Tea Room the Fourteenth

[amberlight]

Welcome to the 14th instalment of the Tea Room. It's now officially spring, and we've moved the tea room to a Gipsy caravan pulled by the tea room horses, which is making its way up the countryside in an effort to follow spring. There are of course hedgerows filled with spring flowers, Mellors the handsome gardener/driver/handyperson, the usual virtual Bishops, and the assorted animals and characters from previous tea rooms. All are very welcome to join in with us parents of one (or indeed more!) for general chat and the occasional very odd conversation. Climb aboard, grab a cuppa, enjoy the view, relax!...

A furry antipodean bird is also in the cage. Note that the budgies are plastic (I think they are supposed to be budgie toys as they were in the pet shop in that bit and DS fell in love), and the Kiwi is purple and not very realistic. Don't ask me, I'm still trying to fathom DS's little world out..

I am worried that CMOT has plastic budgies and a very cold person from New Zealand in her house
Welcome DMC, you clearly fit in from the start. Sorry for boaking Gizmos and Not Puppy Love.

We had a wonderful Hound that we purchased when we thought DaisyBoy would never be. Sadly DaisyHound became very ill very young and is no longer with us... we love pups but have put off getting another until DaisyBoy can walk sufficiently for Dog Purposes.

If I remember rightly, Mistle and Amber and Tea are pro dog and actual dog owners. Racing and CMOT are on the cat front. T&E is a cat person but without can't remember any others... UniS may have a dog. She acts like a dog person

I am Daisy. I might be the Queen. I have a strong love of grape but also need to work tonight

The NMBs are small naked mowhawk babies who first arrived in the tearoom riding on teh back of carrots, thanks to Don't Call Me Baby. They stayed here and dress up and join in and are sometimes a bit naughty. It's obvious really

Racing is also a dog person, with a border collie x. And a cat person, and a guinea pig person, and a chicken person, and a quail person .. and so on.

What kind of dog is it you don't love?

T&E is head girl, but not the sort of head girl she doesn't want to be. This is, after all, the Tea Room of Requirement.

We have 2 cats, our 3rd died recently. If dh had his way we would have about 20. I am more a dog person and told dh that in fairness I should be allowed one!

Hope the dog love happens soon.

I will have a bottle of wine and some pistachio cake. Make that a whole cake. I am thinking of being naturist tomorrow, as it will make sick cleaning easier!

Welcome dmg, I'm new too!

Hello, DrivingMissCrazy!

I am T&E. And quite often D&D. I am not Head Girl but because I spend so much time here I am, it has just occurred to me, like Norm and Cliff in Cheers or Waldorf and Statler in the Muppets. The bishops have been around for several tea rooms now, as we used to be situated near a cathedral garden and they wandered in and never really left. The naked mohawk babies arrived on top of a cake and they too liked it so much that they never left. RacingPig is a guinea pig who lives in the horsehair of the distressed chintz sofa and sometimes entertains his lady friends there.

I am also a wizened old crone, although I have been cheered up by the thought that mothers-of-one are wittier than the average. Must be because we have so much more time to think up weak puns and feeble jokes, and polish our Wildean repartee, as we don't have to spend time adjudicating in disputes about who pulled Barbie's head off or who put Mummy's handbag in the dishwasher. (And for people who've been here a long time or want to hunt for ancient threads, this reminds me of the discussion when the one child topic was born about mothers-of-one wearing fascinators and Mary-Jane shoes).

Now, did someone mention wine?

Racing, how could I forget your dog? I think it is one of the less troublesome members of your household - you are always so exotic with your RacingPigs and things

Trowel you are Haed Girl in the nicest way. Now pass the Bolly

Daisy, dahling, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. And next time we have sent the caravan into the ditch through driving under the influence of Bolly, and we are sitting in that ditch waiting for Mellors to mend the axle and put on the spare wheel, let us remember that we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.

