40+ Yummy Mummies :-)

[mrsboogie]

mornin' ladies

and the conversation continues...

lmfao@sunday roast!

mrsb hugely disappointed you've not put the Gordon's on the porridge. Could have made a new cocktail there

jj my, my. You have a full diary today don't you! I particularly like 'make the bedroom pretty' Cute.

Just about to buy a new lamp from John Lewis for the kitchen. One of those futuristic rise and fall affairs. Taken longer to agree on this than on the baby's name

Anyway, no other plans apart from the usual cleaning and washing. I've put a ring round Wednesday's date as a possible putting the tree up but if house isn't clean, then it stays in the loft.

Also, booking dog in for bath/haircut. Needs a festive spruce up (come to think of it, so do I!).

hmmmm porridge and Gordon's...

Had a horrid morning of nausea and nearly vomiting, but managed not to. Just when I was feeling better, too!

Still determined to get back to work on Monday.

DH to make me lovely lunch of sausages. He always cooks the sausages. He has a knack!

tee dunno how you can eat sausages after you've barfed! When I had MS even a smell made me spew

Well it's footy day today at worf towers Fulham v Man City. Kill me now.

However, every cloud etc etc. I do have credit card in hand and I feel a spend coming on! woot

JW I didn't actually barf. And after the nausea passes I am always starving! Enjoy your shop!

Hello all,

Where's lilibet? Been wondering how she's doing.

Been very hectic here as DD1 finally moved out this morning. Hoorah! Her and her boyfriend are renting a one bed flat not too far from here in an area called Stroud Green, near Finsbury Park for anyone who knows London geography. We are just cleaning her room now and my goodness, the dust and the dirt are quite something. She'd inhabited that room since March and I don't think she'd ever hoovered it. The room she was in before - now Elizabeth's room - was the same when we shifted her to the spare room. And now it's a spare room again, yippee

jw I can't believe how fast Katherine is growing up. The pics are lovely, what a winning smile she has.

I made American style pancakes for breakfast and ate a stack of them with bacon and golden syrup. Can't afford maple syrup anymore as it's gone up to £4.99 a bottle With golden syrup just 99p there's no competition.

COme on mrsB don't tell me you've not tried that old fave 'porridge n'gin with granola sprinkles'

tee good to see your DH does nice things with sausages. My DP is good at frying. I think he sees it as a sort of primevil thing - it involves flames - so it's as near to killing and cooking as he's going to get; It's a Ray Mears thing

Sorry about the footie jw I'm so pleased DP can't stand footie.

My left boobie is in agony. I'm hoping it's not mastitis but it is displaying all the classic signs.... Gggggrrrr. Best watch that. Which reminds me hedgepig how is your BOOBIE doing now? x

JJ yeah, its the same reason they all like to BBQ. Makes them feel all manly! Now there's an open fire!

My greatest fear is that this baby will be a boy and play footie. Or worse yet, Cricket! DH and I are so not the athletic types!

ladymac a spare room It's a thing of beauty and something we no longer possess. Although in the grand plan (not that there is one) the girls will share and once again there will be somewhere for our paperwork.

Finsbury park....one of my fave places because when you spell it backwards it's KRAPPY RUB SNIF....! Gotta love it

Thank goodness I don't like Maple Syrup...that'd be an expensive habit to fund!

MIL just rang all excited - she's got me a nice lot of oxtail....MMMmmm.

Funny this year, you've just reminded me JJ, first year I am MiL-less. We knew it was going to be her last xmas last year though but I guess the reality of it this year will be odd

No spare rooms here either. We emptied the junk valuable heirlooms out of ours and stuck Millie & Boris over everything that didn't move (and some that did). K's camped out in there now.

We're still debating over extending to the side. We've a garage that had already been converted into a utility room/office but we're thinking of having it all done out and extending upwards to give another bedroom. In theory for when my children want to stay.

Also, this morning we were considering having the rooms knocked through downstairs. Basically we'll be decorating after new year in both the sitting room and the dining room in the front. At the mo they are completely seperate rooms. However, our sitting room is a tad dark as it's been extended so sun doesn't quite reach far enough. We're thinking that they might as well do the work and put doors between the rooms while the walls are being done. Means lots of dust though and we'll be barred from the downstairs for a week or so (by 'we' I mean me and K).....not sure. seems like a big job but would be worth it.

I've got a big bottle of maple syrup in our fridge...but no one likes it! DSS had a passing phase on it and then went off it straight away.....

A spare room? what's one o' them??

JW that's what we've just done. It was dusty but only while they were doing the actual knocking through which only took a couple of hours (it was half a wall as the stairs go up one side). Has made a massive difference as the front room was only a junk room.

FiL just here helping OH to put up my new black chandelier. Nice

oxtail mmmm ...soup

crap. pc ate my post

did the knocking through make a difference to the amount of light in the two rooms mrsb?

OOOh chandelier. Tres swanky

yes it did jw - the back room has no window in it (only a glass door) as it is an extension and now the light comes from the front window - has opened it all up and made it much brighter.

Think I've made my mind up I'll put it on the list for 'jobs to do in the new year'.

Ooo - we've knocked through too - it's all the rage

Our front living room was soooo dark and then there was the teeny kitchen and downstairs bathroom, which is common round here. So DP put a bathroom above the stairs (taking some space from the main bedroom ) and now we've got a kitchen where the loo was and a huge living room/diner. Plus, the planning rules have just changed so lots of permissions have now been scrapped, even when you've already extended - makes it even more tempting eh?!

mrsB am salivating over a black chandelier.

