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 ...

Where is everyone tonight? I may have to open this excellent bottle of oaked and aged vin rouge on my own. I will try and learn by MadBad's example and consume not more than one abstemious glass. And hide the keys of my NEW CAR. (Still quite excited, although Tea will not be tempted, I fear, by a family estate with a very large number of flower pots in it and a bucket full of sandy sea shells.)

evening RS - I am here and will take a glass of the excellent aged vin rouge please.

Naturally I should go back and read the last few pages but I don't have time tonight - so will catch up with everything tomorrow.

We have been away - we went to Westonbirt Arboretum yesterday and then DH treated us to a fabulous hotel in Bibury (according to William Morris, the prettiest village in England) - we slept in a four-poster bed! In an enormous room - DS had the best time running round it. Today we were supposed to go to the Cotswolds Wildlife Park in Burford but thanks to the rain, we decided to just go to Bourton-on-the-Water instead, and went to BirdLand and saw king penguins! I laughed - anyone else remember the Jane and the penguins thread from a couple of weeks ago? - this was the place!
Had a great time and a reasonably good journey home but have so much to do...

That was a classic!

Glass of vin rouge would be good...

Hello. I've only just arrived.

I'd love a glass of oaked and aged vin rouge. Am feeling rather oaked and aged myself.

A propos the RE, I'm struggling to understand how the inspector can have written the lesson. Is this a SIAS inspection? (Am governor of churchy school so am supposed to know about this). If so, is there anything on the National Society website you can plagiarise look to for guidance and advice? Anyway, Amber's suggestions seem marvellous to me. My one feeble suggestion was to construct something out of what (if I remember correctly) you did for Black History Month, using Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech as an example of something inspiring. But is that too abstract for year 3s?

Well done JM on quitting the ADs and having a flurry of activity. I am convinced of the psycho-therapeutic effects of gardening. Indeed, my friend who is a GP (is that what you call them in Canada? General practitioner, anyway) sends mildly depressed patients to join a gardening project.

I'll be going out tomorrow to panic-buy paracetamol. Thanks for the tip, Catita. I've been thinking about you a lot over the weekend. Sending you a virtual ((hug)) now. And I somehow thought your subject was English. Duhh.

Anyone care for a twiglet to accompany the wine? We don't seem to eat so many of them these days - perhaps racingpig and racingmisspiggy have been snaffling them before we can get them into the dishes?

Eeek. That was a long post. I've just come back to say that I'm watching Marianne Faithfull on BBC4 and am determined to find a role for her in Tea Room The Movie. And have some of our newer friends - UniS, Thumb and Catita I'm thinking of you - yet decided who will play them in the movie? Excuse me if you have, but my aged memory is, like my crumbling body, failing me tonight.

oh yes madbad - I was having Cate Blanchett as some very blind kind person once said I reminded him of her

I was trying to avoid appearing in te movie at all, but I guess you could find some annonomous looking bird with glasses and long hair and chubby knees and she'd do.
I have just spent a weekend wearing either a pink- bright pink-volunteers T-shirt or an ice hockey shirt with my name on. The perils of being an event organiser. I had to compare an evening of video screenings and unicycle freestyle routines and a raffle.

Hello, can I slink in with all the lovely lovely lovely lovely lovlies in the tea room and have a glass of vin rouge???

I knew I shouldn't have posted!!!

Racing I think inspiring could also be linked to something like the London Marathon - all the people who have run or the chap doing the distance over 13 days on crutches.... but I don't think I could improve on Amber...

I did ask the Bishops who were gathered around the pond but they were a bit

I think they just realised they couldn't top Amber

And they were picking up their skirts trying to dodge the Bison!

Racing, I nearly PMSL at your "feeling Germanic" and the song title - it it really "Gehen Wir Tauben Vergiften Im Park"???? LOL LOL LOL!!! (For all you non-German speakers, that means "Let's go poison some pigeons in the park!"

Daisy, thank you for the compliment - I'm much more sarcastic in RL than in the Tea Room... at least, in my mind I am... but it doesn't count if you only think it and don't say it, right?

Catita, I'm sincerely hoping the swine flu thing turns out to be much less serious than anticipated. I'm feeling a bit creeped out by it, to tell the truth. How are you feeling BTW? Less ?

I'd love some vin rouge, if you problem drinkers haven't gulped it all there's any left, thank you!

Oh, 8 yr olds . Yup, same wording applies. In fact, that wording seems to do really well for most 45 yr olds and the Senior Staff of the church too, as far as I can tell. I like nice simple wording. Quite unlike the latest document I'm currently summarising, which says,

"..we are reshaped by being set within ontologies that privilege engaged self-investment within a cultural context that rarely transcends its desire to study phenomenological explorations."

