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.

Hello, all. I'm just back from my hols.

I've been trying to catch up. I have gleaned some useful tips on dealing with bogeys and an itinerary for any future trip around Ireland.

Donki - I'm a bit late, but here's another galvanised bucket of tea and some special aromatherapy hoof oil.

Oxeye - I think many of us are prone to moments of peevishness with our otherwise dear ones. There's a line, up to which I will put up with what (I think it was) Thumb described as suboptimal spousal behaviour, but beyond that I get a bit fractious. I have, ahem, somewhat Victorian ideas about the need for gumption and do get grumpy when SmallBloke fails to display it to the unfeasible degree I expect.

Scout - I don't think I knew you were a fellow Guider. Is BabyScout on the waiting list to join Beavers yet? That woman on the path sounds as if she's working through her own issues. It's not uncommon for people to project a lot of bizarre stuff onto only children, as many other threads here will show. BabyScout will be just fine, because you will ensure that he's fine and even if he's not fine it'll have nothing to do with his not having a sibling. Good luck with the medical treatments.

Would anyone like a stick of rock or a set of sugar false teeth, fresh from the English seaside?

sugar false teeth please. almost as good an idea as a giant sugar dummy.

All the uni family kids won ludicrous amounts of sweeties at the church fete. and I bought a new board game, which boardgamesgeek dot com has supplied the rules too as they were missing.

welcome back smallbunch - wondered where you'd got to!

My favourite thing at the English seaside was always the small pot of shrimps that we got. I was never a fan of the solid sugar type sweets (still not), especially rock and those giant sugar dummies. Although toffee apples were the worst - so hard to eat!
I do quite like candyfloss though - did you secrete any of that back with you, smallbunch?

Racing - you have a real racing pigeon? Does it have go-faster stripes and everything?

Bravo Uni-family! I think the last thing I won at a church fete was a prize for painting when I was 4. It started off as a normal painting - house, people - then I did a really good tree (with the exception of the fact it was upside down) and then started doing bead necklaces across the painting. Anyway - parents still entered it and some Highly Perceptive person at the church labelled it "Alien Invasion" and I won!!

Cats do not need other cats. If they do, they go find them elsewhere, since mostly they're not housecats and can socialise anywhere they like.

I reckon the owner of the kittens is desperate to get rid of another kitten to a good home.

Candyfloss, did someone say? Yes please! Bit odd for breakfast but who cares

Is candyfloss good for migraines? If so, yes please! Big cone!!

I am quite sure that candyfloss has medicinal properties! Here's a huge bunch.

Random animal fact of the day Hermit crabs need other hermit crabs. Don't know why since they spend most of their time in their shells, but they do. That's why Scout's preschool class had three Spike, Lloyd and God-help-me-I-can't-remember-the-third's-name. I let the class name them and take care of them. They all promptly died within two weeks of when I stopped teaching and moved them home with me. I think they survived on a class of three-year-olds germs.

Am starting to wonder what animal/s should BabyScout have to help take care of.

guinea pigs! Definitely.

Candyfloss is called Fairy floss here. ANd comes in vile lurid colours - not the pretty pink shade I am used to, oh no - luminous acidic shades. Comes in bags too - so a bag of fairy floss.

UK stuff used to come on a stick (still does?) so would be a stick of candyfloss.

Waves to say I am back from hols! Hope everyone is OK, will catch up later!

You can buy candy floss in a bag or on a stick. I prefer on a stick, because then you see it freshly spun!

Hello Mary! Hope DS stayed well after all that? And that you had a nice holiday.

I am a distince lightweight tonight - I feel the need to go to bed. Have had a particularly grouchy weekend - MrThumb is feeling distinctly unloved, poor bloke, it's not really his fault (apart from having dragged me all across the world to be here) and I should really not take it out on him - but sometimes it's hard to be cheerful on the outside when you're really not on the inside. The rain didn't help.

I shall leave you with something I can only enjoy in the tearoom at the mo - a large jug of Pimms, diluted with ginger ale (faar superior to lemonade, dahlings) and with copious quantities of strawberries, cucumber, mint, apple and the occasional bit of orange. Cin, cin!

Love the idea of hermit crabs as class pets. I was ordered offered to take the class giant African land snails with me when I left. I think they lived for about another 8-9 months. One was at least five. Took a couple of weeks to realise they were dead, too.

Suitable pets for small children ... Wriggle has a dog, cats, chickens with chicks, pigeons, guinea pigs, quails, a goldfish and tadpoles. She loves them all and fixates on different ones at different times and at present is campaigning for a rabbit and/or a tarantula.

