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The One and Only Tea Room - Now Hanging in Babylon

987 replies

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 13/05/2011 23:57

Well folks, here we are, transported through time and space to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Golden couches and the distressed chintz sofa are arranged on a terrace overlooking the Euphrates and, as we recline on the exquisitely-soft cushions eating peeled grapes, we can enjoy the warm fragrance of the gardens' many exotic blooms. The garden is tended by the indefatigable Mellors, with occasional help from the bishops, rabbis and any passing world leaders. Somewhere behind the terrace there is an aga and a priest's hole, with optional massage table.

Please come and join us for a celebratory drink and conversation ranging from the profound to the profoundly silly.

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
UnSerpentQuiCourt · 07/06/2011 21:55

Scout, of course ss won't be interested. You're shocked and tired and over thinking. I hadn't even realised that the hv gets contacted. When Wriggle hit her head on the garden step, cried herself to sleep on my lap and couldn't be woken, we rushed her to A&E where she had an awful shock waking eyeball to eyeball with an enormous, bearded Italian doctor, who gave her a Hospital Teddy. HT had to go to a charity shop as she would never go near it. I have friends with several hospital teddies but no mention of ss.

Maud, are you getting chickens?

Punch with strawberries; yes please!

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 21:57

No, Unserp, the advice was for a friend. As they say, except it really is. We have far too many foxes here and I couldn't face the consequences.

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UnSerpentQuiCourt · 07/06/2011 22:08

I liked the idea of you having chickens - evangelical chicken keeper.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 22:11

Couldn't do it. Goldfish were too onerous for me.

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Scout19075 · 07/06/2011 22:15

I never realized how big fox here are until I nearly hit one a few months after I moved here permanently. Poor chickens don't stand a chance if foxes in Maudville are anything like the ones here in Scoutshire.

beanandspud · 07/06/2011 22:18

Unserp - I have been nagging DH for years to let me have chickens but he's having none of it.

CMOTdibbler · 07/06/2011 22:20

I used to have chickens, and loved them. But this house has a covenant stopping us having them, which is a pita.

Scout19075 · 07/06/2011 22:36

I'm off to take my meds and check on TS and go to bed.

Thank you, lovely Tea Room Ladies, for the tea room wine and hand-holding and reassurance. It has been very much appreciated.

RagingRabbit · 07/06/2011 22:36

You are very wise, Maud. I knew someone who kept chickens in Sarf London, and the consequences were very traumatic. I used to see foxes as almost a daily/nightly ocurrence when I lived south of the river. Don't seem to be so many up here though.

Hello RunningMinxie. I am still relatively new here and yes, the thread is rather bafflling to begin with! (I still have no idea what all the bishops and bisons stuff is about, for example.) But it's a lovely place all the same and one of the great things about it is that in many ways it echoes the norms of nice people in RL, ie nobody is going to start being incredibly rude or insulting to anyone else, which is quite a blessing on MN really.

I myself have one little chap (RBoy) who is three and a half or thereabouts and, like Norman Price on Fireman Sam, is Mummy's Little Treasure. And makes me go all gooey on a daily basis. But then I am a rather gooey sort of person anyway.

Scout - eek eek eek! Poor you and poor TS. But v glad it sounds as though things are calming down. And please don't fret yourself about SS, like everyone else I really really can't imagine this going anywhere near that territory. Children do fall over and hurt their heads quite a lot, unfortunately, and that's just that.

Unis, that Rutter link was lovely.

Must must must get to bed. Serpent, living in London may afford many opportunities but in my case they are pretty much never taken. Even before RBoy, MrR and I hardly had a scintillating social life, and now... well. Actually, I don't have any great yen to go to gigs any more. Did a lot of that stuff way back when and my hearing is still recovering, don't want to make the tinnitus any worse than it already is! . V impressed by Maud and her RA business tho!

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo....

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 22:41

Hello, RR.

The bishops moved in many tea rooms ago, when we next to a cathedral garden and they realised that we offered better eta and buns than the refectory. They've since been joined by other faith leaders, in a sspirit of ecumenism. Even I am not sure about the bison, though.

I once had to remove the severed leg of some poor child's rabbit (I think) from the lawn. I couldn't face having to deal with a fox in the hen house. These putative chickens would be living (shock) north of the river.

