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!

And sorry Unis. I hope you weren't offended by my SAHM comment. I should have worded it more carefully. I don't mean to suggest that staying at home is a bad thing generally, but that it has never even ocurred to me as something I would ever do. I need to get my head round it really. Plus, it wouldn't mean I would stop writing really, I just wouldn't have a dayjob. I might also go back to freelance translating, which is always a bit of fun.
Apologies again. I had no wish to be offensive.

Catita
He was indeed returned more or less physically in one piece. But they have abandoned everything to get out of there...

Sadly yes, that's what tends to happen. A journalist acquaintance of mine was lifted along with her daughters and mother. We heard that they had been released but their new location is top secret and noone really likes to ask. Our neightbour's sons (15 ish) were threatened and followed and now have been sent to stay with relatives somewhere else. I could go on. I hope your SIL's sister's is managing the relocation financially. That's if they have any money left after paying the ransome that is...

I think that they are getting help financially from family. But the rest of the family (like all too many) live in a restrictive curfew....

Night all

Night.

Maud: All this gloomy talk reminds me of your comment about why use Twitter this morning on FB. I didn't like to be the voice of doom amongst the light hearted banter. Here Twitter is our main source of info on what is happening where. We have a hermetic government who is in denial about what is going on and newspapers in their pocket that just ignore what is going on (and not just because of fear, since even before this all started local newspapers only printed what the government wanted them to). Updates from newsites out of state are easily shared etc and eyewitnesses can warn you of problems in a particular street. The main defect of Twitter is that it tends also to give space to rumourmongers.

Morning. ?

Catit fingers crossed for getting out of there. I am always slightly awed by the power of Twitter. A friend of a friend's life was saved recently due to Twitter and an international effort to track her down after she Tweeted about taking an overdose. It's an amazingly powerful tool and I'm so glad it helps you be safe.

My oldest brother's wife is Mexican and they live in Arizona closeish to the border. She has family there but she will not longer go into Mexico. And she used to travel back and forth a lot to see her mom especially. Very scary place.

On a lighter note...we are off to the park today...unless those clouds keep looking so threatening...it was gorgeous 2 minutes ago! Waaaaiiilll!!!

Yes please for

Catita, I have no wise words about the prospect of you moving to somewhere safer but which might put all sorts of different pressures on you as a family. Difficult, certainly. Safe is good, definitely.

Twitter is an amazing social force, not least in the light of the public deciding they didn't want judges telling them who they were allowed to talk about and who they're not. The ability to mobilise a few million people fairly instantly is quite a prospect, though - one wonders who will misuse it.

Am not a tweeter myself - it all seems a bit to random and disorganised for me.

Catita , being safe is a basic human right, I hope something can be worked out.

I lost this thread for a while. I can indeed report that the ABY is a lovely man, I'd go as far as to say an extraordinary man - his enthusiasm and charisma is amazing, but also is his desire and thirst for social justice. He has a talent for stating things "how they are". (You may also recall, DS kicked him, after the ABY had wrestled him to the ground ... )

I tried hard not to wrestle the ABC to the ground. Or vice versa. I thought his security team might feasibly have me put in irons...

Cattita - I'm crossing everything for you - whether its this one or another opportunity, I hope you are able to move very soon. It doesn't really sound as though you'd be stopping what you do - changing course somewhat perhaps...

I think ds is going down with something - huge wailings this morning as he was spending AGES getting dressed and I ended up getting cross. Dh didn't help either.

Have just deleted a long grump about dh. I feel that I shoulder most of the care of ds even for the weeks he is around - even though I work full time.

Hanging gardens of babylon sounds good - we can sing 'the song' to Maud!

There's a song??! Is there a dance as well? [hopeful emoticon]

MT, grr re dh situation. Have a . It's not an answer but it helps a bit anyway.

history of song, not actual one!

Actually, having thought about that Maud, I knew that we were fairly aged in here, on average - but that puts you way past most people

sorry to be silent for so long - indolence has struck me and I have wasted most of the morning, will regret at leisure of course!

