Tea Room the Twelfth

[RacingSnake]

Come in, come in, to Tea Room the Twelfth! We now inhabit a rambling log cabin, surrounded by mysterious pine forests and mist-covered mountains (but also, strangely) easily accessible by regulars, new-comers and passing bishops, ferried in by Mellors driving the troika. All the usual rules apply and all are welcome!

Heavens above ! Why would she say such a thing ? Not as if Eccles is a scary dog by any means

tea, that's shocking!! What an evil old hag, surely that's illegal? Are you not allowed to have dogs in apartments in Paris then? Can't see what the police have to do with it, tbh.

And now for something completely different... I was just sitting here in the dark when something ran over my toes - I reached down to brush it away and came up with wet fingers (?) - sO of course then I had to see what was going on, turned on the light and there's a fecking COCKROACH on its back next to where I was sitting and the bloody thing has SHAT on me!!(sickface}

It's now dead.
Mortein rools (not as good as Raid but still works)

I feckin hate cockroaches.

Tea, she said what??! Oh my!

And cockroaches?

This calls for extra-strong tea and spicy soup with lewd rolls aplenty, I think.

Tea i would train your dog to poison the old lady give her a taste of her own medicine what an evil old bat!!

thumb i would have screamed the place down!! i HATE cockroaches!! they make my skin crawl

i have some healthy tuna with cracked black pepper and lime and dressed salad on offer today, calorie free thick hot choc and cream and some treacle tart and custard (to make up for the salad)

Cockroaches? Dog poisoners? Eek!

School decided to close at 2pm today, but only announced mid-morning, so parents who do not spend all day glued to the PC did not know. Ho hum.

Lots more snow today, but this is the end of it. Allegedly.

Hello all: I hope you are surviving the cold weather intact.

Tea . Keep your eye on Eccles, just in case "tasty" looking bones come his way.

Unis It's been nasty all week here. We were forcast snow/sleet on Friday, but happily it didn't happen here at least. On Saturday/Sunday we had frosts at night and 2/3 degrees in the day. Since Monday it has been raining. I am sick of being cold. But never mind, it can't last forever.

Thumb Poor you. Cochroaches and rats. It sounds pretty much like over here. My tips, for keeping them at bay are:

1. Airtight containers for all food. Anything that can be, store in the fridge.
2. Don't leave washing up undone. It's a pita, but dirty washing up is like a magnet.
3. Don't walk around bearfooted. Standing on cochroach with bare feet is not a pleasent experience.

Has anyone seen JM recently? I hope her FIL is Ok.

Bare footed even. Although, with bears on your feet, I would imagine that all wildlife would give you a wide berth

Had to smile at Cat and her 2 or 3 degrees. DH came home today and commented on how warm it was in the city being as it was 4 degrees today, and it was still 2 degrees up here when he got home. It has felt warm compared to last weeks -6.

Yes please to a little late tea of lewd rolls, tuna salad and treacle tart. I'm topping mine ( the tart, not salad) with clotted cream, any one else want some?

Snow is melting fast, but not as fast as in city. I was still able to tow boy 2/3 of way home from a friend at other end of village. I could have got the sledge further, but it was up hill from then on, so boy had to walk. Our school went in at 10 today, which I think was good call by Head. Only a few parents daft enough to use the steep shaded twisty road down into village from east ( instead of straight, catches the sun but still steep road from west) had prangs, someone hit a wall ,another a car and I saw a very near miss as well.

Tea, on what grounds???? Have you got a ban on dogs? If not, can you threaten to go to the police in a pre-emptive way? I'm sure poisoning dogs is illegal, then it would be 'If anything happens to my dog they'll know who to come to'? Or alternatively try and sit down with her and find out what her objection is? Or with a family member if they visit her?

Have to admit I am not brave enough to try any of the above suggestions.

Mistle, I think granny annexes and garages are rather beneath your expertise. I just have no clue where to start, never having contemplated anything like this before. Do you think a chat with a friendly planning officer is really the way forward? Would that be expensive? Are they friendly?

FWIW Racing, my friend was thinking about buying a house, but would have wanted to extend it (weird layout, crying out for garden room). She was able to have a free meeting with the planning officer who was able to tell her pretty much exactly what they would or wouldn't give permission to do. Which wasn't what they wanted, so didn't buy.

Call the planning office and chat to them - they might say that they'd need to see plans first to be more sure, but should be able to tell you if it would be a total no no I'm sure

OK, will put that quite high on my list of things to do.

RS. First thing to do is to look at the current planning rules that are in place. This is a bit complicated at the moment as a 'new' planning regime is coming in (Local Development Frameworks) instead of the old Local Plans. In most places, the Local Plans are the things to look at, but you also need to check what bits of the Local Development Framework have been 'adopted' - if its been adopted it supercedes the Local Plan policies (I hope that makes sense - this whole review is meant to make it easier for the general public to 'access' planning, but now there are about 10 documents instead of just one to look at)

There are two bits: there should be a 'Proposals Map' - you should be able to find your house on that - the bit that is important is to work out whether its just in a countryside area, or whether there are any other 'allocations' that cover it. Also check that the house is not part of a village or hamlet - might be a line around it...

2nd there should be policies which set out how a proposal on land such as your garage site should be approached. There might be quite a lot of detail or not (depends on the authority!).

Yes, planning officers should agree to meet with you to discuss what you might want to do and this should be free. However, its always better having some idea of what they are going to be looking at!

But, no, such proposals aren't 'below me' !!! I had an appeal last year where someone had been refused permission for a modest 1st floor extension on their rather unnattractive house... And another one where the Planning Officers decided that, despite there being a 90 house housing estate being built on the 'open' side and development on the other 3 sides, and the emerging local plan showing the housing estate coming into the village, a small site for 3 houses was 'in the open countryside' - won both of those!!!

