The One and Only TEA Room: Everyone Welcome (bring champagne and muffins please!)

[Jacksmama]

Wow, we're on our third thread!!!
Previous (second) incarnation of the tea room.

A warm welcome to everyone, whether you have one child, none, or ten. This is a tea-and-muffin or booze-and-sofasorcanapees sanctuary for all. But certain standards of behaviour continue to apply - anyone engaging in fisticuffs will be ejected by George Clooney, ably assisted by Mellors the Gardener.

Cheers all!

Exciting errands ? Now there is an oxymoron !

I'd love to say that I manage MrCMOT (actually this is no truer a name than saying I am MrsDH as we don't share surnames - only DS and the cats are the same - and I don't use Mrs), but its more that long acquaintance, friendship, and a close up view of his previous relationships has given us the ability to work out a system that works for us and our personality quirks. We have The WhiteBoard, our diaries and The Understanding - and it works well. Well, at least, after 11.5 years we are both still alive

I'll have minestrone and a lewd roll please

So, looks as though the minestrone is popular today - I'm going to have that too. Luckily, as ever, the pot on teh aga is bottomless (as in not running out, rather than in running out all over the aga of course) so there'll be plenty left over for later lunchers.

CMot - where next?

Bocca - exciting errands???? Please elaborate.

I would like to walk into town and go and do some shopping - it would probably just be window shopping, but in the circumstances, I don't feel able to. Might still go for a little plod....

Dusseldorf, Norwich, Amsterdam, Charlottesville VA, all booked/arranged, and looking at flights for Cairo, Oporto and Toronto. This takes me to the end of May with not a lot of out days (that don't fit into out at 8, back by 5.30) available

Exciting errand = going to an exhibition from which I'm quite likely to return with a purchase. All for charidee.

I think you mentioned before, cmot, that you don't use Mrs. I do out of defeatism, in that when I started work I said that I wanted to be known as Ms but so many of my clients wrote back to me (this was in the age before e-mail, naturally) as Mrs or (just as often) Mr that I gave up. I'd still like to do a PhD so that I could be a Doctor and get away from all that Miss/Mrs/Ms stuff.

Out there in real life I am Mrs Myname Hisname and BabyBocca is Miss (or Ms) Myname Hisname. One of the reasons I did this is that my brother's children are Master and Miss Myname Hername but often known just as Hername and there's a risk that Myname will become extinct as my only Myname cousin doesn't have children. Of course, it still might. Come to think of it, there's no child on SignorBocca's side of the family with the Hisname surname either. BabyBocca carries a heavy burden!

Yes! Zazen arrived earlier, tripped over amber who was still snoozing on the carpet, decided it was comfortable there and has been covered with a rug.

How many words have you got today, justabout? Are you ready for lunch?

Oooh - a picture ? What sort of style ?

I collect wood cuts, but have to bear in mind that I will get all my parents pictures - which cover the entire inner surface of their house. They collect pictures by a guy who my dad knew a little, but who did mainly architechtural pictures

I accept all sort of honoratives at work - mostly I get called Dr by a sort of default. Brother has no children, although who knows as he has now apparently got a girlfriend, so the name thing is a pity. DH has two brothers with 4 boys between them, so his name is safe. DS and the cats are myname-hisname

I'd like to do a PhD, but alas only really in a non work subject, so unless DH does something amazing, thats not going to happen. He did get accepted for a PhD (at Harvard of all places), but decided that it wasn't for him (which is quite true)

Not a picture, exactly, but needlecraft. One reason I don't want to knock through between sitting and dining rooms is that we need that wall space for pictures. I really don't do minimalism.

Must dash - train to catch!

It would solve problems wouldn't it. I've been working up to it - I have a B, an MA and an MPhil, so I know it would be dooable if only I had another life. I'm Ms myname at work and Mrs Mrmistle at home - means its easy to detach home from work when the phone goes at home for one thing - but I'd also been working for 6 yrs by the time I met Mrmistle so had got quite established with myname - also good to remind somepeople of the name given my father's involvement in the field...

