Tea room the 5th - welcome to the yurt

[UniS]

Welcome to 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.

You have found us- did you like teh slide/ bridge over teh HaHa. Teh priest hole is still available, its just over there.

Mellors and I have erected the yurt, strewn rugs around and good a good fire going in the wood burner. The place is feeling toasty and warm with not a draft to be felt.The kettle is now singing away on the hob. selection of teas for all taste on the shelf along with the hand made by potters mugs. Mellors very ably fitted teh yurt window with a window sill onto which can be placed a selection of pot plants and george.

Can someone sort out RP ( who I think came over with the sofa) and plump up the hay pile for donk.

A Previous incarnation of Tea room may be found here

See, I am a big wimp to feel so awful about it being done to a great big nearly-5yo. Who is now aiming to keep her cottonwool and tape on until Monday to show all her friends ...

Zazen, one of the other members of my bookgroup has suggested a 'no warlords' rule at her place of work, sounds like it may have some points in common with your previous work with repressive regimes!

I'm going to call the insurance company today ... DH is unimpressed because he vaguely suggested lowering the excess on our policy, I didn't do it, and now it's come back to bite us. Oh well.

Jacksmama - I'm glad I'm not the only one! No, I'm not a single mum, DH is very much in evidence but we mostly don't sleep in the same bed because he "needs his sleep" and I sometimes have to bring DS into bed as well (as I said), partly because of laziness and partly because of safety - I can't sit and feed DS if there is the slightest risk of me falling asleep during it, so we have to lie in bed. Apparently our bed "isn't big enough" for all 3 of us!

Donk - hurrah that your Dad is through the first bit successfully! phew!

Fabulous news Donk !

We went to the farm - only to discover that it was closed - they have gone from being open every weekend (as on website and leaflet) to closed in the winter till the 15th of March. I was not in the good books

Rethink for tomorrow as we were the wrong side to go to any others

DS has actually been toilet trained if taken for 9 months - it's been the going on his own at nursery (too much going on for him to make the decision in time) that has been the sticking point - although fine at home

CMOTD - I was going to say yesterday (but wasn't too sure of my ground) that the lambs might be either not there yet or in production, so to speak; I'm not sure how many farms will be open in lambng season? (I have a friend who has a few sheep and I know lambing happens round about now-ish)

Hello all... a pot of tea would be perfect and I think you will all like these lavender scones... mmm!!!

So... Wow - what a busy half term I have had. Monday is a much needed return to normality for us. We have a new shower room and some kitchen, spent lovely times at in-laws in the campagne and have had milk's cousin to stay.

Interesting, thumbwitch, that your bed isn't big enough for three but ours fitted in four over the holidays quite well. The first night Milk's cousin let's call her cacolac (a famous French cold chocolate drink she seems unable to function without), Milk and Beer stayed up until late to watch dodgy TV, I very tired, went to bed and fell swiftly asleep. In the morning I woke up and said good morning to Beer and gave Milk her morning kiss as she was laying, as normal, between us. There was a pause and then I heard a close cry from 9 year old Cacolac "Bonjour Tea" and realised she was not on the sofa as planned but had constructed a rather comfy zone in our bed laying widthways at our feet with more pillows than I could count!!!

On the lamb front - I have seen some of the woolly little blighters in a field, so they're definitely around. But the big farm park nearish here doesn't open until 21 March, and they have tiny ickle baby lambs during the time they open, so I think the lambing season is quite long.

Without going into the TMI details, lambing season is artificially extended these days, but different breeds also have different lambing times.

We saw lots of little lambs last weekend when out with friends at farm park, and the place we are going tomorrow has them too.

I made amends with a trip to the light railway and a go round

Our bed accomodates 3 plus 2 cats. But DH doesn't like cosleeping as DS fiddles with his CPAP mask whenever he is awake

Our bed is definitely not big enough for 3 either. Particularly as MJ is really wriggly. Even when asleep. And dh never occupies any less than 1/2 the bed (ifykwim).

Zazen - you're not so frightening on this thread as the other one!

ANyone for some Bolly - I've just found some behind the sofa...

Donk - fingers crossed.

Justa - hope you've found some insiparation. We had an Easter service one year which started with the Vicar saying that his wife had forbidden him to base his sermon on the return of Dr Who...

Any tea going?

CMOT - The surgeons were happy with the op, and Dad is going down for another CT scan to check that they got it 'all'. (All seems to be a very relative term for brain tumours...)

