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 JM - day of small triumphs?

Did I say thank you for your input on chiropractic on the arthritis thing? If not, then thank you. I can't remember - loss of tooth still playing havoc with brain - I was trying to remember the word "juxtaposition" for my last post and it has only just come back to me!

You're welcome.
And yes, small triumphs will get me through the day. My line-up of patients today starts with my second-least favourite and ends with my least favourite patient. [grrr emoticon]

oh bless you! I was lucky - patients I didn't like mostly didn't come back!

Hey - look what I've just found - a magnum. Luckily of the champagne variety.... Any takers?

Oh - and I had a 50min wait in a shoe shop this afternoon - rang up to check MJs shoes were in - turned up after school, 2 people not being served in front of me - one got served quite quickly. However, both had at least 2 children each wanting a pair (or more) of shoes - they seemed to have about 20 boxes of shoes brought up at various times each - eventually it got to our turn - 1min to find shoes, 2mins to try them on and agree that they fitted, 2 mins to pay.....

COOeeee! You'd better turn up soon otherwise there won't be much left in the bottle

I knew that I'd forgotten something!

Carrot anyone?

I'm relieved to see that Amber has found us - I wondered if she had been locked in the priesthole by mistake!

feat, mutter mutter, feat

I hate hate hate hate my head teacher.

I spent many many hours last term writing 110 reports for RE - every child in the school. She has now returned them saying that they are not 'personal' enough and I must add more comments personal to each child. I see each of the 110 children for one hour on a Wednesday, in groups of up to 34. I have no idea how each child reacts personally to each topic. I now have to go back to all of them and make up personal comments.

She kept the reports for 3 weeks not reading them and has now returned them at the last minute, so that I will be up very late for the next few days.

She also says it took her ages to read them. How long does she think it took me to write them???????????????????????????????

Have a large glass of something RS. Then make up a batch of statements like 'x thought sensitively about' 'y showed great interest in'. Print out, and cut into the sentences. Print out the topics and similarly. Put each into a container. Pull out one from each for each child, et voila ! Personal statements.

I still haven't found the rest of the rabbit. Where can they have put it. DH delved under the desk and removed the ear for me.

DS had a bad afternoon at nursery. Not listening, running round when not supposed to, punched another child, screeching. The punched child hit him in the face with a book. The sooner he moves up into the next class and isn't the oldest/biggest the better

Sorry CMot - being one of the younger ones never stopped Ds !!!!!

RS - how crap! I can't think of any additional suitable phrases - but I do like CMots idea - could it be any use?

Poor DS. And poor you searching for rabbit parts. Maybe Mellors would be of assistance, wtih his gamekeeping background.

I had done my reports based on your (very good) method. The trouble is thinking of 110 statements and not duplicating. Head teacher has eagle eyes for duplication and too much time on her hands.

If she occasionally went into a classroom ....

Actually I have just started rewiting some of the rejected reports and she is right; three had the wrong names. Now, if only I could write generic reports for 'quiet blond girl' and 'lively blond girl' ..

And there was me hoping that when he was with the children who talked as much (me: DS is littlegirl your friend ? DS: Nooo, littlegirl says that I talk too much) and wouldn't get bossed around by him as much he might calm down. He is def experimenting with boundaries at the moment - fine when you know when he's doing it, and when told firmly and visibly what the rules are he's OK. But if you don't realise what the game is..

Ah, enough time to see duplication, even in the random statement generator, means she has too much to do. Wrong names may be actually noticed by the parents though

RS - just to cheer you up - we've recently had MJ's first school report. Its full of such classics as 'MJ usually listens well but sometimes needs reminders' ' he is well aware of the boundaries and ruls of the nursery' (translation - he has pushed all of them, and broken most of them ) 'he is always sorry when he does the wrong thing at the wrong time' () and 'we are wroking on decreasing the volue for inside'

CMot - we think that MJ might be something like a Barrister. He wakes up and needs to start talking. He even sings/ talks as he drops off at night. Sometimes he's so busy trying to attract attenion ('excuse me mummy, mummy, excuse me mummy....') that he doesn't hear me say 'yes' - after about 7 I get a bit frustrated - even then he has to start with 'mummy...'.

