Tea Room the Fifteenth - The Viking Hall

[amberlight]

Here we are in the 15th instalment of the Tea Room for the One Child Family board. All are welcome, whether parents of a single splendid offspring or any other number.
We are this time in a Viking Long Hall tearoom, complete with optional helmets, roaring log fires (in case of chilly spring evenings), rugs aplenty, and all the usual mod cons of life as well.
Our Viking tea room contains Mellors the gardener/handyperson with a talent for relaxing massage (amongst a variety of other characters including Bishops, camels, bison, horses, guinea pigs, dogs, etc etc for reasons that would take too long to explain but you're welcome to read the other Tea Room threads and prepare to have your mind thoroughly boggled). Plenty of tea/coffee/cake/virtual bolly always on offer.
Join us, relax, chat, enjoy.

LittleO did a bit of shooting with a stick a few months back. I just told him that it wasn't a very nice game to play and really after a few times that was that, he hasn't played it since.

Ds gets nervous in parts of winnie the pooh cartoons and so he certainly isn't watching violent cartoons. His childminders son plays with the six year old next door to her house and I think they play fighting so that must be where ds got it from.

He also occasionally shouts die die die . I again just tell him that it's not a very nice thing to say.

So all in all, I guess it's just a normal thing for small boys to go through.

OxNursery are being very silly! That being said, Wriggle has not yet got to a shooting phase, so don't know what ours will be like. At the moment she is highly amused not to say obsessive about wee and poo. Her favourite song goes, 'Wee wee, poo poo, I like that stuff', but since she sings it in French, the nursery is oblivious. Isn't French culture inspiring? Hopefully, when she starts shouting 'Bang, you're dead!' in French they will all say, 'Cute, look at Wriggle waving her banana!'

And I'm afraid that we do not strangle chicken with our bare toes; due to my wimpishness, our chickens die of old age and end up being laid to rest in the hedge as fox food. I wish I was a convinced chicken strangler, since that would be far more ethical than keeping pet chickens and yet buying chicken to eat which has been electrocuted at the abbatoire and which has had a long stressful journey to get there.

Wriggle speaks French?

PMSL Amber!

Ha ha Amber boy!! Wriggle has French parentage AandO. As does miss small bunch and of course milk lives in Paris. It's less Greggs and more Croissant here ...

In fact, Wriggle's English is not that good yet, although coming on fast. She speaks very ungrammatically and has a foreign accent. But her pipi caca song works in any language!

smallbunch has French parentage too? How did I miss that? I knew M.Snake was French, but wasn't aware of anything franco in the Bunch household.

Oxeye, I think your nursery are being ludicrous (loved the name OxPoppins though for the nanny - had me in stitches thinking about it) and should definitely have spoken to you about it.

Don't all small boys get into that, regardless? MiniThumb started pointing sticks at us from quite early on - we just called it his "Harry Pottering phase" - even though he has never seen Harry Potter.
Regrettably he probably has seen some unsuitable material on the tv though - MrThumb has some very strange ideas about what is appropriate to watch with miniThumb about - he doesn't understand that, even if miniThumb can't understand what is going on, he can still feel the atmosphere by the visuals and sounds and be influenced by it (scared or upset, usually). Makes me FURIOUS but MrT never seems to really get it.

amber, am at the Fine Lad's contribution to entente cordiale.

Sadly, I have to disillusion you. My French credentials, such as they are, are limited to an A level, numerous holidays, a crush on Gerard Depardieu and a Carla Bruni CD. I do like to ponce waft about speaking Franglais and wearing a stripey t-shirt but (as far as I can tell) my heritage is pure rosbif.

Tea and cake, anyone?

Thanks SmallBunch - glad to have got that cleared up!

The best bit of, well, it wasn't even Franglais but it certainly wasn't proper French, I heard was one of my friends criticising a rude French climber in the Alps, who pushed in front of my mates (rudely). Friend said "Vous etes un grand merde!" all words present and correct but not really a pukka French phrase, is it now?

May I swap the tea for some hot chocolate? Viking style with extra mead? And 2 chocolate flakes sticking out of it at the appropriate horn-like angle? It's a bit cold here...

