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.

Ahem that should be " all over YOU!"

Damn JFCM you had the last word. I thought it was mine!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

It's 3 am in the U.K. - why??? are you up???

The aspidistra IS here!

Ahem.

I've brought the Phil Spector Christmas CD for festive atmosphere, and can I submit this Christmas chutney to the craft sale? I'm not sure if chutney counts as craft.

Morning all!
Daisy plucks bits of fascinator off the floor, the aspidesitra, the glitter balls

rescues racingpig from inside a cocktail shaker and allows Mellors to creep unmolested from out behind the George Clooney cut out...

I missed a bit of a party didn't I!!

Welcome all new and old but new again peops!

I like Frank but for Christmas Crooning it's gotta be Bing or Dean Martin (and no, I was not around when they were first hits, only Bocca was!)

Daisy plumps up the cushions, waves the throws, makes a nice pot of tea and puts out bread and jam (sadly boring break maker bread not fancy suggestive Mistlechick rolls)

LOVE the new cafe look, glad it is so samey!!

Morning all, I see that I missed an eventful evening again. I am pleased to inform you that I am well up the 2nd golf club cover, have already made the pompom, so, hopefully, I will be able to join you in the evening again soon. Fed up that I keep missing the party!!!!

Spent breakfast writing all of MJ's Christmas cards - he managed the first letter of his name - well, most of the time at least, sometimes even in the right place and a reasonable size! Those are the only cards we've done so far. I was a bit when I discovered that all the class give each other cards - so we have had a crafty couple of days with a potato, a christmas tree cutter and green paint on one day, followed by sparkly gold paint and ds's finger the next ! We do have some spares left over, so if anyone would like a clearly genuinely handmade card, there is a small bundle on the counter.

Welcome to all the new faces - its nice to see a few new people coming into the cafe - don't want it to be too exclusive, otherwise the small amount of income coming into the honesty box won't even pay for the logs for the nice open fire.

JFM - I know that I've not dropped in in the evening recently, so we've not had a chance to converse 'face to face', but I did feel a bit left out of your list ()

I have bought a peace lilly to complement the aspidistra and sit on the counter. I think that it is a good reminder that the tearoom is not a place for some of the arguments that have broken out elsewhere on mn of late....

how about this option as a bit more Christmassy?

MT after your experiences this morning you might like this thread....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/664740-to-be-spending-the-evening-forging-my-5-year-old ?msgid=13521018

Oh and by the way what a lovely lovely - new name MT!!!!

CT42 Thanks !

Will check thread... really meant to be doing something else...

Bucharest calling in......
Here's a tray of homemade Christmas Tree biscuits...and yes, that is green food colouring on my fingertips.....

I'm soooo glad you managed to get Mellors to hoik(e) (sp?) the aspidistra over...who put the jolly decs on it? Did you leave the rotting corpse behind? good move!

How long do we have the lease on this place Bocca?

As you can see, I'm packing for my jolly hollybobs.......not....must away, I'll be back for a bowl of soup later....x

Morning Bucharest. We like green food colouring in the MT household. DS's favourite colour. The had a lovely green dragon for his birthday cake earlier this year...

I think I might just have room and time for one before I come back for some soup later.

We need something nice and warming - how about butternut and roast pepper?

I'll get ds to do some more baking soon, I promise

Mistle, I love your new name, it's very very festive

Don't wander too far!

Bucharest! Well met old fellow! Where to holybobs take you this year? on the high seas I hope? Mine generally to the 'burbs, so less enticing.... I can hear the clang of the garden gate and the twitch of the net curtain from here....

Yeah, Mellors has done alright hasn't he? couple of sparkly glitter balls still to hang but basically it's a home from home!

Daisy plonks some mince pies on the counter,

love the biccies Buch! And the cards are beautiful Mistle!

ok, mini wobble coming up...
I am feeling increasingly disconsolate about Daisyboy going to nursery. It's only 3 mornings week and I work pretty full time (he has a nanny, please don't shoot me Cmot)

but, here's the thing, it feels very BIG to me. I think here is my baby leaving the nest and starting the Long March away from my apron strings...

and I feel all sort of regretful that I have missed those baby hours by working and not devoting all my time to him and I can never turn the clock back and never do it differently....

