Tearoom 25 - Benvenute a Venezia!

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YOu find us this time in a glorious palazzo in Venice, near to St. Mark's square, and on the water. With gondolas and vaporetti in abundance to transport us around to the various sights etc.

The palazzo itself of course has marble floors and fabulous murano chandeliers but aside of that we have the usual distressed chintz comfy sofas, assorted animals, bishops in their corner, priesthole for emergencies and a single solitary aspidistra in a bomb-proof glass cage to protect it from the ravages of a certain Canadian.

All are welcome - drop by for a cuppa, a glass of something stronger and a chat and relax in the safe and kind surroundings here.

Cin cin!

Scout... hmmm, you're putting ideas in my head! I bet my parents would love a visit from JB and me around the time you mentioned, and I could probably easily take a detour on the way there or back! HMMMMMM... that's brightened my day!!! Let's see if we can make it happen :)
All three of us have a cough... DH is really feeling ill and I'm feeling like I'm fighting something off.

Carrots all round!

Here is a carrot cake - with icing carrots for the NMBs ( !)

and carrot wine....

'Tis International Donkey Week

Hurrah!

For you, Donki

In no particular order ....

Happy International Donkey Week!

Maud, I love truanting from school! (But I totally respect your views on the subject. Maybe we can arrange something when there are INSET days which don't coincide?)

Tea, do you mean the Other Tea Room or PM? (Remember I am very old and not well up on ... well ... anything, really) I would love to meet up but hope we don't disappoint; Wriggle can take a long time to thaw out with new people (and I am, of course, very old and deeply unfashionable.) Activity is best.

Scout, there are many many good things about onlies and boys (and none about people who make unhelpful comments).

Mistle, I always feel extremely slightly guilty when you drop in.

I have just finished Peter Pan In Scarlet. Wonderful writing - Geraldine McCaughrean's stuff always is - but got a bit bored with the story. Before that I read The Pinhoe Egg, which I loved. I do like Philip Pulman (Tiger in the Smoke) and was engrossed by the trilogy, but in the end found the second book too sad (daemons dying at the same time my pet tame sparrow - yes really - died) and the third too theologically depressing. Apropos, more about poor Wriggle's theological/existential angst later.

I mean Ruby In the Smoke.

I read another 30 pages of RITS tonight while Girl was in ballet. The end is nigh, so to speak.

::Summons the bishops out of the hot tub, to help with Wriggle's theological angst::

Bishops ! Robes on please

So, listen to our tricky day yesterday and tell me what your offspring believe:

Wriggle was devastated to find a dead baby rabbit in our garden. Rashly, I showed it to her, assuming that she would be interested . Instead she was heart-broken (she adores rabbits, dreams of having one and often thinks she is one) and kept on asking me where is ?east? was out of the rabbit ? the invisible thing that makes it be alive (something to do with the Easter Bunny?). I could only tell her that some people believe that it goes into another baby rabbit and some that it goes to a special place where rabbits are very happy (how do you explain it to a very young four-year old?).

She wanted to know what had happened to the rabbit (which looked quite untouched and even had a mouthful of grass). I thought it might have been dropped by a passing buzzard. She immediately started complex plans for buzzard traps to get rid of them. She wanted to know why buzzards can?t just eat grass and leave rabbits in peace; I explained about the ?wrong kind of tummy? (she is very young for a four-year old) and we decided that a buzzard would die if it only ate grass.

Later in the afternoon she came to me in screaming hysterics because she had accidentally eaten a little bit of the brown skin on a bit of coconut and was going to die, because she had ?the wrong kind of tummy? for eating wood. This explains why she was distressed today because she claims that her friend put a blade of grass in his mouth. She begged him not to do it again, because ?I don?t want to worry about you, X?.

She has worried about everyone and everything since.

Eek. Not so much angst as trauma!

eeek- best not explain what an omnivore is... she might eat ANY thing .

I suspect boy would have been curious. He likes buzzards, we have a nesting pair close by. Crane flies on teh other hand he is spooked by.

My eek was about the naked bishops, but aaah for Wriggle and her worries.

I don't remember how old Girl was when her goldfish perished, but she was probably four. We solemnly buried them in the garden (although by the time the last one died she was so unmoved that she did not attend the interment) but the last one was obviously not buried deep enough and was dug up by the fox. Girl opined then that Goldfish would be happy to know he had been eaten by the fox, so I guess that reveals some unorthodox ideas about consciousness too. Now she finds dead things rather interesting, in that she still talks about when we saw a run-over fox by the side of the road.

I don't know what to suggest about Wriggle's anxieties. Is she anxious about other things apart from death?

Up to now, Wriggle has been interested in dead animals and has rushed for her magnifying glass to examine them more closely. We have had interments of ex-pets (in the hedge for foxes to eat). I don't really know what has changed, but she has recently decided to turn vegetarian all on her own. I suspect that she is Thinking About Things.

Yes, she is very anxious about being alone/ out of site of Serpent and Papa. Always has been.

However, today she took off her swim ring and jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool (necessitating emergency rescue), apparently to show that she 'wasn't frightened at all'.

Thanks Maud. They're delicious (in muffled, carroty tones)

And a huge thankyou to CMOT for persuading the bishops to put their robes back on. I didn't know where to look!

Serpent - aww for poor Wriggle's trauma. The YD was usually just curious about such things, but was completely distraught when we saw some dead jellyfish that had been washed up on the shingle in Oban. He wanted to rescue them, but just dissolved when I said they were already dead... No suggestions other than lots of cuddles, and reassurance. Oh, and cheers! Have some carrot wine.

