Crepeys/Hagsnet - come to the candlelight!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

As the last thread is now full...

I am replete with cheap white wine, after refried ham and eggs and potatoes after the end of term picnic in the park (a credit-crunching alternative to e-o-t pub trip. V nice too).

I also have about six days' work at a Nice Rate in August, courtesy again of Edam (she has proper job and couldn't do it so kindly suggested me).

Where is a nice place to meet a friend round Victoria on Sunday?

Just back from EofT do in pub - lots and lots of drinks and a fish finger sandwich and chips

Fraid I've never really been out in Victoria, except to the ubiquitous Pizza Express and that doesn't count as a nice place!

I yearn for fish and chips from the Windmill Fish Bar in Kennington.

Are you eating at Victoria or just drinking? I went to a London MN meet up at a Lebanese place called Noura at Victoria. I thought it was overpriced. It wasn't a great success - I had been drinking at the Palace and turned up pissed.

Just drinking. A nice pub would be fine.

I know that 'turning up pissed' scenario

Does Victoria have nice pubs? I would have thought they'd be all fake and touristy.

I went to a rather nice party in a pub round there. I will ask DP - we both went (it was someone he occasionally works with) (an old friend of mine) (OK, someone I've known so very long we did shag twice once) but he will look vague and Not Remember.

Am just enjoying a nice glass of chilled white after a very taxing week. Both dcs completely overwrought with all the e-o-t stuff. dd's leavers' service last night went on for 2 hours and there was a bbq today in school and much signing of shirts. And there was e-o-t Beavers for ds with a monster water fight and bbq. And his lovely teacher was v emotional at home time today. I don't remember the end of the summer term ever really being super-emotional back in the olden days.

e-o-t Thursday here so quiet today. Monster AF decided to make an appearance (ahh, that could at least explain part of the appearance of black dog), so felt completely crap. Came home, trout and pasta for the males in the house, half a bar of chocolate and jam on toast (clearly needed the sugar) for me. Need to shop for ds's lunch bag for next week today.....

To clarify, I ate the chocolate and then the toast and jam..... (jam and chocolate - yuck...)

Ha, Blackduck, we are in synch :) Yesterday I succumbed to the urge to eat a whole pile of digestive biscuits sandwiched together with nutella because there was nothing else of sufficient sugaryness in the house. I do apologise for sullying the thread with such nastiness...

ds and dh are off to the county museum today for the opening of a sci-fi exhibition, as an actor from Star Wars (not one of the big names, obvs :)) is doing the honours. I am spectating dd's lifesaving class and then it looks like it might be time for the first beach picnic of the hols.

Picnic on the beach sounds lovely Strop - we will have to wait till Tues for that - when we are on our happy hols en France

Got to do a supermarket sweep today to get our last bits for the journey and hol. Am praying that Sainsbos do freezer blocks as I have lost 4 of ours and I can't face trekking to Decathlon again!

I'm a bit sorry that we've already had our holiday now, although we might go back to UK for a few days in August, when Paris shuts down. Am waiting to hear if DD2 is going to the Cote d'Azur for a week with a friend of hers. She went last year, and they invited her again this year, but have not had a reply to my emails... she will be v upset if she can't go. Maybe we can grab a few days with friends in Cornwall instead.

Out to lunch today with DH, a local MN friend and friend from UK who is out for the weekend. Local "bistronomy" resto, not yet tried.

Ds has a birthday party at Pizza Express so will be stuffed this afternoon, and then we are off to look at houses. I am currently hunting for some pain killers as have the most horrific headache as well. MrsS - you out with Bonsoir? (is she truely scary?) :)
I have binned ds's school shoes and about to take all his trousers up to the charity shop. Why, oh why, do they have the sales on school clothes NOW. I don't want to buy the new stuff just yet as I have no idea what kind of growth spurt he might have in the next 6 weeks!!

Back to school on Monday. I long for it to be over.

DS1 got back from France last night on surprisingly good form, bearing lots of yummy chocolate for his nearest and dearest. I think he actually missed us! DD2 spent last night camping on the school field (in preparation for their Y4 residential trip) and looks a little rough round the edges. Not sure she's going to last.....

We are off out tonight - it is my DB's 50th birthday, but a few weeks ago, in a fit of antisocial grumpiness (I'd like to say uncharacteristic, but it isn't), he found out about the surprise party the family were planning to throw, and told us in no uncertain terms that we were to cancel it, he would NOT be attending. He was really quite vile about it.

Cue very upset parents, so DSis is hosting a "not the 50th birthday party" at hers; we are doing a secret-santa-type gift exchange and we will have a lovely evening without the birthday boy even present.

