Tea Room the Nineteenth

[amberlight]

All in need of a restful break and a chat are more than welcome to the nineteenth Tea Room.

We find ourselves in the South of France, where the warm sunshine is just the thing for those who are missing the summer. The tea room has its aga and its distressed chintz sofa...and its potted plants. The usual fictional tea room inhabitants are here, as ever: Mellors, the gardener/handyperson with the handy ways with massage; the collection of tea room animals including the horses, camel, bison, guineapigs and sundry others; the Bishops and other faith leaders who joined us a while back and potter in for the occasional cuppa. It may not make sense, but that's not important. What matters is the lovely people here and the chance to just relax.

And something else to raise the temperature on a cold night

Good night.

well I think I did it, can you see my footprints through the snow to the Other Place ?!

Swigs some bolly alone, throws a few shapes, realises Sailing By is on the radio and so it is time to go to Bedfordshire

By the way, Small, just because I wasn't in the TR on Wednesday doesn't mean alan rickman is yours - at best it's a time share darling

Aha! I see your expedition to the other place has yielded success!

That works for me, Oxeye. There are, after all, other options (see my generous gift to you, above).

Serpent - have you tried burning essential oils in her room at night? Or is that a major fire hazard? In which case, put them on a tissue near her pillow instead.
I would recommend mandarin, roman chamomile and lavender - in the ratio 10 drops mandarin: 1 drop roman chamomile: 7 drops lavender. The oils are calming, soothing, uplifting and should help with restful sleep and clearing of any troubles in her mind.
If you can't find mandarin, you can use orange instead, or orange blossom and change the number of drops to 4.

Welcome, oxeye, to the other place.

Amber - wah! re antiquated solicitor! hope you brought him up short and sharp - dozy man!

Mary - so long as you start at the right page, all will be well. I went to a wedding a few years ago, sang at it actually, and it was a new lady doing the wedding - she got the bit after the vows wrong, bless her - instead of "That which God hath joined, let no man put asunder", she said "That which God hath put asunder, let no man... umm, argh, divide" (x100) Poor lady.

Can't believe you're all getting snowed on - am sooooo . I wanna build snowmen/kings/angels etc.!

So you won't all want to hear that I managed to go swimming again this morning - 3rd week in a row! I might actually start to improve soon... To be fair, I think I am already. The trainer is giving me some hints on how to swim front crawl (ever my bete noire) and I aeem to have a bit of an aptitude for butterfly legs! (NOT arms, not yet). Can't go next week because we are going into Sydney for miniThumb's 3rd birthday (can't believe it but there it is) and have an early start but am getting into it.

humb, can't believe mini is going to be 3! wow where are our babies going?

We don't have snow, nothing like that, nothing that good.... we are building a tree house but I have been banaished because "it is a bit tricky" (it was Oxboy's view, not Oxblokes I hasten to add...) I am now torn between flexing my feminist muscles and staying in here in the warm with a cup of tea and mn instead....

ACtually, Small, in honour of your gift, who's for a quick Nespresso!?

No possibility of a cappucino, I suppose? With a small sprinkling of choc on the top?

Morning Amber, how goes it fair lady?

Mellors' brother is now serving coffee on the verandah. I am sure he will supply whatever you need. By way of coffee, naturally.

Ooo not badly, all things considered. Probably about 60% of the way there now. Could do with more sleep and less panic but one can't have it all.

Aha, I'm being challenged to a game of scrabble by my sister, who's trying to recover from a deer hitting her car on the way to the stables. Thankfully she's ok, though.

Is Oxbloke back already then Oxeye? Has the time passed very quickly, or was he not actually gone that long this time?
Stay in - let the boys have their project time together. You can critique admire it when they've finished. :)

Cappuccino sounds fab - with extra cocoa sprinkled on top for me.

Amber - have you kicked your server into submission yet?

Have just been discussing our next putative UK trip - and MrThumb has agreed that next July would be fine, if nothing stops us. Which means that I will be in the UK for my (and oxeye's) alma mater's 300th anniversary after all. Hopefully we will have sufficient time to engineer a tearoom meet up too? We'll aim to come over for 4 weeks (although doubtless MrT will expect to be in France or elsewhere in Europe for at least 1 of those).

thumbwitch, eek re: that wedding! The problem isn't following the service, which is very simple, its all the walky about bits, like processing in with the coffin, and the formal ceremonial bits which are confusing - these vary from minister to minister, but our vicar goes OTT on the ceremonial. Plus he'll be there, Strictly Come Funeral style, to rip to shreds critique my performance.

Not sure about Mellors' brother, I quite like his cousin

TW, the office server has been fixed by Handsome Contractor Computer Engineer (hurrah!).

Boggled by a Strictly Come Funeral competition . Would it have Brucie as well? "Nice to see you gone, to see you gone, nice!" And I expect it would need a Craig as one of the judges, too: "Daahling, only one word - fabulOUS! But some of the handovers during Communion were more than a little awkward. Lovely processing, though."

