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 ...

lol daisy - sounds good to me!
It was a momentary thing -I get it every now and then when I can't be bothered to change his nappy or something like that and then I get cross with myself for being so lazy and uncaring of his poor little bot.

oh, I hate being a mean mummy - it is always directly proportional to my tiredness... today I was trying to take off his clothes and he was running around and playing...he was just being a toddler. I was however perhaps a little more fed up than I needed to be

I get mean when DS won't eat his lunch or dinner - he has a small appetite anyway and I am paranoid that he isn't eating enough. If he was not on the 9th centile, if he was a big bruiser, I wouldn't be so paranoid but a small drop for him would be more significant so I worry. And then I get mean and shout or am cool to him. Not for long though - he always knows I'll give in after a minute or 3!

Anyway. must be off to bed now - lots to do tomorrow.
night!

Hmm, nope, no damage to them at all, thumb

We seem to have No Eggs. Did someone remember to move the chickens to the new tea room gardens? Toast and tea aplenty, though...

The wellie problem sounds strangely familiar too. Except in my case it's a pair of black slightly-jodhpur-style flat boots. I'd happily wear them with a ballgown, y'know, if I was allowed to. Which reminds me, haven't worn my ballgowns at all this year. Must remedy that. I think a corporate posh 'do' needs to be set up for autumn. That'll keep the marketing team happy for a while.

Don't worry, Amber, the RacingHens have been doing overtime. We seem to eat nothing but eggs.

Un lien tres interessant, Tea. Also on the page was a link to Belle and Sebastian which thrilled me at first but then I got bored before the 6 mins were up.

MadBad, I think it is me, not you. I know that school uniform is universally accepted as A Good Thing, but I HATE it. I see it as a symbol of everything that is wrong with schools. I went to a rather good bit of staff training on Monday where the facilitator said that the teachers' motto should be 'Do No Harm' and I don't actually think we always achieve even that. He also said our job was to 'Love the unlovable', which I think might be the only defense to be put up for schools. There are children whose own mothers don't love them; we are their only hope of a positive human relationship. And I feel I very often fail at that too, due to inattention or irritability or concentrating on the lesson not the child.

Anyway, enough of that Wriggle want the laptop to watch Tchoupi, so I will leave you all the your scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs Benedict, eggy bread or any other clever eggy ideas you may have. (Lst sentence typed with Wriggle on my head)

Syllabub for lunch then - with merangues for tea? (those two are always related for me - my mum used to make syllabub with the egg yokes left over when she had done a merangue...)

MJ managed to get to school with no incidents today.

Bitter lemon - interesting tip there - might work for me (I love both bitter lemon and tonic water) but would have to make it flat for MJ - he doesn't like fizzy drinks (am I a bad mother? I've not been trying to introduce them so that he gets used to them) (mind you, neither has he ever eaten anything from McD's) (or BK) ?

I remember well the days of my mother studying Mrs Beeton to try and find recipes that used the maximum amount of cream and eggs when the goats and chickens were on overtime.

Cats had left half a rabbit in my office overnight I fear there may be a paw under the desk, but can't face fishing under there yet, so am working from sofa

Racingsnake, yes, it can be bloomin' hard loving the unloveable. Never giving up on them is one of my strong points. Lad who'd been in huge trouble with the police, been thrown out of school etc. He's now got a brilliant job and is doing really well for himself because we didn't give up on him. It didn't mean we had to put up with the bad behaviour, but goodness me there was potential there. Next candidate is a lad who's taken to nicking police vehicles, but I know he's actually a really nice lad 'on the inside'. We'll get him some sort of apprenticeship that'll build on his skills instead of switching him off education completely. I think he'll be fine.

So hard, though. Especially when some parents really do all they can to let the kids down, ISTM.

My mother did some YTS training for a bit - teaching trainee brickies. Its amazing how many of them had been given up on by school, but my mother managed to get them to the stage where they could read well enough, could fill in basic forms with things like their names and addresses etc, and could do sufficient calculations for their chosen profession. I think one lad managed to do a lot better than this - she managed to get him diagnosed as dyslexsic (looking at that word makes me question its spelling, but I've tried some options and that one looks the best of a bad job) and got him a little hand-held computer that helped him with words etc... How on earth can this happen?

