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.

Sorry, missed Mary's point - that's very upsetting for your DD Mary but I think best thing is for her to just leave it - and you too. The girl is obviously out to make trouble, telling her mum is more likely to inflame the situation than stop it, I think - so your DD will sadly just have to deal with the fact that in life there are some unpleasant people. Hopefully the other girl will still be friends with your DD and she will find other people to be friends with too.

Thumb - you're spot on about why I get some people get frustrated by their elderly parents' decrepitude.

Am loving the idea of a small red velvet chaise longue - a copy of Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir could be artfully propped upon it. This is beginning to sound quite gothic!

Mary your poor DD. I agree, however, that your role is support at home, not upping cudgels on her behalf. If I think back to when I was bullied at school one time my mum waded in and it all made it so much worse - the parents spoke. The girls recanted in front of adults and then were doubly cruel when alone again - but more so because they were upset. And i was mortified. I was about 8/10 at the time if that helps

Racing I think you are amazing to cope as you do. Funnily enough my lovely not-so Aged Ps came for supper and for about 30 minutes I was irritated with them, then realised it was because I had to adjust my mental image of how I felt they ought to be with the reality of how they are - which is older, frailer, fussier, rigider (if that's a word) - all that Thumb says, but less eloquently

Small wow, you plant person!

I like the decadent. Makes me think of Oranges are not the Only Fruit and her attempts to win fruit and veg comps - something like Samson and Delilah with potatoes comes to mind

Scout I have to shamefully admit I am not terribly keen on gardening. I like gardens but find gardening sort of boring. Except I think I ought to like it....

at fainting at Oxeye - maybe that's why she is called after a plant - as a sop to her feeling that she should like gardening!

I haven't read it either - only saw the television adaptation of it (with Charlotte Coleman in) and I think only the first couple of parts of it so don't really know what happened.
On a tangent, I was so and to hear she died of an asthma attack at 33 - she was so close in age to me as well (and oxeye too of course )

but Small - I really like gardens and plants, I just don't want to do it - which is why Mellors is such a godsend, doncha know

you should give it a go. For those of us of a certain age it came with such fuss twas almost offputting. Now, with some decades behind it, can be enjoyed without feminist angst

I think decadence for me would be a giant chocolate fountain, with fruit like strawberries and pineapple to dip in. A sort of cascade of flowers to signify the fountain.

I bow to all of you gardening goddesses. I do houseplants, that's about it.

Mary, hope your DD has a better day today.

I'm more of a weed goddess than a gardening goddess. They always abound in my garden. I can't knit either, well I can, just plain stitch and only rectangles.

Thanks for good wishes about DD. Just looked at her diary (she doesn't mind). It seems that horrible child has been telling other children not to be friends with her. If this goes on, perhaps I need to raise it with the school, although I think they are aware of some of it...

Today is a day when I feel like giving up completely.

Perhaps it's time someone introduced a school module on "How to make up your OWN mind who you are friends with, and how to recognise the mean children who try to isolate others" - do you think that might help??

I can't stand people who do the kind of thing that girl is doing - it's utterly, utterly vile. It's so "American high school" and it's loathsome. Mary - I would say console yourself with the fact that one day she'll get hers - but I realise that doesn't help DD now. Get 'Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion' out on DVD - that's quite a good "picked-on girls made good, bitchy girls lose out" film (actually, it might have too much swearing in it, can't remember, whoops)

Big ((hug)) for your DD - and you.

Also a good read, if you're interested: Queen Bees and Wannabees. This book was the basis for the movie Mean Girls (also good and possibly age appropriate).

Unfortunately, it seems to be a girl thing this bitchiness. Boys are much more up-front with their disagreements will punch you and then move on, whereas girls will continue to subtly exclude, be mean, etc. If you talk to most women they will remember the girl that did this to them (I know I remember mine from grade school!). It's good that your DD has other interests/activities outside of school.

Morning, morning, morning.

No time for proper post - have to work. Will post later.

Oh, a big plate of think hot buttered toast for me Scout!!

How about a big bowl of chocolate mousse, with lots of long spoons and lots of sharing?

Thumb and Scout - thanks SO much for your suggestions, they sound like a really good idea! I can stand a bit of swearing (and so can she), so I might give that film a go... and the book too!

