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.

DontCallMeBaby - Well done on the ironing marathon. I quite like ironing (at least, I recognise that the garments do look marginally better once I have steamed them into submission) but only if I can do something else at the same time. I used to irona-longa-Abba but have recently taken to dragging the ironing board into the sitting room so that I can iron and ogle Daniel Craig in Casino Royale at the same time. What, pray, is a Dorothy Perkins Shirt of Doom?

MrsGBoring - Lovely to see you here.

I would like it known, though, that even though I am an old biddy I am not as old as Mr Clooney and so am not in the habit of addressing his cardboard effigy as 'young man'. .

So, who's ready to see in the New Year? What are your New Year's resolutions?

GASP! OOH! AAH! WOW!

Mellors is letting off a fantastic array of fireworks outside the tea room window.

Bocca, Dotty P Shirt of Doom is a shirt with gathered bits that are (a) good, because they make room for the norks (am gifted in this department) but (b) very bad because they are an absolute bugger to iron. In fact physically impossible to iron.

Now that I know it IS the aspidistra I must do this:

Ahem.

We stayed up. Had some fizz which was unexpectedly pink. Watched a bit of Jools. DH expressed surprise that Lily Allen can actually sing; did not express an opinion on Duffy's 'dress'. Then attempted to go to bed only to discover that DD's airbed (big, posh Aerobed) had deflated around her and she was being scroggled by it. Ended up with her in bed with me, and DH on the airbed, reinflating it periodically. I have to say, there are worse ways to start the new year than being hugged at 8.45 (yes!) by a groggy 4yo with bed-hair.

8.45 would have been great. 7.30 was slightly less great being greated by 'I'm hungry, can I have breakfast?' Although MJ did have 4 breakfasts this morning - staggered until we left for a walk - and still managed a good lunch, so I think he might have been hungry really. However, its really difficult to get through to him (3.75) that when I ask him to be quiet, I don't want him to say something loudly, then when I remonstrate, saying 'mum.. Mum... MUM... Sorry.... SORRRY....' at increasing volumes.

OK, some Teashop advice here please. If you had a friend who was refusing to acknowledge that there was something wrong, but is resulting in behaviour/other problems for her daughter, what would you do? Any direct questions to her are replused -and I don't want to jeopardise the friendship entirely as its one place that they actually go as a couple.

I wondered what Mellors had been doing in the garden yesterdy!

Had a lovely day with friends round for lunch, one FREEZING short walk, far too much TV and the first fizzy stuf I have drunk outside the tea room for some time.

Don'tCallMeBaby: Thank you for the explanation of the shirt of doom. I too am quite remarkably gifted in the norks department - when pregnant, I apparently 'matched' Jordan - and have always shied away from those shirts on the grounds that they might further accentuate my (ahem) assets. But I shall now hunt some down. My shopping triumph this afternoon was finding new bras to accommodate my (ahem) embonpoint. I think I probably have Jordan to thank for that, as the number of women with surgically-enhanced norks means that bras for the gifted are now more widely (if that is the right word) available!

Teashop advice sought here: Has anyone ever used a personal shopper? I manage to find a pair of jeans/trousers to fit roughly once every four years so thought I might subcontract the job to (say) the personal shopper in Debenhams. Is this a good idea? Will stop at this point, before anyone mistakes this thread for 'style and beauty'.

Mistlethrush - You have been very discreet in describing your friend and her daughter's issues, so much so that I'm not sure what to suggest. Is the root of the problem, do you think, with your friend rather than her daughter? If so, I think racingsnake's suggestion about a general but tactical discussion of coping with the credit crunch is an excellent one.

And thanks to racingsnake for the tidying-up this morning. We slept in late, as we stayed up until the end of Jools' hootenanny (I love that man and was dumbfounded when a MNer with whose views I often agree made a disparaging remark about him last night). I too was pleasantly surprised by the harmonious sound which emitted from Lily Allen and - despite my old biddy status - quite enjoyed Mr Dizzee Rascal. My favourite dress of the night belonged to Annie Lennox, who for the last 20 years has represented who I want to be when I grow up. Do you think we could create a role for her in Tea Room: The Movie? She could appear as the tea room's guest chanteuse, as Bille Holliday is sadly no longer available for personal appearances.

