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.

Have some carrot cake Amber(or chocolate - it seems to be a cake of requirement). And a bucket of tea!

I'm glad your boundaries were ok

Carrot and chocolate cake? Splendid!

Hurrah for Donk! That's great news, very pleased for you indeed!

CMOT: Starting in September for 2 terms - the school is lovely.

Wine bought, cake supplies purchased and (gift for DD paid for. Bought the little girl a bracelet making kit and a spirograph set. Both can be used up, though the spirograph can be used for ages. Also thought might be good for her for camp this summer. Ended up with a red and a white Aussie wine -- can't remember what brand, but there was a 2 for ££ offer on. I got one of both because one likes red and the other prefers white.

Had a fab time at messy play this afternoon. BabyScout nicely covered in green gloop, having a whale of a time. Was so much fun watching him play with the gloop and try to kiss the other babies. It was also really nice to hear one of the other mums tell her DD that "look, your buddy BabyScout came this week!" (we hadn't made it the last two weeks.)

Is anyone else NOT watching the England game?

Spirograph def a good gift - and the green gloop sounds fun

2 terms is a nice amount of time Donki. Glad its a lovely school. Thanks for your horse leg whitening advice too

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well done Donki!

Does anyone happen to know whether the fact that both England and Slovenia played in 442 formation contributed to England's win? I asked DH, but he let me down

england game?? was that why so many shops were shut this afternoon?

DONK- well done ye. congratulations

V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V

deck the halls with hay and carrots.

Boy has been a sweetie today. his "camp" is still popular, took his train track out there to day and played in the shade on teh grass.. arrrrhhhh, so cute. While I managed to read bits of a book- in between having to supply rail engineering consultancy services to Postman Pat.

BUsy morning at work tomorrow, have a deadline to meet, which is unusual. No sign of cheque, customer was OK ish about it and will issue another thankfully. No idea when tho.

Fab fab news about the Donkijob. Yay!

A little Merlot, anyone?

Do you ever feel that every bit of work in the world is done by you? That nothing is ever done unless by you?

Feeling very martyrish this evening. Worked all day, Head Teacher has devised a scheme by which my class of 39 next year will be divided into two to be taught by me and her (no money for TA on my days). I will do the planning for both halves of the class and she will teach lots of drama. Ie double the planning and no more pay but lots more paperwork as everything will have to be on paper not in my head. (A lot is on paper now, but by no means every dot and comma). She will do drama with half the class while I teach the other half maths and literacy, then I will teach a different maths and literacy lesson to the first half while she does drama again. She may also do some art.

Then got home after two hours' marking while the cleaner tried to chat with me to make DH a cup of tea then off to the poly tunnels to do watering and plant out pumpkins until after 8pm to come back and find DH and friends debating religion and drinking beer.

Just needed to tell someone all this.

Donki, congratulations! Your new job sounds interesting and two terms should be long enough to be worthwhile on your CV / CPD file.

RS you are being seriously Put Upon there. I hope your cleaner actually did some cleaning as well as chatting and Boo to M.Snake for being a lazy arse!

Am myself debating how unfair I am being to NOT empty the dishwasher, given that I have done all the washing up this week so far, and the dishwashering, and the cooking - and MrThumb has done SFA on the domestic front. Plus I and miniThumb still have snotsville colds which require 2-minutely bogey wipes (him). Am Not Impressed - I did mention to MrThumb that the reason he does the majority of the cooking is because I know if he didn't do that, he wouldn't do anything else! Point proven?

RS, arrgh re both your martryd situations.

Mary, sticking to 4 4 2 was one good reason why we won, yes. Allowing the players a beer or two the night before probably helped, too.

I've got the meeting from hell later on today and I don't feel well. Urk. Anyone got any tea going?

Here , and have a flask to take to your meeting.

I forgot to ask Amber, what new dog are you planning on getting ?

Well the Aussies are out so MrThumb can go back to supporting England, although he has a sneaking fondness for the Kiwis as well.

Amber - have a large quantity of soothing and strengthening camomile tea - with lots of extra strong bits in. to hear about meeting from hell - hope it isn't as bad as you fear.

We've got a female PM here now, in case you haven't heard on the news... twill be interesting to see how she goes, she's a bit of a ballbreaker by all accounts.

Amber - in my experience its been the small dogs that normally are able to get out over big boundaries, not the big ones! Current collie sized mistledog looks at you as if you were mad if you expect her to jump something shorter than she is - although she can scramble over stone walls in the Dales wiht allacrity of course... The much smaller collie-cross that my parents had (collie/terrier - awful combination!) could pop over a 4' gate without thinking about it and with no run-up...

Tea - was it nasty-mother again?

Racing/thumb - I am also feeling put-upon and can sympathise... Somehow, if I need to leave home at 7.15pm, I get mistlechick fed, and eat at the same time, do his bath and get him to bed and go out. If dh is going out - you guessed it, I still do it all... In the summer I do all the gardeneing, including mowing the lawn (he's allergic to the grass...) - he will sometimes help me to start the lawnmower (pull start) the first time...

But there's hope that there's another contract coming up which is good - would mean staying away during the week, but we can cope with that if it means he's in work.

Scout - how did the exchange/cake/bed/wine deal go?

Donki - HUUUURRRRRRRAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Might be an Akita. Thanks for offers of tea.
Sounds like you need a large cup yourself, MT?

What IS it with people's partners? We share. Not 100% equally because of our different difficulties, but goodness me we share. I'm very with any partner who thinks they can put their feet up whilst the other one works.

We don't share equally in terms of childcare, but DH is out of the house commuting/working 14+ hours a day so I don't expect him to be able to do things like feed/bathe/clothe on a daily basis. But he does on weekends or if I'm poorly. Well, not the bathe part because I think he's scared (BabyScout's a mover and a shaker and gets very excited in the tub). I cook because I like cooking. Cleaning/tidying is a mutual thing, though more me because it drives me crazy faster. I refuse to do anything regarding lawn/garden/bushes and leave that to DH. I would rather scrub the toilet than mow the lawn (though that said, I secretly enjoy cleaning the bathroom because there's nothing like a clean toilet).

We're doing the exchange (or at least part of) today. I didn't get the cake done, though, and don't think I'll get to. Had the most horrific cramps last night that had me doubled over and practically vomitting, so I opted for bed rather than baking. And I won't have time to get it done before we have to meet another friend for lunch.

So, now am left wondering -- offer wine and DD's goodies with promises of baked goodies later? Offer wine and DD's goodies with no mention of cake? Or take wine/baked goodies/DD's goodies over the weekend (which is probably when we'll collect bed because I can't do bed by myself with BabyScout)? DECISIONS!

One of the schools (we have an infants at one end of the road and a junior at the other) is using the green across the road from my house as a stop/teaching space for their bike safety course. The teacher/instructor is VERY loud. I can hear her clearly in the bedroom where BabyScout is napping. I wonder if he's learning the Bike Safety Code in his sleep?

Am just LMAO at the irony of this - opened my emails and I had an email from Amazon, recommending books I might be interested in - the main recommended book was MY ONE!!. So of course I gave it a 5-star rating . Some kind person has given it an excellent review, very happy about that.

Scout - not sure! I think maybe just the wine and gifts for their DD is enough, actually, since you're giving 2 bottles of wine.

MT - sorry you're also feeling put upon - it's not good, is it? I did get MrThumb to empty the dishwasher, which, to be fair, he did with good grace. But I have to keep an eye on him or he really wouldn't do anything domestic - he even had a go at me the other day for asking him to chainsaw up the logs smaller as he'd cut them too large for our little grate, he wondered why I couldn't do it myself . I pointed out that it took him half a day to start the petrol-driven chainsaw and why on earth did he think I was going to be able to start it?

LOL Thumbwitch, thats so funny! I find some of those Amazon emails hilarious. I was convinced one of them was trying to persuade me to become a priest! (I'd need a lobotomy first )

I took said wine and goodies for DD and said "A little something to say thank you for thinking of us regarding all of the items you're passing on." Asked if they "would like anything for the items" and got "that's very kind and appreciated. Let me talk to DH and I'll let you know. Thank you." So ball is in their court. They've invited us over during the weekend to go through their loft with them to see what might be of use (in addition to the cot/bed and high chair originally offered, now have offers of carseats and anything else they have). Came away with two bags of toys and a bag of pint-sized wellies and baby/toddler sized wet-weather gear for camp. I asked if they would like all items back or shall I pass them on when BabyScout got bigger and she said it was up to me. Some of the toys she was telling me stories behind, so will make sure they keep nice and will give them back.

They have a new kitten and BabyScout was sitting playing when the kitten came right up to him and they both looked at each other and did mutual investigations. Once BabyScout realized it was a cat (he knows cats from my PiL) he got really excited and kept putting his hand out for the kitten. He didn't try to grab the kitten, just kept grinning and putting his hands out (palm up) to be sniffed. BabyScout was kitten's first experience with baby and he was very good -- kept going close and stopping and watching and was generally very curious. Really wished I had my camera with me!

Awwwww - that is so cute, Scout!

Well handled, I think - hopefully the DH will say "please just take it, you're doing us a favour" but you've covered all bases.

MiniThumb quite likes cats but MrThumb loathes them so we won't be getting one but good too as we're too close to a main road. However, we went to a bird show/sale a few weeks ago (they're rife over here!) and met one of MrThumb's relatives who breeds and hand-rears cockatiels - he had one on his hand, and miniThumb was ever so careful with it, gently stroking it with one finger, no grabbing at it (hurrah! my dire threats instructions worked!) and the Relative was very impressed!

Talking of birds - our butcher bird still visits but other meat-eating birds are catching on - he was "buzzed" by a magpie this morning. Not good - they are too territorial and too big to encourage. But this afternoon, the butcher bird came back so got some ham - and 10 minutes later we looked out and there was a kookaburra sitting on the rail where the butcher bird normally is, looking in at us! I went to fetch it some ham, but it had gone by the time I got back. They're extremely intelligent, I think it had gone round the corner when it saw me go back into the house, iyswim, because next thing I noticed the magpie was on next door's aerial, looking at me, and then suddenly the kookaburra erupted from the garden at it and scared it off! It might be a smaller bird but it has a much bigger beak.

Thanks, thumb. I have a feeling that's what might happen, too, or a small amount will be suggested.

And was very cute watching BabyScout and the kitten. (I, too, am going gooey at the memory!)