Tea Room the Ninth: I love rock and roll, put another dime in the juke box baby

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Welome to the ninth incarnation of the tea room. It's been a long and eventful road, from a tea room overlooking a cathedral garden to a beachside cafe, with a diversion via a yurt. Now - voila - we are in a music lounge. We cater for all tastes and, as this is a tea room of requirement, it manages simultaneously to be many things at once. For some, it is a 70s glam rock disco with a cool boho edge - glitter balls, smoke machine and much wearing of platform shoes and eyeliner. For others, a jazz bar where mellow music is played as cocktails are served. For still others, it's a concert performance of Spem In Allium. We still have a garden, with shady parasols for the summer, and a menagerie of pets. Our membership is international.

The tea room has few rules. Everyone is welcome. But anyone visiting with the sole intention of causing hurt or shouting abuse will be ejected by Mellors, the multi-talented gardener-handyman who (it turns out) is also a guitar wizard and rock god.

Please come in.

I'm tired and I want the weekend to be over so I'm not working. Had a dull day today, had to be on site but very little to DO. and people I was meeting were all late. Tomorrow however shall be manaic. 7am start for production get in followed by sound checks open event at 11, full stage timetable till 5 followed by get out. should be home agin by 10ish.
Assuming of course the little horrors who live near teh site havn;t burnt down teh stage over night. ( I half wish they would...)

am suffering from extreme irritation now.
Have just had extremely costly inventory report back on my house and am pissed off because snooty bitch has said most of our stuff wasn't clean/cleaned - I spent HOURS washing the friggin curtains, by hand in the case of the nets, HOURS cleaning the bathroom til it shone, I did the bath 4 times alone! I cleaned every switch in the house (apparently all "dirty"). And my decor was "tired and aged". (OK, probably but who needs to be told?)
Am NOT happy at all.
Going to bed now, shall write return comments tomorrow.

btw, YAY Mr Amber!
and hope you all feel better soon in the mistle house.

TW - very annoying that. Dread to think what they'd say about our current decoration. MJ has been helping by peeling the wallpaper off in the downstairs cloakroom.

Not happy this morning. Was woken up by MJ demanding breakfast - fair enough. However, it took him nearly an hour and a half to eat it and only following lots of threats.

Forgot to say yesterday - Yay for MrAmber!!!

TW, heck! Large cuppa for you and anyone else that needs one.

Thanks for teh tea. much needed.
well I'm glad that show is past me. Tomorrow should be easier- just going to walk a site , look at and talk about a festival that may be mine next year.

I am mulling over a house as well. WWYD , there is a house for sale, we can afford it, it needs a lot of internal doing up ( re-wire, new floorings, redecorate, new kitchen and bathroom). It is across teh road from the house we will be renting. I would be project manager for the "doing up". Neither of us "loves" the house, but both think it has potential to be a lot nicer than it is now. It does have a good big workshop/ bike shed in good condition and a big boring garden that could house a large veg plot AND a big grassy patch and some plants and a bench with a nice view.

I need to find a ball park price on re-wiring a stone built 3 bed house & a ball park price for re carpeting same . I'm guessing at 2k for bathroom and 4k for a kitchen. Then do some more thinking.

May I use the priest hole, all this thinking is making my head hurt.

Amber yeah indeed for Mr A

UniS if the house has a nice spirit/ vibe/ atmosphere (as you will) I would go for it. The rest is stuff/ decoration etc and will make a HUGE difference but a malign spirit is never bettered

Catita glad that Kittenito is feeling better

JM I think the sending of get well card to Kittenito is wonderful, it made me feel very happy to hear about

Vita wondered madly if you might be a RL friend for whom I helped make bunting for her wedding but she married several more than 2 years ago and will not see her 30s again so I suspect not

madbad I wondered about madbad too....

Hi all!
I've fallen off the Mumsnet world a bit and have only been lurking if at all for a while.

We were very busy at work, and still are, and moved office to boot (a truly hideous job). I don't know how much time I have to be a regular poster again - pesky Real Life.. and still have boxes to be sorted before our hols.
Hope all are well.

maninadirndl - a cautious welcome to you - you may not have realised that this is a one child family thread - not a single parent / SAHP thread. I see you have two kiddies, so maybe you won't find anything relevant here.

