Welcome to the Seventh Heaven Tea Room (BYOB. Biscuits, crisps and cake provided)

[Catitainahatita]

Hello and welcome to the seventh incarnation of the tearoom.

If you have found us by chance and/or curiousity you must know that the tearoom is a virtual safe haven for all those seeking a friendly word, a good cuppa and plenty to snack on. By virtue of its magic nature, no food can cause any physical damage, so chocolate, alcohol, transfat and all such can be consumed guilt- (and magically calorie-) free.

We have a wide range of soft-furnishing to relax on; a lovely garden with a swing and a ha ha; a variety of animals; a spa and (for some unknown reason) an apidistra.

Everyone is welcome, if you have one child, ten or none at all. We are a tolerant and fisticuffs-free zone. Instead we employ our energies swooning at Mellors the Gardner cum handiman thinking a silly things to get up to.

Please come in and say hello. You never know, you may end up joining us ...

You've just got time for a cup of tea then!

Hello all.
I am very glad to see Amber back. It wasn't the same without you, you know. We still haven't managed to get through the mound of washing up yet, for a start.

I'm also glad that I am also still welcome. I think a mutual lack of understanding has reigned in this unnecessary incident. I am still about it, but I also realise that it is not something I can fix.

Justa I looked into the CAT thing when I wanted to send a personal apology to the person I offended last week. It seems you have to pay for it. I don't have a credit card and so this is not an option for me.

I have however set up a special mumsnet email for myself, so cut and paste this into the address (putting in the "at" sign and the "." obviously).

catitainahatita at gmail dot com

I originally set it up with the idea of offering it to Amber, because I didn't want to lose touch with her. But all are welcome to correspond.

I would just say that you might like to identify yourselves in the "about" bit, so as I can be sensible and avoid the spam and other unwanted communications that may arrive now I have put this on a public board.

I'm glad to see Amber back too. I think that the dust is settling. We may not achieve closure but we can at least move on.

Catita - I never saw your controversial post but I have seen your fulsome apologies for it, both here and on the other thread. I think you can hold your head high now.

Oh dear. I have no idea how we're ever going to pay Mellors' grossly inflated entirely reasonable claim for expenses. (Note to self as tea room manager: query the claim for Industrial Strength Brut. The tea room ladies expect Mellors to emit a faint whiff of Imperial Leather soap and grass cuttings and the expenditure on aftershave is not a requirement of the job. Ditto the all-over body tan as, if he ever ventured out of the shed and actually dug the potager, Mellors could acquire a tan of the natural variety, albeit not (in deference to the bishops) all over).

Tea and a slice of poppy seed cake, anyone?

I would love both please, MadBad.

Just settle something for me. In RL poppy seed cake is not omething I have come across, only in books. I always kind of thought it was a dry cake of the flapjack variety made of poppy seeds and not much else. However, I have been told that this is not actually true.

Please clear up this mystery for me or I may end up with the same confusion I had over the name "Penelope" which I pronunced phonetically for years in my head and thought that the spoken version was somehow differnt until I finally heard and saw it written simultaneously....

Tea and poppyseed cake would be much appreciated. Just taken nearly 40 infants for a walk up to the church in the drizzle to do church-related artwork with only me the only teacher and a couple of parents. Chaos ensued wtih children on the altar, etc. Other teacher who was helping doing job for Head. Need a lie down.

SIAS inspection coming up soon. 110 RE waiting for updating and I need to find the RE policy.

I rather thought Mellors smelt of Wrights Coal Tar soap. Such is the magic of the tea room.

I kind of thought that Mellors woul dhave a rugged manly soapy smell.

Either than or oil and damnit, what's the name of the gel mechanics use to get rid of oil form their hands? .... It is bright pink and has a very strong smell. When I used to work on a farm in my teenage years ( I have done n amount of jobs) we used it all the time.

Swafega!

In the UK or in Mexico?

Catita - Poppy seed cake is a sort of sponge with poppy seeds therein. We do, though, sometimes buy sesame seed biscuits from the sweet shop which are quite flapjackish - sesame seeds held together by some sort of syrup. Yum.