I have that Proustian smell of madeleines and just can't shake it...

perhaps it is the lot of a mother to grow more and more needy as your LO's need you less and less?

I have a horrid picture of my sitting alone in a rocking chair awaiting with longing Daisyboy's visit and him thinking "hell, I had better go and see Mum but I don't want to I want to party/ snog/ whatever else...."

OK, as with Reindeersnake I shall don my Capable Hat again and crack on...

I am wobling too Daisy....

In France children legally have to go to school at 6 but all schools have a 'Maternalle' section which is basically nursery where all children I know enter at 3.

Today we have to go and get piccies taken of dd for school entry forms. She will start school in September 2009.

We have decided to give a billingual school in Paris a go... I think it will be nice for her to go to a school where she is taught English as her mother-tongue and her peers all speak French and English like her!

One side of me is very proud and glad about our decision... the other side a bit panicky....

If we send our child who has no brothers or sisters to, I admit, a very lovely billingual school 20 minutes away from our home will she be growing up in a little bubble not understanding what real life is like or will she be more worldly and learned as a result of these choices?

On positive days I feel like a great Mum for deciding these things. As we have just one child we can afford to send her to said school, we can afford to take her travelling a bit and to galleries, museums, stately homes (ROFL - see another thread on MN) etc etc at the wkd but on less positive days (esp after talking to my Dad who is an ol' Labour man - it is a school we have to pay for or Mum who is a real homely lovely filled with love and friendship Motherly type) I feel like I am doing something really bad in not ttc or sending her to the school 2 minutes walk away - not letting dd really experience life in its purity?

Tearoom thoughts welcome...

(T42 goes to bookcase to search a comforting quote for her Proustian friend....)

Morning Daisy mincepies are very nice, although they do seem to drop crumbs around rather a lot. Nevermind, Racingpig seems to be happy clearing up the ones that have dropped on the floor.

We really need a with a fascinator on rather than a don't we! I wonder if tech can sort it out for us

I'll just have to remember what I've called myself as I don't save password etc at work, and its set up as of old at home...

Don't worry, I'm not going to get in a huff about being missed of the list by JM - its probably because I've been knitting rather than mning of an evening recently. Anyway, the peaceplant is giving off nice calming vibes, so we're OK....

Daisy...

'Hannah saw Mona needed only to realize she was now riding the bike on her own, so she lowered her fingertips and fell back. As their fingertips touched for the last time, and brushed apart, Hannah felt a pang of joy and pride, mixed with anguish - at the loss of the little girl who couldn't ride a bicycle. As Hannah and the other children cheered, as Mona rode back, her eyes bright with triumph, Hannah first understood that parenting was a series of such daily deaths, and that learning to let go of your charges was as crucial as learning to take them on.'

Lisa Alther - other women

I love this quote - I think it sums up what it feels like to be a Mum.

Sorry, doing post when last 2 came up.

Well... MJ has started school this year - only 3.5 - and, yes, this is a private school so we have to pay. He has been in nursery since he was 6mo - I worked 3 days pw for a year, then increased this to 4dpw over 3.5 days so only had him to myself for 1.5days and weekends with dh.

I've changed my hours this year so I can pick him up after normal school hours 4 days and after lunch on a Friday (normally have very tired mj on my hands then).

I have no qualms about sending him to this school. I'm so glad he's gone this year not next - he needed the intellectual stimulation even if almost all of it is through play at the moment. He also needed to be somewhere where he starts to learn where the boundaries are and which boundaries it is acceptable to push

The benefits at present are that he has a class of 16 with one teacher and two very capable teaching assistants - so lots of attention. He does french (so he can now say hello in 3 languages as we've done the BBC German course with him too). I would say that the mix of skin colours and proportions is greater than it would be if we sent him to one of the two local primary schools - and as I want him to grow up to be 'colour blind' as far as that is possible, I am pleased with that. (I'm saying this as there have been some threads suggesting that people only send their children to private school as they want them to be with children with the same coloured skin....)

We are very lucky in that there are some school friends that live quite close, so we're not too insular.

