Tea Room the 37th. A new one. Needs fitting out.

[UniS]

Here is Tea Room the 37th.
A new one.
Needs fitting out.

Please help.

Vile today here. I'm always tired, but that may be to do with work, the travel, coping with my parents, and training 6 days a week!

don't know how you are fitting it all in CMOT. we are having a tricky few weeks in chez uni with logistics. DH and I both working more hours than normal & boy getting lots of sporting oppotunities offered that we are trying to get him too, Ironicly next week will be easier BECASUE dh is working abroad, so I have not accepted any work beyond my regular hours.

So - I think I'll let my tea room alter ego put her feet up and relax on teh virual distressed sofa, whist the RL me gets on with printing and filing in Cub Camp forms, raisng invoices and the various other fings on my to do list.

I fell off the thread. Whoops.

May I just say that SmallBoy is an absolute delight? It was lovely to meet him and Scout for tea and cake today.

I'm enjoying DH working from home - but having him working away all the week was easy in someways because you knew exactly who was doing what...

You were heavily featured in SmallBoy's monologue to MrScout on the way home. It was good to catch up again!

We spent most of the day at the park today and SB got soaked and covered in mud. He had a lovely time with his friends. As for me, I'm exhausted.

Evening all!

CMOT, I take my hat off to you, I don't know how you fit in the training as well as everything else.

We seem to be constantly juggling diaries and I am constantly running around like a loon and trying to think days in advance to be sure that everything's covered.

Friday anyone?

Yes, Scout, it was lovely to catch up. I'm slightly nervous about being in SmallBoy's monologue but trust that it was in a positive (or at least not negative) way!

What training are you doing, Cmot?

No need to be nervous, Maud, it was good. Very factual, but good. "We took the bus, Daddy, and saw Mommy's friend that she said was a Senior. And we had special lunch and went to the bookshop and then the bookshop and then the BIG bookshop. We met Mrs Maud and I had a flapjack and we got to eat it at a outside café, Daddy, outside, by the big church. The church haded bells. I like churches. Mrs Maud is Mommy's friend. I showeded her where the YOUT Uni bookshop is. I like that bookshop. I goted my new science books there...." and so on. We sat by the river and read one of his new books after we parted ways and within a minute or two of finishing the book MrScout pulled up ruining our plans of "run around the tree like a loon" and we were treated to the SmallBoy monologue of what our day entailed. He quite often does it to MrScout, trying to fill him in on his day/adventure.

After doing really well staying in his bed SmallBoy slipped again after our adventures at the start of May. Knowing he can do it (he did it the entire time we were in PiLshire last week) I have resorted to bribery again. One night, in the middle of the night, SB said "I changed my mind and I don't want a surprise" and crawled into bed with us. This morning he came in, cuddled up and said "I stayed in my bed ALL NIGHT Mommy, so do I still get a surprise?" He was a bit confused but very happy by his surprise.

I wish I knew what today entailed.

anyone?

That's lovely. I was struck at the time by how articulate he is (allowing for the usual four year old grammatical formations)! I very much enjoyed our Small Boy-guided walk, especially the clock.

A few housekeeping jobs here today and then a family barbecue tonight.

I hope that you've got somewhere sheltered to do the barbecuing and somewhere undercover to eat Maudant! We have managed to walk the dog early today - got out as it was only just starting - very glad we're back in now as it looks set in for the day.

Yes, the barbecue plan may be subject to last minute change!

Hehehe. Maud, you didn't even see/hear him in full-on Geek-Boy mode. Already this morning we've played computer games, built Lego creations, watched YouTube videos (episodes of Alphablocks and music videos) and talked about life and death, love, birthdays and parties. I'm exhausted. When MrScout is out of the bathroom SB's going in for his bath/shower so I get five minutes of "quiet" (he's usually too focused on water play to talk to me about stuff).

Yes, we had some rain and thunder. It stopped and got bright again but I've noticed how dark it's getting in here again. SmallBoy and MrScout love thunder & lightening storms so I suspect we'll spend half the day in our doorway watching the storms roll in and out. At least I don't need to go out and water this weekend. I do need to sort out some pots of soil and repotting but we can do that next week.

Before I wander over to the gardening topic does anyone in the tea room know anything about growing fruit trees?

I'm not too bad on fruit trees - I used to be the chief apple pruner in my parents previous house - some of them it was better to prune from up the tree....

Apples and pears not bad on. Cherries - well my parents are growing a morello cherry on a north wall very successfully, but that's about as far as it gets.

I know a bit about fruit trees - I have grown/am growing a few - but we'd always be happy to see you in Gardening. I have just started a new gardening chat thread called A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

SmallBoy and I have an apple tree and a pear tree, both we're growing from seed. Somehow the apple tree (which is outside) got tipped over and lost half it's soil. I'm wondering if I should just repot it into a bigger pot (I think it's in a 4" one now, might be a 5") or keep it in it's current one a bit long. The tree is probably about 6" in height (from top of pot) though I'd have to go out and measure it to be sure. I'm also wondering if we should gradually go up in pot size or just put it straight into something bigger so we don't have to worry about it for a while. The pear tree is only about an inch or two (started later than the apple) and is currently living inside on the windowsill but I keep meaning to put it out with the apple tree.

