Hello everybody! What's the weather like where you are? It is so dark and gloomy here I can barely see to MN! I'm not switching on the light as a small concession to credit crunch and global warming (not a big enough concesion to turn the computer off, you'll notice).
Anyway, where was I? We now have a large tureen of leek and potato soup (ingredients, as always, from the local organic farm) and so luncheon is served.
rebelmum - please come back! This is very definitely not a private conversation and we'd love to have you in our midst. It's just that with people running in and out all day long, bringing cakes, the constant traipsing out into the garden to supervise the children and the fact that we can't always see who has dozed off in the wing chair behind the aspidistra, we don't always spot who's here!
Everyone is very much welcome in the cafe. In fact, racingsnake, bbpants and mistlethrush probably won't mind me saying that they're pretty new here but they've made themselves at home and it's a delight to have them here.
Here, rebelmum - have some soup and crusty bread. I think we've still got a few of the lewd rolls from yesterday.
racingsnake - yes! I think it's fantastically lazy and glib to attribute everything (or at least everything negative) about an only child to their onliness. Nobody would dream of saying 'it's because he has red hair/sticking out ears/whatever'. We were taught very early on at uni that correlation does not necessarily mean cause and effect and it's something I often remember even now, aeons later. I'm sure it's true that, in the venn diagram of life, there is some overlap between people without siblings and people with poor social skills, but there's that same overlap for people with siblings too. I suspect that it's because generally, in our culture - although not on this thread, hurrah! - being an only child is perceived as a negative thing, and so other negative traits in that child are then attributed to their 'only' status.
Do people attribute the positive characteristics of only children to their only status in the same way, I wonder? I suspect not. I don't (alas) get the opportunity to eavesdrop in the classroom, but I doubt that anybody ever says 'BabyBocca has the reading age and vocabulary of a much older child - it must be because she's an only'. The one doesn't necessarily cause the other.
I'd better stop ranting now, though, or we'll scare our lovely new customer away. I expect she came in hoping for refreshments and a sit-down, not to listen to me on my soap box!