Rev - do you ever feel a bit about meeting people - in terms of being able to link a mn name to a real person. I suppose I justify it in that I don't rush off and look up all the recent posts of the people that I'm intending to meet, so hope that they don't!!!!

Inviting a friend round to play with my 'only' after school, so I can sit and relax with a cuppa and a choc biscuit.

Good to see you again, HSMM. Would you like a muffin to accompany that cuppa?

Good morning all!

It SNOWED here again

xxx

Colouring book, there's an idea Amber. I went to a work offsite today and spent ages colouring in the watermark of a centaur that was printed on the notepaper, and then tracing it through the other side of the paper. Unfortunately I then realised that during the process its left arm had mutated to look like, well, a lewd roll, so I had to fold it up into an umbrella. So then I did another one, and drew lots of stars as well. I had a lovely time. And a nice lunch - for pudding the buffet had a big bowl of profiteroles, bowls of cream, chocolate sauce and caramel sauce, strawberries, marshmallows and chocolate buttons. Yum.

Unfortunately tomorrow I have to go to work, where there will be no profiteroles and minimal doodling.

After a lunch date with a dear friend - We too were in playworld heaven - 'generation' the science museum for 2-5 year olds at Cité museum of science and industry. Fantastic stuff!!!

Tea room ladies chant: What's the time Mrs Bocca?

Bocca: Why my dear chums I do believe it is wine time!

Woooohooo (- ladies scream -) Cheers!!!

Teafortwo smiles: Make mine a cool chablis please.

pssst - is anyone else spending next to 15 minute trying not to cry/pretending they are not crying at the Womans hour drama this week?

CHablis - there's an idea. I think I'll join you T42 - how are you?

Oh thanks for asking MT.

We are just falling back into normality after Christmas and the funeral this week feels simple and normal and it is lovely! Like how you feel after a long cool drink of water on a hot summers day. I hope normality comes your way soon too.

T42 ad MT clink glasses of chablis and then sink into the tearoom armchairs!

I like colouring books, and DS has one of those things like an Etch a Sketch (but you use a magnet pen rather than dials) and I find it terribly soothing to play with

Chablis sounds lovely, and DCMB - why do I always get boring fruit salad at those things and you get all that lovely stuff ?

DS had a doctors appointment this afternoon, so I finished work early to take him to that, then went took him for a haircut after. The woman who did it is a bit of a 'Lionel Blair cut' establishment, so it is very much shorter than I would have liked. But she is quick, efficient, and nice to small children, so we are stuck with that for now

DCMB - where was that pudding, can I come too? sounds like pudding heaven. Was it Wonkas choclate factory?

I think I just stepped on amber or zazen, sorry, I have big feet and don;t look where I'm going. I'm sure it was one of you tho as there is a notice... And I HAVE to read stuff on walls. Might have been RP I supose, any one seen RP recently?

Dh is a Dr, so there is no MrUNiS , boy is boy hisname , there is no cat. I am used to being Unis Hisname at cricket and the like, so expect it will happen once boys is at school as well. Or maybe not if we stay here, the surestart signing in sheets are full of kids with different surname to parent, and sometimes to sibling. Like CMOT changing my name would have been confusing at work, there was a UniS Hisname working in a simlar feild only 30 miles away. Any how, its my name and I quite like it.

We finally have a front door that opens and closes easily! only 6 years after we moved in and 3 years after it became a PITA. haVE GOT A BUILDER/DECORATOR WORKING FOR US FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS PAINTING BITS OF TEH HOUSE i CAN;T REACH . bum, sorry hit caps lock and wasn't looking at teh screen.

Are there any apple sauce muffins left? they sound interesting, mind if I nick the recipe. With 2 apple trees I like to have a stock of things to make with apple in.

Did any of you notice I trimmed the Tea room living willow play house today? all teh bushy bits from teh top have been replanted around teh base to fill in teh walls a bit more for the summer.

Ohhhh wine time, now theres and idea. DH is out on a late pass tonight ( cycle club ride). MIght be marzipan time as well.