Tea - racingsnake's post has reminded me that two French bandes dessinees that we have often noticed but never read are Kirikou (I think we even had a Kirikou toothbrush last year) and Titeuf. Would you recommend them? At the moment, we're into Asterix.

Well, although I have vowed to eat more healthily this year and shed some excess blubber baggage, I can't bring myself to give up champagne. Anyone care to join me in another toast to the new year?

My NY'sR is to react with a light, cheerful answer to any provacative remark, thus not escalating situations. Not easy.

But then excess bagagge removal is not easy, either. Except in the norks department, where I am the opposite of gifted (challenged?)

at idea of personal shopper, but then, why not? If they are the experts, they should be able to do much better than you, wandering helplessly and hopelessly. (Not saying that is you shopping, Bocca, but it definitely is me!

I agree that the opening of this tea room was worth a bit of aggro. Was it the 'I work harder than you do/Oh no you don't/Oh yes I do' one?

It was really in RL that I am going to try for a sunny, unshakeable disposition. I am now rather good at it at school and need to extend it to my home life. I will be sickening!

Off to bed now.

Champagne is quite low in calories, I believe, and how many calories can a puff have in it? Chilli or otherwise?

Bocca, here is an example of Shirt of Doom. Zoom in and you can see the extraneous pleats in the sleeves that cause me so much ironing pain. But the pleats across the front do accommodate the norkage (I have no idea how I compare with Jordan, I, erm, given the way that the same letter cup size is bigger for each succeeding band size, etc, I think I'm actually bigger, but all me own work, naturally).

I'd love to try a personal shopper. I get very stuck in a rut, and won't take advice. But then I get people like my lovely online friend, who is a size 6, who says I should wear dresses to flatter my voluptuous figure, who doesn't realise that all the dresses she was pointing out had an under-bust seam that would sit right ACROSS my norks and make me look a sight.

I too must eat better this year, if only to be more convincingly disapproving of DD's attempts to live off sugar and nothing else.

has one last furtive shake of the aspidistra, winks and Mellors and heads to bed

Anything Clooneyesque is fine by me!

Ooh. I like the look of the Shirt of Doom. I don't really do white shirts as I am far too clumsy with the tikka masala or bolognaise sauce, but the style looks lovely. Whaddya mean the letter cup size is bigger for each band size? Do you mean that a 36's G cup (for argument's sake) is bigger than a 32's G cup? If so, I may outstrip La Jordan, too. Crikey. But I am not proud. It's a nuisance, especially in summer when the prettiest tops have spaghetti straps and I cannot go bra-less and can't stand visible bra straps.

I think a personal shopper could be my salvation. If I take the plunge bra, I will report back here.

I know we want him to work harder, but he does seem to be making a superlative effort at the moment and he is such an integral part of tea room life that I feel we should reward him accordingly.

Well, thank you ladies. And happy New Year.

racingsnake - thanks for the dvd recommondation I have often hung around that one in the library but have been nervous whether to take it out or not - I will get it out and milkfortwo and I will have a look when we are back to sweet Paris!

Bocca - Sorry - milkfortwo isn't old enough for B.Ds - If I remember I will ask beerfortwo's niece for some advice as she is quite a B.D fan!

Bocca also - thank you for your post on onliesVseveral - For the first time a few days ago I braved a proper reading of the thread that inspired this tearoom. I was really so so shocked by much that was typed that I didn't get all the way through because it was too ugly and upset me too much! Hopefully 2009 will be a good one for the one child families topic - I think it needs a good year!

I was the one that started that thread, tea4two. Such was the fallout from it that I name-changed (albeit to my real name - how many MNetters use their real names here, I wonder). Anyway, I've just popped in to see if there is a flouncer's corner in the tearoom as I need to get away from another thread that's turning vile on this topic.

I got a booklet of 50p off vouchers from Starbucks yesterday - are they valid in this tearoom?

Oh so good to find this thread. DS will be a one and only child - I'm nearly 43, fertility probs and now no husband either. DS is 6.

Happy New Year to you all.

Starbucks vouchers will be rather more useful than anything else in the honesty box recenntly.

Six is the perfect age for enoying the garden, which has many potentially lethal exciting possibilities, even now that the duck pond has been fenced.

