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!

RS - sadly we dont get long summer evenings in Australia, like you have in the UK. The latest it gets dark is about 8:30pm if you're very very lucky.

So, we arrived about 7:45pm and it was still daylight but not for long! They switch the lights on at 7:30pm. We stayed until about 9:15, which was about long enough to get around everything and miniT fell asleep in the car on the way home. So fast asleep that for the first time ever I managed a nappy change and into jammies without waking him!

TW, you won't believe this, but mistlechick's bedtime is before 7pm every night at the moment. But it is good when you can wrestle a sleeping child out of their car seat into your arms (usually a little movement from them to snuggle into your shoulder at that point) and get them in asleep. We still sometimes drive to places quite late at night with mistlechick in is pjs but manage a wee before putting him down - largely still in his sleep I think !

Tea: I can make allowances for grandparents doing some spoiling. However, my parents manage to have him to stay and he generally is required to behave properly, any potential tantrums are swept away and ignored and he comes home having had a fantastic time, but not being too tired and having eaten the 'proper' food that was put in front of him. MiL has him and he goes to bed 90mins too late regularly, gets away with being stroppy, gets things bought for him becuase he asks, and gets fed food I don't think is appropriate for a still small child... That being said, we did let MiL take him for a few days at half term on his own, much to her great delight!

JM - leg sounds horrible. Definitely worth ringing the Dr about.

Worried about books, having had parcels disappear on the way to France before, and having one delivered sans expensive DVD but still with biscuits enclosed. Indignant on behalf of perfectly good Scottich shortbread - why didn't they purloin that too??

It's somehow rather disparaging to have something scorned for theft isn't it ? When we were burgled, they took our camera out of it's case and left it. Not good enough for them apparently.

Break open the bolly, I've been given the all clear

CMOTD, yes it is - when I was burgled years ago, I only possessed 3 CDs - they took 2 and left the Notting HillBillies (can't imagine why!)

Mary, HURRAH!!!
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Bolly all round - that's great news, and means you aren't worrying over Christmas. Have a manly punch in the shoulder as well, and some ferrero rocher (or whatever chocolate floats your boat)

Not Ferrero Rocher, not a fan of those... belgian truffles will do me though

I had a friend at uni whose car was stolen... and abandoned about 100yds down the road!

Hurray Mary ! Great to hear that. I seem to have some rather nice truffles here ... (remembers that she hasn't bought Cmotdad his annual box of cherry brandy chocolates, and does online order)

I like the Notting Hillbillies. Am also reminded of the time someone broke into mums car and stole the bag of sugar that was in there - nothing else. Since it didn't even have a radio, I don't know why they bothered

perhaps they thought it was cocaine, CMOTD!

Excellent news, Mary!

I loved the Notting Hillbillies too, so this is for anyone who is feeling nostalgic for the 80s

dont get me wrong, I love them too - otherwise I wouldn't have had the album (along with at least 3 Dire Straits albums now) - but they weren't exactly the height of cool wiv da yoof of the early 1990s.
(can't play the link, miniT asleep, tis past midnight here)

Yes, I was just agreeing that your burglars (who, in line with Ministry of Justice statistics, were probably 15 years old) had poor taste in music. Luckily for you, as I suppose leaving you 1 CD was a very small mercy!

well, assuming that the burglars weren't caught I can delete at least 2 suspects from the list

HURRAH!!! for Mary. Actually I was given a RL bottle of Bolly today! And I thought of you all!

Couple of years ago my sister lost loads of christmas post. Turns out the PO were dumping placing the full postal sacks on the steet at about 4am ready for the delivery chap to collect at 8am and deliver it was meant to save time
I guess it did because he only had about half his post left when he turned up

Went to look for a boy sized tree as that would fit on the heath/ fireplace. But only had choice of 5ft plus or 2 ft pot grown, so bought pot grown and will stick it on a box!
No local tree farms and didn't think it justified a 40 mile car trip to forestry commission shop.

Kirsty? doing the Tea room decs, why? Is she a denizen of the tea room? Is she the one that's bought a place in north devon and doing homemade decs for a TV show? IF so...... I have a tale to tell.