unfortunately it happens all to often. I have a friend who is doing Toe by Toe mentoring with adult learners in prison. SO many men being processed by the Criminal justice system are functionally illiterate. With out being able to read how are these men going to be able to hold down a job and a flat and live a "normal" life... Maybe its part of why some "crims" are so institutionalised they re offend in order to get back to nice safe prison.
The stat on dyslexia in prisoners used to make scarey reading, I suspect they still do. Lots of boys ( and some girls) get so used to being a failure at school and hiding it by wagging off and being surly aggressive young men. they drift into criminal activy and then can't get out with out loss of face. There still are plenty of families that don't care what their kids ar eup to so long as they are not being a nuisance at home. Still are plenty of parents whos experience of school was so poor and so recent they do not wish to engage with their childrens school in any way. Still are plenty of parents who are functionally illiterate them selves, they don't care about reading and looking at books and playing with writing because they don't know how to do it themselves.
They are very hard group of parents to reach, many of them love their kids a lots but really struggle to parent effectively and mis trust authority. even school.

Rant over. I'll go away now.

Amber - I don't know whether you can bring any of your wise words to this, but this OP clearly needs some help...

Have responded, mistlethrush - thanks

Thanks Amber - just caught it on active convos and thought of you....

can I just add in something about uniforms:
the private school I went to, I considered it to be a Very Good Thing to have uniform as our family were at the bottom end of the financial scale.

The year before I got to the VIth form, they abolished uniform in the VIth form and I was distraught, as mufti only too clearly showed up the financial differences between the 'gels', and as I said, being at the bottom end, I felt the disadvantages quite strongly. I have never been able to buy Benetton or Next clothes since, as a couple of the top end types, who weren't very pleasant, were continuously arrayed in clothes from these shops; a new outfit every day, pretty much.

I love uniforms so much that I didn't want to go to school in 6th form where it was abolished (I think I was the only one who voted to keep it) having said that, I found I wore two things to school, and hvae pretyt much kept that up all my life

I think uniform as in colour and same clothes is good, I do it now, wear a "uniform" to work and my worst job ever was in Public Relations - because of the blooming clothes....

yum coffee anyone?

Yes, I prefered school uniforms - what I tended to wear at home didn't really 'conform' with what my classmates wore - just seemed to underline differences.

I like uniforms for ds too - it means that there is no discussion in the morning on what he is to wear and, as long as we've been reasonably efficient with the washing over the weekend, no problem.

Of course, Ds, taking after his father, can make something that is essentially smart look a complete mess. Think 'Just William' illustrations - shirt doesn't stay tucked in, tie is usually at a funny angle (or somewhere else, possibly under a table somewhere) - and, of course, he has holes in the toes of his shoes!!!

Quiche anyone? I shall get through those eggs don't you worry!

I'm quite keen on school uniform, at least on teh polo shirt / sweatshirt end of things. Which is handy as that what all the primarys round here wear.
My own primary uniform was PURPLE and grey.. Purple T-shirt , grey trews or skirt. Purple jumper when I started and by teh time I left an option of grey sweatshirt. Summer frock in school grey & mauve check material was quite nice.
It did put me off purple for a number of years tho..

Pass us some eggs, I'll have them poached on toast.

Our family were poor as church mice (another curious expression ) so school uniform was very, very useful. And to be honest I'm hopeless at choosing clothing anyway.

Son, on the other hand, has no school uniform. They must wear businesswear instead. That gets very, very expensive.

UniS - sympathies! Ours was grey and bright red - not good when you have bright ginger hair! They turned a blind eye to grey jumpers (so long as they matched the skirt) and eventually it became standard part of the uniform (thank goodness!) No deviation into maroon was allowed, it had to be regulation red.

Just wanted to pop in and say good morning.

It's no wonder I love the Tea Room. I always learn something. I.e. - I knew that the rate of recidivism in criminal offenders was huge, and that a lot of them become institutionalized and re-offend because they can't cope "outside" but I didn't know it was related to literacy or lack thereof. As a voracious reader, the thought of being illiterate really bothers me.

Have no opinion on uniform, however... never went to a school where it was required and suspect that the Canadian school system is a bit different from the U.K. one anyway.

Yesterday I bought JB a sleeper from an organic baby clothes line, it has a car on the front with a little wisp of exhaust coming out of it, and it says "running on natural gas"... perfect for my little farty-pants!!!

Yup, 1 in 10 people in the UK struggle to read. In prison, 8 out of 10 struggle to read or write or both.

lol re the Farty Pants thing, Jacksmama!

Ooh, egg sandwiches, too! My favourite!

love the fact that you have fartypants and egg sandwiches together in the same post there, amber!

Cause and effect, perhaps?

Woo-hoo, I just did the 100th post!