30 up The tea room afloat

[UniS]

Welcome aboard.

The first rule of the tea room is - No fisticuffs.
The second rule is - Put the kettle on and lets have a or open a bottle of if its that time of day. Pull a sofa and relax. Parents of one, more (or less) children are welcome to hop on board and chat about anything and nothing. Introduce yourself if new and if you name change give us clue please.

definitely please. Nearly packed for wild week away with dh before next silly set of treatments starts. And recovering from seeing ds laid out flat in Rugby match after being kicked in the head. Oh the myriad joys of the sport . But he's now fine and out with his harem for the night.

Hi everyone. Yes, I know the greeting is supposed to go at the front but my brain seems to be working backwards at the moment.

EEK amber! Scary stuff. Glad FineLad is okay!

Ooooer, amber, glad Finelad has recovered! That would be scary (I have been to a few rugby matches and seen a few nasty things)

Scout - yay to the beach and cream tea things

CMOTD - I too have garden of your DS's friend's place.

I tried to get miniThumb interested in his balance bike again yesterday - looked like we were getting somewhere and then he wobbled and said "I don't like this one, I want my other one, with butterflies" i.e. the one that MIL brought over completely randomly a few months ago and which I'm still fuming about, because it's a cheap jobby she got from Aldi, not one I would have chosen for him at all, plus it means I wasted money and time getting the balance bike as he now won't use it!! He hasn't had the Aldi bike since the day it arrived but he knows it's there in the garage (it has stabilisers so he can sit on it without wobbling) ARGH!!

Bean - I would love to take miniThumb to Thomas land when we are next over in the UK - I think he would love it. There are a few local places here that do steam trains, and a small ride-on with Thomas and Percy that does the rounds of fetes and fairs and things - he loves it all!

Maud - a hot bath with Epsom salts, and Mellors will oblige with some embrocation rubbing.

Evening all, glad weekends fun. We went to the beach too, lovely indeed.

CMOT garden sounds great, stay friends with those kids! Especially great if you don't have to maintain

JM lovely pics and pumpkin farm sounds fun

Bean - Thomas land sounds good too

Glad all are well, tis a happy tea room tonight, and best of all lots of fun mum time seems to have been had!
have great weeks all of you lovely ladies!

Cake and all round today as its my birthday. I am working from bed, complete with tea and cake

After a beautiful weekend, weather here is grey, cold and rainy

My brother continues to be a twunt to my parents. DH is threatening to phone him and tell him this, especially now brother has tried to get money out of my parents as 'he didn't have any leave left and so is on unpaid leave'. My dad ignored this but is fuming at him

Happy Birthday CMOT

Hi all!please can I board the floating tea room??

And happy birthday CMOT!!

October is a nice time of year for birthdays.

Happy Birthday CMot!

I got a nice bunch of flowers (early) and a bottle of bubbles from DH. A nicely drawn card from Mc. DH then abandonned us for the day (he had asked, and he was on-call anyway, so we wouldn't have been able to go too far from the house anyway) so Mc and I took the dog out then went out for the day. We went to a NT property we've not been to before - gardens disappointing, but house good, although the children's activities were not as good as they are in some places. However, the room guides were extremely knowledgeable and keen to talk to mc and discuss things with him, so it was good. We managed not to buy everything in the shop, but did pick up some Willard Price and professor brainstorm books and a puzzle of a castle in the second hand books place, so came away with lots of things for mc without having to spend a fortune.

Tiredness was beginning to set in when we went round the art exhibition but we managed to get away without knocking anythign over or picking up all the cards on the table before I lost my temper - and all in all we had a really good day out together. Oh - and he made it home, into the downstairs toilet before throwing up on the way home (phew!) - normal travel sickness induced as he shortly afterwards tucked into and finished a large plate of spaghetti and meatballs followed by a big bowl of yoghurt with cereal.....

Happy birthday Mistle ! Is Mistlechick collecting Willard Price ? We have a number of duplicates if he'd like them.

Welcome Laurenimium ! Have some cake

Happy Birthday MT and CMOT!!!

Happy Birthday MT

Look! Mellors is putting up bunting for you!
Do you think he might be a little chilly in those clothes?
(es)

Sorry Lauriesmum, was feeling somewhat distracted, didn't mean to ignore you... - welcome!

CMot - he wasn't, but I remember reading them very happily when slightly older than mc is now - and yesterday we managed to pick up I think 8 of them from I think 5 onwards. I think its 'whale adventure' that is the first one we have.

MC has gone from hating reading his reading books to quite happily zipping through the whole book of an evening or weekend. To the extent that we look in his book bag to do it and find that he's not got a new one.... (at which point we just go and read something else instead). Strangely (actually, not strangely at all ) he appears to have changed from a small boy that apparently doesn't like fiction (according to last year's teachers) so gets sent home with REALLY boring books on different types of houses, or computers (10 yrs out of date) etc to a child that gets given all sorts, including (over weekend) poems (which were just devoured, with giggles). The positive attitude towards school just seeps across into our home life too - we've not had 'I don't want to go to school' since the 2nd week of term, we've had fewer moods, less agressive behaviour, much more aiming to please - the transformation is wonderful.

Welcome Laurenamium! Do have a large glass of or a , whichever is your preference - tell us about yourself - are you in the UK? Do you have a boy or a girl, how old?

