Tea room the Eighth - sun, sea, sangria, and perhaps a sandy Mellors

[DontCallMeBaby]

Greetings, welcome to the eighth incarnation of the tearoom.

The tearoom has been, and will be again, a virtual safe haven for anyone up for rather random chat and a comprehensive range of virtual snacks. Nothing in the tearoom will make you fat, or drunk (unless you want it to) or cause an allergic reaction.

The new tearoom location is a beautiful beachside cafe (no need for factor 50, the virtual sun will just lightly tan you, bring out your freckles or simply warm your skin, as you prefer) with a range of garden swings, hammocks, sunloungers, deckchairs etc (as well as a rather incongruous, but well-loved, chaise longue). For those in need of sanctuary, we have managed to fashion a new priesthole out of woven grasses.

Our fellow residents include Mellors the rugged gardener of few-but-well-chosen words, the naked mohawk babies, a coterie of bishops, various domestic pets, and a selection of others. On the human side, all are welcome - while we live in the One Child topic some regulars have more than one, and we are welcome all (except people who put their heads on one side and tell those of us with one child that it's just not fair to have only one child).

Please help yourself to a glass of Champagne and a canape on the way in ...

Ho Racing good luck with the inspection!

Daisy - I am so thrilled that you took DaisyBoy to Coram's Fields that I'm going to put up some more bunting to celebrate.

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W hen we went, they hadn't yet filled the paddling pool. How utterly fabuloso.

Night all!

Daisy, I find others' lives are easier without worrying about how I visualise VinegarTits and FanjolineJolie but would be an appropriate emoticon, I think. Not that I'm entirely sure what a Fanjo is as yet, but no doubt it'll be something connected with ladybits. (I haven't led a sheltered life, but the terminology on mn is often a mystery to me!!). Three tents AND a campervan?! Blimeys!

RS, it was a good article in the Independent, but a bit misleading. Not all people with an ASD have a talent that is useful to society and accessible to employers. Some certainly do, though. In my own business, there are a reasonable number of ASD individuals and productivity and/or accuracy is absolutely breathtaking. But we all need specialist 'handling', or things can get very hyperventilational!

Interesting that they said they hoped that air traffic control had aspie operators. One of our family friends is indeed in charge of ATC and on the spectrum. I suspect a fair few of his colleagues are, too.

Did I just read about chicken composters and caged snails, or is that bucket of wine impairing my reading abilities?!

Tea, coffee, omelettes?

PS by "useful to society" I mean "what society thinks they find useful" which is probably different.

MJ asked whether we could buy a caravan when dh has a new job (lots of things are being put off 'until' - I'm a bit worried he is taking note and we're going to have a whole shopping list of things to do when... )
and for some reason dh had a look on ebay last night at camper vans. However, having shared an hotel room on the way up to Scotland last year, the last thing I want to do on holiday is share a room with MJ! Although he normally goes to sleep really easily, he can also force himslef to stay awake if there is anything 'interesting' happening - he eventually dropped off at about 9.45pm - and woke up again at 5am ('I'm hungry'!) and refused to go back to sleep. We then had to try to keep him relatively quiet and amused for another 2hrs before we could get any breakfast. I know that this wouldn't be a problem if camping - but everything else would! Might try it when he's old enough to have his own tent next door....

Ooh. A caravan. That could be exciting, but I think one would have to have a biggish one with separate sleeping compartment, for just the reasons you mention, Mistle. The trouble with a camper van, I guess, is that you can't expand with an awning (like you can with a caravan) if you'll be driving off the site every day to go sightseeing.

The tea had gone cold in the pot so I've made some fresh. Who'd like some?

Ta-ra-ra- bomm de ah!!

ta-da-ra- boom de aye!!

Come on boys!

Thanks for the tea, MadBad, and yes, Coram Fields was lovely. There was someone there who I rather hoped might have been you. But I remembered just in time that life ain't a Jilly Cooper novel, so I didn't accost the poor lady

Any omelette left, Amber? And I add some delicious crunchy bacon

I suppose 3 tents sounds a bit much, but one is a very old backpack one (a pod you can lie flat and not much else) one is a bigger, pop up one, a "car" tent which as MadBad rightly says you can put up next to campervan and not have to put all away every moment... and one is a very nice one we have used only once because we had DaisyBoy...

