Tea room 16 welcome to Shangri-la

[UniS]

Shangri-la = a hidden valley with beautiful views and crystal streams of course, and some inter-far eastern type of chalet things set around a Serene Courtyard with ever-blooming Japanese cherry trees, lots of refreshing fragrant teas, silk cushions, tinkling tiny waterfalls and bonsai trees, Gardens of Tranquillity etc.

Home to teh 16th Tea room, a haven for those with one or more or less children who like cake, tea, talking nonsense and oggling Mellors ( our handyman/ butler). If its your first vist, pull up a cushion .Mind out for the guinea pigs and other pets and do take care not to squash the teeny tiny naked mowhawk babies ( nmbs
, no longer naked and now toilet trained you will glad to hear)as they go about their duties helping Mellors.

Confused... come on, jump in and have a hot chocolate.

Am I alone in rememberuing boxes of chocolate "matchsticks" at christmas as a child? knobbly chocolate sticks, looked a bit like twiglets, but chocolateyer.

no you're not alone - I loved Matchsticks! The orange ones, the mint ones - even the coffee ones (they didn't last long). They were yum. But then I like After Eights as well.

RS - I did at your evident feelings of "just retribution" when Advanced Friend was bitten by her junior - it made me too! She obviously gets up Junior's nose as well...

Glad your meet up went well - I am plotting my return to the UK at the mo, may well be over the end of August/beginning of September as I don't want to entirely miss the UK summer period (although as you're having such a nice one at the mo, chances are we will!); plus August is horrible here, so very windy and wet. Viciously expensive though.
So - keep talking about it here, you never know, I might be able to make it!

Don't think I knew of them until I moved here. Now I use them as part of my edible fires.

'Morning all. Tea's on.

I gave up that charity work contract altogether, by the way. Good decision.

I was born in Ely - dh was born in Norwich - so have connections there, even though we're not there now. We put our love of creating dams on the beach (stream running down beside - can be completely dammed) down to the east anglian roots!

UniS - Tuesday would be good - and sounds a good plan. We will have mistledog with us, hope that won't create any problems... Paddling in stream also sounded good to mistlechick - although he reminded me that 'you have to be very careful in streams - you don't want to be swept away!'. Looking forward to it!

Saw a jobs-worth out of hours dr on Saturday with mistlechick - am going to write a letter of complaint. I'm also going to have to ring our surgery and see if there is any chance of getting a prescription for the right thing and some calpol sent direct to the chemist near my parents - who are lookign after him until thursday for me.

UniS - can I refer you to this link - letters between the Michigan State Land and Water Management Division and a chap with beavers. Very funny!

Amber - hurrah for giving up that contract! that you had to but better for you all round. Well done.

I believe I may have spotted a troll but am loath to do anything about it. It was the punctuation style that made me suspicious - although if it is a troll, it's been going for a while under two different IDs. One of them started this thread about burial of atheists etc. and the other one was started tonight - this one - the op is not for the squeamish.

Sorry Amber - cross posted with you this morning - good decision - I hope that you're feeling less anxious as a result.

And I'm aiming to have a meet up with you sometime so that I can introduce mistlechick to your horse... Hopefully that will take the pressure off significantly as the horse (and mistlechick) can be the centre of attention instead.

TW - it does seem rather peculiar for someone so distressed according to thread 2 to be starting a thread such as thread 1 - and I agree with you, uncanning similarity in posting style - I would report to MN....

I probably should, hey - except they can't really do anything about it.

(Did you report, thumb?)

UniS, just spent the day at Crealy Park with French niece, Wriggle's Advanced Friend (who was even more sly and sneaky, including some secret hitting of W when out of Mummy's sight) and her Mummy and baby sister. I think that can't be that far from you. I think I have never been to an adventure park before - and don't know if I would voluntarily do it again - but it was great to see Wriggle be really adventurous on the water slides with her cousin. We are all exhausted!

Had never thought of meeting up with you and Boy because I fear you would find us very boring, but have just remembered that you are the first person I have ever met who also reads Dianna Wynne Jones.

Small, I am working on the 1st. We may have to aim for February. London, in that case - maybe the Natural History museum? I have always wanted to go to the Museum of Childhood. It sounds like Oxeye's sort of thing, too. I promise Wriggle would never dream of blowing raspberries on the stomach of anyone who did not actually give birth to her. You would be lucky to get eye contact. Am beginning to wonder if I should worry about this.

Am suddenly understanding your problem, MaryBS, of not wanting to lose friends even though their daughters are not always very nice to yours.

