Any mums in Streatham.

[mafalda1]

Have asked before, is there any body out there. I feel as if no one lives in Streatham. If yo do, don't be shy. I can wait to meet others around here.

I'm in Streatham Hill. I know from various threads that there are other MNers round here, though I haven't met them either.

Hi there, nice to know that I'm not the only one. Have met up at Ikea in croydon once. But thats about it. Where abouts are you?
Hope to chat.

Sorry it's taken me a while to reply - I was rather busy over the Easter holidays. I live just off Leigham Court Road. My children are 6, 8 and 11 (all boys) and go to the local state primary school that begins with "H".

I've never been to a meet-up, so you're one up on me there. I know it's a daft question, but how do those meeting up recognise one another? I have a mental picture of people ordering lemon drizzle cake and saying "The norks are flying east" as a password, but I'm sure that can't really be the way it works.

Hi, I'm in Streatham too - but down towards the common. Mafalda, was the IKEA meetup the breakfast one I organised last year?

Streaham MNers tend to be quite quiet ime.

Hallgerda, I've done it a few different ways. I've emailed a picture to the person first, we've all had balloons, the IKEA one I wore a purple ribbon in my hair, and sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and approach likely looking groups of women and children (nerve racking ).

See that's the problem, streatham MNers are lurkers.......come back and talk (not now though 'cos I'm going to work, got to go and glower at unruly families in IKEA - put those kids to bed, damn you)

We're not all lurkers, serenity - there's been quite a frenzy of posting from Streatham MNers on the schools in South London thread.

Do people really take their kids out late-night shopping in IKEA? And do the kids respond to glowering? Clearly there's a whole world out there of which I'm unaware...

but then I can't hold together pieces A, B, C, D and E while handling an Allen key, and get seriously muddled by Swedish names for ordinary household objects. Pathetic really...

I'm not far from Streatham - off the bottom end of Cavendish Rd in Balham.

I'm in Brixton rather than Streatham - but DS goes to school in Streatham, and DP wants us to move there.

You absolutely mustn't take this personally mafalda and Streathamites, but I haven't responded to any 'meet-up' threads because I am over-committed in all directions atm, and have a bad habit, which I am trying to break, of responding to things full of enthusiasm and then not being able to fulfill them!

But here's a tip if you want to go to IKEA when it's deserted AND avoid the hell that is the A"£ / Streatham High Rd to get there.

Go during the forthcoming World Cup matches. Big Engerland ones.

I must have missed that thread I shall search for it immediately!

There's always families with kids running riot around IKEA. One of my 'tasks' is to go down to the tills at certain times and we all swap the things from other departments that have been dumped in our departments. So we all go down at 12 when we shut, and there is usually a family or two stuffing coke and hot dogs down the front. Ok perhaps on holidays and weekends, but a bit on a schoolday. Actually 'interesting' families make a boring evening go quicker, it's a bit like MNing in RL, all the judging etc
Adults behave worse than kids though. Sword fights with curtain poles, undoing packaging, throwing cushions around, snogging in corners, asking inane questions.

I spend half my time at work wondering if any of the harassed mothers are MNers and wondering if I should be really surly and/or sarcastic just to see if I could get a thread on here

God, I must find something a bit more stimulating when DD starts school.

batters, I think we must live quite near one another. So next time you see a harassed mother of three boys with long brown hair going grey, do say hello - it's probably me! Do you use Hillside Gardens? (I know it's a pretty down-market sort of park, but it's local, has climbing frames and you can usually find a tennis court...).

Blu - I have a niggling curiosity on local politics - hope you don't mind me asking. The LibDems are saying that they'll spend all Lambeth's new secondary school dosh in Streatham or West Norwood. What are they saying in Brixton?

serenity - sword fights with curtain poles in IKEA? Aren't there perfectly good Civil War re-enactment groups for people to join? Amazing!

I sometimes go to Hillside Gardens!

