BeccaL

Those are amazing photos - what a pity so many of those buildings are now gone. Thanks for the link - really interesting.

But surely a lot of the applications which put Heber as first choice would be applications for siblings of current pupils - so still meeting the criteria?

I thought one of the lewisham schools burned down recently which might explain the bulge at fairlawn?

Last year we accepted places in both (4th choice) and only rejected the lewisham place when we were given a place in the goodrich bulge class. Agree not fair on others wanting that place but we were allowed to so we did. Hope you all get what you want - wouldn't have wished what we went through last year on my worst enemy...

We went to howletts when our daughter was just 2 and it was great. Though might be quite hard work with 2 kids and 1 adult. Expensive but a good day out.

Depends how close to the gherkin you want - smiths of smithfield and club gascon both good (unless you're a veggie) - club gascon prob slightly more formal but amazing food. Hope you have a great meal.

Try searching on the guardian's website - the Sat paper had a piece on this in the money section a few weeks ago which seemed to have some good suggestions

We moved ours out of grobags for that exact reason. We just went for duvet and pillow from mothercare and she was fine - I think she realised she could cover up if she got cold. She stayed in the cot with these for about a year before moving to the big girls bed!

We did the herne hill course and didn't really stay in touch with the people there - the east Dulwich postnatal tea groups were where I met good friends who I still see regularly - course was useful for what to expect so i'd say worth doing

I don't have a jar - someone else's idea - but am at work all day so easy. At night while she's in bed might be more tricky ;-)

We did SF down to LA last year - it was amazing! Didn't do Vegas, but spent 9 days in SF - if didn't live in London that'd be my first choice of where to live! Monterey is worth a visit for the aquarium if that's your sort of thing, but otherwise a little soulless. We found a great stop off between there and LA called Pismo Beach - tiny place, but we had a motel room which looked directly onto the Pacific, and we could walk straight onto the beach from the hotel - wish we'd been able to have another day there as very relaxing. Great crab restaurant too. Let me know if you want more details!

Mine (5) gets a pound a week from her grandparents, which I think is a bit unnecessary! however, she's just got the idea that she can use it to buy things for herself and save it - as sillywoman says she likes using it for plastic crap that I won't buy her! Also good for taking to school jumble, Christmas fair, etc - concept of it being her money is nice at those. Agree that household chores are part of family life - we all help put on washing, hang up washing, unpack shopping bags, etc - and wouldn't want those linked to money. Like the idea of the treat jar for good/kind things.

I agree court lane needs resurfacing - I regularly cycle up it and it's a nightmare. Less certain that all the new pavements are needed though...

Second the stacking cups, or tipping pots as they're known in our house. Farmers will probably have a good, cheap selection

Goodrich has uniform, as of this year. I think that at primary level it can't be insisted on, just 'encouraged' but I could be wrong about that.

Well done on the bottle - keep doing it. Ours took one, so we thought she was fine with one. Tried again a couple of weeks later and she wouldn't touch them - continued to refuse until I went back to work at 5 months and she had a 3- day stand-off with her dad - no milk drunk on day 1, 1 oz per bottle on day 2 then realised that was all she was getting during the days on day 3 and didn't look back. I gave up with expressing early on because I couldn't bear to see it wasted! Good luck with it all

Howletts is great fun, but probably worth trying to get there fairly early - ours loved it at that age. Only proviso is that won't be great if the weather's bad - lots of it is outdoors.

We paid ours for a full day for the year our daughter was in preschool as we were taking up a full time place and I also thought we were actually making more work for her as she had to plan the day to be back for lunch and afternoon preschool session. Also meant we had a full time place for school hols which was helpful. Hope you get it sorted

I agree with you Peckham Rose, I read this carefully and while I can see the upside re immediate access to records in case of an emergency, I don't think that outweighs the potential for problems - the NHS's IT system isn't exactly inspiring, is it? As the letter said, you can always chose to opt in in future if you want to. Interested to hear if anyone has discussed this with their GP or with Southwark - Southwark was presented as the preferred option for questions as they have up-to-date information, but surely they'll just be presenting the party line?

Hi Bobbaz This might sound really horrible, but our daughter did exactly the same until we had "stern" words about how she really knew better and needed to try a bit harder to make it to the loo on time - this worked. Not sure why or if that's any help, but it worked for us. She was about the same age as your son. Is he OK about leaving his room and getting to the loo in the dark - a long shot? I think our daughter had got used to waking up with a full bladder and when she had a nappy on just weeing, and so she carried on doing that even with no nappies, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Good luck - I remember the hideous shock of going back to having to get up in the middle of the night again to change sheets when we'd been really lucky with a good sleeper - I think that helped instigate the talking to!! BeccaL

If you are going to the aquarium on the south bank and you know in advance (night before, or poss same morning if time allows) worth googling for any discount codes and booking on line - even if no discount you can go straight to the front of the queue to collect your tickets then go straight in - worth it just to skip the hideous queues there

Don't know how they are now, but the buses weren't running down LL (near Townley Road) at about 9.15 because they kept slipping - turfed off a lot of passengers now. 37 seems to be running OK

Giraffe gets really busy at lunchtimes, especially at the weekend. Have a good day!

Our childminder was ?45 a day - daughter started school in sept. I think one consideration is how flexible your work is if child or childminder is ill - nursery less likely to let you down through staff illness but i can't comment re child illness. We had to change childminder when daughter was 3 because the first moved away and daughter gave new minder (who she already knew) a really hard time for 4-6 weeks. We liked the personal side of childminder vs nursery. Good luck deciding

Hope going back to work is OK for you fairylamb - ours went to a childminder 1 day a week when she was 1 which she loved and also gave my hubby a break! (I think in a lot of ways work is easier than looking after a baby, especially when they can't talk to you and tell you what's wrong!)