I though Mellors and teh NMBs were doing a fab job with paper chains and evergreens. add a few candles and it's going to small fantastic and be a major fire risk, whats to not like?
Amber might need to do us another sign I suppose but can't we live dangerously in cyberspace?

boy currently shouting and sobbing in his bed, because mean mummy is insisting on his having a rest BEFORE we decorate Christmas tree. AND I've threatened to get back in car and return tree to shop if he comes down stairs.

actually, after 20 mins hes got past teh sobbing and is just shouting and singing christmas songs. NOT resting. What he doesn;t know is that I keep re-setting teh oven timer, so it won;t ping til he has had at least 20 mins fairly quiet.

Amber just likes doing signs. I don't think anyone has to read them or take any notice of them

Daisy, do tell the tale re Kirsty!

Boy managed to get himself into town with his rugby mates, with no wallet, no house keys, and no watch. At least he had the common sense to take his phone! Had to drive all the way through the hellish Friday logjam to pick him up. Grr. Need tea. Lots.

Mary, absolutely brilliant news!

Here's tea, Amber
I too would like UniS Kirsty story

I'd like to hear the story too...

welll.... it seems she bought a house...a charming house, did it up and made it worth a load more than it was worth.... and the next door house is a house of ill repute.

I have had such an annoying day! Finally had the meeting with my HT and the teacher who wants to go part time (the issue over which I nearly lost my job), where we were going to discuss which parts of the curriculum I was going to teach. Note the word 'discuss'. The meeting has been put off twice already, as other teacher didn't turn up. When she finally arrived, only 10 mins late, she came in already talking: "I have decided what Racing will be doing. She will teach spreadsheets and I want her to...." And on she went.

I have been given my orders.

However, to speak of nicer things, Mary went very well. We looked at the story of Mary and then at the list of her RC titles (I am a bit RC myself) such as Queen of Heaven and Eternal Rose, then the children painted portraits of Mary with

Which may be why its currently available to rent as a holiday cottage.

symbols to show which title they had chosen and added gilded borders with lots of gold glitter. We listened to different versions of Ave Maria (was going to have the Magnificat as well but ran out of time to organise) and some children chose to write the story of the Nativity from Mary's point of view. They were boys(!) and all started "I was just making a fish pie with mum when this angel ..." Other groups of children chose to make powerpoint presentations about the story of Mary. I particularly like the one that ended 'Then Mary and Joseph and Jesus all lived happily ever after.' Maybe they haven't completely grasped the whole story! But we made a fantastic display. I asked for cards to make a collage of Mary but only got four, so we just put them in the display.

some x posting there, I think!

The other teacher sounds a bit of a cow tbh. The Mary lesson oth, sounds lovely.

DH used to live in a house next door to one of ill repute. As poor students, it was considered a very good move as a) their heating was always on so made their house warm b) they had good security which put people off burgling the houses either side, and c) it provided entertainment watching men slinking in. I don't suppose this applies to chi-chi houses in Devon tho

I need some emergency Bolly too please.
for you RS.

for me. My parents decided that trying to come to us for Christmas was just not going to work. No new answers re my stepdad, but it's not worth counting on him being able to travel. So... Jack and I will probably go to Toronto for a bit after Christmas. DH might even come, we'll see.

Well, I think I've gotten my leg on the road to mending. Very strange - I rang the GP about the culture and apparently it came back as "no growth". Eh???? So I asked GP what to do - keep taking antibiotics or not? She said she honestly didn't know what to advise me - she'd never encountered a yellow gooey wound that hadn't grown Staph. aureus in it... but she said if the antibiotics weren't bothering my tum or giving me thrush, would I mind continuing them so as not to breed a further batch of penicillin-resistant Staph? That sounded like a good idea to me, so I agreed. GP then said she could send the community nurse to me to (gasp) debride the cut. Meaning, try to numb it as well as possible with EMLA and then scrub the goo out with a debridement brush until healthy tissue shows (ie until it bleeds, gah). I said that was stupid - I could do it myself.
Her reaction was predictable - "this from the woman who thought taping a Lysol antibacterial wipe to her leg was a good idea". Fair enough. But then she said, ok, if I thought I could... so that was my morning. Fun, eh? It does look much better now. i do prefer the look even of raw flesh over yellow go [eeeeeewwwww].

Hands JM a bolly laced with vodka for necessity....

Mary - so pleased to hear the news!!! Hands another bolly about.

RS - sorry to hear about your meeting - are there any good bits to come out of it? I hope that the fact that there is another pt teacher is at least positive. And the lesson sounds really interesting and creative - mistlechick hasn't really got round to talking about Mary apart from being Mary and Joseph, Jesus's parents...

Still coughing and wheezing, but feel marginally better than I did yesterday (which isn't saying much, but is hopeful)