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!

CMOT - yes, find out now. Or else we'll be having an AIBU thread about it in the New Year (I really am kidding, I know you're not like that.)

Thumb, YANBU on wanting less of MIL. I sort of know what you mean about too many people in the relationship. DH is very attached to him, which is lovely, and she is lovely and kind and generous and does not intrude... but he talks to her at least once a day (not exaggerating, honest) and I sometimes feel like saying "did you recount every last cold symptom to your mum now because you know --she will listen and I won't because I am an unsympathetic cow"

My stepdad is in hospital this morning having tests. Mum just texted to say they just took him in a room to have the catheter removed and have a cystoscopy one. (Tube up the you-know-what to see the inside of the bladder.) Thank goodness he will be sedated. I can't imagine it's pleasant.

Leg is much better, thank you all for the good thoughts. Still looking very owie but in a healthy way if you know what I mean.

Mistle, I really hope you're feeling better. Coughing until you're sick, gah!!

xx's to everyone and if I have (as usual) forgotten anyone who is suffering or having a bad day, apologies - here, have some Bolly and chocolate chip cookies (made with Callebaut milk chocolate chunks, hand-chopped by yours truly).

DH is very attached to her... MIL, I mean - oops!

Hey, we have Christmas smilies!

Thanks for the tip but relieved that DH does not have over 3 symptoms.

However lovely MIL is, you all need space. Good heavens - you even need space from DH. (Said with feeling as Christmas holidays are about to start.)

Hope Mistle is getting better, having drunk hot possets and various lichen bark concoctions brewed up by Mellors.

Horrified but relieved about leg, JM.

MadBad, where did you go in France? And did you (whispers) go in term time? If only ...

Daisy, am just rushing off to see if the thermals I clicked on were made of cotton . Googling merino wool, so thank you all.

Amber, how kind of you to be checking the labels in Mellors' thermals ... Did you know he is still in them?

Also rather like Uni's Christmad - we have five Christmas parties and one birthday part in the next six days.

I will email and find out - I can't send them a real christmas card, so have to do an e card as the sale of their houses and purchase of new one isn't tying up so they are staying with different friends for a while. DH has said that we won't go if DS isn't invited as we would have to pay someone to have him - but thats a whole new dimension to the whole thing

The cystoscopy is yukky rather than actually painful as I understand it (having watched lots but had none) as the cystoscope isn't much bigger than a regular catheter.

Hello everyone. I seem to have a French lurgy (like a British lurgy but wearing a beret and smoking a Gauloise) so will just sit here quietly on the sofa.

Cmot - Yes, I think you need to establish the parameters of the invitation and then plan accordingly. I once contributed to an AIBU .... children .... weddings thread. Never again. From now on, I am strictly .

Racing - We went to Flanders. Would have gone to Lille for the Christmas market but the roads in were closed because of a firearms incident (how very like life in the London Borough of Grunge) so we went to the hypermarche instead. And obviously this was in term time but with no time off school, as the LBOG does not tolerate such things.

I'm restricted to Badoit at the mo, but would anyone like a glass of the Veuve?

So sorry, Mellors. Have to check to make sure they're not flammable, y'know, so we can add them to the Fire Safety Checklist for the tea room. Er, not literally add them... nooooo! Put them back on, man!! You'll catch your death of cold!

JM, hope your stepdad's ok...and good news that the leg's a bit better too.

MT, have you survived your day??

Bolly/drink of your choice available to all.
Today, an access audit in splendid cathedral buildings - really lovely just driving there and back listening to a bit of wild music.

Morning all! Since my RL breakfast consisted of potatoes and cabbage (!) I am busy assembling a gourmet selection in the tea room; pancakes with maple syrup, croissants, pains au chocolat, toast and marmite and, as a gesture to our location, smoked reindeer bacon.

Wriggle up all night, wee'd all over me twice and now flat out. I need to go and do some washing and locate the tea-room mop.

Finally got Wriggle up and dressed, having spent useful time sorting out bills to discover that Tiscali feels that 'due to the number of calls we are receiving, we are unable to answer the phone.'. Off out into the cold to fume.

Ha Ha! DaisyBoy sat on my lap and weed this morning too Racing! How jolly

Thanks for the pancakes and maple syrup just the job

Lol at your Gauloise smoking lurgy MadBAd but hope you're ok

Not popular enough to have 100s of parties to go to [cwink] going to carols this weekend though [cgrin]

Thumb, you ANBU re MIL. Sensible to my mind

CMOT - ask now, fume, cope, resolve - all in plenty of time before the big day!

Commiserations to anyone who has recently been weed on. 'Tis not very amusing, as I remember.

I forgot to add my contribution to the AIBU re my MIL thread within a thread. I think a little distance - physical and psychological - is a good thing. I am always a little about people who ring their parents every day, serious illness or other urgent issues notwithstanding. It's never comfortable to think that there are three people in the relationship.

Hot chocolate and a superb French meringue, anyone?

Thank you for all agreeing with me!
MIL didn't come round today, she told DH she has a cold. I hope (in a bizarrely twisted way) that she's not telling fibs to avoid coming here. Tomorrow she has work so won't come then either - perhaps she is psychic! Oooo-err

Sorry to hear of French lurgies - does it make you cough differently?

Oh dear to all weed-upon people - not good. miniThumb hasn't done it for a while, but he has previous form - he's now taken to mostly weeing on the floor in the bathroom, or poolside - he thinks it's hysterical (And of course so does Daddy )

RS - I alwasy get this sort of image in my mind whenever I phone a "currently experiencing a high level of calls" phoneline - about 3 people sitting around variously filing nails, picking toenails, reading latest issue of Heat/Nuts, drinking coffee and gossiping, while all the phones are going mad and their switchboard screens are flashing like Christmas lights. Am probably wrong, but it feels like that's what's happening!

