The One and Only Tea Room - Now Hanging in Babylon

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

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.

Serpent - I hope that it will all blow over with your friend, seems very unfair.

We have also had a lovely weekend doing family things and Small Bean was in bed at 6:30 snoring away. Hurrah!

He has had us in stitches today with some of the things he says - he was asking for medicine tonight (mainly because he likes Calpol) for a supposed sore throat. When I said 'no' his response was "Please don't tell me that I will have to be like this for many years...?" - he's 3 years old - where do they learn these things?!

Just out of interest, Small Bean keeps talking about horse riding. I have no idea what age you can start, do any of you have any experience please?

Bean - Cmot's your girl. CmotTiddler has been riding since he was (I think) 3 and is getting very proficient at it.

Girl too used to make pronouncements as if she was a little old lady.

My brother, when he was 3 and had started Nursery School, used to make pronounements of "when I was a little boy...." It made us laugh. TS makes announcements like I understand him -- I don't have a clue what he's telling me but he's always so eager and earnest (and plentiful) in his conversation. I'm still amazed at how quickly and easily I have learned his "signals" and body language. TS is still teaching his dad, though, as it usually takes MrScout one to three wrong guesses before he gets Toddler's "instruction" right.

Good way to early morning all.

LCT decided 5am was up time. Hopefully he'll go back to sleeping until 7 soon!

Scout LCT does that as well. Tells me very long and involved things so earnestly I feel horrible I have no idea what he's said! Although he's definitely starting to use words, he still grunts and points a lot also!

Serpent your friends sounds a bit odd and ungracious.

Busy day here today so maybe up early isn't such a bad thing!

I woke up at 5 am, too, and have decided to get on with some planning. Would LCT like to join me?

Mary, I'm glad that your daughter has a really good friend; wasn't she a bit miserable a while back?

Think you are right about friend with ishoos, thinking about it. It's just that she had always seemed so easy and a really good friend. There has never in all our four years' friendship been a problem. But she home schools her children, so they are together all the time and I think the seven-year old wants to do other things at times. She was asking to visit two or three days a week and friend was saying, 'I want some time with my own child.' Important, I think, to have some interests apart from your children. Oh well, there is a lesson to learn there.

Wriggle loved horse riding last year (at 3) but, after not doing it all winter, has now decided that she is 'scared because it's too wobbly'. I explained to her that I never had a pony when I was a child and always dreamed of having one, which is why I was making an effort to take her riding. She pointed out, very reasonably, 'But that's not my dream, Mummy.' Well, it should be.

Scout, it looks like a reasonable day for seed sowing - a bit breezy, perhaps.

Bean, miniThumb has been on horses since he was just 2 but not for riding lessons, just for walking round the field with me hanging onto him. He is fine like that but the pony needs to be small enough - when we tried to get him a pony ride at Australia Zoo the only one they had saddled up would easily have taken a 10yo and he was scared because it was too high; ditto the camel. But show him a small pony and he's dead keen to get on again.

I think some riding schools have ishoos with children under 7, but the ones all around me when I was growing up were like this because roads needed to be crossed/navigated to get to the parks - more country-based riding establishments would probably take them a lot earlier.

Serpent - botheration to losing valuable resources and buggeration to losing jobs, even future ones! I was pretty upset when the FSA website looked like it was going to close down but it seems to be up and running still so that's good.

MC went on a horse when he was 2 - and goes once a year apart from that - really must see if I can find someone local with a nice bomb-proof pony that I could borrow for 30 mins every now and then for a contribution towards insurance/feed/shoeing/grazing - a friend at school is taking ds's friend for lessons - £25 for half an hour - although if you book up 4 you get the 5th free. My riding lessons were £4 an hour - and because I helped I got every other one free (couldn't get there very early due to piano lesson) - eventually found someone I could help out with which was much better.

Feeling somewhat more myself now, luckily... wasn't counting on the raging PMT that seems to have been a side-effect.... Mind you, will still find it a wrench getting rid of the things that would have been really useful for a second - like the buggy....