SmallBoy has an interesting vocabularly a very broad one and listening to him tonight was a riot. Coming back from shopping he sat in his seat, with his legs crossed, pretending he was talking on the phone. From the sounds of it it sounded like he was talking to his BFF in a "husband/wife" role (they role play husband/wife daddy/mommy and "got married" a few weeks ago) there was talk of what the baby did, how it behaved (or didn't!), talk of "the in-laws" and a weekend trip. MrScout kept giving me funny looks (he was driving) and I tried very hard not to let SB see me laugh. He was so earnest in his pretend chat. And earlier in the day he was talking about "terminate you so I won't be cross" (or something like that I stopped paying 100% attention at the word "terminate"). May have to talk to my friend about all of the Dr Who talk/role play her kids convince SB to play he doesn't have a clue and just goes along with the pretending to run away from "monsters" and "saving people" but the "terminating" made MrScout raise his eyebrows a bit mine, too, if I'm honest, since he's only four and won't even watch Monsters, Inc. because of the monsters so he's no where near the point of watching Dr Who--. I know they're big on Dr Who there and the kids watch some (vetted) episodes but....

English weather is so weird. I've been here two months shy of nine years so you'd think I'd be used to it by now....

Weather - do you mean 'summer's here... no its not... yes it is!... no its not' ? In my memory its more predictable - lots of hot summer days - starting with rain over night or a heavy dew so that the grass is wet and lovely under bare toes but its already warm when you go out first thing, and playing out at lunchtime at school in summer dresses, running around on the grass... But I bet that I just erase the wet days in my memory!

MC started picking up sticks and 'shooting' with them at about 3. I think it was from his nursery companions. He doesn't need a stick any more and we have to get strict about the sound effects sometimes as they are excessive. Sometimes what looks like loading a rifle is actually the start of some air guitar though, so I do have to be a bit careful!

I think the little fruit trees should be ok in five inch pots for now (unless they have huge roots which are going round and round the pot).

Yes, I agree that childhood summers probably weren't as hot and sunny as we remember. Memory is fallible!

Maud, I went to measure and the trees were in 4" pots and the apple tree was about 7" tall from soil to top. I could see roots trying to come out of the bottom of the pot. I took a gamble and replanted the tree into a 6" pot (it's what I had) before I saw your post. The roots were indeed going round and round in the pot with one or two really thick roots wrapped around a couple of times. I repotted it in much better soil than originally planted in, too, so I hope it remains a happy tree. I haven't done anything with the pear tree because it's still small but I did move it outside with the apple tree. We also repotted SB's strawberry popcorn plant and our lavender. We have pots ready to try and grow apricots (from our fruit snacks) and for our helicopter seeds experiments. Our strawberry plants are going gang busters (in a trough pot) but I wonder if I planted too many in one pot. I also need to stake our tomato plants but it's just too sunny/hot with no shade in our garden/s. The wildflower seed mix in the council pot is growing nicely but no flowers yet.

If the roots were going round and round, repotting into a slightly biggerpot was definitely the right thing to do.

Its also better to pot up sizes gradually - that makes the roots use the inch of soil up to the next pot size efficiently rather than heading speedily for the side of the new, much larger pot and then going round in circles.

Lovely day today - only wish I had a site visit somewhere to do!

Yes, glorious here, too. We're taking the kids to a nearby playground instead of the soft play in between swimming classes today. Must remember to pack the sun cream in the swim bag.

Need to go out and see how the transferred plants are doing but suspect SB and I can check on them on the way to swimming. All of our experiments are done and in homemade greenhouses and on the windowsills, catching the sun. I hope something grows!

Jarred up and canned the batch of pasta sauce I made over night. Was going to try the apricots again (the ones that I had a canning failure with the other week) but realized I don't have enough almonds. Could probably do it with just the amount I have but it's just under half short/missing so it doesn't feel right. Also have everything to start a batch of sloe gin (sloes in the freezer) but think I'll wait until tonight to do those as I'll need to stand and skewer/slice one pound worth of sloes.

Having a lot of pain, similar to what I had when I ended up in A&E the other year. The OOH doctor who sent me up suspected a kidney infection but the hospital, while normally good, just gave me a dose of pain killers and sent me on my way. Do have a very strange pain/ache in one part of my back (that I don't normally get back ache in). I must admit the thought of standing (to do the sloe gin) or walking to town to the pool isn't filling me with joy. I am grateful, though, that SB is past the point of often needing picked up and/or carried (he wasn't there last time) because I just don't think I could do it.

Oh, Scout. Should you see the GP/OOH doctor if it might be a kidney infection? Doesn't sound good to me.

I shouldn't have paid a trip to Doctor Google. Bah.

I think you need to pay a visit to RL Dr to find out if it is anything and get treatment Scout, not google!