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.

Oh, I heart NCIS!!! Who's your favourite character? I'm torn between Gibbs and Abby. And I do love Bones. She's sooo... [searching for descriptive term emoticon] socially inept? comes to mind. But gorgeous, wow, I'd liker her figure. And Angel... ermmm, Booth... scrummy!!

May I have some more champagne?

Jackbaby's tongue is still bleeding intermittenly. I am currently doing a mountain of wash because he bled all over the bed sheets and the waterproof mattress pad, as well as his sleep shirt and my nightgown. That being the case, I may as well do all the wash...

Gosh, you all, our thread is almost 3/4 full again!!

I call it a sofa. I always have, but I understand that settee and couch are considered terribly non-U. The French canape has always made me laugh - by what etymological evolution did a sofa and a small savoury snack come to share a name? Can Monsieur Racing explain?

ROFL at a toddler balancing on a cheese-laden cracker RS!! Too funny!!

I call it a couch or a sofa (sofa less commonly).

I like the virtual horse, and hope that Earl Grey is a well mannered horse (is he truly a stallion or a gelding ?). The CMOT household spend a lot of time pretending to be horses (useful for doing DS's chest physio atm as his chest is bad as you can pat the horse a lot), so this is a natural enviroment. Our visiting child of the weekend enjoyed playing at having horseshoes fitted too.

I find it hard to watch the forensic science shows as my brothers godmother actually is a forensic scientist at the met, and growing up we were supplied with lots of real books. And Bones suffers from enjoying the Kathy Reichs books (on which it is based) so much that I can't shake off my mental images.

I think I might have nightmares about Jackbaby's tongue!!!

rs - do you speak French to ws??? I am impressed - your French must be pretty HOT!
(Very jealous emotion)

sofa.
hello.
I've just finished a thorntons. May take tea later. mind if I swing by every now and then?
aplogies for dodgy typpos, eeepc has tiny tiny key board.

UniS - you are welcome any
time!!!

Thanks for popping in!

Hi Uni, please come by often to our bar safe haven from the madness tearoom! Welcome!

I have been thinking about our rapidly-filling thread, too, JM. I think I read somewhere that they now no longer keep them. However will they make The Tea Room The Movie?

Cherry tart is delicious!

Golly! Have just been looking at Bocca's U and non-U link. I never know what to call things, no doubt due to my non-English parents not knowing either. We say 'couch' and 'sitting room' at home.

Cmot - how was Helsinki?

UniS - Great to see you. Please come back soon. We rarely close, although sometimes, if nobody's around, you may have to let yourself in (don't tell our insurers), help yourself to food and drink and leave the money in the honesty box.

cannape over here please, sure I have some random change in teh bottom of toy box if I look hard enough. Assumeing you DO mean a lil bit of toast with savoury something and not a french sofa.
any one else fancy a chicken and pesto mayo sandwich for supper?
Left overs from very nice sunday lunch with another small family.

It was a good trip - in spite of my 5 page to do list I really felt like I got something done and we cleared a lot up. Alas, coming back we were delayed by an hour (deicing, then 'the thing that shows the plane on radar' stopped working and started again mysteriously), so didn't get home till late. To face an early get up to work and then sort out house before guests arrived (but not our turn until March now).

I assuaged my shopping need yesterday, as we combined lunch, shopping (whilst children asleep in sling/pushchair) and softplay

Hello Uni. Do drop in especially if you bring the Thorntons with you.

Tea, I speak French to WS about everyday repetetive things: Not in your mouthCareful it's hotDo you want a biscuitBe gentle with the guinea pigDo that again and it is straight off to boarding school, but as she is getting older I feel I am not always able to express exactly what I want to say. My French is not as hot as dh thinks, he just doesn't speak t many French people. I suspect Bocca's is better and I am sure yours must be!

Up to now dh has been adamant that if ws is not bilingual it will be because I don't always speak French to her, so this is a breakthrough.

tea, don't worry about Jackbaby's tongue - Jackspapa and I are feeling better about it because he seems completely unconcerned.

Could I have an extra-large glass of bubbly, please, purely for medicinal purposes?

Have just had to change Jackbaby's nappy.

Were you all aware that blood that goes through the digestive tract turns black and tarry? I knew that, from my (short) days as a nurse before I went to chiropractic college. However, actually seeing it in my baby's nappy... different story! He must have swallowed so much of it.

However... Jackspapa has practically promised me the world because I was the one who caught this nappy, not him!

Apologizes for being disgusting and lowering the tone of the tearoom by unloading about horrible nappy

This sandwich is delicious, thank you.

May I ask what brings you here, Unis? Was it our brilliant multi-media marketing campaign? Or were you just passing by?

Racingsnake - My French is pretty reasonable on reading/writing but my accent is terrible, partly because I get very self-conscious. I had been learning French for 8 years, I think, before I heard a native speaker. I heard somewhere - possibly from friends with bilingual children - that the path to bilingualism is for each parent to speak to the child in their own language. I don't know, though, where this theory comes from or whether there is any research to back it up.

The thing is I am very good at nodding and smiling and I move in lots of English speaking circles in Paris - so my French is quite slow in its development.

DH says he and I should speak French - but the thing is for everyday things English is so much easier and quicker it is difficult to do!

All my friends say I should try and watch more French TV but French tv in general is really boring - I much prefer radio 4 and 3 and my Francesco dvds!!!!

My MIL came to live in France when she was the same age I came to France. I do often daydream about being basically billingual like her with her Jane Birkin accent by the time I am in my 60s too!!!

When I lived in Wales, I knew a number of people who were bringing up their children to be bilingual, and they all did the one language per parent thing, and I was given to understand that this was shown to be the best technique

Supportive hug to JM. A little blood goes a very long way in poo, so it isn't as bad as it looks, but still horrid

Lovely sarnie UniS

Jacksmama - forget the tongue I do believe it is jack's bum that will give me nightmares now!!!! - poor you - the joys of Motherhood, hey???

Sorry tea , foul, I know!!

cmot - dh knows how to say "Two glasses of red wine please" in many many languages of the World - he says it has won him many many friends across the World!!!

So do we get any Helsinki stories??? Please say yes!!!

Lots of research shows you are all right about the road to bilingualism, but dh always has to find things out for himself.

French tv is very boring, I agree. And I am a very lazy reader and hate reading in foreign. We also find it hard to speak French together - dh always slips back into English.

Have never seen a decayed-blood nappy, but I think I have already mentioned the spectacularly beautiful sunset hues that can be achieved with a carefully balanced diet of beetroot.

Stories ? Well, have been unable to find anything like the boots, so no links I'm afraid. This is a good thing as I have a number of pairs of boots, and really don't need another pair (honest).

I won't bore you with just how many times my colleague went on about how it was different doing x,y,z with 3 children.