Mary - some kind of synchronicity there - have just had RL chocolate mousse and it was YUM!
Happy to have some virtual mousse as well though - more YUM!

What fantastic ideas you all have about decadence! Will pass on to M.Snake, who, being male, has far less of a clue about the subject.

I think you are all right about Aged parents, too. This is destroying my illusions ideas about old age; that it is a valuable phase of life, otherwise it wouldn't happen and that it can be positive and acceptable. That also threatens my whole life view; ie that things are as they are for a reason and that everything is actually as it is meant to be, seen in the long (sometimes very long) view. Obviously old people have a huge amount to offer society, and just as obviously our culture does not recognise this. I wonder whether this total lack of confidence and self-hatred is a feature of other societies where old people are held in more respect? I wonder what it is like even in Germany? When I lived there, old people always seemed to be having rather a good time.

I am sure that we need some sort of support group for those living with and interacting with their aged relations. (And I cannot imagine that one would leave an aged relative to be alone, unless that was very much their positive lifestyle choice.)

You have all made me feel much better (as has a friend with a similar issue, which I hadn't even realised, with a feisty and eccentric mother who is occasionally glimpsed on television and who I would never have dreamt is having the same problems as my AP). So thank you, everyone, and now I had better go back to planning how to make powerpoints about the major rivers in France.

RS, yup, in many cultures older people are treated with huge respect.
DH's uncle (sadly departed) was a man of older years and worked for a very major company whose boss is in the news on a weekly basis. He was known for being an absolutely terrifying employer - people would tremble rather than approach him. But he always treated Uncle B with enormous respect and deference because of his age. He came from a different culture.

All very odd. I treat everyone the same. This is very alarming for many very senior people, of course....

Who's for Soup du Viking Vegetable Surprise avec rolls with little horns on?

I agree Amber, about treating people the same. I did a presentation on what it was like to have Aspergers. I said it surprised me when I was highly praised for treating immigrant detainees as my equals, as I thought it only natural to do so ... and then it surprised me even more when I was criticised for treating a bishop as my equal!

Along the decadence theme, how about a tower of champagne glasses like this, with trailing plants cascading down in a shower from each glass?

Yes well. Some of the oldies where oxbloke works are treated respectfully as those with knowledge but at signs of decrepitude they are just left

what about legally blonde? Too old? Great don't judge 'em film

Oxeye, can you explain? Are you talking about another culture?
MaryBS, were you too respectful to a bishop? Giving him ideas above his station?

Yes please to the Soup du Viking Vegetable Surprise. Will slurp soup and make up 100 packs of horse crafts. (Anyone free to help?)

Decadence - I'd go for a combination of fuschia pink (Dahlias I think - big spiky double ones) scarlet (Dahlias - the little pompom ones) and nasturtiums (gold, yellow, orange heaped up and cascading down...

Zero tollerance I might go for an entirely green arrangement with grasses, hellebores if you can find any in flower or seed still, the green astrantias, ladies mantle, there are some nice bell-like things that are green etc etc Sort of restraint and lack of any 'normal' colour...

Ap - is there any point in looking at a list type of thing - so that if she forgets what is happening she can refer to it - might make her feel more in-control - she wouldn't have to ask you etc. Very difficult though.

And I failed with bathtime and handed over to Dh before I got more worked up (mistlechick was v. tired) and it all went badly with dh too - I ended up having to go back upstairs to cope wtih the desperate sobbing that was still happening in bouts 10mins after light was switched off - had to give him my dressing gown to cuddle to help! Don't know when I'll be getting that one back - he seems to have adopted it!

Mary - don't get involved directly with nasty child's mum - but do bring it up with school if nasty child has been telling others not to be her friends. That should be nipped in the bud by school asap.

RS, I wasn't respectful enough to a bishop - I failed to see why he should be served first if his dinner wasn't quite ready and 20+ other people's dinners were - and they were kept waiting, and their food had already started to be served!

Am I paranoid, or is this further evidence that, in the eyes of some blinkered people in the marketing department at Ribena, one child families are not 'proper' families?

Tea and meringues on the aga, for anyone in need of a sugar rush.

Mary- I'm curious, who objected, the bishop ? or someone else who felt the bishop should have been served first?

Ribena smeana... let it lie. They just want cheap actors for an ad . 2.4 kids and half a labrador.