Tea Room the Thirteenth

[amberlight]

Welcome to the newest instalment of the One Parent Families tea room. As it's heading for spring, we're now in a nice warm orangery surrounded by woodland filled with spring flowers. All are very welcome to join in with us parents of one (or indeed more!), the tea room gardener/handyman Mellors, various virtual Bishops (don't ask) and a variety of other characters from previous tea rooms. Grab a cuppa, relax!...

That sounds yummy, Mary. Thank you.

The cut sounds very awkward. Hope you're getting some real life TLC.

A little tomato salad to go with the cheese on toast?

No, don't think it needs stitching, but I need to be careful I don't open it up again!

StillCrazy, now I know who to palm off give all the plants that my parents give me. They love to grow stuff, and dad is the king of the buy one, get three free on bulb offers, but aren't that bothered these days about planting tubs/baskets etc. They seem to hope that I will wish to do so, just by force of keeping on giving them to me. Apparently this year I will be growing potatos in a barrel

What a nasty place to cut Mary, and so hard to keep together.

I just tried to go swimming at a further away pool that is apparently nice. We got most of the way there, and DS fell so firmly asleep that I turned round and came home. He is still asleep.

Yup. Box 'em up and send them to me. Have they really given you a barrel of potatoes, Cmot?

We spent this afternoon failing to buy some new bedroom furniture. Our new mattress arrived today, yippee, and I hadn't appreciated until it got here that it's a lot deeper than the old one. Being, ahem, vertically challenged, I will now need a springboard to get into bed.

I have here a rather cheeky French rose (that's a pink wine rather than a thorny garden plant). Would anyone like a glass?

Apparently it is waiting there for me. Along with a blueberry plant in a tub, two strawberries and other stuff. Last year, I made the mistake of keeping a strawberry plant alive and saying that DS enjoyed picking the strawberries to eat - so, obviously I need a whole grow your own garden.

We managed a very swift purchase of some bedroom furniture yesterday - DH found a recommended online retailer, we looked and purchased incredibly quickly for us. So, DS's baby furniture will all be gone soon. Wah !

A glass of rose would be lovely. I have just constructed some chicken maki rolls in RL, so they should go nicely

If Crazy doesn't want the excess plants, send them down to ChateauRacing. You sound a tad ... antiplant, CMOT?

Tea, so glad Lola was a succes.

Daisy, wasted many minutes trying to work out your identity, then realised that I am totally sad and can name no celebrity of any kind, so will just enjoy knowing you as Daisy. I think, fwiw, that one always feels one doesn't have time to enjoy children. It's so precious and changes so fast ....

Yesterday Wriggle and I went hunting for weasels. She wanted to collect a bucketful to keep as pets and was planning to feed them on footprints. We made ever so many footprints in the mud but didn't manage to attract a single weasel ...

Barrel of spuds- ohh, lucky you. I'm thinking of where I can get cheap ( free) sacks/ bins etc to grow spuds in this year. That way I can move them when teh time comes.

Went to look at new house today. Still like it fortunately. Garden will be big enough for a fruit cage, and a veg plot, and some grass. Already has a shed and a greenhouse.
So I'll start broad beans, courgettes and garlic on windowsills here, all to be moved into new quarters when time comes.

I'm not antiplant as such, it's just that I really don't have time for them, and when I'm away, DH has even less time to remember to water them, so things just end up dead.

It may also be reactionary - my grandparents were fantastic gardeners (they lived in Weymouth, so lovely climate for it), mum and dad used to grow plants commercially and have been self sufficient in fruit and veg for many years, and my brother is a keen gardener too.

I love the weasels eating footprints. For most of today DS was a kitten, apart from in the bath when he was a baby shark. I was a mummy whale

Sounds like a nice big garden Unis - is there enough room for all your bikes ?

LOL at weasels too. Boy wants to make a mermaid costume tomorrow, with a tail, blue body and white mask... AND he now wants a star shaped birthday cake with starfish people on it.

House to Be (HtB) has a garage that will fit all the bikes AND a workbench. garden stuff will be stashed in shed.

Daisy- I think you ARE dave the trucker and all this talk of nets is just a ruse.

UniS - I have fruit cage envy. I may start seed sowing on Tuesday.

My greatest mothering moment was making CrazyGirl a mermaid skirt, complete with jewels and shells.

Don't forget, by the way, that Daisy is HRH Dave, the Royal Trucker.

Did you know there's a group on FB for people who know someone called Dave? Perhaps we should ALL join!

Not keen on rose, but will happily indulge in whatever else is going...

Very impressed with mermaid skirt.

The weasels were to be gentle weasels only. The kind that give guinea pigs kisses. How sinister does that sound?

A fruit cage is something I covet. Never had one, just netting on sticks over the strawberries in last garden.

GP kissing weasels! now that's quite an image to take to bed.

I'm hoping to get away with a mermaid tail shape tacked onto the back of a blue T-shirt. and get boy to decorate his own mask, I'm sure I've some glittery stuff in the crafty cupboard.

Its general synod next week, so I wonder if the bishops will be home or away.

