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

Amber - Mistledog has arthritus. She, and previous family dogs, have been greatly helped by taking glucosamine chondroytin - available for hounds as 'Flexipaws' and a lot cheaper than available through the vet!

MT, thanks. She's on some of that already for her 'knee' joints, and some of the new Cox 2 things too. The vet was very honest and said that we could either pay £50 for the veterinary glucosamine and chondritin, or we could go to the health food shop and pay a few quid for exactly the same thing for people, and give her the same dose of that.

Makes you wonder about the markup for veterinary stuff, doesn't it...

At one stage my parents and their dogs were all having the same tablets! But the Flexipaws (we get it by post) are a lot cheaper than the vets.

I hope that the vet can do something to help. A friend's dog had glucosamine injections once a month that really helped him. Luckily she had insurance that covered the cost

Well, she's very old by her breed's average, and has done very well, but we certainly don't want to lose her if there's something useful that can be done, bless her.

Fresh pot of tea just brewed...

Cuppa before lunch would be nice. What sort of soup shall we have? Tomato and basil or celeriac?

Ooo, tomato and basil sounds lovely!

Hello lovely people!
Mistle I just wanted to agree with you about the wonder of our disparate but very together little group!

JM Amber necklaces - the one we have is not for chewing (some may be) you just wear it. The idea is that amber is long known as a healing and soothing thing. Apparently when you wear them next to the skin tiny amounts of sennic acid come out and go into the skin - sennic acid is like seratonin, makes you happy. This may be mumbo jumbo and like all alternative/ homeopathy things the science is not always supportive, but all I can say is that DaisyBoy has been of a calm and happy disposition all his life and never once troubled by any teeth arriving at all. It is very common on the Continent (as we old biddies say) France especially but I would not be suprirsed if some of your German rellies nkew it well.

Some words of warnings - teh beads are worn by babies and so need to be speical - have to have easy break clasps and a knot between each bead to stop swallowing and choking. Never wear them while you (rather JBaby) is aleep - whatever others may say. If your MIL has a big store of Amber you may want to raid it or to re-string it but if not look at www.wondrous-beads.com who can post them to you. Finally, they shoudl be worn next to the skin, get kind of warm and elicit much comment! Mostly admisiong (if DaisyBoy anything to go by!)

Dog woes I am very sorry to hear about Mrs A. If you are interested, the reason Vets mark up so much on drugs and prescriptions is because they don't charge very much for consultations - it is a variable pricing structure that, if you are interested, was considered as part of the Shipman Inquiry (nerdy emoticon)

Yurt moving - I am with Racing, but I believe the essential inside of the Tea Room remains as it always has - latterly it has been encased in Yurtiness but inside was the same. I had assumed that both the spa and the sun lounger bit were add ons and in no way compromised the charming sofa, the curtains, the DVD colleciton, the fire, the aga, the shagging guineapigs rugs or anything!

YES PLEASE to soup, and I think some coffee

Wow! Hello ladies.

I'm sorry to have missed so much. I wish it had been me that Racing saw in Sherborne Garden Centre, but alas I have been here in the big bad city all week. It would have been lovely to meet for a chat amongst the herbaceous perennials. Dare I ask, Racing, what made you think it was moi, (seen here with my two under-gardeners, as it was Mellors' day off and I needed someone to carry the phyllostachis nigra to the car)?

I'm sending out vibes of lurve and arm-patting supportiveness to everyone who is ill or caring for sick children, spouses or pets. And empathetic ((winces)) to those with crumbly teeth. My biggest dental bugbear is that since I had my wisdom teeth out, the rest have moved around - in the manner of Conrad Poohs and his Amazing Dancing Teeth - and so all the painful orthodontistry of my distant yoof has been undone.

And this is my favourite place on MN too. Elsewhere, it either gets too shouty or too points-scory or too random-people-coming-together-never-to-be-seen-againy. Whereas here we have our lovely little multi-national community where newcomers are gathered into the fold.

I too had been thinking about where we might decamp to next. I had been thinking of a richly-decorated bedouin tent, but is that too tenty for those who like bricks and mortar? If not, converting the priest hole into a spa sounds good. Which reminds me, has anyone seen justabout recently? I think I saw her posting from (was it?) Romania but it's been a while since she dropped in here.

And if it is to be a spa, I nominate Cmot to be in charge of recruiting nail technicians and others, as she clearly knows what's what and, despite her protestations, is obviously a bit of a glamour-puss.

I too am a bit at the moment so shall go and load myself with all my amber jewellery (not enough to rival JM's MIL's collection, I am sure, but enough to achieve the fairground fortune teller look, nevertheless).

I'll pass on the soup, too, but will just help myself to a lewd roll.

Sorry you're feeling Madbad.

There does seem to be a lot of it around at the moment. Luckily for me, got MJ to school on small breakfast before journey then homemade bread and 'bees honey' sandwich. I have no idea why honey is always called 'bees honey' now - ds started it when he was quite a bit smaller and its stuck. ( that I was allowing MJ honey at an earlier age )

The buds are swelling on the sycamore outside my office window - and there has just been a mistlethrush and two goldfinches in it. Looking forward to the leaves!

Who says that the spa couldn't have a special bedouin tent annex anyway....

Morning.

I'll have a cuppa is there's one going and perhaps a ginger nut. In fact I could really go a ginger nut in rl, but in Mexico such treasures are non-existant . Still, here in the magical yurt-cum-tearoom there seem to be three packets sitting by the kettle. I think I shall help myself.

Anyone else fancy one?