Hg - hmmm, that's interesting re the Education spend in Streatham / W Norwood. They are strongly backing the new school in Shakespeare rd, Brixton, but have defintiely NOT been behind another which has been vaguely talked about on brixton Hill. THEY say because the site ownership and avaiability isn't clear, parents say they have wasted the opportunity, and other mutterers say that in any case the Brixton Hill school is a plot by mc parents who don't want their kids to go to a central Brixton School. I have no idea on the valididty of any of that. Haven't had any of the leaflets yet...but most public election furore seems to focus on whether the council will sell off the pool at clapham and / or Brixton Rec.
I think I saw something to the effect that the council's preferred route is to expand existing schools - and that Stockwell Park is applyig to chaneg into a foundation school in order to avoid expansion.

I would be in sympathy with that - the last thing an inner-city school in a place like Lambeth needs is to expand. They need smaller schools of a more human scale, IMO.

I hadn't realised until now about the new one in Tulse Hill.

Aren't you in Dunraven catchment? (but it's more complicated than that, isn't it?).

Blu, you almost certainly have heard of the new school by Tulse Hill Station - it's the parent promoted one, \link{http://www.elmcourt.co.uk/location.php\Elmgreen}. Don't know whether to laugh or cry that all the local political parties are claiming the credit for that. Interesting that Stockwell Park is fighting expansion - I didn't think they could fill their places at the moment. A friend of DS1's is still trying to get a secondary place (He lives in West Norwood. Dunraven would have given him a place had he been a Band 2 not a Band 1 - mad world!) and Stockwell Park was one of the schools (and the only one in Lambeth) that had vacancies after March 1. I agree with you on human scale - I looked at a school in Wandsworth with around 250 in a year that seemed quite scarily huge. Yes, I'm in Dunraven catchment, but DS1 had other ideas. Perfectly OK school though, and it's possible one of my other two might go there.

about the plans to close swimming pools - the one in Streatham is threatened with a two year temporary closure when the Tesco development gets under way.

See you all around (no doubt when one of my children has thrown a wobbly and I'm not handling it very well...)

The thing is, even Stockwell Park is improving. Eating up 'value added' points and claiming kudos for 'most improved' - but it will take a while! The primary school I think you are talking about is also getting better by the minute and doing v wel, isn't it H?

Yes, Blu, my children's primary school is doing well. On the whole I've been very happy with the school - of course I've had a few problems, but show me anyone with three children who hasn't. As for Stockwell Park, it may be improving but still has a bad reputation among parents - as you say, it'll take a while!

batters, I think schools can do something to overcome the problems of the local area, though they probably cannot overcome them completely. My children's school certainly makes an effort - they try to combat economic exclusion and heterosexism for example. The Dunraven parents I know seem quite impressed by the future Principal of Elmgreen by the way.

batters, I was!!! Were you and your daughter coming in as DS2, DS3 and I went out? I was wearing an orange T-shirt and blue shorts. DH and DS1 were looking for a missing football (unsuccessfully) while the rest of us went to buy ice creams. DH and I had been playing outdoor badminton (yes, completely mad, we know... but the wind makes it a game of luck so nobody feels bad about losing) and the boys had been playing in the playground.

LOL at "parp"! I don't know what one could say which would appear sufficiently normal to non-MNers. Mention of lemon drizzle cake when there isn't any to be eaten is almost certainly ruder than "parp", and Hillside Gardens is in a lemon drizzle desert (and was even in the days of the 1950s timewarp bakery on Amesbury Avenue - do you remember the Russian slices?) I'm sure we'll meet again - see you around!

Another Streathamite here. Can't wait for nice weather as I love the Rookery especially the paddling pool. Just gone back to work so not sure about meeting up just yet. Still a bit shell shocked.

Anyone know what's happening with the ols Safeway site?

drosophila, I've been wondering about the Safeway site too, so I did a quick Google. I found a Lambeth document that indicated the issue had made it to the Town Centre Manager's in-tray, but there didn't seem to be any concrete proposals. It's a pity about the loss of the Safeway car park - it was so convenient for the swimming pool.

The Rookery and the nearby paddling pool are lovely - we often go on hot summer days. Do come and say hello if you see us - it appears my description on this thread is recognisable...