Just a quick note from the House of Plague... we all had the norovirus last week. I think I posted about Jackbaby having it. I felt ok Thursday morning and so went to work... and promptly had to leave an hour later and cancel a full day of patients . Grrrr. Cue eight hours of complete misery, followed by another 24 hours of body aches but no more D&V. DH came down with it Friday afternoon, poor man. I did go to work today and he stayed home with JB - which I'm sure was hard on both - but I will say that if I felt I'd had any choice at all, I'd rather have stayed home!

Good grief JM, really sounds like you went through it! Would you like some strength-building hot soup?

JM, eeek - you definitely need the lie down on the distressed sofa and a restoring soup from Mary.

UniS, the Bishops were last seen packing their 15cm of paperwork and their speedos, and examining their train tickets, so I expect that they're off until Friday evening .

Just done almost an hours' walk with the dog. I will pay a heavy penalty for that later in terms of creakiness, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Which is more than I can say for my enjoyment of ds, who was out at a party all night last night and 'forgot' to phone us to let us know he'd gone straight on to drama rehearsals. Arrghh.

Typical - missed a very busy weekend in the tearoom and didn't manage to send out any not very cryptic messages for anyone wanting to go to a concert in London.... Never mind. Concert went well, apart from the 2nd horn and 2nd double bass both being, clearly, desperate to get the concert finished so that they can get to the pub, so some bits went faster than certain sections (Ok, most, including the conductor) of the orchestra really wanted... sounds and but probably most people in the audience wouldn't have noticed!

I'm also feeling a bit about this year so far. When dh gets a job things will, hopefully, return to a slightly more even keel. I do hope so at least.

And I'm not going to speculate who is who in RL - I'm quite happy getting on with all of you in the tearoom and that's all that really matters here isn't it!

I don't know how many horses I've ridden - certainly lots. I did quite impress the riding holiday people once - I was on the 2nd fastest pony in the stable (instructor on fastest) - and out on a 1/2 day ride with more people than just the ones on the full week's holiday. Another pony thought that she should be 2nd rather than mine - and kept on bumping into me - despite her rider being asked by the instructor not to let her do it... Ponies all knew the various rides (and what speed they did where) intimately. Coming up for a canter (fast, working canter!!!) my pony got barged again - and took off with the other one following - every time I managed to get her to slow down the other one started catching up and she got going again, but I did manage to pull her up. Instructor was truly that I'd managed to pull her up and trotted back to where the rest of the ride was waiting .

Oh - then there was the pony I borrowed from someone in the village who would shy at nothing and go a good 2 - 3 m one way or other with no warning when up on the downs... Then there was the highland mare that I had on half-lease who decided that she wanted to run off with me so stuck her head up in the air and got going - I had no way of getting her head in as it was 'in line' with her neck, and I was having to try to steer on a rutted track which was more worrying - but she gave up (I think she heard the laughing at the complete ridiculousness of the situation given that she wasn't looking and was supposedly carting me off but I was still doing the steering!). But I never took the ex racehorse onto grass.... I think I might have been taken for a real run then - and she was ridden only in leathers that was no fun at all.

Can I have a glass of something kept cool for when I return from my choir rehearsal?

Racing ha ha! My reference to Blast Nets was, as StillCrazy so rightly remembers, a sorry joke reference to my earlier "outing" myself (in about TeaRoom 3) as the Queen.

In RL I have no nets, be they tennis, blast, fruit or otherwise

I am loving the idea of Weasels eating footprints and giving tiny kisses to Guineas. Bless that Wriggle. Have you any results from the Education peops yet?

Poor JM get better soon

UniS I cannot garden to save my life, but feel I ought to and envy the Fruit Cages too.

Mistle glad weekend concert was good if speedy, indeed, I raise my glass of Rose to hoping your 2010 goes well

Amber can you physically not ride any longer, or just not have time? Your DS sounds like Pip from the Archers

Looking forward to hearing about mermaid costumes, StillCrazy has raised a high bar!

CMOT Grr re Praise Grabbing American. I can see her now, all flicky hair and lip gloss....

Love Dave Daisy

Any Bolly left?

SC - do you want to share a bottle with me????

I'll have some too please!

Twiglet anyone?

Hello all (and Davie boy obviously )

Nothing much happening here; Kittenito's op has been posponed yet again due to him having a nasty reaction to the swine flu vaccine (not quite as nasty as me, though... he got a cold, I got that and then bronchitis . But that's the best way round in my opinion. I do being ill with so much less fuss.

I hope JM, Jackbaby and Jackhusband are all doing a bit better. D and V is the worst.

Sorry no gardening nor horsey experience here. It sounds some how very British though and comforting to read.

Fab!

And, look, we have another plate/bowl/bucket full of Twiglet Surprise. But as I don't have the stamina of Amber's Fine Lad, I must away to bed soon.

oh Hello Catita come share a glass with me!

Lovely to see you after a bit of a break and missing each other timewise

how is Gatita? Poor Kittenito, it is pained by delayed op or unbothered?

Nasty reaction Catita! I hope you're all feeling better soon (and best wishes to JM and family too - sorry, didn't mean to miss you out). My allergy reappointment has now been put off until May in the hope that I've not got a cold/cough at that time....

I should also be in bed....