Racingsnake - You are quite right. I had mis-identified Mellors' soapy aroma. It is indeed Wrights Coal Tar.

RS - that sounds exhausting. One is bad enough

Poppy seed cake - the one's I've had are probably lemon-drizzle cake consistency and height, but dark and crunchy with poppy seeds.

I always used to read 'Penn-y-lope' rather than 'Pen-el-o-pea'. I also read Sean as Seen and a few others in a similar vein....

I think that we should pass the tanning lotion expenses to 'that other establishment' that Mellors seems to be twighlighting at. I also think that we should find where the honesty box is for the bags of manure that are being sold off near the gate - that and some spare veg and eggs - and buffalo milk rather extraodinarily - not quite sure where that has come from....

In the UK. I worked at the harvest of lettuce in the early summer, then potatoes by August and Septemeber and then green veg (like sprouts)...
Great fun, very cold, but fun.

Even so, the early starts and the frosts may explain my adversion to gardening ...

Have just filled my printer with "Two-sided copier paper". Mind is boggling trying to imagine one-sided paper. Maybe I am experiencing 'awe and wonder'.

My present task is to rack (wrack? wreck?) my brain trying to find examples of awe and wonder in our curriculum for SIAS inspector. Apparently, she has informed the school that this is her favourite thing and that the last school she inspected demonstrated spirituality with their tadpoles.

Now know why Wriggle is so keen on tadpoling - it is her spriritual side communing with their little fishiness.

Holy cow, I go to sllep in my time zone praying in my head that I'll wake up and it will all be back to normal in the Tea Room, and my goodness, it is!!!

Amber, I am so glad you're back!! Gosh, I missed you and was so sad about all this controversy. It's shameful that honest intentions to help someone could be so taken out of context, and it seems to me, purposefully so. Whoever our rude visitor was last night, it certainly seemed to me she wanted to be angry. However. It's all done and over with and our Tea Room seems to be a happy place again. Phew.

Catita, you're not going anywhere. End of. We need you as much as Amber. And everyone.

Peace and love all around, man.

I am looking after Jackbaby's "girlfriend" today while her parents are moving houses.
They have so much fun together but expect me in later needing a restorative tipple.

Or even her spiritual side.

Hi, JM. Peace!!

Hello

I have been sitting on the floor behind the sofa for a while, as a parent of an only child...and I sit in various SN threads, too, as he has a mobility disability.

I think it's important to remember that MN is essentially one open board, and all of us are here to support each other as parents, whatever the 'category'. Sometimes we have different needs which are equally valid but in conflict with other people's needs. I have huge sympathy with Amber and can completely understand that MN can be very upsetting at times because of the need of other parents to vent or disuss things they may find very very hard to say in RL to people who don't know exactly what they are going through.

I have been on MN for AGES...and it really helps if we can all state our needs and experiences as individuals, not as a group from any one 'gang', and on behalf of other people. I understand that you value this as a place of empathy, Mistlethrush, as you say in your post below, but so do other parents need theirs...and using this as a 'haven' while criticisiing other 'havens' or members of them doesn't really add up.

I think a good rule of thumb for all, for happy MN usage is "talk TO people, not about them"

I understand this tea room as a reaction to hostility...but it's still like all the 'rooms' a part of MN and anyone can be here.

Perhaps the miraculous transformation of tadpoles to frogs? Is that awe and wonder?

Can it be done with catapillars? (There's always "The Very Hungry Catapillar" as a start off (still getting and looking after said wriggling things might bit tough)

I do wonder about school inspections after hearing from you Racing. I kind of imagined it would be more to do with checking your teaching methods (by observation) and your children's progress (ditto)

How wrong am I ... it's just to make you jump through hoops in the most imaginative (and painful) way possible. Universities and schools have more in common than I thought.

Hmmm. I have never quite grasped what is going on with Amber, Catita, etc (didn't read the thread as there is quite enough unpleasantness in RL at work, for example). Not quite sure, therefore, why we are being accused of sitting in our haven critising other people.

