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.

OOh a plinkety joanna - perfect! With at least 2 notes missing and a solemn squeak where middle C should be...

Where the blue blazes is she then?

Cockney songs continue apace in the tea room castle. Up on the battlements, a watchful eye is being kept for anything Daisy-shaped.

Put the boiling oil away Amber....

Mea culpa I forgot to invite you to share in the blackberry and apple crumble I made last night... there is still some left, together with some organic double cream, should the idea appeal... I can recommend it!

Tar-ra-rah Boom de ay
Tar-ra-rah Boom de ay...

Do you thnk that possibly everybody has leapt to the wrong conclusion and Daisy is now cowering somewhere, overwhelmed by all the excitement? Maybe we should all talk about something else and let the moment pass, so that Daisy can come back and find everything as normal.

Tea, quite agree that puppy looks like a termite, but it will be gorgeous. Wriggle has at the moment fallen in love with a spaniel puppy belonging to a friend and talks about it non-stop.

Interesting issues arising now as one of Wriggle's guinea pigs is lying dead in the cage. (Not, I hasten to add, RacingPig). She has asked where it is and I have said that it has died. When she asked what that meant, I said that it meant that it had finished being alive and had gone away. Wriggle said 'Quelle domage' and looked sad. (Advice I was given by SIL who is health visitor, or, as they say in France, puericultrice. Awful word.) Anyway, do I show her the body?
A friend with a 5 year old said that they have always shown their dd dead animals and she was never upset but very interested. In fact she loves watching dead cows being winched onto the lorry.

The difference is, I think, that those animals were farm animals, not pets; that child doesn't have pets, and that child is incredibly self centered and I can't imagine her ever being upset by anything apart from not getting her own way. Anyone got any experience?

It's tricky RS - I saw all my pets dead as a child (quote Dad 'if you have livestock, inevitably you have deadstock, and it is your responsibility to care for animals from birth to after death'), and it never upset me, just taught me what happened wasn't anything to be scared of iyswim

We have multiple experience of goldfish bereavement but I guess that one gets more attached to a guinea pig than to a goldfish. When the first goldfish shuffled off this mortal coil, we had a small interment in the garden, in which Madbadbaby participated. By the time of the last burial, she wasn't sufficiently interested to attend. My hunch would be to let Wriggle see the guinea pig when (assuming he will be) he's nicely arranged in his shoebox for burial in the garden and perhaps to let her put some pretty flowers in the box but - obviously - not to do this if she's going to be distraught. In my limited experience, three year olds are quite sanguine about death.

As for Daisy, I think you're right. We have failed to coax her into making an unambiguous statement (of whatever type) so I think we should continue with our cockney knees-up.

Cup of char anyone? Strike a light, guvnor.

(© Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins)

Good morning all! How is the tea room this morning?
I had the most gorgeous drive to work. It rained yesterday evening and then the temperature dropped overnight, but as soon as the sun came up the temperature rose and so I drove past fields shrouded in mist with the sun peeking through... beautiful.

Is there any coffee going?

Boiling oil?? I hardly think that would tempt her in for a cup of rosy lee and a sing-song! Might be handy for a chip buttie, though...

Been in Salisbury cathedral square most of the day at a meeting. Tired but uplifted by the experience. So beautiful.

I don't expect a dead guinea pig will scare teh average 3 yr old. Boy spent ages today ( in the car, while I'm driving narrow twistly roads) asking me about why people die, who had died( no one we know recently) and when people die and why ( again and again like a round) . I'm currently working on " when people bodies stop working and can;t be mended they stop living and they die, most peple are quite old and grown up before it hapens to them). Managed to divert him evently via what happens when Drs die through new doctors are called trainee Drs and so onto Chuggington and thus Thomas...phew.

Off to Preschool agm tonight. I shall be sitting on my hands trying not to volunteer for too much too soon.
Watched bike race stage end today, report later if your still awake. includes doughnut write up...

www.notquitenigella.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/a-oceanic_cafe_chip_butty-450x300.jpg

... NOW THAT IS SCARY!!!