Which was the thread you started, Rebecca? How funny that people want to come onto mn to be vile to each other. I wonder if that means that their vitriol is just universal and unstoppable or if they just don't dare do it in RL.

Anyway, none of that here, or Mellors gets called in to perform his bouncer role.

We have tea, coffee (of every possible description and combination), hot chocolate, red bush tea, herb teas, bovril, smoothies, milkshakes, fizzy things ... if you can imagine it, you can drink it here. As it is breakfast time, we also have a nice hot griddle on the aga and can do drop scones or pain perdu (eggy bread being posh) ....

Yes, this is a nice place to be Onlies for a number of reasons... choice, necessity and lack of options... no criticisms/judgement passed...

I HAVE used the personal shopper in Debs Used first when I was sorting out things for wedding - underwear issues etc. I did use them again a number of times, but haven't done for a significant period of time... you need to get an appointment which means that you need to have time to go and the most I get is a quick whiz around at lunchtime. Although I do find Bravissimo great for my also well-endowed norks - bf for 22 months hasn't seemed to help the issue.

cup sizes do change depending on chest size - so a C cup in a 34 is a D cup in a 32 (I wish!). I also need to lose some weight, so cup size only v.large rather than stupidly large. Pre-ds I did manage to lose a good amount of weight - got down to a 30 chest size, unfortunately with a GG cup

Re my friend - she is blocking out her husband (also a friend) - he has never put his own daughter to bed, not gone to any school things as he never gets told when they are happening, never got her dressed, doesn't even help cut up her food (mind you, when ds is nearly 2 yrs older I expect that he will be cutting up his own food on his own - we try to encourage independance). She has cut-off relationships with both sets of parents. I asked her the time before whether she ever said to dh 'here you go, you look after her, I'm going out wiht the girls/to see a friend/to go to the gym/ or whatever'. I was told that it was none of my business, that 'we don't do things that way' etc. I thought I'd blown it and she would never visit again - but has done.

Bra size masterclass.

Yes, cup sizes are different on different band sizes. So, observe:

On a 30 band, a G cup is this big but on a 36 band .

This is why if you decide that your band is the wrong size, but your cup right, you still need to change cup as well as band. If you're going from a 34B to a 36, thinking that the band is tight but the cup just fine, you need to go to a 36A, not a 36B.

So when you've heard that a busty celeb is, say, a 30G, and you're a 36F, and think 'well, they're smaller than X's' - they're not.

However discovering this has made me realise that people who think 44DD is a huge bra size are not as wrong as I'd always thought, as that actually IS a big cup size - on a very big frame.

Anyway, mistlethrush has already explained most of that, but I'd typed it before I realised, and I don't like to let a lecture go to waste.

Ooohh! Nice to see cafe life in full flow.

tea - Don't worry about the BDs. I just wondered whether living in France had made you au fait with them.

Rebecca - nice to see you again. How is your dd? We don't have a flouncer's corner in here, but I suppose you could say that the tea room is a flouncers' corner, since it was set up to be a safe haven away from all the nastiness which your original thread provoked. We've probably benefitted in recent weeks from somebody filling the honesty box with Euros, but we'll honour the Starbucks vouchers too (in the same way that some supermarkets used to grab honour their rivals' customers vouchers).

Don'tCallMeBaby - you seem to have grasped the essentials of tea room life very quickly. Thanks to you and mistlethrush for your exposition of the sizing of norks.

Mistlethrush - I think I will make an appointment with the Debenhams personal shopper. I will report back. As for your friend, this is the trite and predictable thing to say, but it sounds as if there are major issues of trust and control there. Is she similarly 'in charge' of every other aspect of her life? Is her husband away from the house a lot, on business or whatever? I don't think I've ever known anyone who has shut their partner out quite as much as it seems she is, but I have known a few who get so used to coping single-handed when their partner is working long hours that they just don't know how to hand over the reins when he's around. Or is this about insecurity and lack of confidence? Does she feel that parenting is her thing and so not want to relinquish it for other less comfortable things? Oh dear. I don't know what to suggest, but you're obviously trying hard to be a kind and supportive friend to her.

Pirate - welcome aboard. It's good to have you here.

OK, then. How about lunch? Who'd like some soup with their eggy bread?

Chestnut soup here! Loosely based on what I could remember from the Delia book with whatever I could find in the fridge some creative substituting.