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.

Jacksmama - No, dear, my name isn't Maddalena (although I'm now starting to wish it was, as it's such a lovely name). I am just a sweet, grey-haired old lady who sits in the tea room wing chair and quietly gets on with her crochet. And tries to recruit others to my serious champagne/prosecco habit ...

Nuremburg is lovely, with a fantastic Christmas market. Will you get time to go to it?

We used to live in Southern Germany, just to dispell impression that I have never moved further than down to the end of our path.

at goats going and at JM having to wait for stepfather's demise to be reunited with mother. Aged parents are a whole nother subject.

Had a lovely family evening, eating popcorn with Racingrabbit and Pig in front of Miracle on 34th Street (didn't get to listen to one word but that probably improved the experience) in rare total harmony.

I was busy devising a hotwater bottle for Pig and Abbit out of an apple juice carton wrapped in a sheet. RP's sister died of cold last night , not living with us, I hasten to point out, and I was trying to ensure the survival of our favourite tea room pig.

Well, I'm still here.

Right, Bocca, you couldn't be Maddalena because she has no children and doesn't drink. I forgot about that. But the - albeit virtual, as in, over the internet - resemblance in terms of how you express yourself is spooky. In a good way.
I wonder if not having children and not drinking are somehow related in a cause-and-effect way?
She doesn't need to drink because has no children?
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....
But lots of childless people I know drink lots....

Whatever.

I think the relationship between children and drinking is extremely complicated. When I was single I often went to cocktail bars with friends. When I was married but pre-child, we often went to lovely restaurants (with nice wine lists). So, in that sense, the opportunities were greater. Now, we seldom go out in the evenings, so the best for which I can hope is a glass of wine with dinner or Apple Cracker in the tea room. After a full-on day with a toddler, I did sometimes wait impatiently for Signor Bocca to get home so that I could crack open the sherry!

There is no such thing as too dependent on booze. I wait for 5 pm to come around so I can have a nice glass of white wine.

Morning !

No, no chance of hitting the markets. I leave Birmingham airport at 7, get to Nurenberg at 11.30 (via Frankfurt), then leave Nureneberg at 7.15 to get back to Brum at 11. I may see rather more of Nurenberg airport than I might wish, but that will be it - as well as a lovely radiotherapy department.

Did RP like the hotwater bottle ? Cat-the-elder has moved in under the Christmas tree (she normally stays out a lot), and the kitten is refusing to move out of her chair. My office isn't warm yet, so am working from sofa.

Jacksmama - I finally got round to making your almond muffins, and they were considered by the whole family to be a total hit. I did them dairy free, just to find out how that tasted, and was really please with the apple/almond/cinnamon flavour

Agghhh another friend has just skyped to say they are having a second baby!

So, moving on. Monday morning and it's my favourite day of the week - two whole days to do as I please with RC.

Going to bustle round and tidy tea room a bit - seem to be several empty prosecco bottles behind the aspidistra .... Then I thought of leaving a note for Mellors, just a few little ideas about what he could be getting on with mid December. (Dh teaches horticulture.) If nothing else, he could bring in a few logs for the fire.

Now off to see how the managerie fared overnight, then off to toddler group with RC's friend the Gifted Toddler who did everything months before everyone else. Will she be doing embroidery this morning or reading aloud to us from the classics?

I have also visited the 'where on earth is dh I need to get him to do ds's bath and have a glass of wine NOW' situation!!!

I just wish at the moment I could get through a school morning where I manage to get ds up, fed and dressed and to school without getting completely wound-up. This morning he was having hysterics about breakfast - yesterday he had 2 (breakfasts) and this morning he told me his tummy was grumbling with hunger - and then took about 45mins to eat a few spoonfulls.

JM - no induction - he was a week early anyway! I am, however, very glad that he did arrive early and I didn't go over. Goodness knows how big he would have been 3 weeks later!

Sorry about deserting the cafe over the weekend. I have discovered that the problem with having a knitting project on the go is that you can then not spend the evening idly surfing etc at the same time as watching the TV as you have to do knitting instead and the two are not really compatible.... Knitting project going well though. Ds 'chose' the colours - or I ignored his suggestions as I didn't think that a golf club cover in bright pink and mauve would really be the done thing. He 'chose' 2 greens and royal blue instead

Good morning Mistle. I see you didn't go with RockingRobin then.

Congratulations on the knitting - I haven't done any since giving birth.

Hope RC not being too disruptive - jumping of the back of the tea room sofa shouting 'Un deux fee FIVE - silly girl!' and then running round to everyone saying 'Hello, pickle'. She needs to get out. (And I need another nice cup of redbush tea.)

I remember one of DH's friends sending an email to say 'whoops, DW is pg again' (they ended up with 3 under 3 which they really couldn't afford to have) the week after I had my third miscarriage. Which they knew about. He even sent it to my work email, which meant I burst into tears at my desk.

The horticulture college here seems to be still busy - am going to pop over and buy plants from their nursery as presents for the parents. These will be examined closely as parents used to grow plants commercially, but am hoping that as an RHS regional centre, they will pass muster.

I do hope Mellors will add some seasonal colour to the tea room. Maybe he can make some wreaths, to which we can add some gingham etc to sell ?

Gifted toddler sounds. um. lovely.

Morning all! Here's the first of today's batches of muffins - apricot and coconut (from the Annabel Karmel book, don't you know).