Wow - that sounds complicated! Will copy and paste this and work through it in little stages after I finish my schoolwork every night. Funny how 'simplifying' things leads to impenetrability, isn't it? Thank you so much!

Now, who can sort out small dog and cynophobic neighbour? [showing off by using google emoticon]

Catita, my MIL is complaining about the cold in the South of France - 7 or 8 degrees by day! All reletive!

Thanks Catita - the washing up is the problem in this house, despite MrThumb knowing what you say is true. I know I should do it if he doesn't but he basically sits on his bum after dinner and does nothing - I have to do miniThumb's bedtime routine and then go to bed with him to get him to sleep. All MrThumb does is go to bed. So - all the washing up from the day is done, but the dinner cooking stuff is frequently left (not the plates, they go into the dishwasher). Having said that, the only cockroaches I have seen have not been in the kitchen!

(at being so impressed by MT's knowledge... what a very grown up and serious job you have my dear!)

On the side - RS - YES we are allowed dogs in the building but having experienced Madameelderlyneighbour's outbursts before I do feel her bark is worse than her bite (I am hoping it still is).

MrThumb sits on his bum
and helps not from morning 'till late?!
I'd be looking to do little cooking
and put nothing upon the man's plate!

And that's all the rhymes you'll have to put up with today....

Morning all.
MT, agree with you re the LDPs etc - I think our new local one has about 140 pages of indecipherable squiggle to it in one section alone. We had to stop an experienced developer hyperventilating yesterday because he hadn't a clue what it meant.

Amber - I agree! At least the 'old' system had ALL of the information in a single document, or that document would refer to other 'guidance' which didn't have the same statutory 'weight'. You now need to know your way around the planning system to be able to work out where the information you're trying to find out might be... will it be the Core Strategy, the Allocations, the Developer Contributions etc etc etc....

RS - does sound complicated, but, based on your contributions to the tearoom, once you sit down and work out which documents they have, I'm sure you'll have no problem. And its always better to go to meetings with Planning Officers with a good idea of what you think you can do according to their policies and get confirmation of that. There are also something called 'permitted development rights' so that some level of extensions is 'deemed' to have planning permission, just need building regs - might not help you with your requirements though.

Anyway - you both now know where to come for friendly planning advice!!!!!!

Ah yes, there's always a need for friendly Planning! Thanks!

I misread that as family planning

Time for a belated coffee and breakfast I think!

I'll have a coffee with you Mary. Do you want one of these cinnamon danish pastries? I've managed to find some at the bottom of the pile that don't have small footprints in the glaze.... I do hope that the NMBs will do a bit more cleaning up - they seem to be having fun with their tiny mops rather than getting rid of the sticky footprints. Mop gymkhanas are quite fun to watch....

I remember galloping around on a mop! Boy, can those mops whinney!

A danish pastry would be wonderful thanks! I am currently trying to write a sermon for Sunday, its all about everyone using the gifts they have been given, and hopefully encouraging a few more people to take part in what we do in church (because I'm knackered and could do with a rest! )

love the rhyme amber, although I feel it does (thanks to my lack of info) malign MrThumb a tad! He is a lark - works only in the mornings, 5pm is too late to do anything housey, but he does cook dinner most nights. However, before everyone gets on my case about it being fairer for me to do the washing up if he cooks, yes it would be IF he took over looking after miniThumb while I do it - but I usually have a very determined 2yo pushing my legs away from the sink and making me come and sit with him after dinner (he's frighteningly strong!) while MrThumb just sits in the armchair and lets it happen. Occasionally there will be the lackadaisical shout "miniThumb" but nothing actually happens.

Absolutely nothing concrete or helpful to suggest to Thumb, but just to let you know I am thinking sympathetic thoughts. I don't suppose 'learn to love cockroaches' helps much - I never did when I lived in Spain, but I did manage to, almost 100%, with spiders, after reading a book by Gerald Durrell.

No idea why Mistle thinks I am competent in any way!

How about some totally uncool and non-U Bombay mix? Just what I feel like with my G&T waiting for M.Snake and WRiggle to get out of the bath - they have been there for an hour!!!!!! (And to think that he swore, when she was a baby, that he would never have a bath with her, because 'what would people think?')

Nursery have raised the concern with me that Wriggle 'finds using the computer mouse very difficult'. I'm sure she does - she's never seen one before. We feel, that especially until she has finally decided that she is a human being and not a cat/Dalmation/Bambi and will actually sit on a chair and not insist on living on top of the cupboard, it is not yet time to initiate her into the world of computers and computer games. Am I being a total Luddite?

Glad to find someone else who bathes with their child RS. DS and I spend ages in the bath - atm he likes to apply soap to me and use me as a 'super whizzy slide'. Other people don't seem to approve of us still having a bath together

DS can use a mouse well - partly as he likes to watch programmes on iPlayer, and got fed up of waiting for one of us to select them for him. He doesn't play any games tho, the only other thing he does is Reading Eggs.

Bombay mix and G&T sounds like a great combo

Taking things in reverse order .... No, Racing, you are not being a Luddite. All is not lost if a child hasn't mastered a computer mouse by the age of 4. And I am always rather at the "but they'll need computer skills when they're at work" argument. Well they might - although I doubt IT skills are top of the person specification for a ballerina or a gravedigger - but training for the world of work does not have to start at pre-school, methinks.

Amber, you are hereby appointed Poet Laureate of the tea room.

Thumb - MBBloke does the dinner and the washing up too, for very similar reasons dating back to the baby bathtime and bedtime supervision stage. So I feel solidarity.

Would anyone care for a glass of Bolly to accompany the delicious Bombay mix?