Pass the twiglets - I'm hungry but too lazy to move and Wriggle is too tired to move so we are collapsed on the sofa in front of Nemo.

Racing - I don't think I have shared the experience of my mother being given an African Land Snail for her class and not realising it was dead until it was discovered to be liquid.

Camping was lovely - we wimped out and took the smaller tent in the end, so squeezed in together. DS loved the theme park - he's a real adrenalin junkie.

Came home to find that DH's grandmother had died. 97 years young, and a wonderful lady, bright as a button to the end. She had lately been taking computer lessons.

A gin in memory ?

x-post w/CMOT -- I raise my glass.

Yes, a gin in memory of CmotBloke'sGranny.

Cin, cin!

One of my Guiding friends used to take her ds to Brownies from birth onwards. Everyone loved the arrangement! But, Scout, what's wrong with the direction Scouting has taken?

Small, no worries. I have a lot of Scouting friends and they don't necessarily agree with me, but hey-ho. Coming from the States, we had Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts (hence my name). I thought it was the same here, only GS are Girl Guides. And apparently it used to be (like when DH was a lad). But now, with scouts, if a girl wants to join you have to let her (whereas, for a while when I was still ASL it was "optional"). Personally, and maybe it's me, but I really like the boy only space aspect of BSA and the girl only space of GSUSA (and GGUK). There's enough co-ed pressures in life, growing up, in school, etc. My Scout unit, when I was there, was all boys (I was the only girl and was only there to keep adult ratios) and it was good to see the lads be able to be boys they could rough and tumble and be gross and whatever they wanted. The same is true about my Guides I LOVE that even the girliest of girls gets down and dirty at camp and the masks come off (if you get my drift). They can't do that if there are boys around. And I always said if BabyScout was a DD instead of the wonderful DS he is, there was no way she was going to be a scout because I wouldn't want my 10 year old daughter camping with 14 year old boys (even though I know they would be in separate tents) with an all-male leadership team (which tends to be the case with Scouts, not so much with Beavers and Cubs).

welll,,,, boy will probably join beavers when old enough, round here its ( basicly single sex) beavers and brownies then a co-ed scout group. no guides. and the keen older scouts probably move on to air cadets ( also co-ed) at 14. No venture scout group.
there are not enough children or leaders to keep scouts AND guides going so it seems to work. If a girl wants to stay with guides she has to travel to our nearest town, but scouts is in next village.
The local guide owned camp site is used by both guide and scout groups.

Twiglet suprise with candy floss, wow. I love the twiglet wrapped in a wee blob of Candy floss, teh NNBS look like they are carrying small trees about... arrrh, bless.

Yes, I am a Brown Owl.

Nope, I'm still glad I asked! I hear what you say, Scout. I don't know much about Scouting but I have gleaned from some of the threads about Scouts and Guides in extra curricular activities that the decision to admit girls was a pragmatic one because rolls at that time were falling. I think it is hugely beneficial for girls to have a girls-only space and can understand why parents of boys may want the same for them. My concern if SmallGirl wanted to join the Scouts would be that if there were only a few girls in the pack rather than a more even split, then those girls might find themselves at the margins. Anyway, this is all very unlikely as there are no units near us and, besides, she wants to be a Guide so that she can be a pack helper with me at Brownies.

Uni I didn't mean to imply it was all bad. And trust me, I know finding leaders is a struggle. BELIEVE me I know I have experience on two continents and in several councils/counties. It's just my personal thing. My girl-only space was a very positive one for me growing up and I know guys that went through BSA and have the same thoughts/feelings about it being good for them. And I know not everyone can travel for the sake of an activity (I don't do Guides in the town/county I live in but in the neighboring one, but I live on the border and the same was true when I did Scouts).

I know some girls in air cadets but that's a whole other kettle of fish!

I'm assuming, Scout, that you've been in the UK long enough to be familiar with all our confectionery. So, here is a buffet of my particular choccy favourites -

Crunchies, Bounties, Mars bars and Cadbury's Fruit and Nut.

I imagine that someone else will be along soon with more sophisticated offerings.

Permanently, five years this summer. Mmmm, Mars bars and Cadbury and Bounty -- not had a Crunchie, though, so not sure about that. (Thanks!)

Take Cadbury home with me every time we go. So much nicer than the Cadbury at home. After my first trip to the UK (gulp, seven years ago this August), Cadbury chocolates became the treat of choice with my Cadettes & Seniors. (I may get stoned for this, but when making a s'more, a Hershey bar is the only chocolate bar that will do!)