Boundaries are there to be pushed apparently. We are fairly strict with him (I think) - and he knows that when we say no, we mean it - but he will still give it a go. I really don't know what he expects to achieve by doing that, but that's what happens.

Having said that, he has been amazingly good so far this week when there has only been me to look after him....

Someone had fun writing that one, MT. On the plus side, they obviously know exactly who he is!

I'm sorry for the typos - the last one should have been volume - I think all the others are fairly understandable....

DS's school reports were always an education in themselves. Many years of school gov work etc and many friends who are teachers has taught me much about decoding each comment.

We had a lot of "Plays an active part in discussions" (won't shut up!)

At the moment, some GCSE revision is happening, which is better than the reports from other mums with teenage lads. One must be grateful for small mercies...

Full English, or tea, toast and croissants available this morning. Please state whether you'd like your vegetarian bacon scrambled, boiled or poached...Oh...not sure that's how you cook bacon?

MT - I think your DS and mine are very similar

Croissants and tea please Amber. I was thinking yesterday as I struggled with organising a rather complex software diagram that you would like doing it, and be rather better at it than me.

End of my current software release on Wednesday ! I am going to be very, very relieved when this one is out of engineering and regulatory are happy with all the documentation. It's been a very stressy 12 months, and then I just have to get through teaching sales and support all about it

Sounds as though they are following in Amber's ds's footprints too!

We were doing spellings on the way down to school. Pea is a peculiar one isn't it. Mind you, lots of English words really don't look as they should. We did, however, manage Pop and Poppy (Apple Tree Farm series has Poppy and Sam) and tree - although that did take a few goes - just saying it is a challenge when you're trying to get it spelt correctly - Tree. No tRee, not tree-yuh

CMot - glad that you've got it sorted out - finishing something like that is always a big push at the end - the last 10 % is always the worst.

RS - how are the reports going? I was wondering whether you could write down two things from each lesson plan - and then pick two of the names and say something noncommital about that child in relation to that subject (clutching at straws here, but you never know what might help!)

I think I'll bring some stoneware in for the tearoom - Amber, you can then put what you want to cook on the stoneware and stick it in the aga, and you won't have to worry about how it cooks - it will just come out perfect!

I do fancy a croissant and a cup of tea though please.

Mistlethrush, I think it would be wise to have such stoneware, given my tendency to produce surprise meals . They're never inedible or dangerous, but the presentation can be a little, er, unusual. "Nil points" my ds said the other day in a french accent, staring at the assembly of items piled randomly on the plate and comparing it to the finery on the tele cookery programme.

Have been to meet the Chief Exec of a big charity, who's interested in working with me on autism awareness, so that's exhausted me for the day. A nice cup of tea and some soup, I think...
CMOT, oh yes. Writing anything to do with software was one of the great loves of my life (why is no-one surprised by this? )

You'd love it in our Finland office - we have a whole floor of the building full of programmers, and you can even bring your dog to work. No rules about what to wear, nice soundproofed individual rooms, and more manuals than you could possibly want. Oh, and giant diagrams of database structure.

I'm off there on Monday - I always feel better for a few days in their peace and tranquility.

I like random cookery.It's much more fun

Racing - hope the reports are going ok. My "best" ever was "Daisy has no ability and doesn't try" - about Art blooming stupid teacher

And Mistle - (this is really me throwing out a small clue for Racing to cheer her up) if MJ wants to be a barrister, tell him it can be a lot of fun

Amber how are you managing without Mrs C - I worry about you being late and having nobody to prompt you...

We're off camping this weekend, hope we're not mad wish us luck!