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!...

Oh dear. That has happened to me before and I found a technician who did not manage to save the laptop but did get all the info off. I then vowed to save all documents and pictures onto CD ROM at intervals (and have of course let it lapse ). Even those probably don't last for ever, apparently. I have not found that computer shops are that good at repairs and have found someone in the local paper who could repair things where the shop failed. Shops are really more about sales. Could you try that?

Failing that, I see that Mellors has just got the fire going and the kettle is just coming to the boil. And he seems to be splitting open a great pile of Arab breads and putting jam inside to create low fat donuts. I shall add cottage cheese to mine.

We must be getting quite far North now in our quest to follow spring, heading in the direction of the Viking long hut.

Donki I continue to be mortified that I apparently can't tell the difference between a cushion and your fine steed-like form. My visual processing seems to be a bit off

Amberboy is 17 years old which makes me a Very Old Mum who probably shouldn't be on mumsnet at all but hey ho.

Catita, welcome back from your journeys! Morning everyone!

'ello all! xxx

I am really proud of me because I got all that paperwork sorted (I have to do the picnic and dog walk today)!

Part of paperwork yesterday was getting a health check for Milk.

The dr asked her how often she cleans her teeth. "Once" she answered. If she wears nappies "Yes" she answered. If she could count "Ummm one, five, seven" She answered and if she knew her colours which was answered with a shrug!

I sat there in complete shock. You see... she knows her colours, can count to twenty reliably, hasn't worn a nappy for the last two years and cleans her teeth every morning and night!!!!

Kids, hey????

Heigh ho! Off to Sheffield again...

Morning all. Shouldn't be here. Have real work to do. [shrug]

Donki - Would you like a supportive rub of your long ears? Hope all goes as well as can be hoped for.

How is your Dad feeling Donki ? Hope he is comfortable.

Tea, because children don't process questions in the same way as we do. 'Do you know your colours' = do you know about every colour ? Lilac, turquoise etc ? Prob not, so the answer is no

Can they not slave the hard drive ? If not, then if that is your only copy of photos, then find a specialist data recovery company - they can do absolute wonders. DH uses them to get peoples data back after the hard drives have been in fires and water damaged and they can usually get most of it back

You can get data back off any drive unless it has been granulated or otherwise turned to dust. But the cost goes up.

Morning everyone - sorry for my prolonged absence, crazy work deadlines I'm afraid. Just wanted to check in and make sure everyone is being topped up with tea and to drop off a batch of toffee nut brownies.

They are promising to try everything, including "ghosting" the drive, which apparently is the same thing as mirroring it, which is what my top blokes in the UK did last time one of my 'puters was totally banjaxed (my fave ever Irish word).

If they can't manage it, MrThumb has a friend who is apparently pretty good at all things computer (also had a computer shop in his past) - if he can't do it either then I will take it back to the UK when I go and get my "boys" to do it for me.

I am sick as a dog that I haven't been doing the backups - but half the problem is that it took too long to do anything so I kept putting it off - fool that I am.

MrThumb is home a few hours earlier than he thought - just in time for dinner, lucky him! Sadly miniThumb, for the first time I can remember, refused to eat his. I feel he may have objected to the level of coriander in it .

Donk - hope your Dad is going as well as can be expected.

Here goes. Obtuse, cranky little kitten is attempting a nap before we go to professional environment to be a spoilt brat little angel in front of my ex-work colleagues.

And the rain has started, meaning I will look like a bedraggled mess instead of the sophisticated lady wot lunches that I wish to portray. At least its not snow. (yet).

Help me.

hello all

just trying to catch up (chatty lot, aren't you?) - agree with the patio/terrace definition - couldn't have put it better myself. We've just laid a lawn for C to play on (previously had some weed ridden wild garden fancy pants arrangement), but am anxiously waiting for it to turn brown, curl up and die off...

amber - is there an age limit? we could aspire together to reach it (the nerd in me wants to know the combined age of posters on this thread, median and mean age...)

thumb sympathies - that happened to me once (computer was a mac, only one year old) and since then I have had 2 external hard drives plugged in to the main computer upstairs. So there is the constant sound of clicking and whirring...banjaxed an excellent Irish word - I also like yoke, a word for any object that you can't quite think of the name for - so , 'the yoke that you cut the grass with'. And many many others.

So DD has taken to a longish midday nap as long as you get her to sleep on or around 12.13 - but it's brilliant after 15 months of mostly crappy daytime naps. Long may it last. For the first time I sat and read an article and thought that I might actually one day write something good again.

So. last but not least. I take DD to mainly music on Thursday mornings, which is run by a Christian group (I don't want to cause offence - I'm an atheist although I know a lot about this stuff because of the work I do) - it's very hands-off and just a few songs about Noah and stuff. Anyhow, there's one of the people who runs it who is a bit pushy - so I've explained all about DD, and me, and DP, and DD's dad (for folks I haven't met, short version: we're gay, DD's dad is a known donor who she sees regularly, he doesn't want for various reasons to donate to us again, hence my presence here) and started asking about a second child today. Upshot is that she is going to pray for him to change his mind - I'll take any kind of intervention at this stage. Feel a bit about though, really. But if he does, what will this do to my adamant and deeply held atheism?

So an interesting morning chez driving. Might need an alcoholic beverage later.

yoke is good - I like that too but banjaxed is the best.

What really ticks me off more than anything is that before I got this friggin laptop I had all my data on an external drive so this couldn't happen - but of course, external drives are difficult to maintain with a laptop, unlike a big box computer. We could really do with one of those sweary symbol thingies (yokes ) in the smiley list, you know the type? With the skull and crossbones and bombsplats and so on that they used in Asterix comics.

