Would anyone like a cup of tea and a muffin?

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

I'm tired and in need of refreshment.

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.

The secret of striking out on MN is that you have to strike out each word individially. If you're trying to strike out a phrase or sentence and just put the hyphens at the start and finish, it won't work and you'll end up with weird floating hyphens. It is an almighty pain in the neck instructive learning experience!

Is late. I've mis-spelt my own name, let alone individually. I really am going to bed now ...

Damn, I missed the dancing again! AND the white stripe across the nose!!! That bloody time difference!!
Cmot, I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with your parents. I don't care if it makes me seriously uncool, I'm giving you a hug. (WHY is hugging such a no-no on MN?? I don't understand. It says right on the main page that any posters should realize that support is something we all need. Am I just a weird colonial???? )
Ny-ny all... see you tomorrow!

Thanks for the support. DH poured put me to bed, interuppting the dancing. This is a time when not being an only is a pain as I have a brother who will do bog all to help. DH will be going to 'have words' with him soon.

Anyway, double latte with vanilla syrup for me, and I've brought a bag of almond croissants from our local patisserie with me

Hello I only have one child a 2.5YO DS may I join?

Hopefully Bocca (who is the manager of this den of iniquity charming tearoom) will be along soon, but would you like a coffee and some form of carbohydrate ? It's a bit serve yourself here with whatever you can find.

Your DS is the same age as mine - DS will be 2.6 next week

Oooh, hello mamadiva...I believe I've been following you around elsewhere on MN this weekend......

I've got a huge pan of leftover artichoke risotto if anyone fancies a change from the soup? Warm you all up?

Ahh yes Bucharest on on of the many many many many amny many.... well yes

So what do we talk about here then? I assume we wallow in our pity of having only one child and not a football team? Well if the 'HAPPY ONE CHILD FAMILY THREAD' is anything to go by thats what we should be doing

T42 wonders in with puffy eyes - two nights in a row dd has had me up and down really crying because she wants the potty, a sip of milk, a specific cuddly toy and everyone was getting more and more tired and grumpy! - Is it herway of saying she is feeling insecure about going to nursery two afternoons a week or am I reading too much into this?

Well it is a mixture of things mamadiva. Some people like to sew, some like to dance and some like to smoke Hubbly Bubblies. While others just flirt with that yummy gardener over there. Do as you please. There is quite a lot of dressing up too. It is a teashop to find the inner you!

mmm... JM ...so...hugging and mn... I am a relative newbie, so Bocca might be best to explain further, but my comprehension of the whole no hugging thing is...

On the interweb there are a few forums designed for parents to chit and chat discuss important parenting issues...

MN is considered (well by mners anyway) to be the intellegent, open minded, free and foward thinking voice amongst the sea of sappy "oh hun dat iz sooooo sad. ((((((Hugs))))))." on netmums and bounty these other forums.

However, in bucking the hugging trend I find you to be very intellegent, open minded, free and forward thinking, JM!!! Good on you!!!

T42 notices it is a bit like the teletubbies round here because everyone has started "big hugging" to make themselves look wewl cleva !!!! Ha ha ha!!!!

And of course I spelt intelligent incorrectly to add a little comical twist AND to show off my new strike out skills.... see....

intellegent intelligent!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mamadiva - Welcome! It's good to have you here.

The rumours of my being in charge here are greatly exaggerated. I opened this tea room when things were getting a bit fraught out on the main topic and it looked as if trench warfare between mums-of-one and mums-of-more was about to break out. Thankfully there now seems to be a truce but this was intended to be our safe haven. Frankly, I thought we'd probably close down after a couple of days but we're still doing a roaring trade whenever anyone wants a respite from MN real life! We talk about anything and everything, although some of the more serious questions about the meaning of parenting an only child get their own threads.

Anyway, I do try to keep the tea room stocked up with warming drinks and healthy(ish) cakes and snacks but, because I'm not always here, other customers do sometimes bring in their own homemade cakes. There's an honesty box on the counter.

cmot - thanks for the croissants. Are you going to share how you got your intriguing name, by the way?

And bucharest - the food looks yummy. Thanks again.

I'm very interested in the question of looking after parents as we and they get older. I have two friends who are only children and find it quite hard having nobody to share it with (although in one instance I think that's as much about the fact that her mother has had mental health problems for decades, rather than my friend having no siblings). cmot's experience makes me wonder whether there is one small positive about being an only child in that situation, in that you know that it's just you so you decide how much or how little you can do and then get on with it. I wonder whether having a sibling who doesn't or can't get involved is in fact more frustrating than having to do it all oneself? My situation is quite similar to cmot's and I'm pretty sure that when it gets to the stage where my parents need more day to day stuff done for them it'll be me doing it (or arranging for someone else to do it) as my dear brother seldom even rings them. Ho hum.

