Tea Room the Eighteenth - the Cricket Pavilion

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Welcome one and all to our new abode - a lovely old-fashioned Cricket Pavilion, with decks outdoors and a rather lovely Members' Bar, complete with deep-seated leather comfy chairs and any drink you care to mention.

Our outdoor amenities include the well-tended cricket pitch, kept immaculate by Mellors, our multi-purpose man; a couple of tennis courts round the back for those who prefer the Wimbledon scene; and another multi-purpose pitch (can be used for hosting Fine Lad-style rugby matches, or Little Kickers' football, or the occasional All Comers' Lacrosse Tournament.

Bishops abound, mostly snoozing in the leather armchairs; there are sundry animals around - guineapigs and bison mostly - and of course the Naked Mohawk Babies, fetchingly attired in cricket whites (most unusual for them!)

The cricket pavilion tea room is open to all - those with only one child who need a safe haven predominate but having more than one child is fine - come in, have an egg'n'cress sandwich and a glass of Pimms!

*other fillings and beverages also available.

oh whoops! but and and as you say. Glad the woman in question has a sense of humour!

Am up and shouldn't be. Have been working (I know!) for about 3 hours, the stupidest thing - typing out a word doc from a pdf that won't allow me to copy anything out of it. My article, I wrote it some years ago but on a laptop that I no longer have access to - so I said I'd do this because the chap who wishes to reprint it needs it modifying. ANYway - it's taken a while to do and I've just got the references to do now. Gah!

JB, thats hysterical! :o

I know :o

After yesterday's marathon lunch, today has been a practically no-food day. "I WANT MILK! NOT FOOD, MILK!! I will scream I WANT MILK! until you give it to me!!" ARGH!!! "I will scream again because I finished my milk and I want MORE MILK!" Double argh! Honestly, anyone walking by would have thought I was torturing him the way he carried on at one point tonight, especially when he finished it.

Think there's teething pain. Poor thing.

Should be being productive but can't be bothered.

thumb, that doesn't sound fun!

JBM, that is funny! I know people that would do the same thing.

Thumb, there is a free programme called Zamzar, which you can find through google, which I use a lot for converting youtube clips for school, which says it also converts pdf to word docs. You can do it all online and then it sends you an email and you can download the result.

CMOT, I have found accupuncture extremely good for some things and not at all strange. It doesn't do everything, but then nor does conventional medicine. I miss it now that I can no longer afford it.

Thought for the evening: How come laundry detergent in this country doesn't come with a scoop?

Because that would be very wasteful - disposable scoop with each packet? Could use a yogurt pot, perhaps.

Usually detergents come with a dosing thing for a few months when they first come out, then they stop doing it. I use a gel normally, but keep Daz for the whites and have a cup that is the right amount.

The acupuncture is actually being done by my nhs physio who is qualified - she is of the opinion that it can't hurt and may well help, esp after next week when she can get into my bad arm properly. The acupuncture doesn't hurt at all.

I've been using a formula scoop because I got tired of sprinkling it in. But I don't know how much the scoop is so have no idea if I'm anywhere near the right amount of detergent.

But if we're talking waste, what about wrapping each of the detergent squares in it's own wrapper? Or the little gel pillows? I just don't understand it all!

(Whew, five years of laundry frustration is all coming out! Could have something to do with the mountain that is now just a mole hill.)

I think... laundry detergent manufactures will send you a scoop if you ask them too.
www.ariel.co.uk/faq/how_do_i_obtain_a_dosing_device.aspx

personally I use liquid, most of the bottles now say how many ml the cap holds.

sympathy scout for you day with grumpy over tired milk fiend boy.

chocolate any body?

oh for the love of God - what is it with MN at the moment?
Slow loading, bad spacing and then it just refused to post my message and didn't even cache it! Bah.

Serpent - thanks for the tip - will check it out :)

Scout - boo re grumpy milk baby, bet he'll be all right tomorrow though :)

No laundry detergent scoops here either - I bought a pack of cheapest plastic cups, marked up 60 and 100 ml and use that. When it breaks, I get a new one out the pack and mark it up. Wish I'd brought my Persil scoop from England...

went back to bed at 5, slept(ish) until 9 but still feel a bit tired - don't know why I woke up but at least I got some work done :)

Zamzar sounds brilliant, Uni, I've been thinking how useful it would be to get youtube clips off the site!

I finally seem to be feeling better. Not sure if its just because i've been eating very little, and when I do eat, carefully, or because I've not been eating gluten products. Still the odd twinge, and I feel incredibly weak, but thats still good compared to how I HAVE been feeling! :) I've also noticeably lost weight, unsurprisingly! Not sure how much because I'd given up weighing myself out of fear... .

