The Fourth and Only TeaRoom! Tea, Champagne and Muffins at all hours! Racing Pig get moving!

[daisy99divine]

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!

Daisy lobs cinammon toast and drop scones after Amber by way of affectionate help

I would lob a thermos of tea, but am not confident of my aim

Bless you Amber - when I have finished inventing my transporter machine, I'll put you down for one, shall I? it's in process at the mo - need it for when we get to Australia!

Everything crossed for the test tomorrow -hope it's all clear.

Sorry about precipitous departure last night - DS just wouldn't settle down to sleep, despite being sooo tired (and he's still very snuffly) so ended up lying down with him "just until he dropped off" and didn't wake up until 2am!

I have just been watching a new show called Murder Most Famous - a bunch of slebs learnign to be murder mystery writers under the auspices of Minette Walters - and I am pleased to report that Brendan Cole was the first casualty!

Is it time for soup yet? I shall offer a luxuriant butternut squash soup - anyone?

yes please to butternut

just been reading teh what going on in half term thread. I have read it and am not sure if all these wonderful things are going to be done - it all sounds too wonderful for words. maybe I am just cynical and disorganised

perhaps I can come and join some of your families? we are going to lurk mostly... when I can get away from work

Off to the US now - when I told DS this this morning he said 'get your clothes on and go mummy. You'll be late for your airplane'. Not worried at all the little toad. I on the other hand always hate this bit of actually going away - am fine once there and getting on with it.

I was very amused to read today that the average cat kills 4.8 things a year. In our house that has been exceeded in a day at times

CMOTD - that sounds like a remarkably small number of things. Perhaps it is an average across all cats, regardless of whether they generally kill small things or not; if they averaged it over cats who actually kill small things, I'm sure the number would be higher. A friend of mine's cats would manage that each in a week, routinely.

for you that you have to go to US - but perhaps better that your DS is philosophical about it, rather than sobbing adn wailing? When I was young, Dad went to Russia at least every other year for 1month at a time - I always used to be most embarrassing at the airport

Maybe thats it - I didn't see the full article.

DS is very used to me disappearing off, and I never go for that long (longest I have ever been away is 3 weeks and that was before him) - these days I try very hard to keep it to less than 7 days and usually manage just 5

CMot - its like dropping at nursery but on a bigger scale - in many ways its great that they rush in and you have to call them back to give you a quick kiss and hug - but you feel bereft - but its sooooo much easier than having a limpet that has to be prised from you with much gnashing of teeth and wailing (of course, most of them perk up as soon as you're out of earshot - they just want you to feel bad about 'abandoning them'!).

RS - seems to work quite well as a 3 dog tearoom really - they all mind their own business. Mind you, perhaps my 'old' two might visit occasionally as they would fit in with RH - both collie crosses - although one was very shy of other dogs so would have to sit behind the sofa if there were any 'unknown' dogs around. However, the other would stop your 'collie crosses can't fend for themselves' theory - we got her when she was 4 months old - we were her third home (!) - we found out why once she'd got over her kennel cough. My mother and I left my father in charge while we nipped into the local town for some shopping (1hr?) - when we came back we asked where the dogs were - in the garden. Where is x - she's there too - where though...? No dog. Although we lived in a village, people would sometimes use the roads as a cut through, there were no pavements and the roads were narrow... We were just about to set off on a search party in different directions when we got a phone call - 'do you have a small black and white dog? She's in our pub garden, looking cute and begging for chips....' Said pub was quite a distance from the house - she must have followed her very mobile nose! She wasn't a standard collie cross though - we reackon that the other half of the cross was a terrier - she had the speed and stamina of a working collie and the determindness of a terrier. She was always hunting when on a walk - usually about 1/2 a mile away - and you could tell where she was by the odd shriek of a rabbit as it met its end, or the pheasants shooting up into the air (she knew she wasn't meant to catch pheasants, but couldn't stop herself sometimes) and she even caught a pigeon out of the air when she was getting on a bit... Mind you, with her around, we'd have to make sure that Racingpig stayed in the sofa out of the way!

am at dog. not least the blase way mistle refers to rabbit's meeting their end. I am clearly a city girl. when daisyhound caught a rabbit (well chased it until it died of shock) I cried
but daisyhound, well he can eat anything. got an entire chicken casserole off the back of the cooker while I was bathing daisyboy once!