Here's the Bolly.

ha ha ha. I thought of that, but not the totally convoluted explanation of how we would reach such gutter

now, this is not doing my work time any good at all - the problem is merely by sitting at my desk on bank holiday I feel the full force of the unfairness of my situation and the virtue I am displaying sitting here instead of lolling on the sofa. Which means I have spent all night on MN instead of actually doing the blooming work and then lolling on the sofa.... and now I think it's too late for supper

I have made a list. It is always good to start with a list

I have put a couple of things on The List that I have already done. So now I can cross things off The List already that feels better

Is this then the time to mention that work is the curse of the drinking classes?

Seriously, I'm sorry I can't do anything to help. Although I could come round tomorrow to walk the corgis.

oh yes, please come and walk the corgis. One would like that hugely

we have a mouse in the house. I have to admit it. Since I have just watched it frolicking atop the piano. And it likes chocolate and crisps. It could be me - shall I try it on Bolly

What a coincidence. We had a mouse in the house recently. It ate my Green & Black chocolate. It met a quick and merciful death thanks to the snap-o-matic mouse trap. Maybe yours, Daisy, is a refugee from the rougher end of town, attracted by the bright lights and social cachet of SW1?

yes, I think it likes our fancy chocolate and of course we are too poncetastic caring to get a snap-o-matic. I have been reading reviews for humane traps. The reviews read about making teeny tiny beds for the mice - little short of leaving them out warm slippers and a bowl of gruel for the night....even I had a small titter

oh god, mice here as well - and they found my carefully hoarded G&B praline mini-eggs that I brought back with me from England (the only time I have ever been grateful that Tesco start stocking Easter eggs the minute Christmas is over ) Luckily only 2 eggs were affected but that's bad enough! THe mouse Has To Go.

I am not a dog person either - MrThumb is, and we're pretty sure miniThumb is too so no doubt I will be in Bergitte's posish soon enough. However, I have put my foot down re the breed - it's a whippet or nothing. I haven't told MrThumb all the reasons why - but one of them is that the whippet is as near a cat as a dog can get. (MrT doesn't like cats At All)

Welcome to DrivingMissCrazy! You'll fit in nicely by the sounds of it.

T&E - am most impressed that you still have the pic of the NMBs - I tried to find it through an internet search recently and came up with nada - must save it now.

Roslily - to hear of gizmo's sickness, not nice at all.

daisy - I am also in the position of having to Work all weekend - having compiles my 2 indexes, there are over 3000 entries between them and I can do between 70 and 100 an hour (of the authors' names, probably slower for the subject matter) so it's taking a BLOODY long time. And it's very boring.

Thankfully MrT and miniT are both over at MIL's because MrT's cousin and family are down for the weekend. miniT is having a great time with his 2nd cousin Max, who is 4m older than him; although there was an Incident yesterday that involved lots of blood - miniT's upper lip frenulum was busted right back and bled like a very bleeding thing. Twice. He was very sad. I didn't clean his teeth last night [bad mummy emoticon] because he was too sore - there's quite a hole up there where the lip meets the gum, poor little soul. Still, at least his hands and knees aren't shredded like Max's are after falling over on the oyster shells...

well, must crack on..

Just caught up with yesterday's offerings on this thread and have only just stopped laughing myself to tears. What are we like!!?

Welcome DMC!!

Morning all!

Daisy, mice who have the nerve to frolic on one's piano and scarf one's choc and crisps surely need a lesson in manners: Shall I lend you a virtual Mr B the AmberTerrier who does indeed live with us and has a talent for chasing mice out of properties where they are being too cheeky? (Though currently he's not talking to me as I woke up late and he had breakfast two hours over his usual time).

For those who are new to our tea room caravan, I am Amber, btw, and you may have already read from previous threads, live somewhere in the central south with one towering rugby-playing teenage ds, one dh who's madder than I am, & my dsis who moved in temporarily 15 years ago . Our family hairy horse, Mr T, doesn't live with us as he makes a terrible mess on the carpets. I'm on the autism spectrum, which will explain a lot. I'm also part of the LGBT community but it defies easy description to say exactly how (though am perfectly willing to try if asked and if it isn't too boring), and people including dh are very relaxed about it really.