The UK Question is because we have 3 denizens who are overseas dwellers- myself in Australia, Jacksmama who is in Canada and CatherineMacauley who is in Central America. We're very cosmopolitan! [hgrin]

Happy Birthday to CMOTD and to MT (kept that quiet, didn't you missy![hgrin])
GF carrot cake sounds lovely....
hold on, where's it gone?

TW - different teacher. This teacher has the reputation of being very strict. However, she clearly is also very fair and makes sure that the children know what the boundaries are, what the requirements are and sticks to that. There's no 'one rule for one and one for another' which was definitely the case last year. Mc has a very well developed sense of fairness and if things were not just he would get very frustrated and cross - particularly if it involved him getting punished and someone else getting off scott free.... This year he gets upset if he loses golden time - but he knows what he's done wrong etc - so there's not all the frustration etc all included so its all less of an incident. Eg last week he lost his golden time - but He did exceptionally well the rest of Friday - got all his spellings right, got a sticker for reading, and his Street Dance teacher said to me, without being asked that he'd been fantastic all session.

Well what a huge relief that must be for all concerned! It really does show how much influence decent teaching/discipline/classroom management can make, hurrah! :)

Hello Laurenamium! Lovely to meet you. I am Maud, I am Very Old Indeed and have one daughter.

Mistle and Cmot - happy birthdays! The atmosphere in The Girl's classroom changed enormously for the better a few years ago when they got a teacher who sounds rather like MistleChick's. Before then, classroom management had been feeble to non-existent.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MISTLE AND CMOT!!

and and all around.

It's a gorgeous Monday morning here, and we actually had time to walk to preschool, well I walked and JB went on his balance bike. He is scarily fast on that thing - a hoot to watch but I get to exercise my "subdue a class of 150 bored chiropractic students" voice a lot (which I haven't needed to use in 10 years now) telling him to slow down or stop at driveways. I'm not sure if I should be :o or at a passing-by dad saying admiringly "wow, can I borrow your voice for my kids?" I think I'll be both.

I'm trying really hard not to let things spoil this gorgeous day but am feeling really horribly stressed. I have a practice self-review coming up - mandatory for everyone in my profession every five years - and I'm really behind in a lot of documentation. If I don't catch up and get audited, the consequences could be interesting. Also, our dishwasher is leaking, even after we've had someone out to look at it and replace the gasket lining the door. And now we've developed a leak in a ceiling pipe in the downstairs storage room.

I'm trying not to feel really panicky and bitter (in a "I knew that feeling good was too good to last, the universe will always find a way to kick you in the teeth" sort of way) because I really hate to feel sorry for myself like that, but after a not-so-good night, and a busy week coming up, and DH going away for three weeks this Saturday, I'm really feeling not too good today.

Sorry to be a downer - I'm just trying really hard not to go back to my bad habit of withdrawing when struggling, and internalizing everything. :(

Oh sorry, welcome Laurienamium, I'm the Tea Room's Canadian Contingent.
Best advice for this barge - if you're looking for the priest hole, it's ----> that way, not

Hey, Jacksmama. Have a bouquet for yourself. Household appliances are sent to try us, I fear.

::writes another cheque to washing machine repair man::

It might not work for you, .

Oh JM, more and coming your way. Have you booked a plumber to do both jobs ? And can maybe JB do some extra sessions at preschool so that you have some uninterrupted time to do paperwork catchup, esp when dh is away.

DH made me a special gf choc cake with cream, strawberry jam and sprinkles. There is quite a lot left, so I'll leave it on the side shall I ?

And I think we could all do with something bubbly - so here goes with the Stolly, and a toast to the Tearoom and all who sail in her 'Here's to a peaceful and happy year ahead'.

In good news (for a change in this bloomin household), DH goes back to work on Tuesday next week. Hurrah !

Wahoo, Cmot! Is DH better* do you think?

• without getting drawn into definitions of better.

::Mixes a large jug of Stolly-Bolly cocktail::

yes, def better and much better equipped to deal with future stress

Then that is truly excellent news!

::Tops up your glass and sets NMBs afloat on a raft made of twiglets lashed together::

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! MC and CMOT

Welcome Laurienmium!

I am Oxeye, almost as old as Maud [hwink] and mother to a lovely son called various Oxboy and OxPox who is 5. Also, oddly, I went to school with Thumb in RL! But I live in The Big Smoke now. Occasionally I am outed as The Queen.
::snatches stolly bolly and feels jolly::

JM you need action stations to prevent a Slide. So (1) get in a little chap and pay him to fix leaks (plumber would do, at a pinch any little chap). Remeber there is what appears to be a huge amount of water from a teeny little spot. It won't be lasting harm. Delegate the leaks and don't worry about them - they are off your sheet.
(2) As to your paperwork it seems daunting because it is sitting there waiting to be done and making you feel ornery. So divide it up into little chunks. Spend an evening organising how you will do it. Then draw up a plan (important because you can cross it off when its done). Make sure DH before he goes or someone else (friend or extra playgroup sessions) gives you the time to do it during the day - not frayed around the edges when you are tired and fractious anyway
.... this is not meant to sound bossy or tough or dictatorial but hopefully helpful and supportive - feel free to ignore! and just take a (((HUG))) if your prefer

CMOT I cannot say how thrilled I am that Bloke is back to work [hgrin] [hgrin] sort of that pleased