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.

I'd have said that I wasn't the type to employ someone. But the reality is that all of our cleaners (in our old house we used ladies from a small company owned by one of them) are cleaning because they can make a decent wage out of something that is flexible - our current lady has a husband with terminal cancer. By cleaning and taking our ironing home she can fit in 3 people a week, but can move those around to fit his appointments, take time out when she needs to etc. Previous ones were able to bring their children if they needed to, only worked school hours etc.

So, I don't feel bad about it at all - it would be different if they worked for an agency paying minimum wage though.

Mistlethrush - yes, for us too it's about the volume of stuff we possess and acquire.

Cmot - I wasn't meaning to suggest that employing someone is exploitative. Just that it seems above my station, if you see what I mean.

Must go. Daniel Craig has got his dinner jacket on now. You see, I'm multi-tasking - ironing, MNing and ogling.

MT - actually I think my DH would say 'yes' to a cleaner if I wanted it - it's me that feels undecided about it. It feels as though it would just be ANOTHER thing to organise - do you know what I mean?

However saying that, my DH is a total workaholic, so the idea of not going in to work one day a fortnight would be foreign to him! He's doing really well at the moment by only working one day at the weekend!! He drives me mad but he's lovely really!

I think having the cleaner thing wholly depends on who the cleaner is

Had a lovely lady who went to my local school for ages, all happy. Then pants time with agency type people now very happy with lovely lovely woman who is really one of us rather than employed

I do sometimes feel sort of Matriachal Bocca - I work upstairs and downstairs there is a home "running" with a nice man from Ocado bringing me food, a lovely lady doing my cleaning my DS playing with his nanny - it seems a bit grown up

Mistle you are not helping the hen envy [green]

Bocca - go and see Quantum of Solace there is total YUM factor and DC is top when he's 20 feet tall!!!

Ironing? Bit of a rude word in Daisy Villa

Pushes tin of flapjacks to middle of JM's colourful rag rug

It's been that kind of day ladies!

"with" not "withe" obviously. I'm not going all Shakespeare on you....

Hello all... cough, croak...
DS and I now both have colds. He's so plugged up he can barely breathe through his nose while nursing, and my throat hurts. I think some honey-lemon tea would be nice...

Ah racingsnake, your household sounds so like mine when I was growing up. We frequently had something small keeping warm by the fire (one of my pet cockrels was raised on top of the gas fire from a chick), plus the collies trying not to be seen in the sitting room, the cats bringing unmentionable things in, plus the bantams raising broods in places they shouldn't. Including the welly box.

I like Marans. Unfortunatly our current house has a covenant such that we can't have poultry. Therefore we just have two mad cats, one of which tries to add to the animal content of the house on a regular basis by bringing us gifts. DH keeps muttering about a dog, but since he wants a Jack Russell, its not happening. DS wants a greyhound

Well, a miracle has happened. I emailed my brother on the 16th of October to ask whether he wanted to come for Christmas as my parents will be here. Today he has actually replied to say he'll be coming. First time he will ever have been to somewhere I have been living other than our parents. Second time he'll have seen DS

Huh, cnut, it only took your brother, what, almost six weeks to reply to your email? Wow.
On the subject of siblings, I was tempted recently to start a thread in Chat asking if anyone else has evil siblings they don't speak to. My family is not exactly dysfunctional-family poster material... we're only slightly dysfunctional... but it's all wrapped up in my sister. If she emailed to say she was joining us for Christmas, I'd emigrate and land myself on your doorstep (or the Racing menagerie's).

BTW, thanks for the offer of dubious paracetamol (or dubious offer of paracetamol... hang on, must just check if I'm running a fever because now I'm all confused), but I really am severely allergic... you'd have to phone 999 if I took some. I will take the manuka honey and whatever though.

And tearfortwo WHY were you carrying a watermelon????

I wouldn't have invited him by choice - my mum 'felt worried he'd be on his own' as we are bringing them to us for Christmas. He normally only turns up to them for a few hours, but hey. I thought I would be a good daughter, and it is an opportunity for DS to actually meet his uncle. We never speak or email, and have seen each other for approx 2 hours a year for the last 15 years

Its not that brother is particularly evil, just that he is the sort of 40 something, un partnered, didn't do anything with his PhD as it was 'too stressful', bloke who does my head in. He also scrounges off my parents mercilessly, and has never visited them in hospital/gone and helped after surgery etc.

In a mad excess of enthusiasm (or madness) I am going to ring my mums sister and see if they want to come for a drink on Christmas eve. She only works 15 minutes from where I live now, but hasn't seen mum for 4 years

This thread is hilarious Check it out everybody!

Better leave the paracetemol, then, especially as Mellors has already clocked off. Don't worry about Racingpig; I feel the more germs the better the resistance (eventually). I'll have him hosed down if necessary.