Sorry RS - I'm a vege, but very much a countrygirl at heart - rabbits - the wild version at least - are pests and its much better to meet their end very quickly via dog rather than get myxi which was one of the likely outcomes around where I grew up. I did become vege partly due to rabbit and or pigeon stew having lead shot in it... Old dog was seen, at 14.5 pushing Mistledog out of the way to catch a rabbit (Mistledog is a bit clueless) then gumming it to death . There was a very thin line that both of those two dogs managed not to cross which was keeping the hens away from the terrace (didn't want them on the table while we were eating lunch) and catching a chicken...

yes, poor RS, probably not the best turn this thread has taken since we are still Officially in Mourning for RR!

Daisy - surely that's very different though as its RR and therefore a cherrished pet - not one of those brown things that run around in the countryside at night eating things that they shouldn't do?

I hope no one's taken offence - I am rather a country bumpkin sometimes even though I live in a city now...

Morning/afternoon all,

Mistle Its nice to hear that obsessions with children being cold is universal. Here in Mexico it is generally sweltering hot. When, like today it rains a bit, everyone goes barmly and puts on duffel coats and hats. Children are forced into all the clothes they own and if are at all small, determinedly wrapped in a blanket. Obviously they get hot and scream a lot. Which is generally interepreted as them being cold!! But still, MIL can be tricky. I hope you can live with her without losing your sanity for a couple of days.

I'd just like a quick moan. DS is still a wee bit poorly and waking up in the night a lot. Hence I am knackered. So, making dinner yesterday I managed to slice the top of my finger off with the knife. Cue blood gushing everywhere . Cue extreme drop in blood pressure and in blood sugar [diabetic crisis emoticon]...
DS is napping, DH is out running. So, trying not to faint I had to look for sweets (for blood sugar emergency), kitchen roll (for blood emergency), cotton wool, plasters etc etc (ditto emergency). In the end I gave up and collapsed for a bit.
Still, once I came round I sorted it all out in the end. I have taken a huge wacking great chunk out of my thumb, but thankfully said chunk is hanging on by a thread, so could be pressed down and bandaged round.

Now my only challenges are the daily confrontations with water. I have just nipped out to buy a job lot of rubber gloves and some more plasters.

Thankfully I am back at work today, well away from sharp objects and other dangerous things.

oh Mistle don't worry, I agree pets are precious, but then I cried even when the rubbishy wild rabbit died

i can cry just thinking about cheetah mummies calling their babies... I have no backbone

Cat that is not a moan it is a tale of coping in terrible adversity!

oh! here comes Mellors. He seems to have Ealr and Lady Grey hitched up to a wagon

Mistle, I think when you posted apology to RS in earlier post perhaps you meant me?

Daisy decides to shut up for a bit!

Thanks very much

I've no pet stories, being allergic to all thinhs with hair and feathers. But I think people get very attached to animals.

Hands up those who cried when Bambi's mum died? Or when a Blue Peter (I was allowed to watch that too) pet died?

Off for a ride on the hay waggon with Mellors. He says he wil give me a lift home from work!

yee haw.

I just got these from the local shop. We're all cowpeople over here.

Do you want some silver spurs and a fake pistol too? I know just the little man who might oblige us

I would have nothing in theory against RacingCollie catching and eating wild rabbits, but she might get very confused with the tame rabbits/guinea pigs/chickens/pigeons/quails etc with which she shares her house. As it is, she loves them and licks them until they are quite soggy. DH is convinced that she snaps at DD, but I am certain that that is playing. It is usually when DD is rolling about on top of the dog or jumping on her from the top of the cupboard.
I am getting more and more keen on vegetarianism myself, but would exclude wild-shot rabbits, pigeons etc from that.