I see Earl Grey and Lady Grey are helping with the gardening - doing a bit of pruning of some of the 'hanging' bits by the look of it... and the bison is doing what bison tend to do - so at least things should grow well!

:picks her way through the Bison's offerings::

Afternoon all! Wild weekend has been had. Now I need to catch up with what's been happening.

Meantime, and slice of Cotswolds choc cake, anyone?

Yes please Amber. All virtual cakes, chocolate or otherwise welcome as now avoiding them for the forseeable future

Me likewise. Soups and salads for me in real life, I fear

Due to concert in London, went out for a meal between the rehearsal and concert with my parents - nice little Italian down the road from the church - had a spanish omelette (fine) with a side salad - but ended up having a second side salad... I'm not sure that 4 side salads between 3 had ever been seen before based upon the eyebrows of the waiting staff! Didn't want my stomach growling in the middle of the concert though!

Afternoon all.

and cake sounds lovely. I've been going non-stop since I left the house at 820 and I'm not done yet. I've another mile plus round trip to make on shanks mares to get to podiatry appointment later. Is that ironic?

::for the first time in a very long time tee wishes she had a car. And a license::

Oooh. I had my first appointment with a podiatrist today. Can't make up my mind whether it's potentially helpful or just quackery. Of course, it could be both!

comfortable feet are important.

eveningall, j=got afew things to get on with so just passing through blowing kisses and waving.......

I go because of my diabetes, Maud. I do enjoy how they tell you to never use a razor on your dead skin...as they use a razor on your dead skin...

anyone?

Always Scout! :: holds out glass::

TS settle ok tonight? LCT was out for the count at 715, which is normal for daycare days. Now if he'll just stay asleep and in his bed!

I forgot I had a Guide planning meeting tonight, so TS and I went to my Unit Guider's house and MrScout picked him up on his way through the village and got him to bed. I'm assuming he went down okay because he was asleep when I got home.

TS has been getting up stupidly early. And it's really messing up our patttern/routine and bedtime. But you'd think being up late he'd sleep later but no, he gets up earlier. ARGH!

How can a podiatrist be "quackery"?
Given that a large part of their job involves shoe inserts (orthotics) for people with foot deformations, I really can't see that.
Tee - I believe they tell you that so that you don't cut yourself accidentally. Although wouldn't you be seeing a chiropodist rather than a podiatrist?

I'll just have a small please Scout since it's a school night!

Thank you for your horse riding replies. I'm going to look for somewhere local that might let Small Bean have a go. Having never ridden anything apart from a seaside donkey myself I don't really know anything about horses.

You weren't there, Thumb. I asked the question, that's all, and will be making up my mind over the next few days.

Think I might have to go to bed. zzzzz

So many things to do but I already have matchsticks holding my eyes open....

Oh....

How have I managed to agree to run a Seniors meeting and a Guides meeting AT THE SAME TIME?! Ack. Not really running Guides but did all the planning, prep, etc., though I think my UG is still confused despite me spelling it all out (repeatedly).

Morning.

So has LCT, Scout. I think it's the amount of light in his room. I'm on a mission today to see what I can do about that.

thumb they seem to use the two words interchangeably around here! My appointment card always says chiropody but the person doing my feet almost always has a name badge that says podiatrist. This one last night had no badge so I don't know what she was. I am not even sure what the difference is...I just looked it up, there doesn't seem to be any difference. So now I am not sure what you mean.

Feeling argh and urgh. There was a milk spillage in the kitchen, and the culprit didn't own up. Until we had a festering smell in the kitchen. Have now pulled out the big fridge freezer, cleaned up all the mess, cleaned the kitchen to be on the safe side, and also inside the fridge freezer. It still smells of rancid cheese, and the smell is overpowering. Am now wondering if it got under the laminate flooring, as the smell seems to be coming from under the fridge freezer. It really is FOUL!!!

Will I need to rip the flooring up? (Don't like it anyway, just can't afford to replace it...)