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.

Ok, caught up...although so much happened I have forgotten alot already!

I have severe dh managing probs. One year ago a hubcap fell off the car, I asked him to replace it, I have frequently reminded (nagged) him, we currently only have two hubcaps....I am very annoyed at him for this type of thing. He is great with LittleO, and cooks, and washes up, but that is all. I would like him to do alot more around the place, but don't know how to make this happen.

We bought an evergreen clemitis (sp?). Put it up a trellis. It is now dead and the wall is covered in snails. So, I guess they ate it? We are trying to do a no killing garden, so no pesticides etc. But neither of us know anything about gardening, and also don't like to spend time gardening, so it's working out terribly. All we have is patchy unattractive grass, and a few young trees that we planted last summer.

I am a self employed environmental consultant, and work from home three and a half days a week. It is actualy a full time job and I just squish it uncomfortably. It does mean that I get paid for a full time job though !

Oh, money came through on Friday, so all was fine. Thank you for the sympathy...I'm afraid I'll be needing more of that soon, as I will be unemployed in two months .

Its really hard catching up, and the longer you leave it the worse it gets!

Sorry to hear about your job AandO Glad you had a good holiday!

ASmallBunchOfFlowers, don't know much about deterring foxes, will those ultrasonic things they use for cats work?

Can't remember if I said that DD has now joined Scouts, and loving it! She is also in brownies for 1 last term. The guides no longer meet in our village due to falling numbers, so guides have to go to a different village. Come 14, I can see her wanting to the join the ATC, she LOVES aeroplanes!

Must go down to the shops now to buy light bulbs - we have a huge stash of eco-light bulbs given away at environmental events etc but none of the right wattage.

What sort of things do you consult on, AandO? Do you 'do' renewable energy? When I get a shed, I want a green roof for it.

I am a gardening addict. It took us a long time to have SmallGirl and if I hadn't had a very labour intensive hobby I think I might have ended up on anti-depressants. Your clematis may not be dead - sometimes snails will eat through the stems but it may produce new ones. Leave it a year before you chuck it on the composts heap! You could fill the gap with annual climbers - sweet peas are pretty reliable.

AandO - I am so sorry about your job! Do you have anything in the pipeline?

RS - Milk has been at school for nearly a year now. I can't imagine what it would be like to still have her at home all day! At her school for Moyen Section there is a choice between being in a class in the primary school or in the nursery anex. I am pushing for her being in the main school because she feels really ready to "go for the whole hog" with school to me.

It is interesting how differently children develop.

Asmallbunchofflowers - I love the idea of gardening but I have no patience, not much money (it is a very expensive hobby) and alway get overly excited about watering any living plant I am given and of course it all ends in death and tears!

I was given a good tip for a natural way to keep slugs and snails off plants - apparently you have to get a bunch of them to die in a bucket of water, then spray the water on the plants - they don't like the smell/taste of their own dead fellows so stay away. Haven't had a chance to try it yet - haven't managed to catch enough snails to drown (but I think the beer traps work quite well, then you could dilute the beer in water and spray it.

Am lol at the idea of the dog being an enforced English dog - and yet refusing to obey orders in either French or English! And the inescapable logic of the small child

Cream tea this way, please - now, have we had the tearoom discussion re. cream or jam on first yet? I am a jam first and then a dollop of cream on top (and yes I do lightly butter the scone before the jam goes on) - how about the rest of you?

I'm in Devon, so the devon way of cream tea for me please. Scone, no butter, plenty of clotted cream, then a blob of jam on top.

Chickens are very good for disposing of slugs - and give them lovely eggs too.

My dad was telling me yesterday of someone who bought a donkey who then wouldn't do as it was told. Turns out the donkey was imported from Romania, and so doesn't know english commands

Cream first (no butter) for me. But if it is whipped cream, then butter, jam, cream.

Ds and I slept in this morning - DH had gone out at 4.30am, and turned the alarm clock off and fed the cats. So at 8.20, I woke to find DS in bed with me and two of the cats. Fortunatly, not too much of a time critical day !

Off to the priest hole. May stay there a long time.

Oh dear RS - what's gone wrong? Is M. Snake being a PITA again or is it other stuff?

