The OFFICIAL buddy bench/naughty bench thread No. 5

[Teaandcakeplease]

Come hither all those who haven't found their place on mumsnet, have scrapped in Aibu or crossed words in chat. The buddy bench shalt not judge.

The buddy bench will hand out wine and cakes, it will join you on your scoffathons getting pissed

All those who sit on the bench, will have their sins erased and be given a warm welcome and cheerful chat from CheerfulYank, gomummy, tired mum, Elmo and far, far too many more to mention.

Welcome to the buddy bench, we look forward to meeting you all

Oh and don't forget, last one to leave polishes bench and locks up!

Hello

Lots of gardening going on in my house this weekend gomummy . We are planning to buy 30sq meters of sandstone paving slabs next week (been saving up since January) , so dh has started to dig up the garden in preparation he's doing it all himself .
I need to buy lots of sturdy puppy proof plants , any ideas ?

Basement attempts? Well if I can't find any I'll ask you post me some. I could paypal you the money.

Garden sounds fab Elmo. Sadly I know nada about plants

Tea - almost all houses here have basements, can have some pretty wicked staircases down though, usually leading to a cement floor unless the basement is finished. Doors to the basements are (usually) in the living space, ie. ours is in the living room, my mum's is in her dining room, etc. So, when we go visit anywhere that isn't used to small children, I throw a doorknob cover on the basement door . A local girl was killed this way a couple of years ago, so I am a bit overly cautious. Anyway let me know if you're interested, I'd be happy to post however many you need to you.

Ahh Elmo sounds like fun!! What are you looking for? ie. height/colour/edible etc.? I'm not even sure if we have the same types of plants ! I remember XH raving about the beautiful shrubs in Ireland that we didn't have here. Puppy proof I'm not sure on though! :) Is your location sunny or shady? Do you want to do any trees?

I'm the same tea - not green fingered at all

Oooh a bit of colour would be nice gomummy seeing as most of the garden will be paved now i don't want it to look like a concrete jungle iykwim . Our garden is sunny and we have a beautiful tree that blooms from May - sept it is shaped in a way that it provides both privacy & shade across the decking . Lots of sturdy shrubs in different colours might be nice , ill go to my local garden centre to make sure the plants are all safe for the dog (daft mutt eats /plays tug of war with everything)

We also had problems last year trying to stop slugs /ants from feasting on the shrubs . Any tips would be great x

Ideas from our gardens that sound like they'd go nicely...Evening primrose is nice as it has yellow blooms in the summer and then the foiliage turns red in the fall, for full sun flowers I like rudibeckia (yellow/gold/orange flowers) and columbine (beautiful blooms, various colours) and delphinium (deep blue), lots and lots of lilies of every type and irises and roses, peonies are lovely in spring and you can cut them right back after, clematis if you have somewhere for it to climb...for shade I like bleeding hearts and a variety of hostas...for edibles I like to add peas and grapevines, some blueberry bushes are nice, big strawberries are great groundcover. If you're doing bulbs, gladiolas would be great in your full sun! As a shrub I really like a burning bush for the deep colour, lilacs smell so beautiful...ok, I will stop now! :)

Depending on what you're trying to stop from eating your gardens, I've had great success with cayenne pepper and a few other kitchen items.

Oh yes Lilacs smell sooo lush!

Thanks gomummy your a star x

Yes we would love some lilac plants and i am definitely getting clematis to climb up the wall beside the decking in white & purple colours. I planted lots of heather (one of my favourites ) last year but it didn't last long with the slugs & ants eating it , but I've posted in the Gardening section on here and gotten some fab ideas to go to war on the pests .
It will take a few weeks for dh to sort out the garden before i can do the flower beds but i'm looking forward to getting stuck in

Have fun Elmo! :) We're about halfway done getting everything in and ready this year...why do I never remember how achy my muscles are on the second day? Ugh I am so sore! Well, enough of my moaning, much to do. Hope you are all having a great weekend! :)

Thanks for my birthday messages all x

I just tried to have a relaxin day and a quiet drinky with dh in the evening

Not to exciting i know

How have your weekends been, good i hope

I went shopping with my SILs yesterday. I finally got a rug for our living room, which is thrilling :) Doesn't take much to excite me these days!

My friend and I went to see Bridesmaids today. It was really funny!

Not up to much now, just cleaning. House renovations make such a mess! Arggh! I've decided we're just going to have to power through and get it all done so we can be done with the chaos once and for all! :)

Those garden ideas sound lovely; I can't grow things at all! I'm going to start with some hanging baskets I think!

Ooo i bet that was really exciting cheerful, i loved it when we got our rug, how sad is that

What bridesmaids?

It's this Tiredmum :)

Ooh, what's your rug like Cheerful? I was so excited when we got our rug too, lol! Hanging baskets are great Cheerful, wish I had somewhere to hang some! My neighbor has beautiful ones with strawberries hanging from them.

Tiredmum actually that sounds like a great evening! :)

One day left in our long weekend, and I have so much left to do! Was up most of the night thinking about how much is left to be done, and now am so exhausted I don't want to do it!

Thinking of the people in Missouri this morning, horrible. :( Had a tornado not far from here a few years back, I am still shaken when I think about the destruction, and this was much worse.

Yes that was a horrible tornado. :( It ripped through from Missouri to Minnesota. :( No one I know was injured, thank God! Some friends had to camp out at Target for a few hours. Missouri got it much worse. :(

My rug is hard to explain! I will post a pic as soon as I find my camera. A friend of mine is coming over to help me clean soon! Yay! We're going to throw things in the dumpster all day!

Cheerful I didn't know it got as far as Minnesota! So glad you and your friends/family are ok. Such a powerful thing, happens so quickly...mother nature scares me sometimes.

It will be such a great feeling once you get all the reno stuff thrown out, renos just make such a crazy mess!

Oh, it was so lovely! My friend brought her two LOs so they could play with DS and we just cleaned all morning. Everything looks so airy and bright now, and I feel much calmer!

DH took a break from work and came to get DS. He brought him to his parents' so I can go to my hair appointment in an hour or so. Bliss! :)

How is everyone's Monday going?

Waves hello

Enjoy getting pampered at the hairdressers cheerful, glad you are all ok xx
we are having gale force winds here today up to 140km
lots of trees falling down and roads being closed off. Poor barake obama
picked a bad day to visit Ireland lovely man though.

I need anyone fancy a glass? having a rubbish day.

Oooh, I'm always up for ! :) I didn't even know Obama was in Ireland! I'm jealous. My aunt-in-law is going for sixteen days this summer; I could try to hide in her luggage.

LOL at the smuggling of Cheerful into Ireland. Let's see a pic of the hair on fb! Can you take it on your mobile and upload it that way?

How nice to have a clear out and help cleaning too. Very nice.

If you read the bbc news website Cheerful you'll have more of an idea on where Barack is going. If you're nosey like me

Morning! :)

Very windy here for the last few days too! It's giving me and ds wicked Hay Fever grrrrrrrrrr!

I'm still in my jamas I KNEW that ds being old enough to walk to school by himself was a bad idea

Good morning

Valium at you still being in pj's . It's a 7.5 mile journey to my dc's school so NO chance of them ever being able to walk there .

My credit card details have been stolen we received a phone call at 6.30pm yesterday from the fraud section of my bank to inform us of someone trying to withdraw money from our account . The bank has their company's name just needs to find out where they are based . my account has been closed until we get new cards issued to us [uggghh]

tea we could always squash you into the case too

Oh no elmo that's awful

Great the bank called you though Elmo! Hopefully they can get new cards to you etc asap.