The Fruits of our Labour? 10/10 thread, all fruitmunchers welcome......

[TooTicky]

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

Glad you have more explanation 100, it's good to have something else to work with isn't it.

I'm a bit worried about Franny, she's advising people to eat bounty bars, surely that means labour imminent? I want to know when my prediction was for - I know it was for a boy - can you show us where you found yours Guad?

OB that sounds awful poor you!

I just spend an hour putting up a tent castle with tunnel in the garden, it was a bit mouldy and spidery and I'd lost the instructions so was very tricky, but I hoped it would mean the girls would be happily occupied so I could be very still and quiet - and now the girls and a neighbour friend of theirs are fighting and arguing in it very loudly. I hope today ends fairly soon, I need to go to bed.

Play tents ALWAYS lead to arguments here.

Hope you can sleep soon.

Can you tell the dds that they can sleep out in the tent but ONLY if they settle instantly?

I feel a bit guilty now, they were all howling and fighting, and it was just too loud, and I flew outside and said ENOUGH!!! in scariest voice, and the neighbours child grabbed her shoes and ran home at 60mph. Oh well, one less to scream. My two now have strict guidelines that next time I hear them they come in for their bath.

I didn't know that about playtents toots, I wish I had.

I found my prediction - long gone.

Swedes - thank you. That is very reassuring, well sort of. I liked the listening to good advice bit best, and am keeping fingers crossed. It does feel a bit like we blew the clouds away today, or pulled the plug - or whatever it is you do when pressure has mounted and is then released. Today will probably see us through about, um, another two days?

Boco can I come and sit quietly with you. Let's release ds2 into your garden to eat the tent and solve the squabbles.

Oh Fra. I was two weeks overdue with both ds's. It's v. impatient making isn't it. Am sorry about pain and all of it really. Let's get Guadalupe to do one of her dances with scarves to keep you entertained.

I am roasting a chicken tonight. I am pottering by my Aga. Peace has been restored. It feels like after you've had a really good cry and you feel better afterwards.

gosh, angst and sore fanjos...
I am very very tired (again) danced my socks off for around 5 hours yesterday and had a blissfully chilled day in park today (actual, real, hot, sunshine! ) where there was some fun day and I realised how wonderful it is to have kids of an age where they can free range and we sat in a big group of friends in the sun and drank wone and occassionally threw money at children to buy ice cream.

100 et all with angry children, I have just bought a book (not got it yet) called something like ''mummy there's a volcano in my tummy'' in a bid to deal with ds1's trigger temper. I'll let you know...

wine not wone. And i didn't have that much so can't imagine why spelling went wonky....

What's yer price range TooT?

I am terrified of hairdressers and only go once a year as it grows so slowly so I cam justify spening £30+ ish on a cut.

However, my friends hair grows v fast and she will not pay more than £10 on principle. It never looks bad, sometimes looks awesome. Always good to have a pic.

Need more info. Where the hell do you live??

Email moi si tu veux. am reverting to franglais. Bad sign

I can come and put my hand in the air near yours if you like if we find somewhere suitable.

I am trying not get excited that my predicted date for Zoology looms large. Must be that crystal by the side of me bed.

Two beers through straws now. It's almost as if it didn't happen... she says, plunging hands into scalding washing up water and screeching like a banshee.

Is TF around? I still want to talk about cricket.

100, while we're sitting quietly can I ask you for some advice?
You know I did the illustrations for the woman who really really wants to be published, but her stories are pretty bad, but she paid me so I did them. She's had them made up into books and is sending them off to people. She emailed to say she'd found an excellent sounding literary agency and had been in touch and they wanted to know more about her and me and to have it all emailed. I asked for their name, googled it, and they're some very obviously dodgy outfit who will later charge her vast quanities of money for editing - they're in all the warning lists, they don't seem to have any success. I emailed her back,cutting and pasting this info and saying it sounded like a bad idea. She said they sound reputable if you read their website - and that she'll hold off until consulting her publishing friend - who i'm sure will say the same.

I've given her these pictures, maybe I shouldn't care what she does with them because it's up to her - and I have absolutely no expectations - well, I expect she won't get anywhere as the story doesn't even make any sense - but dont' really want them being sent to dodgy rip off places either. What would you do?

I am sick to the stomach with envy at the thought of you 'pottering around by the aga roasting a chicken with peace restored'. AAAaahhhhhh lovely. Jilly Cooper couldn't do better.

We had our mortgage statement today. Does anyone know anything about these?