I hope all those feeling and with offspring feeling are a bit better today. I feel a bit better anyway. No classes today for a start, so I may just take it easy and do a bit of Mnetting reading.

I'm all for the Spa, but only if it is an annex on the tearoom proper and we ca keep the garden/haha priest hole etc. Also we need space for NMBs the cacti and our cardboard cutout hunks....

I'm off to find Mellors and see if he can get us some boxes for all this stuff.

I quite like the idea of a Bedouin Tent and Spa with traditional English Tea Room interior with sand dunes at the front and of course the right grass and woodland for Earl and Lady Grey and the chickens at the back. Maybe there'd be space for a camel or two...or a passing Sheikh?

Justa is, I think, only just back from a stay abroad and various pressing family matters, so isn't posting much at present. As for theological banter, I have no clue, luckily. I just work for the place

Have managed to heave 85lbs of Bernese Mountain Dog here and there today, bless her. We certainly do need to invent some doglifting emergency harness thingy.

No, beaks are the answer. Brightly coloured and a perfect place for self expression - beak varnish, perhaps?

Oops, forgot to click refresh before posting. The above comment was in answer to something Thumb said earlier.

Would prefer Bedouin tent to spa, definitely. Could the spa be next door for popping into?

Got a moment to myself and don't quite know what to do with it. Wriggle has fallen asleep in her car seat, so left her there. It is her favourite place to sleep; she always asks to go out in the car as soon as she is tired. Maybe she doesn't know how to go to sleep by herself? Bad sleep training earlier.

She also has a very tomato saucy t-shirt, as she has put more pasta down inside her clothes. Last night she asked for a sweet. When told she could only have it after her pasta, she attempted to feed said pasta to the dog. On being told by Papa 'Pas dans le chien, dans le bidon.' (Not in the dog, in your tummy) she promptly pulled out the neck of her T-shirt and emptied it all down there. External application to tummy. I suppose it is not evident to a 2-year old that food ends up in the tummy, unless explained somewhat better than Papa did.

Oh - are they ginger snaps? Nothing easier to find!!! Email me your postal address and I will send them off today.

And as far the new tea room digs, a spa would be lovely, but I must confess I am a bricks and mortar kind of girl, and am a bit [yawn] with the yurtiness...

Hiya Jacksmama,
A ginger nut is indeed a type of ginger snap. It's the name Macvities gave to their ginger biscuits. I've always been a fan and used to make my own, but you need other hard to obtain ingredients for them (sugar syrup for a start... you'd be surprised how difficult that is to get hold of.. I think no one in Mexico does any home baking)
I'm sending you an email just now with the address. Don't be put off by the fact that it is in fact a PO Box number. The Mexican postal service is not reknown for its efficiency and I tend to get most things delivered to the box for more security.
Thanks very much! You are a star

Racing There's nothing like a toddler's logic. Did you give her the sweet?

rACING LOVE WRIGGLE'S ANSWER (oops caps lock ) to feeding...

I too like a lush Bedouin tent annexed to our old favourite tea room with spa on side, a la Bath/ orangery and non=threatening

Amber didn't realise Mrs A is a Bernese - one of my faves, poor love, and heavy...

MadBad I too love this thread [sigh]

Mistle the reason means here and envy on the rest of MN is that we don't do envy in the tea room

but we do seem to have a lot of people around us who are IYSWIM???!

Kettles on and there are more packets of ginger nuts courtsey of Jacksmama....

MB - we now only get overpasses by the police helicopter infrequently - we moved from somewhere about 4 miles closer in to the centre where such visitations were frequent - I always worried if they sort of hung about in the close vicinity! I have also been woken up by a drugs raid on the house next door (the quite elderly neighbours were most put out - I'm sure that they weren't a problem, but also pretty certain that one of their extended family probably were guilty!)(its not great to wake up in the night to a crackly police radio, look out and see an armoured vehicle parked outside, and your elderly neighbours being escorted back to the house by people with flack jackets on!!!). I think the worst was being woken up by a bang - it sounded like a scaffolding pole being dropped - looked out and two lads were looking around the rather nice car parked opposite - they wandered off then came back and went up neighbour's drive and started kicking the backdoor down - then went in. Turns out they were demanding the keys for the car which wasn't hers - she had her 15yo son and 12yo daughter in with her - I had rung the police, but it took too long for them to arrive and they'd gone by the time they arrived. The scaffolding pole sound turned out to be a baseball bat. Not good. Anyway - it was getting a bit noisy for us there, so we decided to move a bit further out - first few nights we kept on waking up and wondering why it was so quiet!

I like the idea of returning to the old tearoom but having a spa available, as well as the bedouin tent. Perhaps the tent would be a bit like the Mr Benn changing room. (there, that proves my age, doesn't it!)(although ds has the DVD )

Catita - what cooking ingredients can you get your hands on easily - I'll look through my biscuit recipes and see if I can find one that meets the availability requirements!

Mistle - Crikey, you sound like Juliet Bravo!

MadBadBaby is getting a Penelope Pitstop DVD for her birthday

Has anyone here ever looked at the recipe pages on MN? I haven't, but might go and have a rummage now ....

There's people with homes in the country?? Lucky them!

I'd be just as happy in an olde-world tearoom. I suspect the Bishop has calmed down over the incidents and neighbourly relations have been restored by now

Mrs A is Far Too Heavy even though she's quite light for a Berner. Even ds has struggled to get her down the garden and back, and he has to be able to lift huge 17 st rugby players!

Just sitting down for a hot choc whilst DS's tea is cooking, since he's particularly hungry. Goodness knows what dh and I will be eating tonight. It might be fish n chips.

Fish and chips?