Poor Wriggle. No advice since I haven't encountered anything like that yet.

And yes, Serp, I agree, lots of wonderful things about onlies and boys. I wouldn't trade Toddler in for anyone. Normally comments wouldn't have bothered me, and in a way the only comment was a compliment ("awww, shame you don't think you'll have another, Toddler's gorgeous, you really should have another"), but I am still very crabby and not 100% myself.

Oh, is that why some Dad came to collect junior from school dressed as a storm trooper??

Happy donkey week. May all your carrots be crunchy .

Another Poor Wriggle from me, and similarly no advice as haven't got to that bit yet either. Am already concerned about what I'll say/how I'll handle it when SBoy does start asking those sort of questions. Don't have a great handle on things to do with Death myself anyway - well, I don't suppose many people have a comfortable relationship with the subject, but I have particular problems with the whole topic due to certain specific events, and I've noticed that I already worry about what to say/what he might say when talking about something as innocuous as cut flowers that have died. General fear of mentioning the D-word, and what it might lead onto.

And a huge eek about Wriggle jumping in the deep end of the pool - that must have been a very scary moment.

I realise I'm jumping back in with no explanation after not being around much lately. Hope that's OK. Don't mean to be anti-social, just not always able to get onto MN as much as I would like, lots of competition for the pooter these days and not much downtime.

Happy Donkey Week to you, Donki, and thank you very much for the Muppet Ode to Joy (I have been trying to catch up!), it's hilarious!

You do look fetching in your bun ears, Scout.

Waves to all.

Naked Bishops? Well I never! At least the Rabbis were behaving!

Ah yes, the whole death thing is of course the Really Big Question. For me, my faith gives me the right answers for me (though not what happens to dead flowers, I must admit - never thought about it!). But not everyone has a faith, so answering questions outside of that could indeed be tricky.

Feeling a heck of a lot better after the medical arrghs this week.

Donki, do have another bag of carrots!

I see Mellors has donned his pinny and is preparing another lovely breakfast on the balcony. Anyone for ?

Mmmm, please. The office coffee here in Germany isn't bad, but never as good as in the tearoom.

Back home tonight, then off for surgery

I don't know what to suggest for Wriggle - tiddler has a very robust view about death, and in fact life in general

Surgery? eeek! This soon? Will be thinking of you...let us know how it goes, if you can? Have more

Coffee?

Haven't gotten to death yet with LCT so afraid I have no advice. I do remember my younger niece asking a lot of questions about it when she was about 4 but have no idea how I or anyone else answered!!

Yes, on Saturday. Am bricking it to be honest - after the sheer horror of the pain last time, its a real worry how it will feel this time

They better have a decent pain management plan this time. Grill them intensively on it. I am for my stuff.

would be lovely thanks Tee.

Oooh - hope it goes smoothly cmot - will be thinking of you

Death etc - There's quite a nice Charlie and Lola about death where the mouse dies... MC always gets a bit snuffly and thinks about the chinchilla that died at Christmas now. However, in terms of the naturual world and the food cycle etc, he's very blase. I know he horrified MiL by announcing, aged 2.5 'I like baby lambs........ I eat baby lambs, I eat cows, I eat pigs, I eat sheep......' Not bad for the son of someone that became vegetarian aged 6 (he won't be based on his voracious, omnivorous eating).

CMOTD - hope the surgery goes well and achieves something beneficial for your wrist.

Amber - glad you're feeling more The Thing again!

Serpent - has Wriggle seen the Lion King? You could try that - it explains the circle of life thingy, plus you have the loss of Mufasa to deal with - miniThumb watched that (before I realised what it contained) when he was only 2 and he seems to be quite prosaic about death now; in fact, he tends to be rather insistent that things are dead when they're only knocked out or sleeping. I'm not convinced he really understands the concept but it doesn't seem to bother him. We have an aviary, and he sees the birds when they die, so it's not like he hasn't been hands-on with it. If you haven't seen The Lion King yourself, you might want to watch it without Wriggle first to see whether or not you think she can handle it.

International Star Wars Day seems to have bypassed Australia completely... or our part of it, anyway. Didn't even know it was happening.

THANK YOU, WRIGGLE for the LOVELY LOVELY bunny rabbit card. It is simply BEAUTIFUL!!!! xxxxxx How did you get the paper to look the way it does - that sort of pretty marbled effect?

On the big questions...

Our neighbours are Orthordox Catholic, Milk's babysitter is Muslim and lots of her friends at school are Jewish. All their particular branches of religion seem to have a lot of bling about them that impresses Milk.

"Oh... it's NOT FAAAAIIIIR!!!!" Milk moaned lately walking home from school... "EVERYONE I know has a God apart from MEEEEEEE..."

Milk is very aware of where meat and fish come from and is more than happy with it. In Monoprix she wanted a fish for tea and asked the lady at the fish stand to recommend one to her... the woman suggested a fillet... Milk almost started crying. "BUT I want to eat a dead fish with a head and tail too."

She also points out the pigs hanging up at the market and when I wince says "It is OK - we can eat that one because it is dead now."

She knows that I don't eat meat but has no empathy with my choice waving sausages around in my face to see if she can break me.

Human death due to naural causes does not bother her in the slightest but she does not like it when someone is "pow powed". I told her I felt a bit sad because I was remembering that my Nanna had died and she said "but she was very old and poorly she wasn't pow powed you know." in a sort of "gedoveri'" way!