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.

Small, its OK, small girl is imaginably impy , so she fits one aspect of the amalgam. She in, fear not.

Found out today that boys school has been under subscribed this year. so he may be in a class of just 20ish.

"imaginatively impy"

LOVE IT!!!!

I plan to say this as much as possible from now on!

exactly, UniS, SmallGirl is definitely in with her II tendancies! and to avoid the violin means she has musical tendancies, even if they are the tendancies to ram her violin somewhere where the sun don't shine
she is certainly in

Glad that UniBoy is going to have such personalised teaching, you must be about the only undersubscribed primary in the whole wide world round us they are ramming in portacabins faster than you can say "unexpected baby boom"

hello tea! Glad Milk had a wonderful birthday. Sounds dreamy. Wow, five already!!!

Great news about the small class size UniS, that's fab.

We do a bit of co-sleeping around here too. I lie with LittleO until he falls asleep in the evenings in his bed. Then he comes in to our bed at about 3am for the rest of the night. I love him coming in in the night - he's so snuggly. Sometimes I get a bit annoyed about the lying with him in the evening, because I do it every evening. The only way to get out of it and get him to accept dh instead is to pretend I have to pop to the shop at bedtime. I have done it a couple of times just for the evening off, as the whole bedtime routine takes from 45 mins to an hour every night . But other nights I enjoy it, and would certainly not give it up entirely, I just wish me and dh could job share on it .

Well, LittleO is 3 and Irish, co-sleeping and certainly imaginatively impy. He loves the outdoors, but prefers reading books and quietly playing animals in the house.

Yesterday he told me that when he grows up he wants to be a penguin and an actor in the theatre . He was then quiet for a bit, then said that he would act in Happy Feet in the theatre as he would be a penguin .

I'm trying to imagine AmberBoy imbibing a fruit shoot. Downing a pint in 5 seconds is more his thing now, I have to say.

We have just come back from the vets, where Mr B the small terrier has had his annual booster jab and nail clip, the vet has had a nervous moment trying to avoid the bit at the front with the sharp teeth, and my bank account has had a nasty shock at the sight of the bill.

As we sat there, waiting, two ladies brought in a wooden drawer. It contained two towels. They placed it on the floor. Boy and I looked at each other, and them, and the towels, wondering what was going on. Then the towels began to move. So did we - slowly backwards away from whatever it was . "Tortoises", said the lady. Sigh of relief.

Next, the door to one of the consulting rooms opened, and out stepped a man with about £2000 of camera equipment about his person - tripod, long lenses, big bag, spare camera, the lot. He took a look at the assembled crowd, looked puzzled and vaguely disappointed, and went back in again.

Probably all perfectly normal, really.

It's never dull in there.

Wriggle ticks four boxes, maybe five if she (in spite of all genetic influence) turns out to be musical. I don't know if the pipi caca song would qualify her.

Always wanted a tortoise.

The class Wriggle is not going into in September will have, I calculate, 17 children; 10 year one's and 7 reception taught together. Next year I think it will be even lower. Actually, although great for the children, it's not so good in the long run as the school may well lose a teacher. Perhaps Oxeye could send down a portacabin load of extra recruits. As far as I can see at the moment, the school is idyllic; lunch is eaten outside on tables under the huge ash tree.

CMOT - parcel has arrived!

Tortoise alert... Next door have 2. We saw them for first time on Saturday. DH wasn't sure if it were real one or model, till a head popped out and munched some greenery.

Fruit shoots/ shot glasses/ pints... all pretty similar.

Just 15.5 hours sleep last night for boy, so I've put him to bed a bit earlier tonight as I have to get him out the house by 9.15 tomorrow ( which will mean 13.5 hrs sleep). Kept him off preschool today as he wasn't awake in time. He must be growing again.

Wriggle rarely has more than 9 hours sleep, usually broken at about 3am. And today she has eaten 4 biscuits, one cheese sandwich and a mini packet of raisins. Where does she get the fuel from? No wonder she is very often whiney and irritable.

T|ortoise would be much more manageable.

Lol at fruit shoots = shots. I think you're right. I have always thought the mn "fruitshootsandheaves" must be fun. Best name IMHO
Amber sounds like hairy mclary at vets down your way
in deference to amberlad and aando I think amalgam child also acts
racing, bugger the portacabin oxboy and i are coming to your school

Yes, portacabins are the accessory du jour for the aspiring London primary school.

