Tea room 22- A Farmhouse kitchen, anyone for a cuppa?

[UniS]

Welcome to the 22nd incarnation of the tea room. This time we are watching for spring from a cosy farmhouse kitchen. There is an aga for baking virtual cakes and an inglenook with toasty fire and settles to rest weary bones on. The distressed chintz sofa and footstool have arrived safe and sound and the priest hole is around here somewhere. On the Window sill is an aspidistra its pot surrounded by a hand holding circle of nearly naked mohawk babies, they have placards and a brazier.

Outside in the surrounding fields can be found the tea room horses, Earl and Lady Grey, also a herd of bison AND a Ha Ha to keep the bishops from invading.

Usual rules apply, no fisticuffs, if you want an argument go else where. Mellors the butler / game keeper will supply all sorts of things on request. Welcome Mums of one, none or many to the tea room of requirement.

PS I haven't had a one child family for over a decade but in my defence it looked cosy over here.

ooo, hello BoffinMum! What sort of annoying line manager have you got??

Come in, BoffinMum. Have some hot chocolate to go with that cake.

That foetal position looks very uncomfortable. Would you like one of Mellors' legendary massages? And do you want to tell us about the annoyingness of your line manager?

PS Tell us about your experience of being a Boffin.

Hello BoffinMum!

Hello BoffinMum!
Has anyone shown you the secret door to the priest hole yet?

It is an excellent place to hide from annoying line managers - although I think it may still be occupied by Mary.

Tea anyone? or Carrots?

Hello again BoffinMum (we met on a thread last year or so) - it is cosy over here. And we have posters of -droolworthy hunks-- nice men with cute puppies (so upthread).

Could someone remind me please that going to work without eating breakfast is Not A Good Idea? I'm trying to shed some holiday poundage, so trying not to eat too much in one sitting. Which is made very difficult when I don't take have time to eat breakfast and am then ravenous by lunch.

Amber, my thoughts are with you and your family.

I have an annoying manager too Boffinmum

Am back from Finland - only to find we have no water, so only a tiny cup of tea

Hello Boffinmum!
Sorry to hear about annoying line manager - they can make life hell, can't they?

Amber - early catching is the key, that's for sure - and I have a friend who has survived two doses of it and she's not yet 50. I know I'm getting repetitive now but You Will Be Fine.

JM - eat breakfast! it doesn't work for me, I just get fat if I start eating too early in the day but I am turning into my mother a bit odd in that way. (My mum always said she had different body biochemistry to everyone else, and although I always used to scoff at her, I have a sneaking suspicion that she may have had a point!)

I made a walnut cake yesterday - it failed. Despite having the temp higher than suggested and leaving it in longer than suggested, I still ended up taking it out too early because, despite it not looking quite done, the knife came out clean - and I poked it in about 5 places to check! So, I ignored my eyes and took it out - cue massive sinking and porridgey consistency of the middle of the cake :(. More of a pudding than a cake now...

Maybe you could eat it with ice cream?

Bit upset re bread maker - could it be that it is more expensive to make it the traditional way? Although the aga is only on actually to bake it, and it does heat the bath water, also cook supper on the top plate and run the radiators at the same time.

Hello, again. I had to go and bath DS3 etc but I am back now.

In the dysfunctional family that is my workplace, my boss is the big sister who has come home from university for the Christmas holidays and knows it all, and I am the annoying adolescent little sister.

The temptation to put prawns in her printer is extremely great, ladies.

Mwah hah hah hah

Yes, to virtual massage, by the way.

Incidentally, the bread with no yeast turned out better than most of the bread that I make. It did have a little bit of starter in it, which is how I managed to forget the yeast, so that, in spite of only having half a tsp of yeast to over two pounds of flour, it rose beautifully overnight in the airing cupboard.

Hello all!

Mellors is standing over there waiting for you, BoffinMum, carrying a pile of fluffy white towels and some gorgeous aromatherapy oils. You can't miss him - he's the one who (depending on who's looking at him) looks just like George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Sean Bean, Wesley Snipes or Cameron Diaz.

I don't think we've had a mother of three in here since Pagwatch paid us a visit in the earliest days of the tea room.

Has anyone opened the Bolly yet?

WRT being a Boff, I have this big brain thing in there, and ever so often it demands feeding, so I think up a big idea and chuck it up there, and then it's happy for a while and leaves me alone.

If it wants to be really annoying it wakes up properly, and sees through all sorts of people and situations, so I know more about their inner lives than they do. That can be quite awkward if I am pissed at the time as for DH it's like having a plastered psychic on his arm yelling out acute observations, Tourette's style.

From time to time in the university sector I encounter other people in this situation, and it's quite comforting and we all huddle together a bit having a big brain feed together. Then usually the managers discover us and break up the party.

Realise that my logic is faulty. BoffinMum has 3 sons but an unknown quantity of daughters.

Hiya, Purpleknittingmum. Fancy a Bolly? What about you, Serpent?

I actually have four kids but the first was an only for 9 years or something.

One daughter, currently in process of becoming financially independent (yay!)

I need something! Aren't teenagers great?!

Now that, BoffinMum, does sound interesting. These big ideas that you feed your brain, what are they about?

Vot you need, purple??

The biggest current one is working out the link between children's speech development and linguistic decline in early stage Alzheimers.

I have also worked out a system of working out how stressed teachers are by their - ahem - lexical leakage, but that is sooooo big as an idea I am having trouble getting it into a journal (they can be rather conservative in the social sciences).

No Scout, it wouldn't be wrong. Anything that takes care of you and makes you feel like your world is a bit lighter is the right thing to do.

(((((HUG))))))

Purple, what would you like?