Crepeys say Bah Humbug, (it's not Christmas yet)

[beachyhead]

Here we go

Excellent QQ

Fri 5th
BTM
Molly
Rudy
Lalsy
BD
Herbs
CV
MrsS
Addle
QQ

Yes, still on for it!

Crem, tomorrow's Woman's Hour is all about when your aged parents ought to stop driving, and how we should try to get them to stop. They've been asking people to email in. Might be cathartic? (Or might it be best not to dwell on it?)

Rose, one of my biggest life failures was my A levels. It all went downhill from there. My mother told me I should get a job and pay back some of the money that had been spent on me over the years, so I promptly left home.

My mother drove when she had cataracts. Her two gate posts and the trolley shack at Waitrose bear testimony to this. She is an awful driver, much too fast and always in the wrong gear.

Re Christmas decs, my mother has a blue Christmas tree ball that belonged to her great grandmother. She always says "it is over 70 years old", but it is probably nearer 150 years old by now. It is very heavy.

MrsS, we have some baubles which belonged to DH's GM - I love the continuity of life like that. I also tend to buy Christmas tree items when we're on holiday; it's lovely to remember when we bought them. I love Christmas and we tend to put the decorations up in early December - they have to come down on about 2nd January as I can't stand them afterwards.

Great Molly (re Christmas Do)!

MrsS is going to book the Turkish place near her that we went to in the summer - it is about a 10min walk from Waterloo or the Elephant. We should be able to order a la carte there (or the Christmas menu which does look nice AND good value) and it hopefully won't be too busy. She will book for 6pm - for cocktails/whatever, and when everyone arrives, we can eat. Hope that is OK with everyone?!

How lovely to have old decorations. I also like the tree to be down on the 2nd!

I've booked and confirmed it - it is booked from 1830, booked for 12 people (is MI coming?), have told them we will want cocktails and wine. Oh and food of course. Have also asked if we can book from their a la carte as well as the Christmas menu.

Do I put the name and address of the restaurant on here or do people PM me??

MrS and BTM, thanks very much for sorting. Great choice.

I like tree and decorations gone early too. I think we may end up getting our tree earlier than normal this year (to support a charity I would like to assuage buying-real-tree-guilt with). I once had a couple of glasses of wine at lunchtime and went to Peter Jones just before Christmas. Felt very small and troll like amongst the coiffured and camel-coated ladies so, tapped an assistant on the arm and asked him to show me his largest artificial tree, which was vast, black and shiny. Reader, I bought it.

Lalsy What happened to it?

We still have it BTM .

MI still appears to be having an utterly delightful time.

Most of my decorations date from when I was living in Warsaw in the 1980s. They are still in their old communist boxes, hand painted things of beauty. Sadly I lost my fairy a few years ago - she had been on the tree since I was a baby, had yellow matted hair and bright blue eye shadow. My Dad had made her a new dress and wings at some point. I think she disappeared when we left Belgium - we lost quite a lot of stuff then, including my angel chimes and an Hermes scarf.

I have just watched the 1970s thing on catch up, and have to say, I don't think the early 80s were much different, certainly from a workplace point of view. I used to work with someone who used to sniff my seat (but then we used to have someone who used to hide in the cupboard and pretend he was a dog, so maybe it was just the office where I worked?), and someone else who used to leave notes on my desk saying "Mr Naughty wants to know why you're not wearing your black bra today." I was also sexually assaulted by someone I worked with, who came round to my flat one evening on a perfectly legitimate work excuse and lunged at me. I reported it to my boss the next day (I thought he was going to rape me, it was pretty scary), he looked me up and down, and asked me what I had done to encourage it.

God Mrs S - your workplace in the eighties sounds terrible. I hope things have evolved a little since then. I worked in Human Resources so it was a pretty safe environment.

DD1 used to have a sniffer at school - obviously it starts young. I have to report back her uni experience so far is that British boys, unlike French ones, seem not to be able to be just friends with girls - there is always a sexual undertone.

Rose - I wonder how many of us women feel we have not attained potential. I do think once we've had children, lot of us live a little vicariously. My only friend who has a really big job has remained childless. Of course, the missed PHD because of parental funding is another issue.

I'm pleased to report the boiler has been repaired. God only knows what it's going to cost.

