Kale and peas softly with his song - 10 / 10 thread

[FrannyandZooey]

For anyone who wants a boost to their general health. The suggested goals are:

EAT 10 PORTIONS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERY DAY - if you don't usually eat much fruit and veg I would build up gradually or you could upset your digestion.

DO (AT LEAST) 10 MINUTES OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY - can be yoga, stretching or something more energetic. The plan is that the idea of doing 10 minutes is not too daunting, and having started you may well find you want to do more.

There are no restrictions on what you eat so long as you get your 10 fruit and veg as well. The focus is not on weight loss but on improving our energy levels and hopefully our general mood and well-being. Sign up below and post here to tell us how you're getting on and how you are feeling.

Basic guidance on what constitutes a portion of fruit and veg here and you can download more detailed information by following the link at the very bottom of the page

Also [Anne hat on]

Boco. re those girls. Have you named and shamed them in conversation with dd? I NEVER did this with ds1 because I thought it was bad form, and I tried to find more 'optimistic' things to say - like 'oh that wasn't very kind.'

I think it's the wrong tactic.

Now I say 'that's OUTRAGEOUS. We're not having that, it is WRONG and MEAN. You must say to them in a loud clear voice - You cannot tell me what to do. You cannot tell me who to play with. Now STOP IT.'

Easier said than done, I know. But I say this to dd - and given that she is a strong character, I was amazed that she sat on the bus to swimming and that she 'let' the same boy run to sit next to her EVERY TIME and lick her face. . It's like they need to be given licence by you to say 'DON'T DO THAT. I DON'T LIKE IT. STOP IT.'

Does that make sense? You probably have done all that anyway. It's just I didn't with ds1 because I thought you weren't allowed to say mean things about little children.

Now who else can I tell what to do? [looks over specs at Franny]

Well not confront, confront in a me like way. More have a quiet chat because perhaps there is a story she doesn't know about, and perhaps her ds has hit him over the head a few times, and the mother has got all worked up about it.

Then she can say 'Oh, right. Let's get them together then. We can't let this sort of thing happen.'

No?

Maybe not. I am appallingly confrontational, and am teaching my daughter to be so too. But if you're not aggressive with it, it DOES WORK.

Now what about you.

[flourishes lists, checks ds's bags, considers taking bus driver to one side to check he knows the WAY TO FRANCE]

I am speaking in such CLEAR and CRISP tones and crossing and re-crossing my legs with SUCH PURPOSE, you have all gone back to bed and are rolling your eyes and wondering when I will stop.

I might go and boss dh about a bit. He is looking sleepy and befuddled. [easy prey emoticon]

love.xx

I think it's good advice 100 but am not sure it is everyone's style

you can tell me whether to get the boys to take me out to Ivor the Engine steam day which could be our last family day out sans baby, OR whether to let them hang around the house while I have a rest (which they want to do but which will probably annoy me)

Well you have to pretend it is your style. Because being bullied makes your head sink low, and your shoulder's stoop and you have to practise standing high and saying 'hello' to people and walking with confidence and talking calmly and looking people in the eye. It's all an act. So that's for both Lully and Boco's dd. Either that, or a martial art is often recommended I believe.

Um. What was that again? I'd send ds and dp probably and rest alone, unless you are up for the trip? It might be nice to go, you can sit down a lot.

Oh and I'm not being glib, promise. DS1 is picked on a lot at school and he and I do lots of role play about it.

It is all an act. And you have to practice what you will say and do. He is usually X [the bain of our lives] and I am him. It usually ends with him rolling on the floor and saying 'I can't say that'. It is oddly empowering though for the small, spec-wearing, sensitive DS1 who dies a million deaths inside every day and doesn't join in well.

[Am on a roll emoticon. I might take over the world this weekend and give it a good shake down and a stern but kind talking to]

Right. I really must go. Sending you all love and bravery in equal measure.

Yes, I love you too Fra.

you can go and save the world now

yy to role play! We do that...

ds2 has a nice confident line he has practised lots fr when people are saying mean things to him ''Did you hear something? I heard a sort of buzzing sound'' before he walks away.

ds1 is less confident. He gets picked on by a group of girls in his class and he is too gentlemanly to be mean back...
One of them (a ringleader) is french and I taught him to swear in french so he could tell her to ''eff off'' but he hates swearing, even in a foreign language!

I want to organise a clothes swap party but am not sure of the ettiquette - in that I only want to invite people size 8-12 with similar tastes in clothing....

