Crepeyistmas Time, Camel Toe and Whine...

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Pandering to the uncouth...

So glad parents evening went well BTM.

Mrs S - In would have been strident woman in M&S - that sort of think drives mild.

I can confirm that M&S food here is very well and efficiently administered.

GOod news on the parents' evening, BTM.

Loving the recipe chat. Will add my huevos rancheros when I can.

Last day for me today. Limping on. DD1 passed her piano exam with a merit . Thanks for all the good wishes on Saturday, which clearly worked.

Hope all the other sick crepeys are rallying a little. And still thinking of your mum, MI, and keeping crossed for good news

MrsS, you should have gone to Johnny LouLou's for coffee instead

Well done to your DD, Monty.

Panto today. After I have dropped the car for the MOT/service. And the DC's school photo has finally come through, so a trip to the PO somewhere along the line to send it with the calendar...

Monty, very well done to your dd!

BTM, how lovely to end the term with a positive parents' evening experience.

Re: clothes shopping - I am neither very slim nor particularly rotund, but I am short and squat with very broad shoulders and a thick waist. No trousers are ever short enough and sleeves are usually too long. But I am too stocky to fit the proportions deemed "petite" by clothing manufacturers. So I have also made many duff purchases over the years just on the basis of getting excited because something fits.

Yes please to huevos rancheros and splendidly named cheesecake recipes.

Well done your dd, Monty.

I had free JL coffee and cake this week - queue was also long and tables mucky. I wanted to say I am paying good money for this......

Stropps you are not squat and stocky@

We are on the bus and the driver just announced that he wouldn't make it to the place where the theatre is if he didn't get off to go to the toilet We may be late!

My nose is streaming. And I should really have left my secret satan do rather earlier than I did . DP forgot I was going out and only got my texts at 9pm ('where are you? Have left kids at home, should I go back?' etc) and seemed remarkably unrepentant (he doesn't even drink, which might have explained a tipsy lapse). Actually girls were fine too. And I got a HUGE tin of After Eights and a mini-bottle of whisky .

I have interviewed some excellent people this morning who have cheered me tremendously

LOL @ incontinent bus driver. Hope the panto is a larf.

Good to hear you have had a cheering morning, MI.

I managed to post my SS yesterday, so at least I can tick that off the list. I did not manage to do much else. Ooops.

at Tilly's DD's parents evening and Monty's DD's piano result!! Great stuff. Hope you get to the panto, Tilly…just shows you, if you gotta go, you gotta go...

Glad I didn't depress you, MI…I hope not, anyway!

What is it with these bugs that seem to be getting better, then mutate and come back with a renewed assault? I am full of it again…bit like MI and got such a stuffy head. Just come back from the theatre run with DD who is doing a matinee. DS is off school, pyjama'd and bearded from not shaving from before the Poland trip. He is doing what we call "shlomping". My cleaner is ill, poor thing (she's NEVER ill) so I am going to clean up and buy a few more Xmas presents at local garden centre (excellent for this sort of thing).

I too have a tenacious bug. Started a couple of weeks ago with just feeling bloody awful, then became a sore throat and lost voice, and is now a chesty cough, which while 'productive' in the morning become less so - and thus more painful - throughout the day.

I can cope with these sorts of illnesses, but anything involving brisk egress of undigested matter is something else entirely. Especially with only one loo between three of us. I live in dread of a whole-house outbreak of norovirus.

I'm faintly concerned for BTM's bus driver now.

I am tired (very) I'd like to go home, but as my team have all vanished on me I am holding the fort....

WFH tomorrow and then down to London to see family.....

Last minute present buying (eek) ..

Hope everyone is okay and having a good day!

The bus driver was fine - he got off, did what he had to do and got back on

The panto was good, but looooonnnngg.

Rose at bearded! Mind you there seem to be lots at the DC's school who seem similarly hirsute!

