The One and Only Tea Room: Tea, muffins and champagne served at all hours

[BoccaDellaNativita]

Well folks, here we are!

We were on the brink of filling the old thread so I thought we'd better start a new one now. There was a rumour that we were going to be evicted from our old premises, but we managed right at the last minute to get an extension on the lease. So it's business as usual. We're still in our charming old tea room, overlooking our beautiful garden complete with ha-ha and duck pond. And Mellors the gardener.

Please come and join us for a celebratory drink.

WHAT IS WITH THE ^??? WHY DO THEY WORK FOR EVERYONE ELSE BUT NOT FOR ME????

hi reindeersnake - was funny seeing you on another thread - I felt a bit odd - like when I was a little girl and bumped into my teacher in Sainsburys!!!

Wonders if we should have book nights in the tearoom????

Let me find Rebecca chat for you....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/667158-Rebecca

I think there's a lot of end of term malaise about. Two school concerts and a Brownie talent show this week have left me feeling distinctly enervated ...

... BabyBocca has a cough and is in a pre-Christmas frenzy and Signor Bocca, although not unwell, is tired and grumpy too. We have guests this weekend and I can't summon the enthusiasm to quit the sofa and scoop the toys off the floor or wield a duster.

Still, I'm glad to hear that the plague elsewhere is abating. Am very envious of the Brussels trip.

Does anyone need some medicine? We have some made by Doctor Bollinger and some made by Doctors Moet et Chandon.

Cos you have to do them around each word, not the word string (which is a pain).

I have been inspired to search for a copy of "I capture the castle" as mine seems to have disappeared.

I gave up long ago trying to have one of those 'Lovely Lifestyle' magazine homes, when I realised that the owners were as immaculate as their homes. And like my house, I can scrub up and look quite good with some notice and a good runup, but fail miserably on an everyday basis , so am obv doomed with the house

cmot - earlier this evening I was looking to see how many of the regulars here have a MN profile. Seems like only you do (although I think profiles may be attached only to normal names and not to Christmas names, so I may have missed some). No evidence there that you are failing miserably on a everyday basis^. And you are young.

Book nights in the tea room sound like a lovely way of passing the evening - but do you think we might be accused of being insular? Should we be invading the existing book threads? I think they have a book group there too.

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I also found rev on another thread tonight - but being a newbie I didn't understand what anyone was saying so came back here.

When you all venture out of the tearoom to the big wide mnWorld where do you tend to go?

T42 - I get quite excited when I recognise someone on another thread. Could have sworn I saw MadBad fairly recently!

CMOT - ahh! Light dawns!

I had to check my profile then to see if I had someone elses photos...

That was one of my better weeks as we went on holiday the week after my biggest conference of the year - which requires me to cut and dye my hair, be waxed within an inch of my life and be mani'd and pedi'd. In the desperate hope that 12 hours a day on my feet, 16 hours a day talking and too much booze won't show unduly on the exhibit hall floor.

Some Doctor Moet would be lovely

Reindeersnake - What lovely lifestyle magazines are you reading? All we had was a copy of My Utterly Fabulous Life - Doesn't Yours Look Rubbish In Comparison which, as I recall, you tore into tiny pieces.

Christmastea - when I leave this sanctuary, I usually go to baby names (trying to exorcise the ghost of how long it took to pick BabyBocca's name), gardening, adult fiction or otherwise anything intriguing that I've spotted in active convos. Yesterday it was a heated and lengthy barney about whether giving your husband a cake to take in to work signifies that you are a downtrodden drudge who (downtroddenness notwithstanding) will undermine the working women in your husband's workplace with your domestic perfection.

But next year I'm going to wean myself off all that and become a bona fide domestic goddess whizz with a paint brush. Oh yes indeedy.

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Tea - and I do attend Reluctant Worshippers, which is where I met the Rev. Should we appoint her as the tea room's chaplain by the way (assuming she would want the job, which quite possibly she doesn't)?

Cmot - you are too modest.

Cin, cin everyone!

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Christmastea - I post most on breast/bottle feeding, and check out Health, Allergies, Miscarriage,Nurseries and Going Back to Work. I don't do any of the conception, baby names, pregnancy or birth stuff.

We decided on a name for DS whilst driving on the M3. It was a little complex by having a hisname-myname surname (to match the cats) and a family middle name to go with, but DH finally came up with a good name. I didn't think I'd spend the rest of my life explaining it though - although I enjoy peoples assumed roots of the name

Reindeersnake - Sorry, am slow typist and always replying to the last-but-one post. Did you really see Madbad recently? In the pre-Christmas rush this week, I haven't managed to get to the MN State Home for the Bewildered to see her, but she is still not allowed out unaccompanied and so I very much doubt she's been hanging around on MN (which, as we all know, is a real place with a real tea room frequented by real people). Do you think she has been a victim of identity theft?