Not good on the being weed on front today then !

The meringues are exquisite MadBad

Yes please for hot meringues and superb chocolate

Jackbaby prefers to wee on the bathroom floor, too - but I don't think he understands what's happening so in only bemused rather than amused . Doesn't really bother me either, as it's only clear non-smelly toddler wee .

Leg keeps improving... but I have to say it looks rather like a war zone!! Considering it started as a half-centimetre gouge.

News re stepdad - the cystoscopy didn't really show anything alarming. Apparently there was some tissue in the bladder but no idea where it came from, so the kidneys have to investigated. Which means a CT scan. Which means who knows how long that will take. My poor mum was sort of at the end of her rope yesterday because of course she's been putting up a strong front for DSD. So I asked her what would be so bad about her falling apart on him for a change - make him grow a pair of emotional balls, so to speak, which he hasn't had to because she's always the strong one. She actually agreed . Which is good.

I'm stealing time from work so should get back to it.

To complete the day of wee, DS had his trampette taken away for picking at the foam under the cover. So he took himself off, crawled under a chair, arranged himself on the stretcher bar, and deliberatly wee'd on the carpet.

He wasn't impressed to be marched to bed (it was the earlier of his bedtimes, so not early, but not getting to 'stay up'), and to be told that his hotel chances had all gone. He now needs to earn them back over the next two days

Good news on the cysto JM, heres crossed fingers for the CT

Glad to see that Mellors is swabbing away at the tidal wave of 'non-smelly toddler wee' which is threatening to float the tea room.

Off for an early(ish) night (I hope) before tomorrows annual 'Thank the PTA for all their help over the year by humiliating the teachers in a dance routine' ritual.

Now just what has that to do with a group of Judeans who believe they saw a special baby being born at an unspecified time of year??

Hey, come back, there's some explaining to do here!

Three cheers for Mellors! I am at Cmottiddler's weeing as a weapon of carpet destruction (and secretly and shamefully impressed at such criminal cunning).

Racing - for whom do you have to perform this dance routine? Is this the school panto?

Jacksmama - Great news about your leg and your dsd. Fingers crossed for the next stage.

Thumb - Do you have your own pool?

The sun has been over the yardarm for hours, so would anyone care for une petite verre de Veuve Cliquot?

Go on then Ted

When questioned, he stated that as he was upset at DH taking his trampoline away, he wanted to make us upset . I sometimes do wonder what I have done, bringing a miniDH into the world...

I believe you'll find that the wise men did a bit of a dance off in the stable Racing

Hmm. As I said, a potential criminal genius, but I'm sure he can channel that kind of thinking in more positive directions!

Ahh, yes, sorry, we do have our own pool - it was already here though, we didn't put it in. I don't talk much about it because it seems so braggy and I don't want to be.

CMOTD - the Tiddler's behaviour is quite impressiely cunning, as MadBad said - has he shown other evidence of this?

RS - enjoy the Christmas dance - see if you can't show up the PTA by being actually quite good

JM - good(ish) news re DSF and I hope your Mum takes your advice. Good news about your leg - my leg is nearly better now but the really manky part keeps skinning, even though it is technically "healed" - it gets all itchy after a while and then a clear layer of quite tough skin comes off and it's ok again for a bit. Not quite sure what's going on there but I expect it'll stop soon.

I have a doctor's appt next Tuesday - apparently it's fairly simple to join a surgery here, you just make an appt. Pretty sure I had to take ID and proof of address in the UK but it's a long time ago, so not sure.

no no, Thumb we love to hear of your pool

CMOT that is Tiddle cunning indeed. DaisyBoy just wees quite openly. Although today he did say the Monsters made him pull all the covers off the bed at bed time he is normally utterly guileless

RS have now a weird image of a sort of Strictly Come Dancing Judean People's Front evening going on. Oops. Here come MadBad and Mellors in their Catsuitandsparklesandspanglesandtango routine!

I'd love a pool- just that the weather here isn't really compatible with one - the PIL have one, and it never gets used now, although DH tells me happy stories of forced christmas swimming in his childhood.

DS has a vivid imagination, which is often charming, but occasionally used for evil. He just comes up with things to do that no one else thinks of - and alas, will tell the others at nursery about his cunning plans. The nursery staff currently feel that he will find his career in politics .

This morning he has earned a hotel chance back, and is determined to get a horse chance too. He was a Jaguar on the way to nursery, although DH and I were ponies

Nigellas christmas cupcakes for elevenses this morning if you fancy them ?

Fabulous cupcakes, Cmot!

I am resolutely on Cmottiddler's (never has a choice of name seemed more apt) future career.

Am at the concept of Strictly Come Dancing with the Popular Front of Judea - they're not dancers, they're just very naughty boys - but any excuse to don the old sequinned catsuit. Mellors does look so handsome in a spangly shirt slashed to the navel, don't you think?

should that be CMO Piddler these days? how is he today?

ahh, now I have read bit more, I see he is fine and being a car. situation normal then.

I've no idea what boy was being this morning, or where he is right now. BLISS. I booked him into childminder for teh morning with DH getting him up and to CM leaving me to sleep thank you very much. As I got home from work at 4am. buggers biulders next door started pnematic drilling at 9am tho, bah humbug. I hid under duvet with abook for another hour and have now had VERY leisurely getting up. BLISS.

Nearly ,unch time ladies, shall I pop on some soup and whip up a batch of lewd rolls? I see Mellors has obligingly started the dough rising for me. That spangled cat suit does seem rather fetching on his manly form daoesn;t it. NOT sure teh bishops should be copying his shimmy shimmy moves tho? looks like they are levitaing across teh cortyard as you can;t see the foot work under the cassocks.