Tea Room the Tenth: Tea and cake and rock and roll

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

Welcome back to the tea room.

In the search for the perfect venue, we have now decamped to a rambling country estate. The once-decaying castle, now restored, is a boutique hotel, popular with rock and roll gentry and visiting bishops, and the tea room (which never closes) is located in a tastefully converted barn. The charming garden contains a duck pond and ends in a haha. We need the haha, of course, to stop the bison trampling the herbaceous borders. Mellors the gardener is, as ever, in charge of the grounds.

Please come and join us for a celebratory drink.

1. Happy Birthday to your DS Mary.
2. Good luck with the interview tomorrow.

1. JM: councils are the local authorities that administer UK towns. One of their previsions is social housing, ie providing homes for rent for individuals and families with low incomes. Usually to get placed in a council house you must apply, your circumstances be checked and then wait on a list until your name comes up. Since this was a post-2ww innovation designed to replace slum housing, one othe options for councils was to build homes for rent. In the 60s someone hd a bright idea of building huge estates of council homes, often with high rise buildings and dubious architecture. These did not age well and in many places ended up being a breeding ground for disaffected youth. In some places, the estates fell into the control of gangs and criminal elements. All in all, they became difficult places to live, and by no means are anyone's first choice when looking for somewhere to stay.

This explains (up to a point) some of the derogatory views about council houses and estates. Others can be explained as simple class snobbery from those who have never been in a position to want or need help with housing.

Coo, good exposition there Catita!
The other thing to mention about council housing is that many people were offered the chance to buy their council house in the 1980s and 1990s by the incumbent govt at the time - so lots of the council houses became privately-owned homes, and no more council houses were built, thus depleting the councils' stocks. So now, houses can be sold on council estates, but they are still not always an ideal choice of location.

Bad council estates continue on a downward spiral, because "nice" people don't want to live there, so any empty homes are allocated to troublemakers or newcomers to the country, making trouble spots even more troublesome.

Happy Birthday MaryBoy!!! Eight, wow

We are a bath family too, the tub is getting full!

JM I thought MM for the other poster too but whenever I see that sort of spite I remember it was that which drove the tea room haven into being so am grateful and move on

CMOT I love the sound of your Next suit. I too drool and long for Paddy C

went to look at a school for DaisyBoy. Oh my. what a step - my heart goes out again to Milk and Baby Bucharest!

JM good luck with smear, can you do something nice as a treat afterwards? good cup of coffee or something? And Seattle is still a cool weekend away

We are going camping this weekend- hurrah!

DS and I bath together too, and need a bigger bath. This morning I was adorned with foam letters.

School was lovely - head knew all the children, they were all chatting to him. Really great work both on display and in their books. And a fab playground and DS v impressed with their chickens. I think we are decided on this one, so will fill in the form now . Had to peel DS out of the reception class, and there was much moaning in the car that he wanted to stay there

whoops, Happy Birthday Mary's Boy!

We are trying to sort our bath out at the moment - it is being re-enamelled and we have to find appropriate taps for it that don't cost an arm and a leg. We can't really move into our house until the bath is sorted because we will have no wash facilities without it - amazingly we have the only house in Australia that doesn't have a functional shower, by the looks of it! MIL's house has no bath, only 2 showers, I can't wait until we have a bath again.

DS can't bath with me though, I have the water too hot for him!

Good morning all, from the land of the fuzzy-headed... there needs to be a lot of coffee in my world this morning.

Thanks for thinking of me - the smear itself was no problem, my GP does a lovely job (in and out in under a minute) but with everything my ragged bits have been through, I'm still a nervous wreck after. Plus I had to talk to her about a couple of things that are still not working right (a bit further back than my ladybits, and I'll stop right there because that would really be TMI for the Tea Room - must remember that this is not the Ragged Bits Thread) - the upshot of all this is Im being referred back to the specialist.