Fruitshootsandheaves is indeed a brilliant name, but I think my very favourite is MadameOvary.

DH does a lovely line in portakabin schools - one of his arson hit sites said that their portakabins were far nicer than their school. Seem to remember we had terrapin buildings when I were a lass

DS was put to bed early tonight in the hope it improves him tomorrow

"It is a horse riding, co-sleeping, imaginatively impy, musical, cycling, out doorsy little mite

Mostly near the 3-4 age with strong Gallic and Gaelic leanings .... "

miniThumb: horse-riding, co-sleeping, imaginatively impy, musical - check.
cycling - not yet
outdoorsy - not very yet
age - 2 1/2
Gaelic - well, MrThumb is half Irish and holds an Irish passport so sort of!

he's never had a fruitshoot but he did try to drink Daddy's beer and Mummy's champagne at his christening and has been known to eye up Mummy's "juice" of an evening - but never actually tasted any.

"It is a horse riding, co-sleeping, imaginatively impy, musical, cycling, out doorsy little mite

Mostly near the 3-4 age with strong Gallic and Gaelic leanings .... "

mistlechick: horse-riding - when ever he can (beautiful, natural riding position too - straight back, heels down!!!) , co-sleeping - no way, far too wriggly and space occupying - and hot, imaginatively impy - check, musical - check; cycling - check; outdoorsy - check (he's quite good with secateurs under careful supervision now )
age - 5
Gaelic - French lessons at school and good memory for words - and comes out with them at strage times...

Congrats to the Catita household - and let us know how you get on giving the Dr a piece of your mind!

I was wondering whether anyone might be around in the capital over half term and fancy meeting up - mistlechick and I will be visiting mil, but as DH has had his temp contract extended for 4 weeks, he won't be joining us. Greenwich park will definitely be being walked around at times... Could also do with some advice on what to do that won't be too horrendous - do fancy the Nat Hist museum and the butterfly exhibit - but how to get in and what time to turn up when its half term without having to queue for hours?

Having done the Natural History Museum in the Spring half term before now, I would recommend getting there at opening time - it's less busy then, gets very very busy by about 11.30am.

What about the Maritime museum or the Observatory? Or is he too small for those?
Greenwich market is good for you, perhaps less good for mistlechick - don't know if it's on any other day than Sunday though.

All the London museums will be pretty grim busy at half term, I expect. Getting there early, or taking advantage of any late night opening, are the best bets, as Thumb says.

The Observatory would appeal to MistleChick, I think. The planetarium films are fab and they usually have good children's activities (note: good activities for children, not necessarily activities for good children) during school holidays. Depending on where you are staying, it might be fun to go to Greenwich by boat from Westminster. The waterbus is generally cheaper than the sight-seeing services aimed at tourists. A nice and manageable walk near the Thames is to start near Tate Modern, cross the river by the wobbly bridge and go and look at St Paul's. All for free.

The British Museum never gets as crowded as the others. If the weather is good, the nearby Coram's Field is lovely, as there is plenty to do (and a nice cafe). National Gallery is normally packed, but the National Portrait Gallery next door is quieter and good for spotting historical personages of whom one has learnt at school.

I took a class of infants to the National Portrait gallery once. One was the grandson of Elisabeth Frink and found a portrait of his grandmother, so all the others spent a long time searching for theirs, with less success. (Being all very unfamous children from a small village.) However, they were very excited when they found the statue of Sleeping Beauty, which had inexplicably been mis-labelled Lawrence of Arabia.

Oooh ... does our Viking long hut have catacombes?

Surely it does. And possibly also a portico.

How are you, Mary?

Just told LittleO I'd be back in a min and popped out of his room, leaving him settling in bed. Got lots of work to do tonight and in no mood for lying there waiting for him to settle for half an hour! Hopefully he will just drop off by himself. Thumb - how long does it take for minithumb to settle when you are lying with him at night?

So, he just went to sleep on his own, wow!! But I have just messed around on mn instead of working . Got to work!!!!

www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/405/2 and a half....

bit late now, A&O - it takes miniThumb anywhere between 30 seconds (if he's really tired and ready to drop) and 15 minutes or so if he really wasn't ready for sleep. Sometimes even longer and I end up falling asleep too.