Never quite 'got' chip butties.

I love Salisbury cathedral, Amber; where exactly is the 'square'? We you in the cloister or outside?

Ladies - May I start a thread within a thread? I have been pondering this for a while and so decided to ask the tea room jury. (The AIBU one might be too fierce).

A girl in Madbadbaby's class keeps coming up to me in the playground, asking if she can come to play at MadBad Mansions. She and MBB aren't especially good friends - they go to each other's birthday parties, for instance, but rarely seem to play together at school. Because of MBB's numerous after school activities (over-compensation for lack of siblings), we only have one weekday afternoon when we are at home with nothing to do. I am reluctant to use this afternoon for anything but Mumsnetting supervising homework and bonding with my child, so don't really feel inclined to invite this girl to play. But on the other hand, I don't want to be a grinch. There's no prospect of MBB going to play at her house as her mother works from home.

So, what to do? To be guilt-tripped into inviting this girl or not?

I'd ask MBB if she wants this girl to come over to play on her one afternoon at home with you. If she's not too enthusiastic, then you wouldn't be unreasonable at all to put the child off. If MBB really wants to, I'd try it one week and see how it goes.
I'd let MBB's attitude help me decide since it would be her playdate.

But don't let anyone guilt-trip you into doing something you really don't want to do, if you decide your afternoon home with MBB is too precious to share.

yeah, that's a chip buttie alright. sometimes tis served in a white bap rather than white sliced.

DAy out at Tour of Britain bike race stage finish today. That was fun. Seriously good coffe cream custard doughnut from Billy's a bakery on the quay in Bideford. Boy looking VVVVV cute in mini bike racer mode. lycra shorts , cycle team shirt, lid and shades, astride his mini bike. He managed to blag a Team cycle cap from Agritubel ( a french team) by giving the team bus driver a Devon flag ( a freebie paper one). I have no pic, but if teh bloke who promised to send one does.. I shall link or sumat.

Ah! Bless the Boy. I didn't realise that cycling kit came that small. It's another world.

Madbad...
What JM says. Plus could you make it a wkd? Might be easier?

definitely what JM says - although the poor child does sound desperate for company, it's really up to MBB whether she wants this girl there.

Chip buttie never floated my boat either - entirely too much carbohydrate in one place and guaranteed to set off hiccups in the first mouthful.

Am impressed by UniS' Boy and his cycling!

RS - it rather depends on how the g'pig looks as to whether I would show it to Wriggle - at least 3 of mine died with a fairly unpleasant grimace on their face, so I wouldn't show her that; but if, as MadBAd says, the g'pig is safely ensconced in a shoebox, it should be ok. Sad though.

Was going to add especially after the disappearance of the cat, but can't now remember if that was your cat or Tea's

Tally ho, anyone for a round of the Hokey Cokey?

Yes, what does MBB say?

Personally I'm a big fan of chip butties, I like the way the butter melts over the chips. But I don't like ketchup on mine.

News from here is that I have a job interview! Payroll assistant in a school! Interview next Tues...

Cat, guinea pig and chicken! Wriggle very upset when she saw me put body of deceased chicken in the hedge for foxes to eat. 'You are not nice. It's all alone. Put it in the cage NOW.' Then she tried to persuade me to give it some food out there all alone.

Thanks for all your ideas.

I should have said earlier that MBB is not at all bothered about whether the girl comes to play or not. And our weekends are so full that inviting her then isn't really an option. The nub of my dilemma, really, is whether I should invite the girl just because she is so insistent and I don't want to be a meanie. Sounds ridiculous when I describe it like that, doesn't it?

And yay to MaryBS and her job interview! Will be sending lucky vibes on Tuesday!

If you invite her it will be hard not to invite her again. If MBB is not bothered, I should make a firm excuse; MBB is very busy during the week and we couldn't fit it in. Then you could invite her and maybe another in the holidays for a day at the park or something. ?? Maybe?