Couldn't fall asleep last night so I took an Ativan... and am now completely foggy-headed.
Any coffee going? I have to work today so should probably not go in hoping to lean on my patients!

Shattered. They only interviewed 3...

Hi Mary. Can't remember, what was the job? I know it was in a school. Obviously you haven't heard yet. Fingers still crossed then.

Wriggle is also of the bath-enjoying persuasion, unless she is really tired. She has baths with me or DH or sometimes alone. We have an aga lookalike and therefore only have hot water in the winter when the heating is on or when I have been doing some serious cooking, so baths are frequent but not regular.

Went to different nursery today, in a cricket pavillion, with a dedicated enclosed garden with tyres, trees, a little house with a slide, wooden bikes, a sand pit, a big area of soil to dig, lots of stainless steel cooking implements hanging from a tree as giant windchimes ... all very tasteful with no hair-gelled toddlers with cartoon characters on their T-shirts. In fact, rather a lot of little dresses rather than T-shirts. Slight lack of social mix there, I feel. But it is actually cheaper than very local one with a much wider mix. Obviously there are parents who actively dislike wooden bikes and large gardens. Wriggle fairly happy there (with me) for an hour, then v tired and needed to go. She fell asleep in the car at 11 am.

Still, it gives me the perfect excuse not to change my working hours to help out school because their senior bully teacher wants to go part time and they have asked me to share with her. I automatically started to try and put Wriggle into a nursery, change all my days and research year 6 maths, giving myself sleepless nights and a lot of misery until DH pointed out that a)it's a horrenduous challenging class which I dread when simply going in for my one hour a week with them b) said teacher was very unpleasant to me for years before I went off on maternity leave and systemmatically had me removed as teacher governor, PTA rep and previous senior teacher and c) Wriggle is more important than work and that I DON'T HAVE TO SAY YES JUST BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO DO SOMETHING. (Except by him, of course.) Am not looking forward to saying no, though.

Off now to look at that thread and then Tea's bilingual chat, which I keep looking at but never get time to post on.

(Good idea of Mellor's to light that little fire in the tea room grate as it is a bit bleak today. I also like the conker mobiles. )

Oh, JM, forgot to say, in the countryside council houses were often built in small groups on the edge of villages, were quite large inside and had good-sized gardens as I think the occupants were expected to grow vegetables. They are therefore now desirable homes, complared to the shoddy little cardboard boxes being squeezed in everywhere now.

Racing - how lovely to hear from you and glad Milk enjoyed school visit today - am envious of stainless steel wind chime - oh look what Mellors has just hung up!

going to curl up by that lovely fire. crumpets and honey anyone?

CMOT sounds like boy is having a great time, is he starting next academic year too? Go on, sign up!!!

JM if you're still awake, well done for the GP

Ha ha ha -

"Racing - how lovely to hear from you and glad Milk enjoyed school visit today"

Do you know what Daisy I quite ofen get Milk and Wriggle confused too -

I have this plan that one day, if wriggle wants to, they might be penfriends!!!! [wishing and hoping emotion]

Yes yes yes, Tea.

Jealous of chickens at school - our school bans anything furry or feathery in case of allergies/litigation/dust/fun.

And yes yes Tea what a great idea.

Boy has a friend... hurrah. took him over to play with another 3 yr old in teh village and teh 2 boys got on like a pair of puppies. Even took other boy to ballet with us ( his sisters go anyway) so boy wasn't teh only boy in class today.

I have taken the step of inviting another mum and 3 yr old to lunch here on friday, and a return date with todays family next week.

Thank you guys for being my on line bunch of mates during this transition period, its been rather odd meeting all these new mums and promptly forgetting their names, then seeing their kids with childminder teh next day and sometimes not being quite sure which is mum and which is minder.

That fire is just what we need on a chill evening to make this place cosy, I'm heaping on a fragrant faggot of apple wood, to up teh autumnal feel.