Drat. Didn't notice that the expensive eco light bulb in which I just invested has some sort of peculiar fitting - neither bayonet nor screw - and won't go in the light. So back to the shops I go.

Had meant to say earlier that if TeaHound is barking waaaff waaaff then she is obviously barking in French (French dogs bark ouaf ouaf, I believe) and you may have to introduce OPOL!

I do all my gardening on the cheap by growing my own plants or swapping with gardening friends. The truly expensive aspects of gardening (like replacing all the hard surfaces which are rapidly disintegrating) I just turn a blind eye to. It does take a lot of my time, though.

Racing - Would you like us to send Mellors in with the massage table and relaxing oils? With or without a batch of millionaire's shortbread?

PS Apparently I am a closet Devonian, as I prefer cream on first with a dollop of jam (preferably raspberry) on top of that.

DS is doing his final exam for AS level. Not sure if it's me that's more nervous, or him.

Can I be next for the massage table please?

Would you like anything passing down?

I like jam on first, then cream on my scones. The jam ensures the cream and the scone stay together, IMHO.

DD has just come home upset. DD's ex-friend had a go, because ex-friend's friend (who is a lovely girl and gets on OK with DD) asked her why she wasn't friends with DD. ex-friend came over and had a go... should I leave it or speak to ex-friend's parents? There is a bit of history with parents, in that ex-friend's mum used to be my friend and then went funny on ME, and wouldn't say why, so became MY ex-friend! We are now on polite speaking terms though, as this was a couple of years ago.

Agree with SmallBunch re parents intervening in children's relationships - never seems to help at school. Sorry of both you and MaryMinor, though.

This time it is me who has been an awful PITA. I have terribly upset Aged Parent by being impatient with her when she can't follow my plans for the day and terribly upset Wriggle by shouting at her because I was irritated by AP. Every day I resolve to be calm and reassuring and just normal with AP and not let her know that she hasn't quite followed/remembered what I am explaining and every day I fail. And as for saying to Wriggle, 'If you don't stop crying I will put you down on the floor and leave you all alone,' even after she has sobbed, 'Bbbbbut Mummmeeee IIIIII cccccan't stop!' [blush

Thanks Asmallbunch. I've been working on her confidence, but it is easily knocked. She had recently become friends again with another girl from school, but they seem to have fallen out again. DD is bemused because this girl said that DD kept ignoring her, and DD is not aware of this. I've suggested she try to patch things up with this girl and find out why she thought DD was ignoring her. There are POSSIBLY opportunities to make new friends at scouts, but probably with older children, I THINK. But generally it would be with children she already knows.

I am crap at advising her on friendships though, if I were any good, I'd listen to my own advice!

xposted with RS. I've left my two to get on with it, because I made DD cry with something horrible I said, and now I feel really low . Its tough keeping resolutions about families, but I think we all seem to go through it with those close to us, and then kick ourselves for getting it wrong...

now must go and separate fighting children - can hear shrieks!

Blimeys, MaryBS, I've no idea what to suggest re the varied mums and children, but I can offer a large cuppa?
I'm so rubbish at recognising even close friends that I can easily accidentally ignore people.

Fresh strawberries for breakfast. oh bliss, oh joy. they look so lovely in their little straw beds ( with slug pellets underneath). Home grown Pak Choi stir fryed at tea time... what shall we eat from the garden tomorrow. Probably more pak choi TBH as its bolting and needs eating up.

Mellors pottager is going well, despite our northern climes, so you can all share in tea room home grownness.

OK, creative people, let's have your ideas. DH teaches florists one day a week; not floristry but plant science. At the end of the year show all the florists make an arrangement. This year's themes are Decadence or Zero Tolerance (which must be made of only English-grown flowers). Any ideas? Last year DH didn't do that badly in the show and got quite a few votes for his design which, as I remember, included Wriggle's plastic mouse.

Been a funny day, in not a good way. Among other things, one of the quails pecked out the eye of one of the others. And I was famously horrid to AP and Wriggle.

RS -- Zero Tolerance of what?

They don't say - air miles?