Larakitten - have you no umbrella?

thumb I think we should propose it to MN HQ...I use macs which now have a thing (yoke?) called time machine that backs everything up automatically - you can do it once an hour, once a day, once a week, whatever suits. My problem is that I move so often between computers and still haven't worked out an efficient way of storing stuff so that I can access it from everywhere

Yes, I'll have to find that thread about new smileys that someone started.

Another blow to the agriculture here (and therefore another rise in food prices) - South Australia is being swept by a locust storm eating through an area the size of Spain. As if the dodgy weather this summer (too little rain followed by freak flooding and freak hailstorms) wasn't bad enough, what's left of the crops have now been scarfed by voracious frigging insects. Apparently pretty unstoppable as aerial spraying is too dangerous. Am beginning to wonder if Armageddon is actually on the way - we had the red dust storm in September, freak weather, plague of locusts - all we need now is a plague of frogs and in fact the return of the plague (although could the swine flu count?) and we're nearly there, no?

DMC - if you move between computers a lot and want to keep everything together, then you could look into a virtual enviroment using VMWare - means you can keep an entire PC on an external harddrive essentially, and you can clone them to back them up to anywhere. Perfect way of having all your data with you permanently.

Not sure about unasked praying for - DH is agnostic, I'm atheist/humanist, and it would make me uncomfortable somehow. But especially for something so personal

Ghosting and mirroring aren't quite the same thing, but a good way to try.

Did you read the Little House on the prairie books Thumb ? Locusts always make me think of the plum creek book

Do you think if I introduced my mum to the use of Yoke, she might hold onto it (she has problems with language that means that she has lost most of her nouns when she tries to recall them, and now has it with people and places too). It would be at least more interesting, and cut down on conversation time.

Dad is ill again and can hardly walk apparently. Hospital say nothing they can do as his warfarin level is right, so just have to wait for the clots to dissolve

No I never read the books - watched all the tv shows but never got into the books (strangely for me, being a right bookworm!)

Sorry your Dad is none too good again, CMOTD.

Thumb - MrMT has a hard drive he uses on and off with his laptop for back up and storage... (please don't ask what's on it, I don't know, although I do know its not porn.... ())

Teething - I think that the beechams powders might have helped mistlechick with teething - and he liked the bongela too. If you're bf, you could perhaps have a brandy and see if the results help - might make you feel a bit better about it anyway

Donk - have done the same journey quite a bit when I was having to go down to Western Park on a too regular basis. Not good. Parking also poor. Hope things are as well as they can be.

Amber - congrats to Son on choice of Good Career. I could quite easily have a 17 yo son - only trouble being that I didn't meet dh soon enough.... Possilby wouldn't have felt so creaky running after mistlechick if I had started a bit sooner though!

Xray - have to go and turn up and see how long it takes them to see me....

Arrgh re ill parents of varying kind. Really hoping that things improve in a peaceful way.

Thumb, I think you need to combine with DMC and get the Cheerful yet Vaguely Alarming Praying People to make the Ten Plagues go away . Or I can assemble the Bishops for a quick session, I guess....

OK - I see I am among friends. This woman is of the overly nice but secretly trying to evangelise you type...asked me if we had thought of going on a parenting course (aka something Christian...er, where would 2 lesbians fit in there, then?). I replied that we hadn't and that we were just making it up as we went along like everyone else we knew DD seems perfectly fine and happy and I don't think she needs jesus...

the rest of them are fine - there's lots of mums of different nationalities and it's singing and coffee and cakes. But DP is too scared to come with me

the man hasn't rotavated the allotment yet: where's Mellors when you need him, eh?

I wish if people were going to evangelise, they would just come straight out with it. Actually, I'd rather they didn't say anything, unless asked, but that's not always possible. A friend of ours from way back tried to get DH on a Christian fathers weekend thing. When DH picked himself up from laughing, he pointed out to friend that didn't he remember that DH was the least likely person to ever want to attend one of these things ? Added to which DH staunchly sticks to making it up/doing as it seems best as a parenting method.

I used to take oxboy to a weird Christian play place. They were mostly charming and never evangalised me but were Christian in the true sense of being open and loving supportive and giving. That is until Dh went. All over him in a rash they were. Full of prayerful hope and offers of Christian dad groups. He refused ever to go again . Not sure why they left me alone maybe I looked saved. Maybe my gimlet eye warned them to stay away. Maybe they couldn't see through my invisibility cloak

Sending hugs for Ill parents and dying computers

DMC I'm with you on this one - my dd is really good friends with 2 girls whose mum runs a Mainly Music course near us, she is lovely and has never once been preachy in anyway, but I still would not take DD.

Beliefs are so personal and as an atheist (who has a lot of time for the philosophy, NOT religion of Buddhism) I would not want to go along to what is a Christian affiliated group - I'd feel like a hypocrite.

BTW as we are officially part of the mumsnet demographic when it comes to the election, are any of you watching the debate tonight?

We go to two play groups - and the THursday morning one is held in and run by the local Baptist Church. It is structured - craft, play, story, refreshments, play, singing. The story and the singing involve some level of Christian message but mostly it doesn't bother me.

I did smile the first week though as one of the lovely ladies gave me a pamphlet on a course they were running that weekend - how to improve your marriage. MrThumb does not "do" church - he is one of those so-far-lapsed Catholics that would possibly spontaneously combust were he to set foot in a church again. Needless to say we didn't go!

Mostly they are not pushy at all though.

Yes - DH likes to practice his fraud detection via body language skills on them

I'm not entirely sure that the debate adds anything to my political knowledge - but it doesn't really matter as we are in such a safe seat that no one can be bothered to campaign really - apart from the candidate for that party as she is new.