The one and only Tearoom, to be sure , it is.

[UniS]

To pinch an intro from the very first one and only tea room thread. in 2009.

The tea room is now officially open, serving hot chocolate, tea, freshly-squeezed orange juice and a range of home-baked muffins. Tablecloths and crockery are charmingly mismatched antiques (no Cath Kidston here). We overlook an attractive although somewhat overgrown garden, with a distant view of rolling countryside.

Everyone is welcome but house rules dictate that anyone indulging in fisticuffs will be ejected.

Please come in.

2011
We seem to have fetched up in Ireland, this place looks remarkably like a pub,There is even a guiness barrel over there. The NMBs are all sporting shamrocks. The mirror ball is here, but I leave teh rest of the unpacking to someone else.

Long time, no see and as Irish eyes are smiling here, I couldn't resist coming back! In fact I'm coming back entirely selfishly to ask a question of a sensible and lovely group rather than post of the more general threads as frankly I could do without the hysteria! Think of getting a puppy having had a very enjoyable first year with a Siberian Cat. Would love dd (now 4 1/2) to grow up with a dog but so many people I now have been very negative about a dog (huge restrictive commitment etc) that I could really do with some good old honest (but not over the top!) reality on dog ownership (btw thinking labradoodle or goldendoodle at the mo)

Hello Mindy. It's really good to see you again. Would you like some ?

Is thrilled that previously mislaid tea roomers like DCMB and Mindy are returning to the mother ship

Oxeye - Part of me wants to be Laminated List Woman. ::surveys the wreckage of her house and imagines that LLW's must be pristine:: A lovely friend of mine has a picture on FB of her bell tent, bedecked with bunting. I am envious on so many levels.

Hello Mindy! Welcome back lovely to see you, are you still running? I think of you when I occasionaly lumber around my local streets, did you get your group of local women up and running ??

As to dogs, well, we have always been dog owners. I think burden- level depends on your circumstances, obviously, if you have a huge garden and live in the country side it is easier in terms of self management than in a city - still need walks but fits lifestyle more easily and/or gallops in garden etc. we live in centre of city so dogs mean management in terms of walking and managing other people, but it's good. when we have a dog we can't imagine not, when we are between dogs, as now, we realise how much more time we have! Also think of age of DD - when DC are in the toddle/ walk to swings/ walk 10 yards and need a snack etc then less good for dog ness than when they are romping and wanting to run with dogs.... does this help?

Maud, yes part of me wants to be LLW which is why I observed her so closely that camping trip, but I also want to be a long haired bead wearing fly by the seat of my pants grab the kids go and have fun and get grubby kinda girl,.... oh the choices the choices!!

Yes, that is precisely the dilemma, Oxeye. I hanker after the security of the Lakeland catalogue, but can't quite admit to myself that my days of spontaneous free-spirited grooviness are over if they ever existed.

Hi all and welcome back Mindy. I'm afraid I can't help on the dog front. I have no clue whatsoever having never been a dog owner.
Laminated list women sounds amazing. I think I would be envious of the organizational skills she has, but that about it. Bunting on a tent seems a bit daft to me. I mean what's the point? But still I don't get the joys of camping either, so what do I know?
I am annoyed at the month because one of my many SIL rang last night. Basically she and her DH are in the financial dodo with a moneylender who is now squeezing them. They owe him|it a fortune and are struggling to pay the interest payments just now. So they want to borrow money to get out of this. I usually don't greatly mind lending money to Mr. H's family, but on this occasion I am not happy (and to be fair, neither is Mr. H). You see SIL's DH is a layabout and an alcoholic who is forever getting himself and SIL in debt. Usually without her knowledge. Obviously Mr. H wants his sister to leave said idiot but after separating and getting back together ancouple of years ago, this looks unlikely. I don't Ming giving SIL the money because I don't want her or her kids to siffee, but it gets my goat to be paying said idiot's drinking debts.

Apologies for the predictive text typos. That is ?mind? not ?Ming? and ? a couple? not ?ancouple? and ?suffer? not ?sufee?.
Bloody phones....

Predictive text is hilarious :o

Have decided to stick to safe areas on MN for a bit, because there's some nasty stuff going on re: Aspergers and how we're rude and unfeeling. Not quite ready for the priest's hole yet, but might have a glass of Paddy's to steady my nerves (its the only whisky/whiskey I like)

Yup, I'm heading for the priest hole having hidden a couple of threads about that, Mary. Apparently we're all really awful people that no-one should ever go near, which is very odd given the lovely relationships and wonderful friends we have in our lives, eh? And you being a member of clergy team who cares for her whole flock. Hey ho. Prejudice and/or wild overassumption is alive and well.

