125cc, like the 125cc Suzuki I first had, but wimpier, not a 2-stroke, a water-cooled 4-stroke. Then J found a 2 bed house in Edgbaston, with a rent of £590 per month. Liked it, and is moving in 2 weeks !