Ugh. I could just cry. Just checked my stitches this morning and they are infected all along the right side. Looking extremely nasty and feeling very sore. This would probably explain why I've been feeling so off and grumpy and low all week. SHIT!!!!!! I was wondering why I'd been having so much more pain this week. Great, mystery explained. :(
Rang my surgeon (going private is really stellar, I have his mobile number and email) and thank all my lucky stars, he's on call at the hospital in White Rock (which is near-ish) rather than all the way down in Vancouver. So I'm seeing him in an hour or so.
I think I need the Priest Hole, I'm feeling really depressed. This has been worse than my internal repair two years ago, which was actually a bigger operation. Would a small sob be ok here?

((((((((hugs))))))) of entirely safe and appropriate public kind.

Sob away, Jacksmama.

Bum, bum and thrice bum. Hope your lovely surgeon can sort you out soon. Fingers crossed that some anti-bs will make the infection go away and then everything will be (literally) in good shape.

Have a hug, some cake and a large slug of Bolly.

Mary - Quite. I couldn't find the photo I posted before, but have you seen this?

at Strictly Come Funeral.

oh JB- bum bum bum. almost literally. my sympathys to you.

Eeeekkk for your sister and teh deer Amber

Sound very good indded Thumb.

We went up teh moor in snow today. Was an adventure. all dressed properly for it and well supplied with snack and hot blackcurrant.
A good trip. We identified prints from pony, dog, mouse/shew etc and rabbit. stil have snow on teh grass here, but it was better snow up teh hill a bit. even threw a couple of snow balls.

oh JM you have my sympathy. Sob away dear girl, I am and they're not even my stitches...

Mary I have amazing visions of a Foxtrotting funeral procession now

Thumb, yes, Oxbloke is back. Twas a very short four week trip for him this time glad it seems a short time - a colleague at work said "Oxbloke back already?" and then saw my face, "of course, I haven't been looking after Oxboy" etc etc back track
not that I don't love him to bits, of course, (both of them) but gosh I would find being a single parent tres hard so hats off to all single mums....

Quick report: saw surgeon, who said "umm, well, yes, it looks a bit yucky" but not nearly as bad as he'd feared from my phone call. He thinks it will still all heal
Just fine. Thank goodness. So I got a prescription fir antibiotics, and he asked me if I needed more pain pills and I said, no thank you, I never even took the second one he gave me, and he said (LOL): "my dear, take them if you need them. There are no medals fir suffering!" Which was very sweet.
For a laugh, apparently the antibiotics I was prescribed are unavailable in pill form throughout the entire area. Manufacturer's shortfall. So I have three bottles of strawberry-banana-flavoured suspension in my fridge. Delicious... What a treat, four times a day...

Can I be done with all this crap, soon, please????

Bloody iPhone and autocorrect. "Fir" should be "FOR", of course.

Well, that sounds positive, Jacksmama. Would you like some Bolly? In the tea room it is perfectly safe to mix anti-bs and booze. Or perhaps we should mix the Bolly and the anti-bs to make a fruit punch?

Need to go back and catch up on days and days worth of messages but came in quickly to say "hello" and to pass along a message.

JM Within seven to ten days you should have a package within your possession. It is from me, however, I just found the card that was meant to go in the package, which was mailed today. I kept with the tea room package theme something to eat, something to read, something to wear. There is also loads of Galaxy as payment for the HippyChick, but if you want more (whenever the mood strikes!) let me know and I'll send more off to you. There is also something silly in there -- it was originally meant for JB but you can keep it if the mood strikes you. You will know what it is when you receive the package. I have put the return address and customs slip as from the US, cuz I didn't want to cause the poor USPS confusion.

Phew, JM. At least he thinks it's not a major setback I guess, though that doesn't make it any more pleasant to live with in the meantime?

UniS, my trips to the moorlands in snow tended to be a bit Winnie the Pooh and Piglet-ish, "Oooo look - one set of tracks...oh now there's two...no, three! Ah I'm going in circles - that's why!"

Oxeye, four weeks is a lot of weeks.

Might risk church today. First time since the Recent Events and I'm nervous as I'm not sure how much confidence in myself I have at the moment for handling churchy things. But a good friend is going with me.

HOpe you made it to church, amber, and that it went well.

JM - :( re infected stitches, hope they calm down soon with antibiotics, have you tried lavender oil baths? good antiseptic.

oxeye - well, 4 weeks is certainly long enough when you have to live through it with small boy and work demands! But glad oxbloke is back in one piece.

Scout - are you back on t'other side of the Pond now? How did you get on with the return flight? (or am I ahead of myself here.. can't keep track! )

Small - love the idea of antibiotic, alcohol and fruit punch! I have some kind of earache ongoing, which varies in intensity during the day - might have to go to the GP and get them to have a look down my ear canal to see if it's inflamed. :(

thumb -- I'm still in the States. Our flight is this evening.