This tea room is for anyone, obviously, particularly with one child or at least not critical of those who have only one child. It is supposed to be a nice place to hang out and talk to friends. Let's not let all the politics get in here, or some of us will have to go somewhere else for friends/support/communing with the duck pond tadpoles.

Catita - if there is any silliness that they can think of, they do. They call it 'checking your teaching', as you say. They also need to check the children's spiritual development. (With a spirit level???)

TVH Caterpillar is a good idea.

Racingsnake-Blu is spot on with her post. Members of this thread were making comments, unpleasant and unfounded, about posters from the Special Needs section.

They appeared to think they could "hide" in here and be somehow invisible, despite the fact that this is an open forum and this thread, like any other, can be read by all.

They then tried to defend themselves by saying the comments were taken out of context. The context was irrelevent because the comments were unpleasant however you looked at them.

Time to leave, I think.

Hello Blu.

Would you like a cup of tea wo go with your brownie?

Thanks for your post. I think you are essentially right in many ways; especially when you point out that MN is one board, and a public one at that.

May I just say two things in the spirit of friendship?

1. The whole debacle in the SN board that was my thread was not designed as a hijack from this thread to the SN board. It was thought of as a way to ask and consult opinions. One of our friends has been considerably upset. We (honestly) did not understand all that had gone on or all that had contributed to her being in this state. We wanted to help as best we could and hoped that the posters on the SN board could share their wisdom and direct us in the best way of supporting her.

1. In this thread we generally are very polite and kind. We have been known to comment on other threads when they have been particulary disturbing or even just funny. (And here is where your comment about this beign a public board is most valid). As is natural among friends, we are most likely to see only one side of any argument/problem (our friend's one usually). Our reactions are most often directed by this. However, it appears that regrettably some of us may have commented on things about which we do not have all the information about or, alternatively, we have written in a moment of anger. This is, as I say regrettable, but hardly premeditated.

I have used "we" here because I refer to more people than just myself. However -important disclaimer- in no way do I mean everyone.

I am glad you stopped by. Please stay around and have some more cake.

RacingSnake, "Not quite sure, therefore, why we are being accused of sitting in our haven critising other people." - to be clear...and sorry, because it rakes up something that I now see has been deleted, but way, wa-a--a-ay below, Mistlethrush, in supporting Amber (fine, Amber was upset, and grappling with what she herself recognised as a conumdrum between her needs and the valld needs of parents of severely autistic children) then went further and said something about 'take no notice of people who won't listen and can't learn, and have to be right and think their lives are worse than anyone elses, and whose ideas are stuck in concrete - avoid them with a bargepole". Hardly supportive to parents whose every hour is dedicated to looking after thier much loved severely autistic children!

Which, mistletoe, doesn't sit well with your plea that trouble from other threads doesn't 'intrude' here.

Threads are all interlinked - that's what we all have to respect and remember.

Hello Tiggiwikle.

Thank you for your post and your point of view. I hope you will take the time to read my last post which I wrote to Blu on the same subject.

I understand that you are angry. However, you must understand as well that you are not angry at all the posters of this thread, the majority of whom have taken no part in any of this.

You are angry at me, for starting the other thread, and also at two other posters who regularly post here who posted on the other thread.

Please do not continue to punish innocent bystanders for mistakes some of us may have made.

If you read this thread carefully you will find that discussions about SN parents, their children and their lives are non-existent.

There is however some comments on the subjects discussed in some SN threads in relation to participations on them from posters who also post here. Here I refer you to what I have already said below in (2).

On my thread I have repeatedly apologised for any hurt I have caused. I will continu doing so until there is no space left on this thread.

But please, this is becoming vindictive. Please do not fall into the trap of doing what you accuse us of doing. It would seem somewhat illogical.

A plea to anyone who is in contact with Amber.
Please tell her no to open this thread as it will only upset her.

None of the problems are of her doing, nor inspired by her. But I think it will not help her to read this.