Mistle for what it's worth, DaisyBoy is so excited by the campervan all he wants to do is play with beds and so going to sleep is no problemo! But then we always co-sleeps o it's not too hard - but we do need to wear pjs and have extra blankets or your bottom gets stuck on the very cold and drafty metal side of van!!!

Daisy. Sadly, no, we haven't been back to Coram's Fields recently, so it wasn't little ole me. Err what made you think that it was?

Coram's Fields does look a nice place to go - but its a bit far to go really.

Madbad - glad you liked Ripon - did you do some of the 'touristy' things like Fountains Abbey/Rieveaux/Castle Howard? Singing in a concert in Ripon on Saturday which should be fun.

Thought you might like to hear of our bad driving experience on hols - we decided to take the 'short' route from Eskdale to Conniston over the Hardknott Pass and Wryenose Pass - as it was a bad weather (low cloud, drizzle etc) we thought that the traffic would be relatively light.

We were doing OK until we came across someone in something too big for them to take up there - they clearly didn't know the width and couldn't reverse - was trying to come down in the opposite direction. MJ was sick (in bowl ) shortly afterwards and we stopped near the Roman Fort to sort him out. However, traffic increased and we had another significant hold up - MJ and I could open the window and touch the rock face (damp!) without stretching - about an inch away from the wing mirror - just far enough to put out MJ's bowl and rinse it out using the window! By this time I was not feeling particularly well either - so we had all the windows down despite the drizzle. The Wrynose wasn't so bad - except that we got stuck at the bottom with someone in a small car who clearly couldn't reverse and expected the cars in our direction (by this time a line) to reverse - which wasn't happening!

Anyway, 21 miles took 1hr 40 mins.

Mistle - I had a feeling you were in the Ripon area or thereabouts. I thought of you when looking at some of the posters for concerts!

We 'did' Fountains, Rievaulx and Nostell Priory but not Castle Howard (although we did go there on a Brideshead homage about 15 years ago). We had a big hold-up on the journey to Yorkshire after a tractor overturned on the A1 (one mile in one hour) but nothing as traumatic as your experiences in the Lakes.

Anyone for soup and a lewd roll?

Mmm, lovely. Courgette and fennel, I see, using up the last of the courgettes out of the freezer in preparation for this year's harvest.

Caged snails - BF collected lots of snails and put them in a cage of some sort, (maybe a cat crate or a wire basket of the type used to wash eggs and stood this in a shallow bowl of water to make a moat to keep the babies in. He then dropped lots of leafy stuff on top, rather like a worm bin, and used the snail poo as a rich fertilizer. Result can be written in equation form as follows: (garden - snails) + rich snail-poo compost = happy gardener; lots of rotting leaves + not being stamped on = happy snails.

Ah, happy snails are of course a good outcome.

Have just been appointed by a large sporting body as their adviser. Hmm. That's four new advisory jobs in three weeks! Might need more than soup and a lewd roll - is there strong coffee available? Oh, there is Great! Good job they all want the same thing, really - saves us all having to write four different specifications for it.

DS is delighted with his GCSE maths!! Hooray!! But that is, of course, before we get the final results through in August. Many more exams to go during this week and next week.

I recall driving the (t)rusty landrover the best part of a mile down a single track lane and finding an oncoming articulated lorry. Ever reversed 3 tonnes of car a mile along a narrow lane? I have . Good job I used to drive vans for the computer company! DH, on the other hand, is Not Safe driving my car. He's used it to demolish the car park wall of the physiotherapist's building locally (damage to car - none, but they weren't delighted), and recently returned with my wing mirror hanging off . He's banned to Ye Olde Jag forthwith!

at snail composting!!!

I just leave it to the worms - and they find their own way there without any need for encouragement.

Morning all.

Welcome back those well travelled souls. Much sympathy to MT on the Eskdale -Hardknott pass sickness festival. Have been there and done that too

Daisy Strechy dresses might just be the way to go, I think. I once had a going out outfit sterchy dress that I loved to bits. I was a whole lot younger then, but I am sure that the maternity style ones are a bit longer in the leg than the one I used to wear!