Yes please smallbunch.

Do you speak French to wriggle RS, or does just her dad speak French to her? Just wondering as in every case that I know where the two parents speak different languages the child is more proficient at the mothers language first, with the fathers language coming slightly later.

Mead laced hot choc please. Chilly night in chez uni. the house still has no curtains in living room, and we are not putting the heating on in evenings... golly that oil had better last, it was very expensive.

poor ole oxboy. uniboy is rather keen on swords and chopping peoples limbs or heads off ( and mending them again I hasten to add, often with a pretend hammer). He wants to be a knight when he grows up. Thankfully preschool have taken it in their stride. Mind you, they do think we are a bit odd for not having a TV...I've been asked if I "mind" boy watching a video there ( end of term).

Today I have

grouted the tiles I replaced yesterday. applied silicon sealant round the base of the shower. sorted out the boot room so one can get inside it and reach the coat hooks. Put pictures on walls and bleed the radiators. I feel I have achieved quite enough and am now going to curl up on that big pile of furs over there and watch the fire making pretty patterns while Mellors massages my feet and NMBs ply me with the choc box of requirement.

Night all.

AandO, at the moment we both try and speak French to her, so that home life is predominantly French to balance out the amount of English outside. Hence her French being better than her English

Usually works OK, although atmosphere is rather chilly chez Racing tonight as M.Snake has been having a go at me because Wriggle has been calling things 'trucs' (thingies) because I don't know the French for every bloody thing Wriggle wants to comment on. He is of the opinion that it is pure willfulness on my part not to sit up all night pouring over dictionaries just in case.

Most impressed by Uni's industry! Is there anything left in the chocolate box of requirement?

Yes, what is left in the chocolate box of requirement?

Unis has been impressively active on the DIY front.

Racing - Am I right in thinking that MonsieurSerpent is the only native French speaker (apart from Wriggle) in the house? Truc seems a good compromise, to me.

Bedtime Bolly, anyone?

left in the choc box? not a lot... unless you start the next layer down, which you may.

Toutes les objects est 'trucs' pour moi.

Unless Wriggle is 21 and about to sit her finals at Uni in French, I cannot imagine why M.Snake is getting so hissy about it. Very odd.

Need tea. Anyone else want a something?

My mum has always had a problem with recall of nouns - she knows perfectly well what things are, but can't get the word when she needs it (these days this has expanded to be people, places, and things to a much greater extent) - so corned beef had to be expressed as 'that meat in a tin with a key', pencils 'you write with it and sharpen it'. So it isn't confined to users of another language - and I found the words for everything quite well, so it's not an issue.

And I've learnt a very useful french word

Last night I called a customer to check something that should have been a 5 minute conversation - it took an hour and a half. He's lovely, but witters extensively.

DH back to eye hospital today - we'll find out if there is anything wrong with them long term

Oh Small Bunch, I thought Mr Small Bunch was a Monsieur - my mistake.... sorry

Racing lol at M.Racing demanding proper words 90% of the things in our house are "whatsits" and "thingies" and we are pure Rosbif. But all our things are going to be "trucs" from now on is it "trucks" or "trooos" sort of pronounciation wise?

CMOT heaven save us from whitters. I hada 5 hour meeting yesterday. I had set aside 1 1/2 hours and had not accounted for the whittering

Thanks for all the gun support. I took OxBoy in today and it is a storm in a teacup. I suspect that OxPoppins was a bit anxious in her reporting and OxNursery a bit over hasty due to hand over time etc - another day another shoot out eh? I said "you can always ring me, if he does something serious like lash them to a cactus or swing them from a rope Hang 'em High Stylee"

< AandO nips into the tea room to see if there is anyone around and to pop on the kettle, then leaves to try and arrange a few more meetings before she's gives up for the day>

I've already given up for the day. Well, I've defrosted the freezer and slept a bit.

Oxeye, brilliant re the nursery backing down a bit. re your comment on the cactus!

Thanks Amber
I have definitely given up for the day. Rolly ony Bolly OClocky

Large bottle and a straw for me for later, please.