Have just come back from a long walk in the park where Iris was very daring in the venture park - bless. T'was dark by the time we got home and we've all had a hot choccy

In 'Arlington Park' by Rachel Cusk there's a wonderful paragraph about an ambitious social-climbing couple who plan precisely on which side of a particular avenue they want to buy a house and hassle estate agents and vendors until they get one and then carry out their grand development schemes on the interior. She says something like 'they had planned to knock through wherever they could, and it was strange, because the walls almost seemed to fall down before them of their own volition...'. The woman ends up realising that her hi-spec super-contemporary kitchen-diner has all the appeal of an airport hangar.

However.... our back and front rooms were already knocked through when we bought this house and are lovely and light, and if we could afford to join kitchen and 'playroom' to make one huge and lovely kitchen-diner, we most certainly would. I live in the kitchen anyway, if I'm not in my office.

All being well, come June we will be turning our first-ever spare room into the nursery. It's been fun, having somewhere to dump loads of crap and then clear it out when people come to stay, but hey....

nice read, Arlington Park ermintrude

I'm sure the received wisdom is that houses are worth more un-knocked through but our front room was so small you couldn't fit much furniture in it so it was useless and the back room has now effectively doubled in size because because it is no longer the walkway from the hall to the kitchen. I am well chuffed that we did it. The actual knocking through only cost £750 as well!

Oh, a playroom. I never saw the point but 2 children later it seems so appealing. Mind you, so does an office now we don't have one!

I have to agree with the airport hangar analogy, been to a few places where I've thought it feels very cold and clinical due to the knocking down of a few too many walls.

My dream house swings between a lovely modern box ala Huf Haus style as seen on Grand Designs to a classic Victorian detached - the sort you always seem to see on sitcoms.

Really hungry... or am I? There's plenty to munch but I just want mince pies...

At the moment we actually have 2 spare rooms. One will become the nursery very soon and the other will still be a spare room.

Of course, first I have to figure out what to do with the 4 bookcases and the single bed that are in what will become the nursery. Especially since its a furnished flat and the landlord won't take it out for us! I am considering selling it and then buying a replacement when we move out.

That really is the big dilemma for us....we bought this house as it does have two seperate downstairs rooms. They're both good sizes too so it's not a lack of space problem....just the light. DH is dragging his heels as we have a large G Plan (think 'old') sideboard that runs along the wall that will be knocked. Btw, we don't want it taking out, merely some nice doors putting in so that the lights can come through the glass. Anyway, back to the sideboard, the dilema is we'd have to get rid of it and at the mo it's stuffed with all of DH's bridge stuff, board games, banking stuff, all my knitting etc etc ...so it begs the question where does all this lot live if we get rid? Also, DH likes the big old Gster and doesn't want it to go....this is the rub.

I vote we move to a bigger house!!!

Actually, I've been doing a light hearted reckie for when the housing market situation sorts itself out. The timing for moving will be best in 3 years when DSS goes up to high school and K starts primary. Long way off yet. But I'd really like to go somewhere semi-rural. Bit fed up of living in the smoke.

JJ, our playroom is barely used - there's a pc in it which in the one thing my dh and the kids do use the space for, an old portable tv/video unit which has The Little Mermaid 2 stuck in the VCR, and lots of shelving with toys and games. They pick out what they want and then mess up the sitting room with it! Most of the houses round here use it as the dining room because they've got tiny galley kitchens at the back, but our vendor had extended the kitchen so we can get our little dining table in there. Would rather have a kitchen/diner/playroom/ family space really. But I wouldn't do it in white and chrome; it has to be a warm and welcoming space whatever the size

All of our three houses have been Victorian/Edwardian and in need of lots of work. DH dreams of a clean box with no skirting but hates modern housing - he'd like a nice Art Deco one that looks a bit nautical. Or, worryingly, he regularly admires the large rectangular 'villa'-style of Nando's local multiplex branch and talks about getting one of those built and then just building rooms and floors into it. Gulp

Can you not bung everything into the second spare room tee? gawd two spare rooms - the luxury mind you I spent years and years in rented places and hated it - with landlords banning everything from hanging pictures to the use of candles. So glad finally to have my own place to do as I like with.

My dream house is of the type that I pass on my way into town - massive Georgian three story huge-windowed tall-ceilinged townhouses - my lottery winning house. I would have my own special girly sitting room - with everything white and damask and brocade, with French furniture and chaise longues and white velvet curtains. No one would ever be allowed into it except me. I have given this some thought as you can probably tell

The second spare room has a double bed and even more bookcases, mrsb so no, no room, although I think I can squeeze at least two of the bookcases into there. Its the single bed that's the real problem.

would he not make an exception for the fact that you are having a baby? worth asking surely?

we haven't told him yet. Its actually in our lease that we have to tell him, but I am dreading it if he decides to find some reason to not renew our lease. I'm trying to decide if I can tell him after I give birth, because our lease renews about a month after I am due! But they do inspections once a quarter and all I need is for them to either see me or see baby stuff and the jig is up!

oh god - hmmm. Thing is - if they are going to chuck you out over having a baby wouldn't they do it anyway irrespective of the lease? They can give you notice any time? The last thing you want is that kind of worry hanging over you as you get close to giving birth - or worse again moving house with a new baby.

These days you would think that most landlords would be glad to have good tenants and not be too keen to chuck them out.