Tea sister relationships are difficult. Me and my sis manage to get on moreorless, but never have been and never will be close. Best friend sisters always seem very wierd to me. Did they never pull each other's hair/nose and generally fight their way through childhood?

And finally, just for those of you with a jealous disposition, we have mango, orange, lime, grapefruit and plum trees in the back yard. Also a pistachio bush and a banana tree [showing off emoticon]

My dsis and I live in the same house, and have done nearly all of our lives, FWIW, with variable results, but generally we get along well enough. I sometimes think she stays so she can work out whether the odd activites of the day before were really true...and whether there'll be even odder ones along shortly!

Catita, we have apples, raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries and a variety of veg and salad stuff. But nothing as impressive as mango, you're right.

I know what I'd be having for breakfast every day...

Apples, raspberries and strawberries sound great Amber. These are pretty "exotic" fruit for Mexico. Mangoes on the otherhand are two a penny (literally at the mo, since they are in season). The same goes for oranges etc in December and January.

I'm sorry I can't send you any JM, but they'd go off and get squashed in transit. soemthing else perhaps?

poor sick driving people! Sympathies!

Amber you seem to be a one woman job attracting machine! What with these new jobs and the professorship you were offered in wales

LOL at snails and worms and poo and at fruit bearing gardens. We are strictly supermarket types here

lovely to soup and lewd rolls

MadBad you looked just like your picture. Honest. Only more so. And nice and approachable

Daisy, no point me being an adviser if no-one wants advising, I guess. Just happens to be advice that almost no-one's ever had before, so there's a long queue for it.

Definitely no Professorship. I think I'd at least need a first degree for that, and quite possible a second and third one too. Since no Uni so far can manage to accommodate me on a degree course, that's kind of a problem. Might get to sit in the Professor's chair once in a while if I ask nicely though...

Oh, and rhubarb! No no no, not Rhubarb as in "what nonsense!" - forgot to add rhubarb to the list of things growing wildly in the garden.

We can also do apples, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries, just planted a blackcurrant, gooseberry and Loganberry, and do grow veg - athough last yeat the snails and slugs ate everything so we're having to grow all our plants a lot bigger in pots before planting them out.... Mangos and oranges do sound good though!

dashing through - first day of removal men went ok - house is a tip now and I am supposed to be napping but brain is refusing to shut down so am on here instead - I did quite well until about 1:30 this afternoon when I went into mental overload and couldn't effectively process anything any more - not good!

Still, most of it is done now (she says hopefully)...

When will you arrive at your destination, TW?? Do have a nice cuppa and a sit down on the distressed deckchair...

of Amber and MT for their nostalgia inducing garden fare. My mum cultivated such a fruit and veg garden for years. Her raspberry jam was quite the best thing for scones. So far my marmelade has been a resounding disaster I think I am not up to her standards of excellence in the kitchen.

Thumb I hope you are starting to feel a bit more relaxed. The worse part (putting things in boxes) is over ! Unpacking is so much easier. Plus, you don't have to do in a set number of days, so it's not quite as stressful

Catita - do you have a pressure cooker? We now cook the oranges in a pressure cooker to get that bit done more quickly - doesn't seem to change the outcome, although it does not accord with WI approved methods!

When I was 10 we moved from a house with a reasonable sized gardeen (and therefore good sized veg garden with fruit) to a large one - we had an asparagus bed for a while and still had plenty of room. HOwever, we also had a fruit cage. From memory it was about 30' long by about 24' wide. At one stage it had two long rows of raspberries, 16 blackcurrant bushes, 3 red currant, one white currant and about 8 dessert gooseberries. During the fruit season we would take a radio, stool, bowls and just sit in there for hours picking fruit - we had a huge chest freezer that was filled up with bags of fruit that we'd eat during the winter - on top of lots fresh, some jam etc. OOOOhhh - and the occasional summer pudding too of course . The hens would congregate around the edge of the fruit cage and get fed the unfit berries - my favourite would talk to me and of course got all the best rejects!