Sorry Daisy - but yes, I also cry when bambi's mum died - and all the other soppy stuff - but I'm still rather blase about wild rabbits . There was the awful French exchange where I had a rather boring time over there, then the girl that I didn't like came back to visit - she didn't have a bath for ages to the extent that I nearly threw up in the car... Anyway, having had a bad experience when all the so called 'vegetarians' turned carniverous when they had friends to dinner (I find meat cooking extremely off putting and had to put up with it all day, then hardly anything I could eat when the friends came round), we went for a walk in the countryside where the hound previous to the 2 collies went on a bit of a spree and kept on coming out of the ditches and hedges with ANOTHER dead baby rabbit in her mouth!!!

However, our current dog is a very towny dog who has never managed to kill anything, ever!!! Perhaps she evens the balance a bit after the previous dogs.

CAT that sounds awful. When will you take the bandage off to find out if the chunk has rehealed itself? If you're having problems, its sometimes good to use the silicone gloves (or similar) inside a washing up glove - gives more water protection (closer fitting for one thing) but more protection on teh outside from the washing up glove.

UniS I hope that you know what you're doing up there - that's the horses' hay remember ....

RS - Mistledog has twice snapped at MJ. Each time has been in the car on a long journey when Mistledog and MistleJunior share the back seat. On each occasion, without any hesitation, both dh and I have shouted 'MJ' rather than 'Mistledog' as she wouldn't have done it unless severely provoked. There were even a couple of times when MJ was learning to walk when she miserably staggered into the sitting room with a pained look on her face, only to then drag into view MJ who was using her tail as a good way of standing up and getting around. You could almost hear her say 'get him off me!!!!!'

Mistle Thanks for the tip, I shall see if the pharmacy has any medical gloves of that description. At the mo I am using a rubber band round the rubber glove for more protection.

I put a clean bandage on this morning and cleaned the wound again (us diabetics are v. prone to infections so I have to be careful) It looked very white and nasty, but I hope the chunk will reattach itself sometime this week. This is what smaller chunks have done in the past (not that trying to sever my limbs is something I do on a regular basis, you understand )

ouch cat. that sounds grim. look after yourself and heal as quick as you can.
wwellll that was a fun ride home. very bumpy. but god to feel the wind in my hair after a day working inside. much of teh afternoon I was working in cupboard- a large cuboard with a window, but still not much floor space and lots of shelves full of kit to b PAT tested.

DH the nutter worked from 4.30 - 8am tady nd is lanning on booking teh whle day off as holiday!!! he COULD just book half a day.... nutter. however I'm very glad he was at home with boy today. by mid aftrenoon boy was very weary and wilting. Nursery would have been too much for him.

SO mellors has definatley exercised the horses today. And refilled teh hay barn, so should be lots of grub for our 4 hooved friends. Now, for us grown ups- can I interst you in a little glass of something and some nibbles? garlicy olives or cashew nuts?

Have just found out why WS kept getting into such a state today! Not a well girl. (To be understood in 'I think that prawn was a bit dodgy' sort of way, not in a 'I wish I too had a lovely mop' sort of way.)

Catita, how awful! At school we have a special emergency box for the diabetic children, containing Mars Bars or whatever are their favourite sweets as well as the normal first aid stuff. Perhaps a secret box like that in the kitchen cupboard? Secret so that dh and ds don't find the chocolate!

Amber, lots and lots of good wishes for tomorrow.

What on earth is Mellors doing with a hay cart in February? He's supposed to be finding the tea-room garden furniture and getting to work on it with a wire brush and some paint. Any ideas about colours?

Off to look for MadBad's uplifting thread. Way to go for posh hotel!

ahh, well, its like this. mellors seems to have some problems focusing on what hes "suposed" to be doing. I'll have a word.

......time passes,
Unis returns to the room slightly ruffled. mellors has assured me he will get on with teh garden furniture just as soon as he has painted teh wagon and filed the hay by size... hummmm, maybe someone else should have a go?

shall i keep an eye open for garden bits tomorrow, have errands to do that will involve a garden centre.