How did we dismantle the Yurt?

as you can probably see from the unseasonable time that I am on here, I am not sleeping well.
I just had to get up both Friday night at ~2:30am and this morning at ~5am to write comments on "inventory". Am feeling slightly better but won't get it out of my brain until I have unleashed the Pain of it onto my estate agent - am going to try and get an appt to see her Monday so that we can have a thorough discussion.

Am appalled that "inventorist" (? made up word) spent ages finding imaginary dust and mould but missed things like telephones, fire alarms, brooms, mops, strimmers, half the garden equipment including a large wooden garden chest (at least 4x3x3'!) and all its contents! And yet she was able to find small holes in lace curtains!
Oh yes, and a freezer section in my larder fridge, that has no freezer section , coving where none exists.....

I could go on but you'd be bored to tears. There are 23 pages of "inventory", not one of which has escaped comment/change. Unluckily for them, I have the full Adobe Acrobat program and was able to alter their pdf - nice!

UniS - don't know the answer to your ballpark figure requirements but just maybe it might be worth it to buy - depends on how stretched you'd be, and whether the prices are stable-ish in your area - no good doing up a house nicely and spending XX thousand on it if you can't then recoup it in increased value.

UniS, 3-4k for rewiring, 3-4k for basic carpeting, but either figure could change wildly if there are problems.

TW, I'm still hopping mad over your inventory problem and it's not even my house! Goodness me...the pickiness of people...

Zazen, we've just moved offices too. Definitely a need for the early morning cuppa, I think.

Morning to everyone. Church soon, then get ds from his 'lack-of-sleep-over' (never did know why they call them sleepovers when no-one actually sleeps)

Bl*dy hell. Son's carefully planned and supervised sleepover last night ended up with the riot police out, police dogs, ambulance, one lad with concussion, and a gang of some 20 youths firstly trying to smash their way into a peaceful party and secondly legging it when the police turned up. He's had to rescue small child caught in the midst of it, the mum gave chase to the gang (eek), and many police statements have been given. And, being a tall rugby-playing teenager, didn't tell us a word of any of this until he arrived home.

Goodness me, enjoy them whilst they're small....you've no idea what new 'fun' is ahead of you when they're older...

blimey, amber!
Glad he's ok, that could have turned out a lot worse. Where on earth did the gang of yoofs come from?

Eeek !

We had a lovely day yesterday - our 12th wedding anniversary. In a highly romantic moment, we went to the cinema . Came back and the babysitter had done all the ironing and cleaned. Fab !

On the downside, went to my parents this weekend, and they are worse than ever. Dad has given up on life, and mums back (she has spinal stenosis) has got suddenly worse and she is finding it very very painful to walk.

Jeepers amber, that sounds like one for the annals. Not quite what you were expecting - I bet your DS will sleep tonight, safe in his own bed.

Sorry to hear your folks are feeling under the weather dibbler. My mum gets feeble and down in herself from time to time, and it can be very wearing (I'm the only family in this country).
Great news about your babysitter - and happy anniversary - what did you see? Or did you just sit in those double seats and snog!?

ekkkk- at teen sleepover story.

I ought to be doing invoiceing & filing& phones people up to hassle about our exchange of contracts ( which still hasn;t happened, was meant to be friday)

ON teh plus side of today- I have been offered some more work and sorted out childcare ( preshool sessions) to suit it. So I know what I'm doing 2 days a week for a month or two.

And boy is over at his friend house for an afternoon of making and decorating biscuits and cakes.

wonky iced toddler biscuits willbe on the counter later on. just for now, whos for an iced lattee mocha choc type thing.

Wow, Amber, who'd be a teenager / parent of a teenager. I'm glad DS was alright. I remember being at a party that was visited by the police when I was 16. It was all a little surreal, I remember. I never found myself in the same situation again though, I must add. I'm sure your DS will take similar precautions in the future.

[Waves to Zazan] Nice to see you back. I thought you had perhaps gone undercover , remembering all your amazing spy-like abilities In my fevered imagination I could even imagine a scenario whereby Mr. Daisy ( off on a top secret mission for a couple of weeks now that we are all agog to work out) had been sent to find you, hence you reappearence.

It's a shame RL is not quite as dramatic

An yes, please Unis iced mocca sounds lovely.

still no Fing exchange, money is " on route" aparently, I thought electronic transfer were suposed to be same flipping day, not next week. ARRRRRRRRGH

It can take those electrons a very long time to move y'know

We went to see Harry Potter, and feasted on popcorn.

