Tea Room the Eleventh

[amberlight]

Goodness, we seem to have run out of space on the other one!
I shall assume that we are still in the same premises as for Tea Room Ten for the moment until wiser people tell me otherwise!!

Unis scratches her head as it seems to be the thing to do, don;t mention nits. I'm worried I might have them with out realising it. HOW do you find nits on your own head. Or may be I just have tooo much hair and dandruff.

Sooo, same employer as a traffic warden/ that'll be the council then, I got it, i got it, your a school dinner lady. am I right Gym?

I used to work for a local authority, was the best paid theatre technician job I ever had, we were even paid an anti social hours increment because we routinely worked evenings and weekends.

As the evening is drawing on... may I offer any of you still awake, a nightcap of anything?

Gymbunny - I have a hunch but am not going to say anything, for fear of turning this into a game of 20 questions.

Tea - We used to be in France every year at the time of la rentree and I was always amused/horrified by the displays in every pharmacist's window of nits and nit lotions. And then, of course, we had to buy some.

And Catita - please moan as much as you want. It does sound tough. I hope the time difference means that Senor Hatita will soon be back at the hacienda.

So, who's for a healthy breakfast? We have homemade organic muesli, porridge, fruit and a selection of warming drinks for this cold and frosty day.

Morning

Chilly here today. but dry .

Am in the office today and have plenty of reading to keep me busy. Coming home from my aborted trip yesterday was a real bonus as I got an unexpected three hours of free time - gymgirlie was going to a friends as I had expected to be back late. So I got to Brantano for wellies for she and I (for wading through the effluent in Ireland on Thursday), and to a big man clothes shop to get my giant brother's Christmas present (also needs to come to Ireland on Thursday). After that I still had an hour and a half to spare so headed to the local Starbucks with my gift card and sat for an hour with my ipod and the free wifi and a gingerbread latte. OK, and a slice of chocolate log . It was bliss. Popped into M&S for ready meals for the next two nights too, which is unheard of for me, but I just need the break of not having to think about cooking for a couple of days, kwim?

Catita, hope you have had some rest over the night and things are looking brighter today.

teafortwo, wish I could get onto youtube to see your links, will look tonight though.

Gymgirlie was thrilled to finally be able to open her advent calendars (all 4 of them ) this morning, and especially to be allowed chocolate before breakfast. Wish I had bought one for myself now.

Better get on with my traffic warden/dinner lady reading matter. Have a good day.

Has DH stopped wittering about tanks yet MadBad ?

The spare time sounds totally blissfull Gym.

The spare time does indeed sound idyllic, Gymgirlie.

Even though I know very well that dh is a military history buff, the extent of his knowledge about tanks still came as a revelation, Cmot! He did, though, stop when I told him that he had passed the MN Tank Knowledge Test and I didn't need an exposition on European tanks 1935 - 1980 (which I might otherwise have got, as he seems disturbingly au fait with exactly how long the T34 was produced, what succeeded it, .....)

Soup available for those in desperate need of something warming.

Morning all. Been a bit quiet in the Priest Hole for a while. Long story. Shan't bore people.

DS seems to have broken his nose playing rugby, silly boy. Is he bothered? Nope.

DH is a military history buff as well. Can't say I am.

Boy wants a partyyyy! so we have a CD on , paper chains decorating a corner of teh living room, and boy wants me to dance with him... oh dear.

The pile of pare chains we made last week looked huge until I started to hang them, got half way round room. hurmmmpf, wil have to make more.
I see Mellors and NMBs have teh tea room christmas decs in hand. its gonna be good by teh looks of their ladders, liannas and paint flecked overalls.

So you found a galaxy in the advent calender did you? I found marzipan.
Thanks for the soup Amber, most warming after a quick trip to garden to hang a bird feeder.

Realised that I also work for the council and have a job that everyone likes to criticise since we cause all the ills of modern society by being too soft/harsh/left-wing/right-wing/wishy-washy-touchy-feely-child centred/rigid and authoritarian, unable to do a decent day's work, the recipient of far too many holidays and qwite unabel to spel ... you must be a teacher. Although the foreign travel doesn't quite fit.

Are you a Dust Person? Ah, no, foreign travel again.

I am a qualified teacher and taught in primary for 12 years. But not teaching now although still vaguely on the field. No foreign travel in my work, just within England for the occasional meeting.

Tea - lost your address! Send e-mail urgently!

Hello all, sorry I've been missing.

Things got in the way, just generally.