The section sent down to histopath yielded little information other than that it was highly vascularised (boo hiss), so they have sent off a frozen sample somewhere - test results due back in about 5 days. Anyone know what the tests are likely to be? It can't be karyotyping from a frozen sample (unless they had the equipment to flash freeze - unlikely, and anyway the lab is really close, so wouldn't need to be frozen in the first place)

However, the indications aren't good, although the surgeon said (apparently) that they had removed all the vascular system that had developed, without difficulty.

Distances are difficult in this sort of dituation aren't they...

Usually the reason for doing frozen sections is that you can do a better section (ie thinner), and it's probable that it's just gone to a specialist histopathologist to do a number of sections.

In our local free magazine they seem to be having a Lent special - one article about the Meeting House dating from 1698, and another about the Lent lectures, all about women in Christianity. I may be tempted to go to some of those as some sound very interesting.

MT - bolly please !

I'd quite like some Bolly please!!

I'm sorry to hear things aren't looking good . Wish I could help.

Thanks for all the good wishes, and pats and hugs.

By the way, what is Mellors up to over by the Haha at this time of night?

Donk - What CMOTD re. the frozen sections. They have a better ability to see cellular changes in thin sections.
Shame about the vascularisation but assume they will put him on some form of therapy to try and knock off any escapee cells? At least they cleared the tumour out (or did they? not sure now from what you said)

Still got everything crossed for you (apart from last 2 toes which are reserved for keeping DS asleep)

Our bed is only a standard double, and it has head and footboards so is quite tight for space - but it isn't really too small for 3, just DH thinks it is.

I took MadMadBaby on an expedition today. Wew had a lovely time but I am so footsore.

Donk - When my feet have stopped throbbing I will cross all fingers and toes for your dad.

Would anybody else like some more champagne?

evenin MadBad - where did your Expedition take you? And did you have marmalade sandwiches to fortify you on the way?

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their hats bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town.

So, as we went from Paddington, we should have taken marmalade sandwiches!

And my top tip for anyone with a child over five: buy a family railcard. Is a money-saving marvel!

Ooh, I love Oxford. I lived and worked there for 5 years. well, I lived there for the last 3 years of that, the first 2 I lived out in a lovely market town called Wantage.

Oddly, while I was there, I didn't visit a single college or the cathedral . I did do a May morning though and was appalled that they had LOUDSPEAKERS piping the choristers' singing to the assembled crowds - talk about destroying the ethereal experience!

Well, Oxford is nice enough but I prefer Cambridge. But that may just be because I know the place better. Why did you move away, Thumb?

moved back to "home" area cos was supposed to be getting married and having children and wanted to be nearer parents to do so, on the principle that Mum would be able to help out...
oh the irony. That was 15 years ago - fiance fk'd off with a secretary and it took a long while to find a lovely bloke (DH) to settle down with and have DS, by which time it was too late for Mum.
Ah well, c'est la vie, que sera, sera and all that.

I still have a soft spot for Oxford the place, but my heart belongs to Cambridge cos Dad went there to do Russian in his National Service, so I was brought up "Cantabrigian" - always support them in the Boat Race etc.

TW - grew up near there. For a family outing I recommend the Pitt Rivers museum - real old fashioned, fantastic building, and I think that they have cameras watching the baby swifts...

I managed to see 1 of the collges properly from the inside, having gone out with a Postgrad for a little while. The formal dinners were really quite something - and finished with port and chocolates in a different room - chocolate was put out on a table about 8' wide, probably 12 - 15' long....

Thumb - was your dad a spy? Perhaps he trained Zazen?

• no, he wasn't! He was too fond of the Russians apparently and we joke that both MI5 and the KGB probably had a file on him.

Hello all!
lovely to catch up!

Mellors has done a good job swatting those NMBs and keeping them by the haha hasn't he?
but MadBad you're starting to get a bit incoherent, is Mellors at your feet with the peppermint foot balm?

We had a lovely day too, DaisyBoy and I went to garden centre and got lots of plants and then for tea with friends. He has had his first long time with Big Boy Pants - he went out and first car trip in them (we had to stop for him to wee, bless him he elected to wee in a coffee cup and did so beautifully )

I love Oxford too. My grandpa ran away from Australia to go there, my Dad went and I went so we are definitely a Dark Blue family!

My DH is also an academic there, so after student days we returned and lived there for 5 more years which was wonderful. I would happily live there forever happy memories indeed - great pubs and beer and walking in port meadow up there with them all!

Donl - here's a little run

CMOT and DCMB so sorry about blood taking. I crash the car lots with no excusts, I am forever backing into things......