Tilly facial hair seems very fashionable among the yoof and probably men in general. Him and DH have a really nice type of growth…very …dunno how to describe it, kind of Spanish- looking iyswim. DS was just being lazy and ill, but I'm wondering if he's now trying to cultivate a sort of Jonny Depp look. DS1 is fair and has a much sparser growth and never bothered. Ha ha….and here's me trying to ignore the old Crepey 'tache and beard that stares back at me from the rear view mirror in the car on a sunny day… The mark of a witch no doubt…

BD that is so mean of your team to leave you alone…where are they? Down the pub?

Herbs Sounds like an antibiotic job to me…be well.

No Rosebag - two one leave (one off to India tomorrow so packing) and the third in hospital with her dad.....

It gets a bit thin on the ground round here towards Christmas - next week will be even worse but at least I won't have to fight for the lift.....

I have just done my first 'audit' of what I've bought for Christmas - I'm still none the wiser. I unpack it all and then pack it all up again in different bags, then forget what I've done. Christmas dementia...... Someone will be forgotten.

I've got the ddog2's Christmas party tonight - two classes of 'untrained' dogs, together for the first time, in a big barn with lots of food. What do you reckon?

Hope all those who are ailing feel better soon. We are all OK here for once - although dh and I seem to be entering the 'competitive aches and pains' time of our lives.....Our 20's and 30's were dominated by competitive tiredness and now it's more like 'Oh my finger still hurts a bit', with the response of 'yes well I haven't really sorted out my hip/shoulder/wrist yet'.

I might get a bodily complaints book we can just jot it down in, save our breath......

Afternoon! Just got in from work Xmas lunch, hic. Jolly nice with prosecco and Christmas pud and everything. BTM - glad parents' evening went well, sounds all very positive. CV - hope you get the shower sorted quickly.

Just realised my fingers are not typing the words I am thinking, so I'd better step away from the keyboard...

Gah! DH, being an effing miser, insisted on trying someone different to do the MOT/service (I have used the old place for 15 years, but he thinks they are expensive) - needless to say the car's not ready yet and may not be in time for me to drop DS at the station. And I will have to go back out for it, of course

I have installed my lovely new Christmas cushions.
I am waiting for DH to explode with rage.

I sat next to a friend of BTM's at my freelancers'/school mums lunch. She asked how we knew each other. I was vague, mainly because I was sitting next to another MNer on my other side and it was all getting a bit incestuous .

Oh I always say in that situation, "Oh I've known X for years." As if you've known them so long you can't remember how long. There was a Parisian MNer who became a good friend and ended up working in the same building as me, and people always used to ask us how we knew each other. I used to say, oh I've known her for years, since we were in London (which was sort of true).

MI - DD2 asked me how I knew you. I said, through MN, and she said, quite disgustedly "Oh I thought she was a proper friend that you had met through work, not some random off the internet!"

MI, I have PM'd you

Were they the ones I saw, MrsS?
Yes, my DC are a bit sniffy like that, but getting used to it!

ARGGH.

The cat has left a mouse at the bottom of the stairs do I wait for it to finish eating the mouse before clearing up? and CDiff has now asked for me to 'contact Northern Ireland to ask their policies on older people' for a Nightmare Feature. (Not the one CDiff wanted pulled.) I asked what party, etc, but was just told Find Out. I have got a quote out of the political correspondent at the BelfastTel (friend of a friend) explaining it doesn't quite work that way...

Yes, BTM. They have been languishing under my desk for a while...
They look lovely on our shitty cat clawed sofa.

Oh MI I have just opened a cupboard and found mice shit everywhere , and one has chewed its way through a ruddy plastic air grille. Ffs, I am in marigolds and squirting disinfectant everywhere. We have already caught two in a humane trap, but I am drawn towards the big guns.( sticky traps)

In other news I have excitingly received my Secret Satan. Thanks very very much. It has made me a bit teary tbh.
Oh dear here comes the Christmas weeping, of low self worth and impossible standards.