So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

oh dear, jenny - holidays sometimes can be more trouble than they're worth, hey. :(. Hope you get some enjoyment out of it, anyway.

Had a good night out last night with DH - MIL stayed over with DS - it was his works Christmas do, on a catamaran cruise round DArling Harbour. Lucky with the weather, good food - the only downside was the free bar and DH and I got a bit tipsy. Not very - just enough to feel crappy this morning. And in my case, involving the bod's need to purge.

Must remember to take more water with it in future and to STOP before we go too far! But it still was a good night.

My cake is almost goooonnnne - will have to make a new one soon - but it will probably be a Christmas cake instead, and I'm not sure DS will like rich fruit cake quite as much as the chocolate variety!

Look what I found! [fbear] - it had been left out before but it's been added now!
(simple things...)

Ooh yes, I noticed they'd added those but haven't used one yet. [fbear] [fbear]

Your night out sounds lovely, thumb - well, apart from the purging bit this morning! No chance of me getting tipsy last night as the restaurant we went to was quite expensive; we were asked if we wanted aperitifs when we arrived, had a quick look at the menu, saw it would cost 10 euros and decided against it! So I limited myself to two glasses of wine - and as a glass here is only a couple of cm of wine (125 ml), even I didn't manage to get tipsy. Still, it was nice to have an evening out; our first since we moved here seven years ago! (Although we have been out in other places.)

Sorry to hear your holiday isn't turning out to be much of a holiday, jenny. I find going away can be quite exhausting and it's only the last couple of years that we've started going on holiday; we travel back to see my parents of course, but DD1 was 5 before we went on our first holiday. DS was only one at the time and it felt like I spent the entire time trying to stop him eating the sand! Last year (our fourth summer holiday) was the first time that I actually found it relaxing.

Oddly enough, as tonight is the last night, the dcs have gone to bed really well! That would be sod's law then. It was our fault really. City breaks are not ideal for pre-schoolers but as dh has not had a whole week's holiday at all this year, we didn't have enough time to go anywhere really child-friendly. I wanted to go to San Diego as there is Legoland, the zoo, the beach etc, but flying would be the only option and I think I am a bit late for that now. Next year.....

That sounds like a lovely works do thumb. I am also envious of yours and Linzer's wine as I really fancy one now. Only 8 weeks to go now... Got to go to bed soon - though will have to wake up dh first as he has fallen asleep with the dcs!

Hi - sorry about difficult holiday Jenny, can't believe you've only got 8 weeks to go! That will fly past. If it's any help (probably not!) I flew home from Jamaica when I only had about 6 weeks to go and it was fine. Although I did fly business class which helped

It was dd2's 3rd birthday yesterday. She had a party with a few friends varying in age from 1 - nearly 6. Mostly, friends of mine with children she tolerates gets on with! It was a princess party and meant to be all girls but I snuck in a few boys as dd1's best friend is a boy, plus my best friend here has two boys.

Anyway we served Pimms - some people loved it, some had no idea what it is! I can't say I got pissed but it was nice to have a few drinks in the afternoon.

We fly home a week today. The packers come on Friday, and I'm taking the dd's down to our favourite resort on the south coast (near the airport) that afternoon. Dh will join us on Saturday and we'll have a couple of days to relax and enjoy the last of the tropical weather before we fly home Sunday evening.

It's 21 desgrees here this morning (at 6am it was anyway). That's as cold as I have known it since we moved here. In fact, that's postively freezing for this place!

The Pimms served to the adults not the children!

Wow, stranded - only a week to go! HOw are you feeling about it? Hell of a shock to the system, having to go from tropical to arctic temperatures!

I'm very excited but see my thread here about taking dd's into the cold and tights!

Also I will have to change my name. WHat do you reckon - Notatseaanymore? Strandedintheland? Strandednomore? (will probably wait until after Christmas as I don't want to have to think of another festive nn).

Depending on where you're going (is it that Ladies college place?), you could be strandedinthesnow!

Dunbeingstranded, how about that?

Hopefully we won't be stranded in the snow - yes it's the ladies college place and apparently there hasn't been much snow there...yet.

Dunbeingstranded is good.

strandedinthecotswolds?

strandedattheracecourse?

The thing is I sort of want to take stranded away as I am hoping I won't feel so stranded as I do here where it really is hard to escape.

So perhaps dunbeingstranded or similar is the most pertinent.Or strandednomore.

Although from what I'm hearing, I'm starting to get worried I will be strandedatgatwick....

Homeagainjiggetyjog? Escapedfromtheisland? It will be hard to feel stranded in Cheltenham! Hope you really enjoy your last few days on the island and soak up those rays!

Is anyone still around?

I am, definitely! I think this fell off my Threads I'm On list though, so I had to check in my Watching list instead.

Have just vented my extreme disappointment with DH all over the Killer's thread - don't want to put it here again really but will if you like.

How are you doing?

have got to nip out to the shops shortly to get provisions and post some cards.

Just replied on that one thumb. Some men don't know they're born and what gems they have, do they?

Been a bit rubbish with Christmas generally as we were away last week so cards will probably arrive mid-January. In fact, may just send pretty postcards instead! .