Serious? I can't imagine why he would not want a "surprise" party - I love any excuse for a party and would be so honoured to have a surprise party thrown for me. Especially if it really was a surprise

Shame you still have school next week, though my two are vile today, and probably will be for a few days until the tiredness subsides. We have the same problem as two parents who are teachers, so all in all, it doesn't make for a happy house!

Damn, my cover is blown. ds has been looking over my shoulder. dh and the dcs have now taken to calling me Stropperella. dh: haha, that is a really good name; ds: yes, because she is sooo stroppy. I may have to namechange.

I am a bit sad as the dcs have just told me that AW has died. I taught her for a year when she about the age my dd is now. V. sorry for her family. Very sad.

Yes, v sad about AW. Awful for her family and friends.

Lunch today was divine - friend from London was very animated about the food - the most excited I have ever seen him, and I've known him for 27 years (he always tells people that he knew me when I was "almost a virgin", but thankfully he was too interested in his food to trot this out today). Twas not Bonsoir that I lunched with - Bonsoir is not remotely scary! She is very nice and has patiently answered all of my idiot questions about the French medical system! (But she is not the sort of person you would want to bump into if you ran out to the shop with unbrushed hair, because she always looks good.)

AW and Norway all very horrible. DP is particularly distressed by Norway.

I have had a haircut. I was aiming for Jean Seberg but have ended up slightly more Boris Karloff.

My two are quite, quite horrible in their state of exhaustion. Although DD1 has been most cheered by parcel of very-good-castoffs from MrsS, including the skinny black jeans she has yearned for with every fibre of her 10 year old being.

Why on earth doesn't the Sunday Times come in large print?

Anyone else noticed their eyesight is barely useable for the first hour after getting up?

I have an eye test booked for next week. I am worried that if I get new lenses in my glasses I will see that I have way more wrinkles than I realise.

Norway is on a whole different scale of awfulness to AW. Just terrifying. As for AW, I don't usually feel anything much re: sleb goings-on, but knowing what she was like when she was 12, I found her decline and fall touched me in a way that big name gubbins wouldn't usually.

thenightsky, yes, yes, yes My eyes can't focus on anything till I've been up ages - thought it was just me!

I think I need to get my eyes retested, although the optician said 3 years and I'm sure it's not that yet. However, he also told me that I can buy the cheapo supermarket reading glasses as my eyes are both as bad as each other.

Very, very sad about AW - she was so talented and I loved her voice and music. As for Norway, the ordeal sounds completely horrendous and unbelieveably terrifying and traumatic for those poor teenagers. Just seeing them interviewed is horrifying.

Gawd, sorry 'bout my idiotic Norway is on a whole different scale of awfulness comment . Err, obvious that one, really. Didn't quite come out how I meant it to, that one. Not sure MNing in bed on a netbook is really for me - at least not when the whole of the rest of the family (including the dog) is in the bed with me. I may have to either go back to only MNing in the office or lock myself in the shed.

I thought the eye thing was just me! I am terrible first thing!
Stropp - sounds like my house, I MN with netbook in bed, with the whole family (and dog)....not alot of room to move.
We looked at a house yesterday that was sooo tidy I came home and started blitzing the pit creative mess that is our house. To be fair we do own rather a lot of books which tend to be piled all over the house (there are books in every - and I mean every - room...) Now got to decide if we could do the commutes and the childcare (I need a job where I can work from home!)

BTM, your optician sounds...unusual. The recommendation is for everyone, regardless of their sight before, to get an eye test every two years after the age of 40 - predominantly to test for glaucoma but also other eye conditions, which ratchet up over 40 (and also eyes can manifest the signs of other conditions, like diabetes - which also goes up for the over 40s). I write about this stuff pretty often. (Every month, for RNIB.)

Please, if you haven't had an eye test in the past couple of years, do go. The standard optician test should include the 'triple test' for glaucoma. Catch it early, and it'll probably just mean eye drops and no further treatment. Seriously.

(Sorry to sound so over-zealous.)

BD, am not sure I would recommend working from home....well, some of the time it is nice but only if you have sociable kids who go to play with friends/have friends round a lot in the hols

Ooh MI, thanks for that - I will get along there when we get back from camping. And to the dentist as a big bit of my tooth chipped off earlier.
God, I am falling apart

Talking of camping, we had WW3 in our house trying to cram all the stuff into the car. DH made DD and I empty out all our clothes and only take half of what we had packed.
Not looking forward to the annual 12 hour journey crammed into the car with our grumpy, whingey pre-teens. Just wondering if the campsite has free wifi....