Anyway, enough of the serious stuff.

More drinks for anyone?

tea - Great striking out skills. Respect!

Although I am very, very old I am pretty new to MN and if people notice that I have been comitting the cardinal sins of starting threads and opening a tea room before I have officially served my apprenticeship, I will probably be booted out! So I don't really know, either, why ((((((hugs)))))) are taboo on MN, but tea's assessment certainly chimes with what I've heard on other threads. I think the aim on MN is to have a learned and reasoned debate - or, at least, to express our feelings properly in words - rather than communicating in txtspk.

I have never looked at the other sites of which tea speaks.

Mine's easy - being limited of imagination when it comes to making up names, I go for book characters. But all the cool, strong women characters I wanted to be had gone. So I plumped for a Terry Prattchett character who sells dodgy sausages inna bun amongst other enterprises, and whose full name is 'Cut me own throat Dibbler' as his catchphrase is 'and thats cutting me own throat'.

My brother sees my parents twice a year (when he wants things) and hasn't phoned them for years - mum has to keep phoning till she catches him in. Its very frustrating.

I did join Netmums you know - when we were relocating across the country and I was panicking about not knowing anyone (I still don't a year on, but as DS is at nursery, and I'm a full time home based worker, its sort of inevitable). I got some replies from people in the locality, but, tbh for a start I was prob the same age as their mothers, and the hun thing wasn't working for me...

cmot - Your brother is uncannily like mine! How old are you? I too have had that 'same age as your mum' experience. Perhaps we are of the same generation?

I'll tell if you will.

I'm 36 - so not (IMO) that old for a first/only time mum, but they were in their early 20's with a couple of children.

Would you like to trade brothers ? Maybe they are less annoying when they belong to other people.

Feel I should announce my presence here, just listening in behind the aspidistra, in case I make anyone sceam if I sneeze. Also dd is in the somewhat overgrown garden in her wellies going 'plash in the puddles and someone might have wondered who she came with. I hope she is welcome there - she is an only and evermore shall be so. Cmot, I am much older than you are, which is why I am content to sit and rock here in my corner.

Hello, can't stop and don't want to interrupt the conversations, but just thought I'd drop the cake in as promised.

Will come back though, as I also have older relatives in need of support and living miles away, so offer much sympathy alongside the chocolate cake.

cmot - gosh, you're practically a teenage mum by my geriatric standards! I think any family member is more irritating when it's your own, although (just to contradict myself) I think that the ggrrr factor with in-laws is that it isn't as easy to tell them to back off or shape up as it is with one's own kith and kin!

racingsnake - good to see you here! Horticultural note: that isn't the aspidistra as the other customers binned it for being excessively smelly and bedraggled. That's an elephant's ears (I think it was called) kindly donated by another customer. But please feel free to lurk behind it and your daughter is welcome to play in the garden. Does she want the junior trowel set to play with?

bbpants - the cake looks yummy. Are you sure you can't stop for a quick natter? We're keen to have new customers come and join us in the tea room. Please don't be shy!

How nice to be a 'young mum' for once My SILs consider that we left it terribly late to have DS - they are both 40 and have 17 and 16 yr olds as their eldest children.

Hi mamadiva and racing snake!! Welcome to the international bar cafe tea room!!

Well, I don't see why we can't have intelligent, reasoned conversations whilst being supportive of each other's issues and giving hugs when they are clearly needed? We're mums fgs, we can multitask like that!

BTW, if we sharing ages, I'm was 39 in April, and DS is 9 months old. So I'm an older first-time mum. D'you all know that in hospital they call that "elderly primipara"?? Elderly???

jacksmama - I still beat you in the (old) age competition, both at time of birth and now.

Sorry to hear about your mother in law's problems. Have a contraband ((((((hug)))))).

I'm also an 'oldie' - 38 and my one and only DD is just 19 months old. However, today I feel ANCIENT.

No, no, no. You are all young, the picture of youthful beauty! I am a decade older than you all!

Oooh spotting a pattern here....I was an elderly prima gravida (Italy) too, at nearly 38....which makes me 43 now......(although after spending far too much time following diva round MN today, I feel much much older......)

Am also interested in the question a few pages back about what on earth are we going to do with our aged parents when they get-well- too aged.....those of us who are only children as well as only mamas.....Mine is of course in England, which whilst she is a spritely 64 yr old is ok, but I do worry about what will happen in 10 yrs time.....Maybe another thread for such musings....

From my pleasingly-distressed leather wing chair behind the aspidistra elephants ears I can't quite see whether you have a crackling log fire here. I do hope so. By its flickering light it will be less easy to see that I probably out-age the lot of you. Which is why I am content to sit and doze with the stack of back issues of dog-eared publications showing the pleasingly distressed homes of the lady tycoons. And a small glass of something mulled.