People here tend to throw me a few statistical/car/mechanical magazines and a duvet occasionally when I get panicked and hide in the tea room priest hole, which works beautifully.

In RL I'm an autism adviser and self-employed as a business owner, and have a wonderful team of people working with me who make it all possible.

All perfectly normal, really...

Ooh, Amber. Is that some of your famous Soupe du Jour? I've just come in from an energetic digging session in the garden and could so with a hearty lunch.

Hello all! I'm just going to keep posting and assume that I will eventually work out who is who (thanks amber for your intriguingly cryptic introduction). I'm an academic in Eng Lit (but before you ask, what I actually do is very esoteric), and have lived in Dublin since 1994. DP and I together since about 1996 (so far back in the mists of time that neither of us can really remember ). I'm actually about to change my name back to what it was originally - I was on the TTC threads and I needed to put some distance between myself and them IYSWIM. New/old name is rhetorician

We had DD early in 2009 - DP carried, I assisted at key moments . Would have loved another, but we used a known donor (KD) who sees C every couple of months; in the meantime he has a new partner and isn't keen to donate again. TBH I can't really get to the bottom of why and that's very frustrating - they are both very young and perhaps his partner doesn't want to make this kind of commitment as a couple, which is what KD in his soppy romantic way seems to want. I have been very angry with him and have run the whole gamut of emotions really, but am starting to get to grips with it - we are lucky to have DD and he is not obliged to pony up some sperm just because we want him to. Like many of you I imagine, it's a situation that we can't change (we've told him how we feel) and we need to move on, for DD's sake, as well as ours. It's possible that he might change his mind, but can't for sanity's sake keep that hope alive - and DP is now 40, so time isn't on our side. I'm an only child too (as is my mum) and actually loved it - it never occurred to me that having a sibling to mess with your stuff was a good idea - until my father died when I was 8, and then things got very difficult, and I think would have been easier with a sibling around. OTOH, my mother was none too pleased when I came out, and I think would have cut me out of her life if there had been a 'normal' sibling to hand. Now I'm older I sometimes feel my lack of family, but also know that having lots of rellies is no bulwark against loneliness - DP has 5 siblings, at least 2 of which need continual support and input from the rest of us.

Do most of you come from large families yourselves? Do your DCs have lots of cousins? Despite DP's big family, DD only has one cousin - but she's 6 months older and lives across town. Also going to be an only, so we all hope they will be close growing up.

We had mice too - but in the winter. We cleaned and wiped and put all our food into sealed containers, and tried (but failed) to keep all the surfaces clear of edible detritus. We also trapped them - not humanely (DP's mum used to live in the country, used a humane trap - the mouse was called Henry and used to be let out, hang around outside for a bit, wait until something newly delicious was put in the trap and then come back again).

Have done our Saturday shop at the market, DD now asleep (not a very keen napper) so am going to take the chance to do a bit of work. T&E - are you growing veg? we're just about to lay a lawn for DD to muck about on - and have just acquired a new allotment - so much digging here. Hope you all have a good weekend - looking forward to getting to know you - sorry that was very long!

great biog there, DMC! (great name, why would you change it back? )

I am still hoping to have another, haven't given up yet despite age; but it might not happen. I had a bro and a sis and think I would have been happy without either but am not sure; you never know, do you! Am glad to have sis now, that's for sure. We had 2 cousins we rarely saw and a scattering of second and third cousins but not close to any of them, distance or emotionally.
miniT has cousins but mostly in England; but he has been playing with his second cousins this weekend as they are staying with MIL. Normally they live about 6h away, so not conducive to lots of visits.

We are going to have to poison the mice here - put it behind the kitchen units so miniThumb can't get at it. but has to be done.

Hi again, DrivingMissCrazy.