Home brew on teh table, crumpets and toasting forks at teh ready, and a bowl of marshmellows.

Re- council houses one the dge of villages. VERY desirable generally round here, tho being stone built in the 30s with no insulation they are a bit chilly. the 50s built ones are worse, still have decent garden, but were built as prefab " cornish units" with a concrete frame and plywood panels. Some were rebiult by teh council about 20 years back, but NOT teh ones already in private ownership at that point.

How lovely to see so many here tonight.

Hope it will be good news from Jacksmama's Ragged Bits Doctor and Mary's interview.

I think the sneering at council houses and their inhabitants is one of MN's least attractive traits. That and the one-upmanship about one's offspring's achievements. All those threads about "Tarquin taught himself to read at the age of 8 months by looking at the letters on his bib" and "Five year old Araminta has already passed Grade 6 piano and is fluent in Classical Greek - is a summer school in astrophysics a good idea?"

Racing - Are you actually me? Your work history sounds uncannily like mine. Have a bracing pat on the arm and supportive hug. The new nursery sounds tres tres promising, je crois.

Now, didn't Daisy threaten promise us the glitter ball ...

Oh no! A squeak from the sofa! Have you interrupted RacingPig and RacingMissPiggy in a moment of, ahem, tendresse?

LOL at squeaky sofa. I suspect teh Guinea pigs found a quieter home after teh NMBs tried riding them.

warm your hands

School form filled out, ready to post tomorrow. DS happily saying that he will start in September after he is 4.

Wriggles possible nursery sounds really nice, and much more you Racing. Remember 'no' is an entire sentence. Although I frequently fail in this myself

Am very of your sucess in the playdate department UniS

My GPs lived in council houses all their lives, and their one in Weymouth had a location to die for

As it is getting chillier, I have brought in a quilt that needs the piping stiching on. So spread it over yourselves on the sofa, and just do a bit if you would..

Impressive quilting, Cmot. And with the blazing fire it's certainly getting very cozy.

Oh, John Travolta was really something, wasn't he .

Sorry to interrupt ladies, but I wish to tell someone IMMEDIATELY about the amazing sky - it is fully orange! No, not even just the sky, it is like an orange mist over everything. It is windy as anything,which makes the mist bit weirder and the whole place is glowing orange, it's way past sunrise so I have no clue why! I have tried to take photos of it but have no clue how they will turn out (apart from looking like there is an orange filter over the lens)

Any clues?

Job is personnel and payroll assistant. no news yet, can't make up my mind whether that is good or bad...

I was born and bred in a council house... mum still lives there, although my brother has bought it for her...

I have no idea about the orange sky, Thumb. I just bought MadBadBloke the Cloud Spotter's Guide - I wonder whether that would have any useful info. Or could a plague of locusts be just about to appear?

Be patient, Mary (says the world's least patient person). I too have relatives who live in council houses which they have bought. That's probably why I find the sneering so repulsive.

Bolly, anyone?

ditto on the relative in council house - but she bought one.

Those prefabs about which you speak, I believe it isn't possible to get a mortgage to buy those as they aren't considered to be a secure enough investment, is that still right?

The orange fog is not going away. I am now paranoid concerned that it is some toxic gas, but I have already stepped outside in it without obvious damage. It is most peculiar...

Racing - I luuurve the sound of the nursery you have described. Can you put Milk's name down too?

We must sort out the penpal thing when they are a bit bigger - unless Wriggle learnt to write by tracing the letters on her bib at 8 months old.... bwahhh haaaa haaa haaaa - she can send some letters straight away... but... don't expect a reply!!!

Actually - Don't sign Milk up for he nursery because in all fairness she is completely loving her school and a whole Paris park as a to- hand resource makes me and Milk more than happy bunnies!!! - Phew... that went ok!!!

JM - By the way I re-read the ehhherm thread... You are a big teddy bear compared to a certain T42 who was exteremely harsh and possibly a thread killer too!!!!