MrsS - sniff your seat? And all the other stuff - yuk. But I have to agree that the 80's weren't that different - there were plenty of perv's and worse around still.

Hatty, that's interesting - I wonder why that is? I did and do have male friends, but I have to say that, certainly back in my yoof, there did seem to be a sexual undertone to most males.
Glad your boiler has been mended.

Here DD is having a (unheard of) day off as she has a very bad cough/cold and had to come home from school at lunchtime yesterday. DS is not happy as he soldiered on through the last one. In fact we had a horrid evening of bickering/bantering/shouting last night, mainly down to the TV. DH and I shut ourselves into the kitchen on the snuggler!

They have got rid of the loons (most of them), so it is less interesting now. We also used to have someone who hid in the basement, sitting on the hot water pipes, waiting for the janitor to come past, whereupon he would jump down, scream and run away. He would often be there for hours (when he was supposed to be working). He would also say sometimes "I'm getting out of here!" climb out of the window, two storeys up and walk around the window sills, climbing in someone else's further down.

We also used to close the office at midday on Friday, go to the pub, stay there till it shut, go on to a private drinking club and then back to the pub when it re-opened.

I think you are probably safe putting it on here MrsS......

I am very tired and would like to go back to bed, but have to soldier on through the day.....

I have a fake tree although this year I might go for a real one as the floor is easily hoovered (no carpet....)

DS still ranting this morning

MrsS, that is hard core!

AAargh Tilly I have DD home today with a ghastly cold…it's gone right in to her eyes and she can hardly open them. She's normally such a trooper but anyone can see she's poleaxed with it. DS was also sneering and unkind about it…but then he's vile to her most of the time.

Of course this all happens on a day when I've got some paid work…and not near home…Sutton, so help me. So there was a good deal of argy bargy here last night but between DH and me as I don't want to leave DD alone when I have to set off for the frozen wastelands of Sarf London. DH lost the toss so he's coming home at lunchtime. Sods bloody law…something always happens when I've got a bit of work

Arf at MrsS workplace weirdos. Your comment re Fridays have made me remember…back in the 80s, (NHS employed) we used to go to the pub on Friday lunchtimes every week and we never saw any patients on Fri afternoons. How things have changed. Can you imagine an entire health centre buggering off early these days?

Interesting point Hatty. Of course I didn't expect any funding from my parents. It just hurt when I found out about the others. And I am going to work hard not to live vicariously…after all I don't want to end up with a face like Andy Murrays mother, now do I

Blimey MrsS. Was the bloke in the basement employed?

Hatty, I agree about women and jobs. On behalf of British boys, though dd and her female friends had plenty of male friends in and around school with no undertones. She was taken aback at university, particularly at the start, so I wonder if it is something about males establishing pecking orders, boundaries and territories in an unknown situation?

Ooh Lalsy - very interesting about establishing pecking orders. I did say to DD to bear in mind that some of them may have come out of single sex schools and are like puppies. She thought puppies was a good description - by year three they may have matured a bit.

Rose - Andy's Mum must be the ultimate vicarious mother. Apparently he was quite mean and wouldn't even go to see her on Strictly.

I find it sad that boys can't be friends with girls without all the sexual under/overtones. Apparently most of the boys in ds's school are 'going out' with girls (y7) and constantly say ds's BFF is his girlfriend - she isn't - they just good friends......

I'm another one with a dd off sick with a horrible cough. I've just been treated to a lecture from her on how to eat healthily. I really do live in that Weetabix ad, where the teenage girl lectures her mum on what Sophie's mum says about the merits of Weetabix while her own mum is sitting there scarfing down Weetabix.

There is a thing about mid-life/menopause, where you do take stock, I think. I tell myself it's about facing all my regrets now, so they don't leap up and bug me when I'm 80 and too decrepit to do anything about it. At least at our age we can go out and do some of the stuff we wish we'd done pre-children. And they can bloody well help us - cf Judy Murray...

at workplace culture memories.
When I was working in my previous incarnation we would start drinking - usually prosecco / pink fizz - c 4pm on a Friday afternoon, at our desks, and carry on with considerable enthusiasm and determination from there to the pub and beyond. Makes feel quesy just thinking about it. ..