tell us about the country you live in...

[Polaris]

Ahh not in Wales, my uni's up in the Northeast ahaha (my uni's city is just about 64 miles south of the Anglo-Scottish border ) and its one of the UK's major cities!

Definitely the same restrictions, and a lot of my friends that are there now/have moved into their accommodation are upset about the restrictions. They've told me of how the government's blaming it on universities and students when they had the whole "Eat Out to Help Out" promo over the summer and encouraged everyone to eat out and go out all merrily in order to save the economy.

Kinda wished I'd deferred (I chose to study my degree because I'd get a significant amount of lab time, but not anymore) now, but the uni's said that at least some of us will get some lab time (albeit heavily monitored by our supervisors and limited to certain days of the week due to the social distancing restrictions) so there's that tiny glimmer of hope.

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Our local University had strict testing be done before entering the campus, required masks, but within the first couple weeks 80 students tested positive. Then they had to make an on site quarantine housing area for those students. Now, we are in a beach are so the students were doing mass meet ups at the beaches (the weather was hot), like they normally do, even though they were told not to. A couple students were expelled because of it though. Most of our dining is still outdoors with a few local towns allowing minimal inside dining and bars are shut down unless they serve food.

But none of the student's who tested positive have ended up in the hospital or died.

With fall we are entering into cold virus season ( which of course is a corona virus but one our bodies tend to fight).

[Vaughn Creighton]

hmm full of crab...

[Lemon Cheesecake]

You have crab where you are? Are they allowed to use the crab traps or do they have to catch them some other way?

[MissAutumn]

Ah, I believe I know where you mean.

That's just typical of the UK to blame the young/students. It's the go to scapegoat here . The "Eat Out" was really a dumb idea. I felt that over the summer that people started to ignore social distancing and forget that we're in the middle of a pandemic. I think the scheme helped fuelled this.

Are they going to lower your tuition fee since they can't deliver on the lab time now? I hope you get some of that lab time.

[Polaris]

Ah, I believe I know where you mean.

That's just typical of the UK to blame the young/students. It's the go to scapegoat here . The "Eat Out" was really a dumb idea. I felt that over the summer that people started to ignore social distancing and forget that we're in the middle of a pandemic. I think the scheme helped fuelled this.

Are they going to lower your tuition fee since they can't deliver on the lab time now? I hope you get some of that lab time.

Oh the "Eat Out to Help Out" was totally bonkers! I saw my friends posting about it and going out to eat nearly every week while I was home. With all the amount of people packed into the restaurants, mask-less no less, you would've thought that the UK was cleared of any covid cases!

As far as I know and have heard from students in other uni's across England (no idea about Scotland or Northern Ireland though), some universities have changed their tuition fees in response to the pandemic (apparently my uni did) but I'm not sure if that applied to international students (my current tuition fees definitely haven't changed). However, they might extend my primary research period for no extra tuition costs (more lab time chances wooh!) if I can prove that the pandemic disrupted my research & lab time!

How are things down in Wales? England is definitely leading the UK in cases but Wales isn't trailing too far behind (compared to Scotland and Northern Ireland)

[Lemon Cheesecake]

I think ours was more "take out to help out".

I hope you get a tuition discount Polaris!

[Polaris]

Thanks Lemon! I'm studying at the same uni I went to for my undergrad, so there's at least the 20% alumni discount xD

[MissAutumn]

I hope you get a discount or at least an extension on your lab time.

I'm in one of the lockdown counties in North Wales. So, I'm only allowed to leave the county for work. I've taken a week off work and there's really not many places to go in my county lol. Going to explore some castle ruins today. Rumour has it that Wales is going to go into national lockdown soon. I think it's mainly to stop people from English covid hotspots coming into the country.

[Polaris]

Ooh enjoy the castle ruins!! The castle ruins around the UK are breathtakingly beautiful (visited a few during my undergrad) and ahhh, sooo pretty especially on a sunny day in spring (although in Scotland, spring still feels like winter oof)!

[Lemon Cheesecake]

I heard he UK is going to lockdown on only allowing same households to meet. Good thing you got your little ceremony in MissAutumn!

Am so excited to hear about the ruins. Maybe you will spot something intriguing! Wouldn't that be cool if the rain unearthed something!

[MissAutumn]

So far only Wales is going into national lockdown from Friday evening. We're not allowed to mix with other households at all now. Before, we could meet up with friends outside. I'm going to miss going out on walks with them. I'm happy I got to see some of them on Saturday - we went to a forest. :3

The castle was cool. I could spot where old fire places were and where floors would have been. Sadly, the best preserved tower was closed off so we couldn't see the view from the top.

[galled]

Oh dear! Just when it seemed like we'd be doing better...

I wonder if the castle can be viewed by us on google maps satellite? Sounds very cool! But now I'd like see your adventure spot.

[Lemon Cheesecake]

MissAutumn :Apparently we can mix up to three households now but no singing... yet you can mix 100's of households protesting and yelling/chanting. Go figure at the hypocrisy.

How is it you can mix with other people at the grocery store but you can't meet them outside for a walk? I suppose you could meet up with friends at the grocery store and chat while you wait in line to get in or when you are in the store... I get to socialize at work at least.

If you could only barely make out the floors/fireplaces of the castle sounds like it really was in ruins...how old was it? Maybe one day you will be able to get a view from the top. Was the tower closed because of Covid or the structure is deteriorating too much? Have they been doing any active excavations recently?

I was watching a show and it looked like there rare fields where they are still finding ancient Roman artifacts or Viking battles. What is amazing to me is how so much gets buried...where does all that dirt come from? Or do you think it just rained and items sunk into the mud? Actually many recent finds have been because of noticing points of interest on satellite images.

[Vaughn Creighton]

a country loved by storms