Mindy, I've been a dog-owner all my life and absolutely wouldn't be without one. We've had all sorts of dogs - rescue mostly, but also a Bernese Mountain Dog who was huge, soppy, totally impractical, took every ounce of our time and money and patience but gave back 100% and more of that love to us. It's like adding anyone else to the family unit - it takes time and commitment and a bit of money, but you get back so much (in our findings). Don't do it if you're houseproud or have little time to be with them or can't figure out what to do with them for holidays, though. Or if you get easily frightened by £200 vets bills.

We've specialised in taking on ''problem animals' (dogs, horse, cats etc) who have needed a lot of settling in and love before they're ready to trust again. That's the most rewarding of all, really - giving an animal their life and happiness back.

anyone? I feel ruddy rough this morning thanks to the potion side effects but should be ok later.

Tea would be lovely. Sorry people are being stupid Mary/Amber.

I took 3, 4 and 5 year olds to a county show on Saturday. Amongst many things, they went scuba diving, fishing, snow tubing, made candles, and made strong representations for dogs. I was knackered, but was fun pretending to have triplets.

We like camping, and have 4 tents (accumulated over 16 years) ranging from tiny to huge. My glamping is restricted to the king sized aerobed and down duvet that makes life happy at night.

My dad is not well again. I fear something Nasty may be happening in his mouth

CMOT, eek re your Dad - is the medical profession being useful?

::hands over ::

His gp sent him to the dentist, plus a course of antibiotics, dentist took one look and said he needed to go to the dental hospital to have it looked at. So now waiting for an appointment which I will take him to. But his mouth is just one big ulcer which is bleeding - not a good sign.

Ow, no, that's not brilliant. Shall hope it turns out to be something treatable pronto...

Thanks for all the dog tails (sorry for the pun!) Would love one but interestingly after proper reflection on it, I think as much a dog would add, we may be rushing into it. I think we would be better off getting DD settled in school, if she's anything like her dad, she'll be off doing all sorts of activities and she'll be older in terms of dealing with a dog. She's brilliant with our siberian cat but still gets over excited and he gets over excited and ends up playing a bit rough! Also DH isn't overly enthusiastic on the walking etc so I suspect it will just end up being another thing for me to do as well as running a business, dealing with dh health issues and a crazy mother!

As for the running, yes we have this year's beginners that after 8 weeks have gone from nothing to 5k! They are amazing and it's so rewarding, I would thoroughly recommend that if you like running or perhaps something like cycling or walking then it's a great way to meet like minded people and give you the push to get out and do something. Doesn't take lots of work to do, a facebook group works wonders!

for Amber and reassuring comfy chairs in the tearoom for Amber and Mary. Grrrrr at some other bits - been a bit silly at times recently.

Hope you pick up a bit better later on Amber.

Dogs - we have a lovely 10yo rescue - down as needing experienced owners when we saw her at 8mo - which is clearly why such a beautiful looking dog of that age had not already been snapped up. She needed quite a lot of training (as did dh as he'd never trained one before) but they both got the hang of it and we could not have asked for a better dog to have whilst ds growing up. She came to me to remove him from her tail when he was learning to walk (just the right height lol) and the only cross words we've had from her were when he pushed too far - but we have been VERY strict with him and she knows that we look after her. She is a big commitment, but we have a wonderful friend - and a really good excuse to get mc out for a walk everyday - he now needs the exercise more than she does! Holidays - she comes with us - or we get someone to look after her - normally my parents, but very occasionally a dog walker we sometimes use - we can't put her in kennels as that was too traumatic for her early on.

We got a dog when I was 5 - I remember clearly being terrified of her when she was a puppy as her teeth were SO sharp. However, she was a great companion for me.

Kissing in school - I found out at the weekend that the same child is pinching and hitting other children hard enough so that they actually bruise. She has previously told MC to fight one of his friends - of course MC got the blame and she got off scot free. She knows that MC and his friend did not want to be kissed (from what MC said it sounded like persistent continual (probably behind teacher's back) and was in the middle of the class - not a saying goodbye type one - he's quite OK with those and regularly hugs his friends if they're leaving etc.