You may know the answer to this: I know I should eat more lentils but I always end up being the Lady Mayoress of Trumpton afterwards. Is there anyway of avoiding this, or just an unpleasant side-effect I have to put up with? I did suffer from IBS quite a bit while teaching.

thumb, my sympathies. we have a few similar issues here - both sets of parents struggle with using skype, and dh gets vv impatient. he's a computer whizz kid, so can't see the problem. it is frustrating, especially as it appears his mother willfully chooses not to learn (we've shown her a few things several times, but she still claims not to understand, even though she's 63 & shows no real signs of aging).

do you use jajah? i use that to phone my mum as her computer takes at least 10 mins to start up, then there's the time delay on skype, so sometimes it's just easier to phone. she talks & talks - i'm lucky to get away with only a 40 min call, but it only costs about $3-$4 even then.

i thought i'd sorted out everything for christmas, then dd wrote santa a note, specifying some books she wants. of course i haven't bought them. sigh. AND she said the same thing to the santa she saw on sunday. as she keeps asking if santa is real (a boy in her class told her he's not ) , i feel obligated to get the books now, or there could be a bit of stark reality first thing christmas morning - not sure i'm brave enough.

as a complete aside, am i the only person who doesn't think of the word 'festive' when they type 'fshock', but something much ruder? did tech do that on purpose, d'ya think?

kickass - you are not the only one who thinks inappropriate things about the f-smileys!!
You're going to have to get those books, sorry. Either that or square up to tell her she just wasn't good enough...

Jenny - lentils, IMO, are work of the devil and there is no need to eat them. . I had IBS for years, then did my career change and started to try and eat more nutritiously - including lentils. Cue much pain and wind. Anyway, I read (in a spirit of cynical enquiry) the book, Eat Right 4 Your Type (the blood group diet) - and was massively relieved to discover that, as a group B person, lentils were on the "banned" list! Hurrah! I follow it fairly well and IBS and acid reflux are generally a thing of the past for me now, unless I slip up. So I happily avoid lentils like the plague now.
It's an odd book but it worked amazingly well for me and a few other people I knew, including one lady who shed 2 stone after following it! Might be worth a look?

I think I'm type O which is very ordinary. Might see if I can get that book from the local library, thanks!

Do any of you find it frustrating that the first few mins of any skype conversation generally run: 'I can't see you yet,' 'your picture's frozen,' 'I can't get the camera to work,' etc. I just want to scream, 'you know what I look like, I spoke to you yesterday!' I know they want to see the dcs but sometimes I would just like a quick chat! Rant over

yes, that's exactly how our skype goes & it's always that one of the parents has fiddled with something & then forgotten/not realised.

hence the use of jajah for phone calls. i should use it more often really, but my mum always talks for so long - i know i need to plan at least an hour if i call her. then dh asks what she was talking about & i can't remember a thing. she is an expert at saying 'remember the girl you sat next to once in pre-school. well, i saw her younger sister yesterday, and she stubbed her toe v painfully' or some such completely inconsequential thing. i just switch off.

the good thing about skype is that you can actually mn at the same time, so long as you keep nodding & saying 'ah huh' every so often!

thumb - i'm convinced that when he was first asked to do C hristmas smileys, tech sat there thinking ' f ing smileys. bunch of silly women want silly f-ing hats on silly f-ing emoticons.' and that's why they got called that. the reasoning that they're called 'festive' was just a convenient excuse.

OMG - I have just noticed that in some places on the list they use 'smileys' and in others 'smilies'. I wonder if there's ever been a thread about it in pedants corner? or am i about 2 years behind on this?

oo, I don't know - I'd vote for smileys though, because isn't one a smiley, not a smily?

love your reasoning on the festive smileys - but I reckon they're just being PC about it.

Your thing about your mum's inconsequential trivia - it's a parent thing, I'm sure. My mum used to do it, even when I hadn't the first clue who the people she was talking about were - and now my Dad is doing it too! Drives me nuts - just say "this bloke who you don't know said...." rather than give me the lengthy preamble of "John Jones, he's the one I met at the bus stop that time when I was goign to give a lecture on trams at X, you remember, we had a chat about how trams were a good thing and he ended up coming to my lecture..." - none of which I would have remembered - "...well, he phoned me this evening and we had a long chat." great! but - WHAT is the relevance? Argh!

the big question is - when will we start doing it? or will we be the opposite & never tell our kids anything, so in 20 years, mn will be full of things like 'my mum always sees my old childhood friends, and never keeps me up to date'?

oo-er - well, I suppose I sort of do it a bit now, only the friend-who-no-one-knows is in fact MN [guilty emoticon].

I bet we get just as obsessed with detail as we get older - it's probably some form of unconscious brain-exercise to stave off Alzheimer's or something.

You lot make me smile.

How do we know "tech" is a man? Or is that well known? I'm with the f-word theory. If they were trying to be pc wouldn't it be s for season? Or H for Happy Holidays??? [fbear]

and because those ones are so cute.

We don't skype a huge amount. My parents come from the days of living overseas when you only saw your children once a year, wrote letters which arrived every week and spoke on the phone very, very occasionally for special events only. Even now I never call them -I think they would think it was an emergency if I did. My mum has taken to email though.

We do skype with my bil but mostly speak to his dog (and that's another thread altogether).

I should be packing. But I BLOODY HATE PACKING.

Right. Got that out of my system.....