I have also almost lost touch with my sister, but she's very sad, not evil, and I feel terribly responsible and older-sister for her. (Which is probably why we rarely see her.)

Now, other reletives - where do I start? One of my gradmothers was married to a rubber planter in Malaya (as was). Somerset Maugham stayed with them once and she became a bit character in a book, playing the piano while the natives revolted. She was called The Tarantula by locals and when they moved to Canada, The Gadfly. Not nice. She attempted to starve my gradfather when he got very old.

DH's parents kept a whip on the wall for the children, which must be why he is ridiculously indulgent with Wrigglesnake.

Crikey! Am now feeling very urban indeed.!

Daisy - I have indeed seen Q of S. The joy of Casino Royale is that Mr Daniel Criag ishere in my sitting room.

Racingsnake - As you are raising quails, you could perhaps employ Mellors in his professional capacity. There are some gaps in his CV, and when MadBad interviewed him for the post of part-time gardener here he was not very forthcoming, but I gather he was a gamekeeper at a stately home somewhere in the Midlands. I must stress, however, that Mellors works here as a gardener and not as a first aider for ladies who are silly enough to self-induce anaphylactic shock simply in the hope of receiving CPR.

Ah, Christmas! The shopping! The relatives! The debates about who goes where and for how long!

Anybody need some medicinal champagne?

Me me me me meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Anyone else?

Too bad so sad, MORE FOR US!!!!

JM have you always been allergic to them, or is it something that developed later on? I could take paracetamol quite happily until last autumn... first time I took them after that I thought I had a virus or something - although I did know that the rash came up immediately after taking the cocodamol - managed to get a emergency Drs appointment later and ended up lying on the floor so I wouldn't faint, then carted in by ambulance to A&E - second time (thinking that it was codeine, not paracetamol) I knew what was happening, we managed to get someone to come and sit with ds and dh drove me down to A&E - where they decided to leave me in the (short) queue in the walk-in A&E rather than treat me immediately, until my lips started swelling up so I had to bypass that bit and get admitted for 6hrs....

The MT household menagerie is much reduced from country upbringing days - just dh, ds, 2 chinchillas and a rescued dog... Dog likes to have attention so ds finds himself being pushed out sometimes - or she sits down in the middle of the puzzle/game of marbles etc causing great angst.

Honey and Lemon with mauka honey sounds good. I've also brought some sprigs of red sage in for those suffering with sore throats and bad colds - pour boiling water over sprig in tea pot and infuse - then pour onto teaspoon of honey - lovely pink colour - add lemon and it changes immediately to yellow! Magic

T42 sneaks in and takes a pot of tea for two... well if anyone is going to she should!!!

Ooooh - lots to talk about today...

Aaaaaaaaawww - I love the animal chat - We live in a tiny apartment above a tiny but cute antique shop. The closest thing we have ever had to a pet was a city pigeon called Percy.... urrrrmmm....she (we named her before considering her gender) used to tap on the window and have a bit of breakfast with us. One day she stopped coming because she died... well I can't think of any other reason why else she would have stopped can you????

JM... somewhere back there I was called 'Baby' - I was carrying a watermelon in response to this....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0sBN28vdxM

We have the new cleaner starting on Friday... because the old one kept forgetting to come and clean. The new one has been highly recommended to us so our little bohemian apartment (seriously it is filled with vintage chairs you can't sit on because they are so close to breaking and on a drunken night we painted the living room with random strokes of bright blue, orange and green) is soon to be the cleanest place on the block!!!! HURRRRAAAAY for cleaners!!!!

Oh Mistle, I am terribly excited by colour changing sage, but I have never even SEEN red sage (and that would be for sale, being rather short of garden at Daisy Villas)

JM, I am going to gloss over your "watermelon" question, remind myself you are from Canada (and so clearly don't get out much) and send you a DVD of Dirty Dancing strict instructions - take DVD, sit down with large glass of champers and Watch

"IT was the summer of '63, I thought my Daddy was the most wonderful man in the world, I was going to join the Peace Corp. Everybody called me Baby and it hadn't occurred to me to mind...."

AH the joy of watching for the first time

LOL at menagerie stories

I want to visit RacingTowers! DS is happily playing in the cafe garden with RacingPig and a couple of cats, he is most keen on animals. Having learnt to walk hauling himself up on DaisyDog who is phlegmatic it would be fair to say...

My wellies are green, that is the most countrified thing about me

Daisy - and tell me ... had anyone heard of the Beatles???

Ha ha ha -

• I don't have any wellies...

Beatles?? Aren't they the small black things that Mellors squashes lovingly flings into the next door garden?

here are a bag of pain au raisin for you this morning - sometimes urban living can be A-ok!