I felt motivated today, so have been tackling the garage around phone calls - sort of a half day off from work in lieu. Garage looks much better, and am Freecycling like mad.

Yup, they have to float the electrons across on a paper aeroplane, as far as I can make out. If it accidentally lands in a river, they have to start all over again.

It took three weeks to get money to New Zealand. All the bank had to do was press a button. I'm guessing they sent it parcel post on a ship.

ohh, freecycle, thats what I ought to do with teh random electrical stuff I have cleared out. Charity shop won;t take it, don;t want to bin it.

them elctrons are still on their paper air plane as far as I know. These are teh buyers that a week ago were phoneing teh agent aggitating that we hadn't yet given permission to exchange...

Have sort of decided to make an offer on teh stone house AFTER we exchange. if it goes to someone else before then, well, never mind.

I present for your snacking delight rainbow sprinkle fairy cakes and choc chip cookies. and two boys with nice clean fingernails. and some beer. I needed a beer.

See, this is the problem with being such a slapdash tea-roomer - I have so much catching up to do

Amber - glad to hear your DH is okay but yeeeek! for DS and his tumultuous sleepover.

T42 - thank you very much for my cake Since my dinner tonight consisted of utterly bland curry (how? HOW? it had so many ingredients in it! It had bloody tamarind paste in it, fgs!) and very overcooked rice pudding, it is much appreciated. Hope you are enjoying your turtles in Turkey.

MT - hope you are all feeling better soon. I am also hacking up phlegm like a 20-a-dayer (ironically, when I was a 20-a-dayer, I hardly coughed at all ) and tomorrow get to hand a lucky hospital worker a vial of my finest green stuff. I'm also having x-rays to investigate the bad leg I've had for over a decade and blood tests to check for anaemia/thyroid problems. I don't go to the GP often, but when I do then I'm very efficient

TW - hope nothing has been napalmed!

UniS - I agree that you should buy it if the vibe is good (it was talk of the veg patch that swayed me) but then I am being ever so slightly swayed by my own urges to settle down and start decorating/digging ...

CMOT - hope your parents are better soon.

Catita - the party to which the police were called wasn't in Cheshire in about 1990 was it? My cousin's 16th involved all three emergency services and a couple of hundred attendees (most uninvited), so we do occasionally still bump into people who were there.

I've spent the day lunching with local mum friends (just like I always knew maternity leave would be ) and then popping in to see SIL and my three mo niece. Then came home and fecked up dinner (ha!). Then trying to get DD to sleep, which took ages but finally ended up with me putting her down awake (I think) and her going to sleep in her cot for erm the first time ever!

Tomorrow we are out for dinner in posho (Michelin star, natch) restaurant for late anniversary celebration. Looks yummy online but had to phone them in a panic to make sure there were veggie options for DH (though would probably have gone anyway ... ).

Hi all - wow - everyone but me seems to have had an eventful weekend.
I hate to complain but five more days until my half-sister goes home. (Back to Germany.) I am tired. She's 20, going to be 21 next month but is really a teenager. Needs to be entertained. Gets bored very easily and is not good at entertaining herself. There is a 20 year age gap between her and us, and we are the parents of an active toddler - so we're not the most entertaining people in the world. She's been good, mostly, but really, far less help than I would have expected and far more effort than I would have expected. I love her dearly but am ready for her to go home so I can Mumsnet in peace spend some time with my RL friends.

Dita I'm afraid my one and only police-attended party was at a penpal's in Birmingham (but you are spot on with the year). The word "penpal" will clue you into how cool I was (or rather not as we used to say back then... because of Wayne's World was it? [nostalgic emoticon].

I was trying for the goth look (heavily emphasises the trying, I never got the hang of it and gave up and went back to just being uncool and untrendy, it worked better for me). I was a bit lost seeing as I knew noone but my penfriend and her sister and I didn't really drink or smoke so I was standing in the kitchen looking bemusedly at the sheninigans going on around me when the police arrived. Who for some reason decided I must know what was going on ... so I had a fun half hour being questioned until they finally found the marijuana and goodness knows whatever that was doing the rounds. Being sober and not smelling of weed got me off all the trouble. My penpal's parents (who were upstairs at the time [!] were not quite so lucky, I think)

Still happily it was 100s of miles away from my parents and when I got home off the train I neglected to mention anything about the whole experience.