Pickle

Thank you for this x bluesuperted Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pickle you should look at adults Occupational > Therapy - often means working with elderly, > reasonably paid (well, comparable with teacher, > nurse, SLT etc) and so rewarding. It's a two year > postgrad conversion and you could end up helping > people get back into any kind of physical or > mental activity, including exercise! Have a friend > who does this and she works with elderly hip > replacement patients who want to get back to doing > things they were doing before. Amazing career that > I seriously considered when looking at SLT. > > A good general resource is the prospects.ac.uk > 'types of job' section - really useful info > collated on many careers, case studies and salary > info etc. Here's the OT one as an example: > http://www.prospects.ac.uk/occupational_therapist_ > job_description.htm

I will, once all my kids are at school, look at retraining. I have an accountancy degree, and worked in CA firms, and investment banks. Money good, quality of life, shite. I also play flute, and did so professionally for many years in an orchestra in NZ, as well as teaching. Was brilliant, but very unsociable hours and these days I lack the time/motivation to put the hours of practice in. These days I find myself thinking I'd enjoy working with the elderly. Terribly paid, and tends to be the focus of documentaries for all the wrong reasons, but it's something I am increasingly finding myself drawn to. Before I had my son I was thinking of doing a personal trainer course, and I still think I would enjoy that sort of work. Maybe I should combine the two?! For now I'm enjoying being a stay at home Mum :)

Ok, progress, I've decided Venice is where we will go. Any tried and recommended hotels? Thinking of booking a BA flight and hotel deal, all the hotels look quite nice, but a personal recommendation would be fab.

I think there were squatters in there for a while, but now all the flats look to have "official" tenants.

Should have said, trip will be mid-May, so hopefully warm and outside of school holiday times. Florence is a good call Michael, thanks, another place we haven't been, will investigate!

I wouldn't dream of tearing him away from his Thursday night *ahem* commitment H-M-B. Thanks Jeremy. So far I've established that price-wise both destinations would be similar, so it's a case of working out which provides the best easy to see sights (and nice food/drink... especially drink). Which is nicest for general chilled out wandering around?

Attempting to plan a surprise weekend away for Mr Pickle's 40th (child free, hallelujah!). Both Rome and Venice are on our lists of places we meant to visit before kids but never quite managed. We would be limited to leaving the UK on a Friday afternoon and returning Sunday evening. Are either "do-able" in such a short time? Or if I'm attempting the impossible, any other suggestions? Thanks, wise lounge-dwellers.

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,1080519,1080519#msg-1080519 This thread should help.

When my son was loosing weight, feeding constantly, and I was at my wits end (7 years ago now) it was a student midwife that spotted he had a posterior tongue tie. Prior to that, we had been referred to the paeds team at Kings who didn't diagnose it, as well as a variety of senior midwives and other health professionals. I wholeheartedly agree that a check should be done as standard, but think there needs to be a lot more education surrounding this given to the health professionals further up the food chain.

The food stalls (Andrea with her lovely salads etc, the fudge lady, and the bakery) have all been at the market for as long as I've been in the area, which is around 10 years now. I remember walking around it when we first came house hunting in the area, and while it's grown since, I don't think it's changed a huge amount.

EOS Dance School run lovely classes for younger children, details of times etc on the website: http://www.eosdance.co.uk My daughter has been doing ballet classes for the last couple of years and loves it. Ari is great with the children.

Piriton will solve most of the itching. I got a special chicken pox specific gel from the pharmacy on Forest Hill Rd when my girls had it before Xmas. You will be fine to go away in a week - the spots will still be there, but not contagious.

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,50890,page=1 I'm pretty sure he will have been mentioned :)

It was at about 13/14 weeks that my youngest finally mastered getting her thumb in her mouth, and we haven't looked back (apart, of course, from the fact that I now have a 2 year old with thumb permanently in mouth). I'm pretty sure I had stopped swaddling by that age with all of mine.

We go for walks in the cemetery near us quite often (the one near Underhill Rd), and I try to have very honest conversations with my kids, as well as answering their questions. They are fascinated by the grave stones and refer to the cemetery as "the angels" due to the fact there are lots of angel related headstones. My brother died last year, and they talk about him a lot, but say he is "with the angels" which is very sweet. When we go to NZ at Easter we are placing his ashes under a small plaque in a cemetery, and the kids will be part of that. I have explained the difference between cremation and burial, so that they don't get too confused by the lack of body sized coffin (they weren't at the funeral). My approach (not religious), is to be honest - in our situation, losing a 34 year old to suicide, it's quite hard to explain "why" when the answer isn't due to illness or old age.

In my pre-UK mad 20's I used to stumble to the bakery round the corner. A chicken and apricot pie and a cream filled iced bun, washed down with a full fat coke, hangover sorted. Other sure fire winner was KFC potato and gravy, sadly not available in this country. And I wonder why I was fat...

Daya Day, we got some great boots from you this morning for my daughter. I gave you my email address and will definitely come and find you once you have a new shop.

I borrowed one from a forumite when I had #3 and it was miles better than the cheap ones I had for my other babies. Not sure I would pay ?80 for one, but we definitely used it more than the ones we had previously (possibly a function of having more than one child though - I seem to remember not using one for #1 very often as I had time/hands free to hold him more!). Worth advertising on here to see if anyone has one to sell or lend out? P x

Open this evening, thank goodness. I got stuck in the diversion last week trying to get to a rehearsal at Hilly Fields and my usual 10 minute drive took an hour.

Hi Crystal7, I spend a lot of time during the week with a lovely group of childminders, all based in the Upland/Friern Rd area. I think one of them has a vacancy (and looks after other 2 year old boys), so will get her number for you tomorrow. P x

This was my biggest worry when I had my second and third babies. My parents are in NZ, husbands in Scotland and reluctant to help. In the end, both pregnancies ended up as inductions at 37 weeks (known about a few weeks in advance) so it was quite easy to plan. Good luck. I'm sure you will be inundated with offers of help. My friends are pretty much done with their baby days now, but I've always been happy to be on call.

I never (or very rarely) get a chance to go anywhere other than Lordship Lane to shop, so online is my only other option these days. I only ever buy from places that offer free returns, so it's very low risk. Nice to be able to try on at home at your leisure while kids are sleeping/at school. As an aside, I took a risk and ordered some things from Yumi (free delivery, free returns, nothing to lose, arrived next day) and really like the garments. All true to size and the quality feels pretty good for the price. In particular, one dress is fully lined and drapes really nicely. Will be interesting to see how they wash.

On principle I wouldn't wear trousers that I'd had to buy in a bigger size than usual ;)

Belle - thanks for the Asos heads up, I've never looked on that site before. Just ordered a couple of bargain tops (Oasis and River Island) and see lots of other things I like. Like the option to pay ?9.95 to get unlimited next day delivery for a year, handy for the "need it now" purchases!

That's useful, thanks GinaG3 x