Just a brief horticultural bulletin before I go back out to the garden . We have an allotment and I am trying to start a few things off in the garden before taking them there. Some tomato seeds have just sprouted and I have a couple of pots of jerusalem artichokes on the go too. The garden is mostly for flowers as it's quite shady and so a little tricky for fruit and veg. But it does have some apple trees. (I am still in mourning for the apricot tree which succumbed last year ).

I come from quite a small family. Most of my cousins are only children, so there aren't many of us in my generation. I have one sibling. TrowelGirl has two cousins, one of whom will (I think and hope) be like a sister to her.

I feel no guilt about despatching the mice. Anyone who snaffles my Green and Black has it coming, I reckon. And it's illegal (says she, po-faced) to release vermin once you've trapped them.

Tea and a slice of shortbread, anyone?

DMC, blimey, that's quite a blow for you both. I'm guessing you'd considered asking another chap but discounted it as it makes it too complex etc etc so will ask nothing on that subject in case you have to resort to a large glass of something/use of the tea room box of tissues for sobbing into.

Supposed to have been writing a press article but dh and I sneaked off to the cinema instad

Yes, soup du jour, made with real jours.

Almost wine o'clock!

Wow - busy for two days and you're all burning up the keyboards! Have just read back and laughed myself silly right along with Amber - what a nutty bunch we all are - and welcome DMC (love your name, don't change it!!).

Ok, Amber, I'll bite- explain the LGBT thing to me (I actually had to Google the acronym, naive silly me), you just keep getting more mysterious

Brief self-intro (since I was left out of the dog vs cat people thing, sniff) - I'm Jacksmama, mother of two-year-old Jackbaby (JB) and I'm the resident tea room gunrunner . Sorry DMC, that was a joke from a few days ago: I live on the West Coast of Canada, quite close to the U.S. border, and am one of the thousands of Canadians who love to despise Americans but take full advantage of the shopping available in the U.S. [hypocrite emoticon]. So when I said I was making a quick trip across the border on Weds, MaryBS said "ohhh JM is a gunrunner" and it's stuck.

I'm not necessarily old and withered, but depending on how much sleep I get, feel a bit over-the-hill on occasion. I also post at odd hours (like Thumb) because I'm 8 hours behind you all in the Pacific Time Zone.

I'm a cat person, mostly. DH would like a dog. For some strange reason he likes bulldogs. Unfathomable to me, why would anyone want a dog with a pushed-in face who slobbers all over the place and sleeps most of the time???

CMOT, I didn't know you had white hair. Looked red to me in Anaheim .

amber we did, briefly, but it takes a really long time to find someone (hence AMA!!) and be comfortable that it won't all go tits up on you, so we felt our only option at this stage would be the clinic (anonymous) route which is what we'd rejected in the first place! We didn't think it would be fair for DD to know her dad and for other hypothetical LO not to; equally not fair to place her dad in a position where he de facto fulfilled that role anyway. I should confess that I had rather hoped that his masculine pride would be sufficiently piqued by this possibility to make him say 'yes'. I suppose it says good things about him that it didn't. He's lovely and we are very happy with our choice - it just seems that C being an only is the price we pay for having an involved donor. I'm still glad that she will have a relationship with him as she grows up.

T&E toms speeding away on the windowsills here - although we had snow earlier in the week ; peas and broad beans too (and some sowed direct - no sign of them). Still cold, and have heavy soil so not much point sowing out for a couple of weeks yet, i think. We have a good bit of soft fruit in the garden here, plus a greengage tree, which gave us about 7kg of fruit last year (went in in 2005), but not much from the apples (maiden whips) so far.

DrivingMissDaisy - Is there any chance, do you think, that C's dad might change his mind once his relationship is more established? Could this be about his partner being apprehensive and needing time to be comfortable with it?

A greengage tree? How lovely! My eye is irresistibly drawn to the nectarine tree in the gardening catalogue but I know it would end in tears.

You're quite right, Amber, it is wine o'clock. Would you care for a glass too, Jacksmama, even if you are on duty?

We also have a bowl of the legendary Twiglet Surprise (pronounced in the French style as this is nouvelle cuisine gastronomy).

Oops. DrivingMissCrazy.