Catita. I know you will go anywhere to get a job and be safe and away - but your outline of work as a SAHM - or rather not attached to a Uni - is very similar to OxBloke's workstyle and it is indeed do-able - PM me if you want clearer details

Hugs to all
Scout, thanks for attempts re other tea room, I haven't had an invite though - maybe I should delete my account and try again?

I know I am a luddite re most things, but to me Twitter seems pointless in that it is often used to say pointless things, but as an entity I think it is awesome - witness Catita's use of it - often the purpose to which things are put does ill reflect their capacity...

As to reading, sorry UniS no help here. OxBoy is not interested at all - guesses wildly by picture, I think he is afeared of trying and not being able to do it....

Mistle, I think that your gripe re MrThrush is a very common experience; I know that I feel the same. I am responsible for all the day to day care ie it is my fault if there is no toothpaste for her etc, but he is favourite for playing and fun. I get woken up at night etc. It being common in no way makes it less irritating. I wonder, at least in my case, how much it is due to my expectations too. That is how I was brought up, so I allowed it to develop again.

ARe we off to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon soon?

My real gripe is that we used to get up at the same time and he used to take the dog out for a walk whilst I sorted MC. He said that he was going to start that again - and frankly it would do him and the dog good. Instead, when I go in and 'wake' him up he's normally busy checking his twitter or similar. The dog doesn't get taken out. he doesn't get any excercise. And I go to work cross because once again I've been mug enough to be the one doing the getting up and getting on with things.

Oh - and yesterday it was me (who needed to do some more work having got home) that practised reading with mistlechick (Unis, it suddenly seemed to click with MC - Boy will get there!) whilst he checked twitter and facebook. Grrrrrr..... Sorry.

I am relatively blessed, in that Bloke is first one up in the mornings and does most of the cooking, but I still have those tooth-grinding moments. Having chosen for himself one job that it is (comparatively, anyway) pleasurable (ie cooking) he feels exempt from any of the grottier jobs. I am not exactly a demon for hoovering but I do at least know where the thing is kept and I can confidently say that Bloke has never cleaned the bath which he alone uses.

I like being called Maud and think I will keep this name for a while. I've never known much about Tennyson's poem - it was only when we went to the Musee d'Orsay recently (for an exhibition about pre-Raphaelite photography) that I discovered that the narrator of the poem kills Maud's brother, which hardly seems an appropriate gesture of love!

Morning/afternoon/evening all:

For Maud my favourite volume of Hume now readable even on a phone!

For Oxeye: Thanks. If this actually does come to something I will get in touch.

Mistle, I have just got home from a day's teaching to find the bag of swimming things thrown on the floor, toys everywhere, sleeping bags and suitcases in the bedroom (they had 'been on holiday') and then I had to start thinking what to cook for supper, feed all the animals, remake the bed after hide and seek ....

BUT this evening was the first time ever that Wriggle actually 'helped' me and trotted alongside me chattering and even occasionally carried something ... she has always been very resistant to helping and I have yearned for one of those lovely helpful children you read about in books/ all my friends have.

Maud, from once thinking it was one of the ugliest names (it's the 'ord' sound), I have really come like your name, to the point that it nearly became a baby name option. Somehow, it seems to be a form of Matilda.

I have found ::sigh:: that it takes a long time to indoctrinate inspire a child with the notion of being helpful. Girl is much better at starting on any helping task than on completing it. At the weekend I got her helping me to rake up leaves from the lawn but after a couple of minutes she announced she didn't like it and was going indoors. So we are progressing slowly. At Brownies, however, the girls vie for the privilege of sweeping the floor.

::Head in hands emoticon::

I'm not sure that I would have called Girl Maud, but it seems quite a powerful and feisty name, which is always A Good Thing, in my view, not being of the Fifi-Trixielulu persuasion. And no, Mistle, I am not quite old enough to have been Tennyson's inspiration!

Does anyone have any magic sleeping dust I can borrow?

No, but I have

Oooohhhhh, cures headaches!