Autumn Term At Crepey Towers

[QueenQueenie]

I did it!

I did want to ask if they wanted me to do a turn on the till as well. I went to the bric a brac man and am now £75 better off. And yes, I did haggle.

MrsS, well done - that'll pay for a Gudrun wotsit!

Not in TW, LC, no. I was visiting a chum who moved there a few months ago. I live in the far more salubrious surroundings of Walthamstow.

Doing a fast day today, and DS's leftover baked beans are looking mighty tempting.

I ran again. Still porky. Clearly I need to be clocking up the mileage like Pirate and CV before the scales take any sort of notice.

And am in the grip of yet another vile periminopausal period. Which appears to have stopped but oh no, I've been caught out that way before....

Spoke to DM who had long-winded tales of phones and beds but seemed a lot happier. Phew!

Could I lower the S and B tone horribly by asking what the crepey answer to sock sorting is? I have just slewn our washing mountain, and have about 30 unpaired socks, many of which I have never seen before. Does anyone have a cunning plan?

I sort them into piles for each person and then let them do what they want with them. DS frequently wears non-matching socks. DD does too sometimes!

I sit and sort socks in front of the telly. I do not understand what happens to them - a pair will go into the machine and only one will come out. There is a black hole for socks in my house.

Hattymattie, exactly, only one comes out, but other entirely unfamiliar socks come out. BTM, liking your method too, that would just leave me with the strange socks....

I do the same as BTM. The dcs are both slightly obsessive, so would never wear odd socks, but dh doesn't give a stuff as long as his feet are warm.

I am a leetle bit depressed about my pathetic lack of stamina. I never seem to be able to get much done as I get knackered so easily. Am feeble.

I have a big basket of odd socks, which I rummage through and pair up periodically. And from time to time bin those whose friends have never turned up. Interestingly, it's never my socks that go missing, it's only the DDs.

I am now swivelling my eyes around the room to see what other crap I can sell to the bric-a-brac man. We are going to the theatre again tomorrow night - this freedom from children is going to my head.

Prague was wonderful, Crepeys, just perfect. Blue sky and sunshine, nice hotel, rather beautiful city. To be honest, it was so nice to just wander about, hopping on and off trams, stopping at regular intervals for a restorative (and cheap) beer or a cake or two without three small dictators demanding we do something else more interesting. We also took a bike tour of the city, which I can fully recommend (fortunately it didn't include the castle, so no hills to cycle up).

On the downside, all the main areas were absolutely awash with tour parties being herded about in packs; I have never seen so many (and I grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon), and there were a depressing number of Leicester Square-type tourist toot shops, all selling the same rubbish. No galleries or nice gifty shops as far as we could make out.

We got back quite late last night, after a quick dash to Buckinghamshire to collect two sleeping girls, and I'm now of course knee deep in the inevitable laundry pile.

Fabulous, CV. I haven't been back to Prague since the iron curtain came down. There were virtually no western tourists then and we were looked upon as a bit of a curiosity. I remember a night club where the tables all had phones on, and if you fancied someone at another table, you could call them up and ask them to dance. An ability to speak Czech might have helped with this...

Interesting fact imparted by our bike tour guide is that no-one over the age of 40 or so speaks much English, because the teaching of it was banned before 1989.

CV Prague sounds wonderful. Particularly the sans enfants aspect

MrsS, I think there were some bars in London with phones on the table. Not that I ever frequented them, of course!

I loved going away with just one dictator this summer, to Berlin. Prague sounds wonderful.

Czecho was very hard line communism - they used to fly the hammer and sickle along with their national flag. You would never, ever have seen that in Poland. They did, however, have meat in their shops, unlike Poland. Polish joke from the 1980s: Before communism, you would have a shop with "Butcher" above it, and find meat inside. After communism, you would have a shop with "Meat" above it and find a butcher inside." We used to have coupons for meat. If you had a pedigree dog, you got extra coupons...

I am tired and it's only Tuesday..... we are having the week from hell...

Prague - sounds fab, would like to go!

I wish I could go to Prague - regardless of tour parties. I had a similar feeling of freedom when I went to Istanbul two years ago with DH. Spain this summer was to say the least a bit conflictual trying to balance the wishes of teenage girls, small boy and occasionally our own.

There definitely used to be a night club in Newcastle with the phones thing.

I too have had enough of the week ALREADY.

Ha! I remember that nightclub in London with the phones.

MrsS, did a lot of people have pedigree dogs that actually lived on cabbage, then?

My mother "did" Prague on one of her oldies trips a year or two ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mind you, she always enjoys those trips wherever they go, as she travels with a large pack of other ancient people and all they do is visit churches and drink a lot of wine. She got very miffed last year as the person she has always shared a room with up until then suddenly married one of the other group members and this ruined DM's arrangements for the next trip.

I think there are old Hollywood films with those fabulous gleaming silver nightclubs where Carole Lombard or whoever gets a phone call at her table. Am looking forward to the travelling with similarly ancient people who drink a lot of wine. and no socks

I have just sent yet another email to the local school asking for its GCSE results. I don't even want to send DD2 there but I don't see why I should be fobbed off. Copied in the head and the deputies, pointing out that I am a local parent with a passionate belief in non-selective state education and that this is basic information they've presumably had since August. I forbore from pointing out that a GSCE maths class can work out the percentages if nobody's bothered already...

Hello all,
Cv glad Prague was a hit. I taught English there in 92 during the currency partition. Have wonderful memories of icicles on the trams and views of the frozen Vltava river from the Charles bridge. Romantic . Ate a lot if dumplings iirc and large jugs of budvar.

So I am home propped up by a large bolster cushion with a staple diet of homes under the hammer for the next week or so. The surgeon has added artistry to my wound by binding it with purple stitches( weirdo )
I find I am a different shape every day. Bits if me that were previously there are now mysteriously missing . Tummy is shrinking so that's good isn't it?