Will put my thinking cap on and see if I can come up with an idea for you. I fear I don't know my English-grown flowers from, say, Welsha grown, but will try for an idea. (In theory, can't any flower be grown in England thanks to poly-tunnels and green houses?)

I don't garden. Don't like it. That's part of why I used to rent an apartment instead of a house -- didn't want to have to fuss with the lawn and flowers and stuff. i make DH mow the lawn. I will plant seeds with BabyScout when he's a bit bigger but it will BabyScout's little plot full of low-maintanence seeds.

Had a good swimming session with BabyScout today. He really does seem to love the pool and the water aand even going under the water and through the hoop (that was a first for him today). We were floating on our backs together and he kept kicking whenever I stopped, thinking he was making us move.

Had a good SS meeting tonight, too. Mars Bars cakes went down a storm -- still haven't managed to have one. BabyScout has figured out how to move without crawling or rolling and ended up half way under the table we were all sitting around.

That sounds like fun, Scout.

I really don't understand how people can not like plants and gardening, in the same way that I know I baffle Racing and others by my lack of interest in pets.

Racing - Many apologies. I should have interrupted your massage with Mellors to say don't beat yourself up about being snippy with Aged P. I am in awe that you have your aged P living with you - I would find it immensely taxing and am sure I would be peevish all the time, not just at moments of extreme pressure. And I always lose patience very quickly with crying and whingeing - in many ways I think I prefer full-blown tantrums to that persistent grizzling which makes my brain melt.

Tomorrow is another day.

Now, as for floristry. I have no idea how to tackle Zero Tolerance in a flower arrangement - except perhaps with genetically modified wheat, which is probably unacceptable - so I would go for Decadence. I think you either need a lot of luxurious-looking flowers (lilies would be good, or big and blowsy clematis, although they wilt almost as soon as they're cut) or go for something trashy vampy and voluptuous-loooking. How about scarlet and black as a theme, a la sleazy hotel for a dirty weekend? For scarlet you would need something like gerbera (are any grown in the UK?) or red sunflowers and for black you can have black lilies ('Ebony'), black geraniums (phaeum,although might be over by then) or very dark euphorbias (Chameleon). Have you got one of the very dark ruby astrantias? Chocolate cosmos might also be good and how about including some strawberries still on the vine? If this is all too naff, you could do black and white and use lots of cow parsley. You could then embellish with an accessory of Wriggle's.

This is all probably barking, but I do like to talk about plants and if you dismiss these ideas you'll be closer to knowing what you do want!

RS - Iknow what you mean. APs can be very frustrating because you remember a time when they were fully capable of doing the things you asked them too - when they don't manage it, you get angry because you are scared of what it means - you want them to be the same as they were and an unconscious part of you recognises that they are on a decline, which you can't deal with easily - so this sets off a fear > frustration > anger chain. Which then --> guilt because you know it's not really her that you are angry with, it's her declining condition, iyswim.

Sorry, that was a bit rambly but I hope it helps you feel a bit better.

Leaving small DC crying - well, yes. Guilty of that too - especially when miniThumb is wailing because he has just been told off. I feel dreadfully mean but he can't get instant comfort or it rather ruins the point of being told off, doesn't it? And sometimes the wailing just goes on and on and ON and I can't bear it so yes, I have threatened to shut him in his bedroom if he can't be quiet.

I am Cross with MrThumb again (I too keep telling myself not to be but hey) - I had trimmed a tree in the garden and put the trimmings under the (long) porch out the back to dry for the fire. Went out yesterday to bring it in - it's gone! The twit had put it all in the bin despite being told what it was and why it was there - he'd "forgotten" and decided it was just mess. So two weeks of drying completely wasted - his suggestion of "I'll go into the bush this afternoon adn get some more" just doesn't cut it really, as then that stuff will have to dry out!

Flowers for decadence - I would have lots of roses, in a drooping phase, the double cottage ones that come in bunches on a stem (I do know the real word, promise, just can't remember it ), plus trailing things - a mini chaise-longue with red velvet and gold paint and some really rich chocolate.
Zero tolerance is beyond me when it comes to floweres! Although I suppose you could have ranks of identically straight and tidy e.g. gladioli or something (are they English?) Would look seriously uninteresting though.