I think this calls for the largest mug of tea we have....

Perhaps you could send whoever wrote that a 'plain English' book.

The Goldfinches are out in the tree outside - I can hear them, although just at the moment I can't see any. There were long-tailed tits the other day.

Where am I? Who am I? What is this place? There was this car crash and that is all I remember. Ooooooh - What is all this money in my bag???

(We watched Mulholland drive last night - it has given me some ideas for some scenes for the tearoom the movie plot)

Madbad sitting in her rocking chair controlling weird and wonderful things all around the place... I think in our version the eeriness needs to be replaced by some big belly laughs mind you....

So lets start by buying some new Springtime facinators and Mary Janes with the money in the bag!!!! What is that Madbad??? You also think it is necessary to buy and plant an orchard and fill it with butterflies and rabbits but no stinging nettles or sparkly rocks because they take too much explaining.... certainly!!!!

JM.... When I met you IN MY DREAM you were very nice. I enjoyed staying at your trendy but definately mansion of a house. The only thing that did annoy me a little is when you took me to that HUGE department store and I got so so lost. Thank goodness Joanna Lumley was there to tell me were to take the train to get to the perfume department where Kate Winslet with hair like in Revolutionary Road helped me choose a wonderful new scent!

RS - When we had OFSTED my deputy head started slightly mispronouncing the word to 'OFFHEAD' for comical value... I thought you might like this story!!!

Catita - Last night we had a phone call from Beers best friend - his wife had given birth to twins and he was a bit overwhelmed! So we fort the rain teddies in hand and turned up to ooooh and aaaaaaarrr at the only hours old lovebugs - WARNING - I had completely forgotten - new born babies are so extremely terribly very very small - when yours pops out - don't say I didn't warn you - they are titchy titchy titchy tiny poking tongues in and out all the time funny little things!!!!

MT - at the Goldfinches all I can hear right now is a Police siren and the only birds we get are pigeons!!!

Tea - MJ was never a teeny weeny tiny baby!!! On the ward (had ecs so had to stay three nights) there were five babies sounding like newborn babies when they cried - and one with lungs big enough to belong to a 2mo old . Luckily we didn't have any 'newborn' size - and he only stayed in his 0 - 3 clothes for a month....

coo, MT, he must have been a big boy!
DS is often a size behind his age - although he is nearly 17mo now I still have him in some 9-12mo stuff because it is just so big on him! He is on the 9th centile of his graph, never was big but has big feet and long fingers so will probably be quite tall.

Tea and banana cookies, anyone? This batch have cherries in as well..

yes, of course, Mistle had the 10 stone baby didn't you

Thanks for the cookies Thumb, and love your dream Tea! I always have really boring dreams, nothing fun. at the moment, DaisyBoy always says he dreams about MUD!! Seems fair enough!

He has gone to nursery today in his lovely satin ballet shoes. He is now very very happy indeed there - thought you might like an update after all your support in Jan

Racing seems to have disappeared under a pile of reports and OfSted again, poor love...

Amber, how is your poor DH?

By the way, I am deeply impresssed that Tea seems somehow to have snaffled the bail money in her swag bag - she has light fingers that one!

LOL at 10 stone baby...

yes amber, how is your DH after his tests?

He's got the main heart tests this afternoon. Will know more at some point in the future when the NHS consultant actually looks at them. All a bit nerve-wracking.

His GP is lovely though and keeps reassuring us, which is good.

Amber - hope all goes well.

10st?! although it did feel like that at times. And I struggle to carry him any length of time/distance now unless he is actively helping (ie legs wrapped round my waist!)

We often found that we had problems getting necklines over ds's head - we liked the Tshirts with the extra buttons on the shoulder - in fact, still being able to get those now would be helpful and we had to take a school jumper back to the shop as he really couldn't get his head through it (I could, but its not on if they can't do it themsleves at this age...). Rugby shirts are also quite good and we sometimes use these as an extra layer in the winter - just about right for ds. But why, oh why, do makers of children's polo shirts (which would otherwise be great) go and sew in a placket behind the buttons so that the neckline is effectively like a normal tshirt - defeats the object, surely ?

Wasn't it you who typo-ed on another thread that MJ was 10 Stone not 10 pounds? I am sure it was you Mistle!?!

Anyway, my DaisyBoy remains quite light, luckily because whenever he sees me his legs seem to stop working I am hoping he will grow up tall and langky but strong, like a rower