Very busy at work. Very busy with minithrush's reception tribulations and tiredness. MrMT still unemployed.

Now dog has a lump that needs to be removed asap - luckily have a few days leave still remaining so I'll just have to take some time off for her. Mind you, could do some work at home anyway (this is all if MrMT actually gets any of the work he's been promised)

This evening something momentous happened - for the very fist time I sat at the kitchen table and made Christmas cards with my daughter. We stuck things on cards and chatted.

Ten years after starting to actively try and have a baby, nearly 20 years (!) after realising that I wanted children terribly, after all that expense and heartache and false hopes and misery ... my child and I shared the glue and stuck on stars for nearly an hour.

MISTLTHRUSH!!!!!!

Have some Bolly. Cup of tea? Twiglet? This is so exciting! The last moment as momentous as this was when MadBad returned from her travels!!

Yay!! MT is back!

Yes please to glass of bolly/twiglets/anything else that's going really

Yay for RS's glitter and sparkly christmas cards. Minithrush hasn't yet been required to assist with cards this year - I think that we'll probably have a session next weekend. [BTW, did you know that if you want to make 'interesting' potato print shapes, the easiest way is to use cookie cutters - press them into the cut side, then cut from the edge of the potato to the side of the cutter - you end up with a nice clean shape that way. And if you do christmas trees, a small finger does quite good impressions of baubles. And you can get 'outline' stars by cutting out a small star shape in the middle of a big one.]

Did someone say bolly? Don't mind if I do. Wine rack looking distinctly empty at home... anyone fancy a banana cupcake - I'm afraid we never got round to the creamcheese or oaty topping...

mine a large one of something wet and strong. and a few twiglets. Hi MT nice to see you back. sorry to hear of family woes and wobbles in recpetion.

RS- ahhhhh about the sticky stars moment. nice isn't it.

Amber- sympathy to DS, only a little bit tho, he did chose to play Rugby.

I like this village. I forgot my wallet today when we went out, but was given tea and cake on the understanding I would pay next week and boy (in tears having realised he had lost his 5p coin from pocket) had a lolly from shop on friends mums tab!

The 1st of the toddler group Christmas parties is tomorrow! I've just spent a while wrapping family presents as well as boys santa pressie for tomorrows party( 2 tractor posters).

SO let us pull up chairs to teh fire place and yarn of travels and travails and put teh world to rights over a glass or 3.

MT you are a genius, potato prints here I come.

Yes, so glad to have you back; have made note of potato-print method.

Do you wamt to share reception traumas?

Christmas shopping easy for us this year - we're not doing any.

MiniMT didn't get the big present we had for him for his birthdya - by the time we'd unwrapped everything else at a slow rate, there didn't seem to be any need for it - so he's got that for Christmas!

Reception traumas: put child with lots (and lots) of energy who finds it really difficult to sit still into a class with 20 other children. Make one of the other children 6 months older, attention seeking by being naughty on purpose - miniMT found it difficult not to be lead astray and normally failed. However, that one child has moved and all is settling down a bit better now. Really miniMT needs to be sent down to the bottom of the playing field twice every 20mins or 30mins (whatever the weather) and he'd then be able to put a good amount of concentration in for long enough...

Oh, and he does get very tired too (probably all the huge amount of energy he puts in all the time during the day) - he was in bed and asleep at 6.30 this evening....

MT !!!! You're back

Had the acceptance letter today for DS to start reception next September. I looked at the uniform list etc, and it felt rather odd somehow.

Very Very Very peculiar. Ds was in nursery in the same school. So starting reception shouldn't have been any different. Still broke down when I got to work.

Oh yes, and nametaping everything is endless - once you've done one lot, they grow out of it and you have to do a new set. And we've definitely got a sock monster. We start with 6 pairs at the beginning of term. By the end of term we've usually only got 3.5 left. And that's with them all coming home from school.????

Mistlethrush! Yippee! This is like something from an adventure movie, when the explorer that everyone thought was lost forever in the jungle reappears!

I must be getting old and sentimental, because Racing's post about 10 years' labour (no pun intended) to have a baby and then sitting at the table to make Christmas cards has made me go all wibbly. And three cheers for UniS's neighbourly neighbours and commiserations and arnica for the Fine Lad with his broken nose.

I think we should have an impromptu party. To add to the feast already on offer, here are some olives, some cracked black pepper crisps, some crudites and some lemon and coriander houmous. And some very very good Veuve Clicquot.