School has 4 classes in mc's year group. We've just got class lists for next year - same class with one new addition. Another boy (which puts the boys nearly twice the number of the girls in the class) and its a child with the same name as MC. If it was a common name, you might perhaps expect there to be several in the year. However, MC is one of two in the school at the moment. It does seem rather ironic that said new boy is being put in a class with another child of the same name rather than one of the other three classes.... For instance, there are two Henrys - but different classes....

Morning all.

I'm sorry, Mary and Amber, that people are being ignorant and abusive on threads. It seesm to me that people with Aspergers have quite as much right as anyone else to be rude and unfeeling on occasions - looking at the world around me, it seems to be a prevalent characteristic much of the time and who says that PWA have to behave impeccably when the rest of the population doesn't? Seems to me too that Mary and Amber show far more consideration for and kindness towards other people than some of the so-called "normal" people I know.

::Lowers tea and buns into the priest's hole::

May I ask a question for anyone who might have relevant experience with Aged Ps, before I go over to the health threads? My Aged P has a variety of ailments relating to diabetes and a heart problem. He has just developed a tremor in one hand and my first thought was Parkinson's, but before we go charging off to the doctor's, could this be in any way related to the circulatory problems?

(((Hugs)))) to Cmot.

Maud - I have no health expertise whatsoever. However, I do know that my grandmother had, and now my father has a bad tremor. My father has to have something to minimise it its that bad. However, it has nothing to do with Parkinsons. His is also more one-sided. It has got significantly worse over the last 5 years or so.

Hmm, well neither of my APs (both diabetic, one circulatory issues) have tremor, but some medications can cause it. Theres also a number of non worrying causes of tremor - dh has a friend whose left hand just shakes for no reason which is called essential tremor

Ah, well that's just what I was wondering, Mistle - whether there could be such a thing as a tremor that wasn't related to Parkinson's. I'll encourage my Aged P to go to the doctors (although he's constantly there as it is) but my other Aged P is alarming herself by thinking that it must be Parkinson's and I needed to get some perspective on whether there were other possibilities.

Ooh, thank you Cmot. Is there somewhere reliable where I could find a list of medications that cause tremor? Aged P takes so many that there's a good chance that one would be on that list. It is so useful to have this 'vocabulary' before going to the doctor.

I think my father's must be 'essential' then CMot - as he has to take something to reduce it rather than taking anything that causes it. My grandfather had parkinsons. In fact, don't do too well in terms of grandfathers as the other one had motor neurone

Maud, I think there are so many medications that could cause a tremor that it's hard to work out where to start. There are at least 17 medical conditions that commonly cause it as well, only one of which is Parkinson's, and Parkinson's itself is quite treatable in the early stages these days.

Thank you for your kind words, too. Yes, the difficulty is that I do think we have to be seen to be absolutely 100% perfect, and any imperfection is immediately branded by some as 'evidence' that we're absolutely all faulty/dangerous/whatever other bizarre thing. What dispirits me is that some people can't see past it. They would question whether "I knew a woman who was rude" means "all women are always rude and therefore not to be trusted", but present them with "I had a partner once who was on the autism spectrum and was nasty" and they are far more likely to believe that "all people on the autism spectrum are therefore nasty and to be avoided as partners". It's also like saying "I had a partner with blue eyes, and they were horrible therefore all blue eyed people are to be avoided" in a way. Or "I had a partner who was blind and I was SO offended that they didn't compliment me on my new hairstyle or clothing each day - just SO rude - I could never live with anyone who can't do that sort of thing without being given a hint - totaly uncaring!".

I agree, Amber. People generalise from one incident with one person with Asperger's in a way that (perhaps, one would hope) they wouldn't in any other context. And also, I think, there's something here about confirmation bias. If you harbour the belief that all PWA are rude and unfeeling all the time, any occasion in which someone with Asperger's does get it slightly wrong will lodge in your mind, and the dozen other incidents that same day with "normal" but rude people will be forgotten.

Yup, makes me sad for dh, because yesterday for example he got me flowers and a takeaway, made me endless cups of tea, ensured I rested, looked after me beautifully as he always does, was kind, considerate and generally wonderful...and he's what they're trying to avoid??! He's had to learn it all the hard 'manual' way but goodness me he's wonderful. As are so many other aspie friends and acquaintances of mine.

Anyway, I'm now at work so probably should try doing some

I think your DH is wonderful too, Amber, you're allowed to think that because you're married to him :o

There's a lot of things that I find non-Aspie people do that is rude, but we don't sit there bitching about it all the time, nor do we accuse all NTs of being rude and offensive just because we find a few of them so!

Indeed not. People are generally wonderful.