Amber, I think you have done the right thing; it is very hard to know when to give up.

Thumb, we will miss you in late August. Was just talking to DN in the car about 'my friend who has emigrated to Australia'!! (She thought she would like to visit Oz, although it must be at least '6 hours' in the plane.)

I have bought a SatNav and it is AMAZING!!!!!

Tea, I nedd your advice. We are planning to visit French niece's family in thir country residence, a small stone house they renovated in a hamlet of two houses. It does not appear on Mappy, Multimap or our new GPS - they just all show a blank area. We have tried Google maps and street finder, but she cannot recognise her house, or lane. The nearest small town is called Belleroche. Can you think of anywhere online where I could buy a detailed map and get it delivered here quickly? Something like an ordinance survey map?

Ice cream cones, anyone?

umm, crealy. Went once, no plans to repeat visit. It didn't really do it for me. kinda pricey for a park and playground set up, which is all boy is interested in. he ignored all teh rides and animals and most of the soft play.

Bicton I like, escot I like.Must try stover country park sometime, but can't get there easily by bus. Dorset always seems a long wayaway thanks to tractors on teh A35.

MT- for stream paddling I recommend old shoes/ beach shoes and change of clothes. youngest nephew stood on a few gorse prickles up there last time we went. There IS a real danger of being " swept away" should one fall over at top of the rock slide. One might slide 4 feet down wards and end up in 2 ft of very cold water. Its fun.

Off for jolly to big city an hours away to the south west tomorrow. ice skating and "fun pool"swimming / waters slides etc. DH and I are taking boy out of preschool for a day.

Boy had his preschool end of term jolly today, teh rising 5s group went to school for teh afternoon. Picnic on school field, some parachute games, musical bumps, live music from 2 accordion players, or were they melodeons ( never can remember which is which) and then a hour or so in year Rs classroom to play and explore. he was rather excited about it and wanted to wear "school clothes" so looked very smart ( and rather grown up) in grey trews and blue shirt.

Agree about Crealy but feel that there cannot be too many baby rabbits or shetland ponies.

Never realised that there was such a thing as a melodeon. Sounds as if Boy had a great day.

This is a VERY folky village... melodeon players where a son of preschool leader and one of his mates, both in late teens/ early twenties. We also have a youth folk band for primary age kids, and some of teh local kids have been to folk festivals as dance performers, which I think is cunning way for their parents to get free tickets.

Racing. Am away. Hence no reply about 22. Not ignoring. Work mad. Feb sounds good. I have uber detailed map of France. Am home weds and will look. If find anything I can copy and post pages
small am mortified at oxboy. It's just a phase. He did like you. He's experimenting with charm and manipulation.
Today when I was out of sight he told a woman she wasn't nice and should leave. She was Not Amused and gave me a gob full about my rude child

Oxeye, didn't think you were ignoring! Sorry about 22nd though - I got a bit excited when I saw you had posted ...
Sympathy about Oxboy's experimentation - sometimes you just can't stifle them in time. I have trouble over receiving presents. Should always be allowed to open presents in private and have ten unobserved minutes for indoctrination and bribery discussion before meeting the donor.

Oh, Oxeye, don't be mortified. OxBoy is v v charming and I can quite see that he would think me a boring old misery for not baring my flesh. I feel honoured that he wanted to bestow such riches upon me.

I do love the sound of UniS's village.

Unis - we always have a bag of spare clothes in the car except when dh helpfully removes it to 'tidy' the boot. Will sandals be OK - they're the get wet sort and he often wears them in water (OK, he jumps in puddles in them a lot). Alternatively could bring wetsuit - then you'd not get him out of cold pool....

Scout - happy swimming!

RS - we've bought decent maps in France of the locality - but only once there. However, there must be someway of getting them over the internnet etc.

Ug ug ug - I am soooo tired and fed up today and need to cheer up!!!!

Shall we have a Spanish party to celebrate Spain winning the World cup????

RS - I have no idea about good French maps [jolly foreigner emotion] BUT I will ask DH for you who might have more of an idea!

Scout can you cat? (now that is a sentence that only makes sense on MN - ha ha ha!!!)

I will tell you the secrets of my family address and we can defo do a meet up as we are both in the same county when I am in dear ol' Blighty.

Amber - do you have a bbq and a garden.... I can see something starting with p happening very soon with you London lot!!!

tee hee hee!!!

Racing - what about one of these - 2 1/2" to the mile - so not overly detailed, but probaly fine for driving, but not necessarily good enough for walking:

AARoad Maps