Better go get kids ready...

oo, keep going with the gluten-free foods Mary, it could be the best thing you've ever done for yourself.:)

I tried Zamzar - it happily converted my pdf to a doc file - but as a giant picture. Still couldn't get the text off it. Never mind, tomorrow we are going to go over to one of DH's friends who has a copy of Adobe so I'll be able to get it off him. Yay!

Last time we switched washing powder types I found there wasn't a scoop and read the packed and it gave you an address to send off for one which was sent free. Scoop is retained between boxes....

JBM - I bet your friend was mortified when she found out, but good that the 'client' has a sense of humour!

Apparently mistlechick is now starting to settle down at school - there are still days when it is almost impossible to do anything with him (almost certainly tired days - eg the ones he's been up wiht a nightmare) but good periods too - and the rest of the class is also settling down which is also good for mc as he doesn't have anyone to 'bounce off' (the teacher's words, not mine). She was talking of continually needing to stretch and challenge him - which sounds ideal for him. Just wish there was that little bit more tearing about for mad 10 mins and then settling down for an hour (or 30mins) (repeat).

Mary - have you had the tests already? So that going wheat free will not affect the tests? If it seems to be helping, it is now relatively straightforward to get wheat free food at least. And, just so that you know, if you get one of those 'no charge for prescrptions for a year' things, lots of Drs will actually prescribe quite a lot of the foods for you so that you don't have so much expense - I know a friend who gets all her bread and flour and pasta this way.

My psoriasis seems to be improving as well! we're supposed to be taking a group of DD's friends bowling and to the fish and chip shop tomorrow. What do I do about gluten then? I'm still working out what I can and can't eat...

Paste the picture into some picture editing software? You can always position white boxes over the text, and you may be able to "ungroup" objects within the image.

I'm missing the school harvest festival at church this morning. DD would be playing in it too, but I know if I'd gone, I'll only have been roped into doing stuff, and I don't feel ready for that yet!

Well, a bit better than yesterday -- so far. AND I have a napping baby. Still took longer than it normally does, but he's out. Whew! I don't think he's sleeping particularly brilliantly at night at the moment (I know I'm not!) so don't know how he keeps going and going and going....

But this nap now means he'll last through my going to the Story Telling Workshop where he'll be in the creche for an hour, playing. I didn't get to see the list of other parents/babies/children going, so don't know if any of his "friends" will be there. But he's not usually bothered by other babies/children and adults.

So many things to do, don't know where to start.

Glad there's some improvement, Mary!

How are Small and amber?

Cross-posted! I've had the tests, just not had the results yet.

I might be speaking too soon about feeling better, stomach cramping a bit after breakfast (oatso simple). Argh.

Mary - the chips will be fine, but you'll have to avoid the batter. However, I would have thought that simply taking it off and avoiding eating it and eating the fish from within will probably be OK as it won't have got any of the gluten transferring into the fish

Thanks! I tend to do that with batter anyway, as I'm not a big fan!

That'll be the Oatso Mary - most oats are grown/transported/processed in the same places as wheat and so are heavily contaminated although oats themselves are usually ok.

I'm afraid most fish and chip shops (although some do do gf batter either on an occasional or regular basis) leave you just eating chips. And some fry chips in the same oil as battered things leaving you with batter bits in your chips. Picking the batter off is not a good idea

Mary, what MT says is what I do. I am not so reactive to wheat that it causes any problem - but beware of the crunchy batter bits in the chips!

I don't have any useful programs to do picture editing either - unfortunately the pdf is an entire journal and it's all a PITA but tomorrow I'll have Adobe again and my life will be soooooo much easier. :)

Re. the oatso simple - very refined oats, might be affecting you if you have a very irritated gut that is coeliac - the gluten in oats is substantially different from that in wheat, barley and rye (which are all much more similiar to each other and all need to be avoided in coeliac/gluten intolerance) - but some coeliacs can't tolerate oat gluten either. Some can - I know you don't have a diagnosis yet but it might be worth checking out the coeliac pages on this site for more info, recipes etc.

Tbh, if you feel substantially better after a week off gluten, then I would stay off it regardless of the test results - even if you're not a full coeliac, you may still have a gluten intolerance.

Amber is absolutely knackered after the autism awareness/disability conference week from hell, therefore no real use to anyone at the moment

Not true Amber, you've already been of use to me! :)

As have the rest of you, but am still a bit :(. I looked through all our breakfast cereals, and I thought I'd be alright with the oatso :(. I did have a look at the "free from" breakfasts range in Tesco yesterday, but didn't fancy any of it :( waaah!

I reccomend the Doves farm one that looks like Special K, and the Main Street ones (in Morrisons or Ocado) which are really tasty

Thanks. Don't like Special K at the best of times, but will look out for the other stuff! If its Ocado, will it be in Waitrose?

Also, silly question (because I've already done it) am I OK to cook things like pies and stuff, so long as I don't eat any? Thinking about handling the flour/pastry etc...