'Friends' can be amazing in their (lack of) tact and sensitivity, can't they? I used to ignore all those "look at me and my burgeoning fertility" comments from people who didn't know about our situation (and we were very secretive about it, so most people didn't know, which culminated in my sister in law telling me she was pregnant again, the day after an unsuccessful IVF attempt. Aaargh!) But I did think differently about those friends who did know about our situation and still wittered on about "when we all have our second babies" and so on. Obviously, I didn't expect people to hide their pregnancies, but I did expect them to engage brain before opening mouth.

reindeersnake - Yes, I think we have reached the point where we need to give Mellors some clear objectives. Do you want to draw up a 'to do list', with deadlines attached? And, as for the gifted toddler, reading from the classics is only impresssive if it is in the original Greek. Anything else just marks her out as a wannabe.

Mistlethrush - I too need to get off MN and get on with finishing a scarf for BabyBocca's Christmas stocking. But MN is so addictive ...

cmot - A plant might solve my present-buying problems for my parents, too. They're RHS members and have a well-stocked garden (much of it bought by me over the years) and I have no ideas: any suggestions?

Now, sadly, I must do some ironing (yes I know I've had this dilemma before and you all tried to stop me picking up the iron) and go and collect a parcel from the sorting office before it vanishes into the ether.

Wish me luck!

How about some heritage fruit trees ? Interesting, and helps to preserve the diversity.

RS - ds's teacher has commented that when they are expecting children to say goodmorning and ds insists on saying Guten morgan that there are times when they would like children to toe the line rather than assert their individuallity

Bocca - yes, had one of those recently - friend at work expecting her second has been saying 'I don't know how I'm going to cope' and 'woe is me' type comments - she does know the problems we've had. Have made some fairly blunt comments, but she doesn't seem to have taken the hint.

What lovely muffins! I could never make those at home as dh dislikes coconut for some reason - although, thinking again, perhaps I could make them then ds and I would be able to eat them all up {fgrin]

Why doesn't teacher ask Mistlechick to choose the language for the register sometimes? Then he could assert his individuality and he might also find out what if feels like if someone says 'Good morning' when he wanted them to say 'Guten Morgen'. I find, though, that you need to think hard - is it important enough for a confrontation? Maybe child is trying to have .... tremble at the word ... fun. To be fair on the teacher, the thought of 32 individuals in my class having fun at the same time is a bit too much, especially on a Friday [emoticon lies back on a couch, fanning itself with trembling hand] I would, I hope, never be silly enough to complain to a parent about something so petty. Nothing less than armed attack on class hamster.

Bocca - heritage fruit trees sounds great, maintaining diversity of stock in UK etc. Or, depending on space, old rose, honeysuckle (lots of nice habitats/nesting places), guelder rose or other native shrub, real bluebells (obviously from cultivated stock), new and shiny secateurs that actually cut, ditto watering can in beautiful shiny galvanise with a rose that works ...

.. Or maybe a steam iron and they can help with your ironing??

Good idea to get Mellors onto wreaths. Time we had something more to sell in the tea room I feel - although I sense a line of scarves and golf club covers in shades of puce could be on the horizon ..

Off now to get in wood and coal before taking Aged Mother to accupuncturist. Had toyed with the idea of discussing worries with her, but she has been in a panic the whole morning after realising that acc is today. She used to look after a whole family (her parents and sister) and drive 40 ton lorries, work with spies and mountain smugglers - how can she now be thrown into a flat spin by a 30 minute car ride? I feel it is probably time we all put our great brains to the issue of old age and SORTING IT OUT before we find we have got there ourselves.

Forgot to say, we need to fix a date for the tea room Christmas craft fair. I will be knitting scarves in that bizarre, very tufty wool synthetic fibre, as I can only do garter stitch and can't easily do increasing/decreasing so my options are few. May also do some felt decorations for the tree, time permitting.

Puce golfing accessories sound marvellous ....

Yes, she is rather splendid. She was born in Berlin, went to the original Steiner school, after a number of events was deported to the Austrian/Czeck border (Jewish great grandmother) where after many adventures (no fun at all at the time) she ended up working for the Allies as an interpreter for Intelligence. Lots of stories about spies with holes cut in their newspaper (honestly) and villagers having to kill half a pig, but also lots of horrors which mean that she is not really keen on human beings, apart from her own family.

Your old age plan is more detailed than mine, which is to expect a medical cure for all problems to be found by then.

Would like to add some of my homemade xmas cards to the craft sale. Have been scanning some of RC's more recognizable paintings (due to dh holding brush as well) stuck to some wrapping paper and will print out and stick on cards. (Cards found on MN)

I'll get ds to do some extra Christmas Cards to sell. If I can find the cutter, we are going to do Holly leaf potato prints (if you stick the cutter into the cut bit of the potato you can then cut around it very accurately so you get a really good holly leaf shape) with finger print holly berries.

RS - MJ's teacher has only commented to me - I don't think that she's said anything to MJ. I think that MJ just wants to assert his independance etc. At the moment they are getting 2 phonics letters a week. I'm pleased to say that he hasn't had one that he didn't already know reasonably well (which means that I've not been practising them with him very much )

I think if we left the colour choice of the golf club covers to ds they would be flamingo pink, lime green and orange (not sure about the last, definite on the first!)

3/4 the way through 1st golf club cover - if I do a 2nd it will have a less complicated pattern (got a bit carried away!)

Mistlethrush - that sounds lovely.

Hello lovely ladies

Sorry I haven't been around (work has been hell), but I'll do something for the fete