Whilst it would be nice to walk to school in the morning, that's not the right thing for us at the moment.

T42 - I think that you might have to work a bit harder for local friendships, but, I think, if I was in your situation I would be making a similar decision

Daisy - I wish I could afford a nanny ! It would make travelling soo much easier than having to have someone here at 8 and 6 to drop off and pick up. My colleague has a nanny, and I envy the flexibility.

But when he was born, we lived in the SE, and even with the eye watering cost of nursery there, it came nowhere near a nanny.

T42 - DS will start school in Sept 2009 too, and it will be a fee paying school, about a 20 min drive away. But they have full wrap around care, and are totally amazing, so thats it really.

I do feel flashes of guilt about it, but thats the same with everything.

Morning everyone - great to see you all and especially Bucharest. I feared we had lost you in the move, dear.

Mistle - great name!

Don'tcallmesantababy - Chutney, yum! I'm sure that will sell well, especially with the festive tinsel around the jars. Thank you.

Poinsettia - I can relate so much to your wobble about nursery. Baby Bocca went a bit when she was a baby (two days a week while I had a temporary contract) and I fretted about whether I missed her first step/word/whatever. And it was a pang when she went to pre-school for the first time. But she loved them both. She's very gregarious (whether or not that's a manifestation of her being an only child I dunno) and I think she would have missed out if she hadn't gone.

But, Poinsettia darling, if you insist on preferring Bing or Dino (who are both fine singers, I admit) to Frank we may not be on speakers for much longer!

Christmastea - I think the arguments in favour of a bilingual school are strong. I realise it's difficult if you come from a background of political commitment against private education and it may feel a little uncomfortable at first. Perhaps you could solve the 'bubble' problem - and I know exactly what you mean as several of baby Bocca's pre-school friends go to very lovely (and well-known) prep schools and I was sorely tempted to follow suit - by making sure that in out-of-school activities (when you reach that stage) she mixes with a broader social group? Maybe that's tricky if you live in a very chic arrondissement. Besides, I don't think you should worry that, because every family doesn't regularly go to the Louvre, you shouldn't go too. I relish being able to give Baby Bocca opportunities like that and I think it is one aspect of life where having only one child is an advantage, because we can spend an afternoon looking at Egyptian sarcophagi without another child complaining of being bored.

Well, I have been rambling on in authentic dotty old lady fashion. Of course, I already have the rocking chair so am well-prepared for when I'm an even older lady and am waiting for the sole fruit of my womb to pay me a visit. At the moment, she says she's either going to live with me for ever or live in the house across the road, but she will change her mind by the time she's a teenager, I'm sure!

Now, where's that soup we were promised? It sounds really good.

.

Took me ages to type that last wittering post, so missed several above it.

at parenting being a series of daily deaths.

at not sending Baby Bocca to private school.

Yes, yes, yes - everyone - thanks for the support.

The school is in a beautiful and chic area of Paris. I have friends who live in the area and I work in it (so getting to school will be easy) but I wouldn't want to move there because we live in a friendly little town snuggled up to Paris. It is'Populaire' and has a villagey feel - walking out of my front door feels like putting on a pair warm slippers and pyjamas - and I am a warm slippers and pyjamas kinda girl - I have no desire to give it up. I had also thought of tipping the balance by insisting that dds Wednesday extra curricular activities (no school Wednesday - it is for clubs) are all done in our town...

Thanks tearoom!!!

T42
I love that quote. Daisyboy currently has a less wordy and more picture book from the library of exactly this - except at the end the littie girl whose Daddy has had to "let her go" on her bike comes rushing back into his arms so it's Little Women Lite for the more sappy amongst us!

School sounds fab, I wouldn't worry re choices, Milk42 will doubtless make best friends with the childee who lives furthest from you, it's inevitable! But mix of school and then home activities sounds the bag

CMot, know what you mean re cost, we have a live in nanny which was cheaper than 5 days nursery but it's all a bit eye watering!

Mistle - could Tech do special fascinator emoticons, love the idea!

Bocca, I don't think BabyBocca has a chance of suffering a lack of opportunities with you at the helm