It is an act, isn't it, I had to start at lots of new schools and I would put on a particular front in the first few days, sort of nonchalent and breezy without being directly aggresive. Even though I would be looking at Carla Codsworth thinking, my word your thighs are large and your nose is mean. I bet you're on the hockey team.(names have been changed)

100 - I do think you would love Stiffkey, in fact, you would love North Norfolk and especially Holkham. You can go and look round the house and the entrance hall is all marble and there are lovely statues everywhere and pictures of the Cooke family.

If it is the end of the day you can walk round the terrace just before it closes and sometimes huge cars sweep up and you can just make out people in wafty outfits air kissing and joining the Earl for tea. Then you can turn round and watch the herds of deer race up the hill and pretend they are yours before sneaking out through the orangery and buying a venison pie in the shop.

The there is the lovely sweeping beach. I haven't been there yet this year, maybe I can go in my van next week.

Mango, redcurrants, banana and pear with granola and yoghurt.

Dcs want to go and see Prince Caspian but I think it is too nice a day. Also, I ought to pack a little and the place is a mess. An old friend came round yesterday and said she thought, in the nicest possible way, that I needed a bit of help! Charming. Well, it was quite messy.

lol FMV, that sounds like that be very political indeed

OMG ds has just appeared wearing only a pair of tights with spiders on them and a surgeon's hat

he looks astonishingly odd
dp is taking photographs
we could end up in bother IMO

can ds come to your clothes swop party, FMF?

It's like in one group of potential invitees there is one who is a size 20 - well I don't want to hurt her feelings by not inviting her, but then I have to find someone else of similar size to invite for her to swap stuff with - and then, what are the odds of them liking similar stuff? I mean, another good friend of mine who is of operatic build favours pink sparkly t-shirts with snoopy on etc, whereas the fisrt girl is dreadlocked and vintage-style....

Whereas I know loads of skinny minnies with similar raggle-taggle boho style!

Franny, he would be guest of honour! (And if I come accross anything beautiful and spangly, I will send it to him!

Good morning am bleary and tired.
I had a lie in, I had to promise all sorts of things to get it.

God that party was odd!
There was a whole table of staff.
A couple of tables of local gentry types
Roguish young men from Belgravia.

It was like being in an Eton comedy that had somehow crossed with a Mike Leigh film. The man whose party it was had a stroke last year and is in a wheelchair and not very well. He's a very very rich man who has never had to work. He has a lot of 'ladies' who do things for him from in the village, and then a lot of posh old men who also do things because they were the same house at eton etc.The combination all drunk at a party was very strange, and at times a little disturbing.

Purple Ronnie / Edward Monkton might be a helpful contact though, he offered to be helpful. He tried to get me to dance - the only person dancing was a very drunk member of the staff - by saying 'if we don't dance, and I go home having not danced, I'm going to feel like a terrible cunt'. I really really didn't want to dance at this point.

100, was your advice to not talk about them to dd? Or to talk about them?
I don't say horrid things about them ever, I do say 'that's bad behaviour and if they hit you then you must tell them you are very upset with them and tell the teacher' etc etc. She's good at this now, she's not taking it, she's arguing with them, and she's telling the teacher - the problem is that it's not making much difference. It's a bit different because these particular girls absolutely adore her - they want to come round every night, they rush up to her and hug her, they fight to sit next to her - but they are handling it very badly and being nasty to her to make her play with them.

God I've gone on a bit haven't I.

how old is purple ronnie?

I adore his Monkton stuff, it makes me smile. My anniversary card to dh was the biscuits of love (Their love for eachother does not diminish. Instead it grows stronger and more beautiful as each year passes)

I am Upset as I used to compose Purple Ronnie-esque poems for friends' cards years before he came on the scene...another missed opportunity to make money from my terrible doggerel.....

Filthy I thought of you when he told me who he is! He's currently training someone to take over - and I wanted to put you forward!
He's about 42 I'd guess. Apparently Purple Ronnie started out as a performance thing at Oxford! Was a little surprised by that. I like the Monkton stuff too. And he's done loads of books.

A trainee doggerel writer?
Apart from quality control officer for Bettys tea, I think that would be my dream job.

I also got Edward Monkton card for dp for Valentines

this one

I hadn't realised him, and Purple R, and the House in my Mummy, and the Giraffes Can't Dance man, were all the same person
and you danced with all of them Boco!
oh actually you DIDN'T dance with all of them
well it's very impressive anyway

oh FMF what I think you should do is send invites to half as many people as you can fit in, and say "bring someone you want to swop with"
otherwise the 2 big women will be stuck there thinking "oh god her clothes are AWFUL but I can hardly say so and go home"

hard mango but ate it anyway (showed signs of incipient cuntingness)
apple, raisins, banana, orange juice

we're going to Ivor, allegedly
and we've kind of cleaned the house en famille
well dp hoovered, ds tidied (with me cracking the whip) and I did the bathrooms

I had a perfect one all to myself