We had a Banksy (old friend) which we sold and put £10k of it in the mortgage.

Statement today says - part payment £10k

charge for early repayment £8,850.

We actually owe more now than we did last year when we took it out despite putting 10k in.

Is that poss?

My BIL is mortgage advisor so no worrries if no advice but..... WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!!?

I need to find a way to get that 10k out. Fast.

How sad Boco. Poor deluded lady. You've done above and beyond yer duty..... IYFWIM. Or stuff.

Oh shit OB, that sounds ridiculous. Hope you can get it back!!!!!!
Will email you.

Hmm. Do you want to email me the agency Boco? You have copyright of the pictures, even if you did them for her. She can't have them reproduced or whatever as you own the copyright - in theory. I hope. Did you have a contract with her?

If she ends up having to pay money for them to edit - not standard practice as I'm sure you know - then she gets ripped off doesn't she? I'd make sure she knows that you own the copyright, and that they can't be produced without your agreement. Though it doesn't sound like they will be reproduced to be honest, as this outfit doesn't sound like they actually sell to publishers. Is it a vanity publishing type place?

Boco, that does sound dodgy. I have no idea what the implications are.
There were some people on a writers/illustrators thread fairly recently - did I see you on there? - who may be able to advise.

Not saying that 100x can't of course!!!!!

Well, I probably can't TooT!

Am raising eyebrows at barbed Jilly Cooper comment.

Evening.

100, I think you did really well.

Boco, I would assume you own the copyright too, and would refuse permission iiwy. ds2's godmother is/was an illustrator (is now a vicar!) - wonder if she might be able to help. email me if you like.

We have been at ds1's old kiga's summer party - the last time we will be there. Sat watching the teachers (and individually they were all fab, our complaint was so not with that side of things - it is sad) playing so lovelily (a word?) with the children and the children running around the big field-thing the kindegarten has use of (but used less than once a week - that was a bit of a gripe) and the child who is going off to school getting a big model hedgehog made by the other children, and got teary and are-we-doing-the-right-thing-y. It was also pretty odd and moving to see my boy moving about in a context I don't usually have access to, iyswim - he's not exclusively 'mine'/'ours' any more, already.
There are three weeks until the summer break still, but we decided not to send him back after the summer party. He will be visiting his new kindergarten (LK2 - which incidentally has a veggy name!) a few times, we are invited to their summer party, and I'm going to Do a Project with him. We'll do 'Things that Fly' and go to the botanic garden to count birds and insects and get FIL to take him to the aeroplane museum and make a papier-mache hot air balloon and a butterfly. And I am going to manage to do all this while running off every other second ater ds2. It is also dh's birthday a week on Thursday and I am going to annoy dh intensely by organising a celebration.

sorry, kiga means 'kindergarten'. I forget you are not all German

hello lovely ones

No, don't have any kind of contract. I was happy for her to make them and sell them through her nursery for charity. If she had any success with publishing that'd be fine obviously, but just don't like the idea of being part of any rip off scam where she loses more money.

Not vanity publishing no, it's called something like the children's literary agency - if you google its part of an umbrella of agencies dealing with every type of publishing - they claim to 'develop the talent' of the writer - which I've realised means get the writer to pay for a critique of their work.

In a way it won't matter to me, but I suppose I feel uneasy about her sending my stuff off at all now that it comes to it, because I have such a problem with her writing. My own fault really.

OB unless you have a flexible mortgage you can only overpay a certain amount. I think ours is something like 1% of the outstanding loan amount per year, or you have to pay penalties. I would have thought they might have mentioned it though when you paid it in

You could send her an email saying 'I was happy to do illustrations for you to sell for the charity. If you are planning to use the illustrations for another purpose then we should draw up a contractual understanding, as obviously I have copyright over the illustrations' or some such though not quite so pompously. Depends on what you want to happen?

I agree though, it is very annoying to be hitched on to her if she's crap. On the upside, if she is really crap then nothing will happen anyway?

Oh Franny I'm sorry you've had such a horrid day
i wish I were nearer to do stuff...there's always the cat badges to paint if you really need something to do.
Umm..saddest cat,cleverest & grumpiest cat are your allotted ones

100 you are a wonderful Mum

Oh Boco I must post the bear suit back.The concert was so lovely & everybody ooooooohed & ahhhhhhhhhhd at ds.Thankyou so much
V tricky about the books,doesn't sound too promising though.How's the website coming along?

Toot...style 1

100x it's lovely to see you but sorry you've not been having such a good day. [kitchen envy] about the roast chicken and the aga!