Refill anyone?

I do normally have a profile - I think its probably the Christmas names...

Can we do some Jane Austin?

I also saw the cake thread - The thing is when I see a cake I can't think beyond "Yum!" - I had no idea of the politics behind it - it was a complete eye-opener for me!!!!!!!!

Oh well... I am a keen foocer - look it up it is not as rude as it sounds!!! Infact foocing was my first love on mn!!! And... Sometimes JM does it too!

Trouble is, I can't be a foocer as about half of MN live where I do!

????

From Our Own Correspondent

For mistlethrush -

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/living_overseas/613580-from-our-own-correspondent

Oh Bocca - you live in the internet too, then?

Hey, you should fooc - foocing is a state of mind not an address! You would be fab!!!!

MT - Jane Austen sounds great (- Mellors looks a bit scared that Mr Darcy might out-shine him) but how do we do it without being exclusive????

[thinking deeply but not critically emotion needed]

Well, maybe if we put up a poster as we did with the craft fair, it'll draw a few people in, either from other parts of this thread or from further afield. Worst that can happen is a slap on the wrist from the original MN book group.

Christmastea - You seem to be a prodigious reader/buyer of books, do you want to run our first book night?

Maybe I was delving into mn history when I saw MadBad.

We have a whole stack of My Utterly Fabulous Life - Doesn't Yours Look Rubbish In Comparison over by the aspidistra. It was only the Christmas issue which had a little accident. I presume that MadBad mut have subscribed when she opened the tea room. Must put something in the honesty box for the missing issue, unless I could replace it with this copy of 'Don't You Feel Inferior To All These Green, Spiritual and Caring Parents?'? It has a great article on 'My children don't even know what a television is and knit their own Chritmas decorations out of spinach while we take turns to read aloud in Middle English'

It's a very long time since I have read Jane Austen - shall we have some for the book shelf? I have just brought in my copy of Howl's Moving Castle, so the reading age of the tea room is at present about 15.

I visit Relectant Worship, arty crafty threads, miscarriages (but I should stop this), chicken keepers and unanswered threads because I don't like to think of people being ignored. I avoid conception, birth, nannies etc. Sometimes I go to 'last 15 mins' to eavesdrop on all sorts.

My MIL would love the chicken keepers but seeing as my Mum and DH may well be anywhere in this tearoom right now I feel it would be really asking for trouble if I directed mil to MN too!!!

What about a reading aloud night where we all wear long scarfs and quote and talk about poems and novels by candle light?

So it isn't a copy of the other group (- I am planning on being brave enough to join in next month) and we can sip fine wine, wear tweed and compare and contrast our favourites until our hearts are full!!!

Oooh! Is that the Christmas edition of 'Don't You Feel Inferior To All These Green, Spiritual and Caring Parents?'.

That smiling family profiled in 'My children don't even know what a television is and knit their own Christmas decorations out of spinach while we take turns to read aloud in Middle English' is la famiglia Bocca. We had to borrow our darling niece as the stylist thought the photo would be more sympatico with two children in it (sadly, I failed to strike a blow on behalf of one child families), but that line-up of smiling, soignee Mama, handsome, lantern-jawed Papa, and winsome but ferociously clever Hermione and Antigone, c'est nous. After all, Papa learnt Middle English at university and it would have been such a waste not to share that with the girls. And spinach is remarkably easy to knit (although the girls prefer to spin their own wool from our flock of alpacas).

We're hoping to be featured again later in the year, when the focus will be on our hand-knitted organic bunting business.

More champagne, anyone?

Dear heavens, yes, I need medicine!

Mistle I was up at 3am trying to finish work before Christmas. likely to be on again tonight

I have 14 toddlers coming over tomorrow afternoon for a tea party. What was I thinking have wrapped all presents ready for Santa, blooming heck....

i saw MadBad on the "where do you take your one child on holiday" thread... and she answered. She might have been supervised though

I don't have a profile, apparently you can set one up for friends only but I felt a bit odd doing one...

Books yes yes! What about some Rosamund Lehman?

I don't really roam MN, sometimes if I have specific question I will and read occasional baby names but it gets a bit daft

Am on a general health thread of chat but they are all very very long term and after a few months I sort of get the feeling they skim over me so I spend ages reading and answering and then get ignored... how playground does that sound! Might just stop posting

Mellors has presented a First Edition of a riveting read about his earlier posting... I shall add that to the shelf