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oxeye · 07/06/2011 22:48

Scout poor you. Hope you're all sleeping well. Having come to the scene late waht is quite amusing is that everyone has their "stairs/ head clunk/ A&E" story to provide comfort ...

We had a disastrous few days on holiday whn Oxboy fell downstais (despite me holding his hand). Very steep stairs. He fell sideways onto his neck. Sick making crunch. Him very still for the longest seconds of my life. Then yells screams and two hourly check for 24hous (sigh)
doesn't make it easier but it happens!! UV/ SS/ A&E none will think you other than you are- a kindly loving mum of a newly active still physically wibbly toddler xx

UniS · 07/06/2011 22:50

CMOT is your restrictive covenant about Chickens in particular or poultry in general?? Quail are rather cute and fluffy and lay eggs...

Gosh that punch was good wasn't it. .
Unis gives a strawberry flavoured slightly alcoholic burp.

oxeye · 07/06/2011 22:58

Am loving the restrictive chickens. LOL as we don't really say in the tea room!
I think the foxes are so ubiquitous round sarf London they will be the next accessory for the tough kids. Why have a staffy when youcan have a vixen?
Mind you it was the greedy neighbour Labrador that ate my guinea pif when a Small Ox. At least she gulped it whole. No body parts. Unlike my cousin, the hampster and the Jack Russell

oxeye · 07/06/2011 22:59

A Hampster from Hampstead perhaps?! Grin

oxeye · 07/06/2011 23:01

I can't recall the Advent of the Bison either, now you mention it Hmm

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 23:05

I think the bisons might have been on the far side of the ha-ha, but why were they there?

The tough kids round here aren't going to abandon their mean dogs easily.

::not thinking about guinea pigs and hamsters being eaten alive::

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RagingRabbit · 07/06/2011 23:09

Maud, I am indeed shocked. You mean you actually know people in the North? Is that kind of interchange legal these days? When I moved here to be with MrR, I had to renounce all fings Sarf, much as members of the RC faith had to renounce popery in the Olden Days. Have things changed that much??!

Thank you for the explanation re the Bishops. Can anyone advance us on the Bison? I suppose they do keep us in manure for the Aspidistras.

Oxeye - ouch re the crunch when Oxboy fell. And phew. Lol at Hampster. From Hampstead. Am quiet fond of Lol myself. Probably goes with being gooey.

As you can see, I haven't gone to bed yet. Have been trapped in a web of Spider Solitaire (MrR working).

UniS · 07/06/2011 23:13

Can't quite remember why Bison , maybe one fell in teh Ha Ha?

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 23:14

I thought it might take a while for that shocking revelation to hit home, RR! 'Tis indeed true. Not only that, but Bloke used to live in north London. Can you imagine? Well, I guess you can as you made the same journey in reverse.

I have the vaguest off vague feelings that the explanation for the bison may rest with UniS or Amber.

::waits expectantly::

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mistlethrush · 07/06/2011 23:20

Hmm at implications of north sarf divide....

Shall I get a tent?

We had to take mistlechick to minor injuries at 9mo when dh called the dog to chase a cat in the front garden and the dog ran over the top of mc.... Since then he's appeared to bounce - although I did catch him midcartwheel down the stairs one day.

I love quail - and would really like to keep them as pets! Would have a fox proof run though....

A friend's big labrador was attacked by a dog fox near here - got rolled down a bank and impaled on a spike and nearly died. mc was quite traumatised by the incident as we went to see them when he still had his lampshade on....

RagingRabbit · 07/06/2011 23:22

Now my jaw really has hit the floor. Bloke traversed the river for you? How on earth did you make him do that? I will never forget MrR's look of utter outraged horror when I suggested he relocate down sarf. North Londoners just don't do that sort of thing, was more or less what he said. But then he is a real, proper, North-er. Was Bloke too or did he move there from the sticks?

mistlethrush · 07/06/2011 23:23

I thought the bison followed Earl grey home from being on the other side of the haha when Mellors had been out exerciseing him (possibly with some diving into a lake involved along the way?)

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 07/06/2011 23:26

I think Mistle's got it! ::Old and amnesiac emoticon::

I'm always in the mood for a disco. ::Sticks rhinestones onto zimmer frame::

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UniS · 07/06/2011 23:28

Or did Amber find teh Bison on a cave painting in teh priest hole under the yurt??

UniS · 07/06/2011 23:29

During Mellors First Nation Phase. He did look good in feathers...