WorkingMummy

This - Darius Rucker

I hadn't heard any of that. It kinds of makes my point. Vatican harbours child rapists, the pope is pope. Vatican harbours homosexuals, the pope has to go.

Picture Perfect -Chris Brown

I am so sorry that A&E did not work for you! Have you updated your midwife? I am sure this is not the outcome she had in mind? She may be able to help you/suggest a way through. It sounds like she thinks you need emergency attention and you haven't got that yet. Any idea when you will be seen by the perinatal team? Also, I would just like to say, I am so full of admiration for you, that, in the blackest time which you are describing, you have reached out, to all the right places, for help, and that you are persistently pursuing those places until you get the help that you need. This is very courageous. Putting it mildly, depression is an energy-sapper. It is terrifying too. To people who have never had it, I always remind them that it was the experience of severe depression that brought J K Rowling the idea of the Dementors in her Harry Potter series: she had it about right, I think. It shows an enormous amount of strength and resilience that, from within your black thoughts and feelings, you have found the will to get out of bed, let alone exercise this degree of care for yourself and your unborn child. Beneath the blackness, you must have enormous reserves of love. Obviously it won't feel like this to you right now, but it's the truth: you are going to make a wonderful mother. Keep posting Mrs S.

Warm this Winter - Gabriella Cilmi

Susyp have you ever been referred for this? Sounds absolutely hellish and I really feel for you. I have migraines of similar intensity and prescribed dihydrocodeine helps me. It really is about finding the painkiller that fits you. But seriously, could something be up? Not life threatening, obviously, just totally horrible. Has it been investigated?

Shining Star - Manhattans

I vote chalk board over white board for any house with toddlers. The havoc my 2 year old has played with felt tips. Hate to see what she'd do with markers. Strangely, she's never drawn with chalk on the sofa, carpet, baby etc etc

That sounds oddly plausible. Fortunately, not so much join us or be damned from the CofE though. More, would you please support our Christmas tree competition. Of course, there are exceptions...

Most importantly, I think it's great that there is a guideline now. NICE plays a very important role. I'm very nervous for its future under this government. They have already changed its accountability, such that now it reports direct to the Minister for Health, rather than an independent Trust. Makes me nervous for its independence.

I Hurt You - Pretenders

It's a stupendous piece of idiotic evil to not de-frock priests/cardinals/bishops who rape children (and in fact, cover up their crimes and, when they finally came out, in some cases grant amnesty in Vatican) full stop. To then de-frock gay priests adds insult to very serious injury. In fact, I'd say the Church accomplished the most perfectly evil response to one of the worst institutional crimes ever. I don't find trying to get into that institutional mind set very edifying. Cannot understand the hold these people have on a supposedly enlightened west.

I wrote to the leader of the local church that knocks on doors and junk mails with leaflets containing a ridiculous combination of protestations of love and threats about hell (presumably if you do not accept the love). I was a bit of an arsey lawyer about it. Told him I revoked the implied licence for him or his flock to come onto my property and asked him not to trespass. He was absurdly "I will be gracious and grant your highly unreasonable request" about it, but, no more knocking...

OMG. So now the officer who arrested Pistorius has been arrested for attempted murder. Crazy. That is just, a different planet. His alleged victim not named either.

Obviously, not guilty until the contrary is proven and all that, but as the facts of the case emerge, (Steenkamp apparently in the bathroom with the door closed, or in one report I read, with the door LOCKED, when Pistorius shot four bullets through bathroom door at her) seems to me, things are not looking too good for Mr. P making the World Championships this year. I'm awaiting some b/s like, "Toxic mix of alcohol and performance enhancing drugs (administered without my knowledge by my coach of course) clouded my judgment and made me overly aggressive when I decided that no girlfriend in bed beside me plus SOMEone in bathroom necessitated shooting the crap out of whoever was behind that door." And pray to god that the main headline does not then become, "Oscar Pritorius Drug Cheat".

I like this balanced (if a little bombastic) commentary. Perhaps a pope who would: 1. Remove Benedict's ban on gay priests (surely gratuitously homophobic when priests have to be celibate anyway) 2. Impose ban on sex offenders in priesthood. 3. Extend permission to use condoms from male prostitues only, to all men. 4. In view of these (and a million previous) u-turns, admit he's not infallible and thereby encourage people to think for themselves.

Apple Tree Man - All About Eve

Wide, Wide as the Ocean - Purley Baptist "Mums and Tots" c 1978

I have emailed Valarie Shawcross, our London Assembly representative, about whether the Mayor is serious about a cull and to suggest, wouldn't public education to discourage feeding be better instead. She replied: "My perception is, like yours, that the problem is more to do with human behaviour - feeding foxes and encouraging them to come near homes is the problem, not their existence in London per se. So public education would be the answer. Despite his pronouncements I don't believe the Mayor intends to act on his views but I will table a Mayoral Question and find out - also urging him to look first to educating the public. Like lots of people I enjoy 'Spring watch' on TV and that kind of programme may have contributed to a trend of people wanting to get closer to wildlife. Which as you say creates risks."

Do you have room to put the person up? Sounds like a classic au pair job, which is normally ?80 or more per week for a total of 25 hours plus a couple of evening baby sits. The person normally wants to attend language school, so four free-ish days a week would work for them. But you do need a spare room.

With you on faith schools, Smiler. They should not be allowed to discriminate between children on the basis of their patents' religion.

But I totally get Saffron's point, which is basically about integrity, no? Lots of people don't get it. My husband - who obviously i deeply respect - doesn't really get it. Before we got married he begged me to just tell a porky if the Swiss minister asked about my faith. (To save a lot of hassle and talking he said.) He couldn't see the big deal for me. Probably because he's pretty much only culturally Christian himself, rather than a fundamental believer. But it was very important to me and I'm glad I was honest because, although prepared to go along with pretty much anything required with my fingers crossed behind my back, thanks to a very cool vicar, I got a wedding service I could fully own.

PS: In artificially increasing the fox population by feeding them, you are also acting against the interests of some of the animals below them in the food chain, which might include rats (although not in a way that would threaten the rat's existence, as surely rats have the ability to live out of the fox's way, in buildings and sewers) but also other small mammals such as hedgehogs. I cannot believe that the increase in the fox population and the decrease in the hedgehog population are entirely unrelated. Wait, I think there may be another thread about the disappearing urban hedgehog.

I hope this isn't too misty-eyed of me, but in support of civil servant (and other's) love of the fox, I remember when I was about 8, walking home in the dark with my dad, in south Croydon, and he stopped and told me to be quiet - "If you are very lucky, you'll see a fox - there." And after a few seconds, I saw it, crossing the street ahead of us. It saw us, stopped momentarily to size us up, then trotted on. It was utterly beautiful. I felt like Richard Attenborough. I had seen a rare glimpse of non-human, wild life, in my own street. And I had learnt in just a few seconds from my father what my attitude should be: respect, wonderment, and distance. I think that was the only time I actually saw a fox before leaving home. But I knew they were there after that, and would hear them, and sometimes recognise that slightly unpleasant smell marking their territories. I don't remember any anti-fox sentiment amongst adults in my childhood community. Complaints about other people's cats and dogs, yes. But not foxes. And far from being unable to leave her back door open for fear of foxy intrusion, my mother used to allow my baby sister to sleep outside in garden, in the pram, without any thought that she would be eaten. Foxes simply did not show their faces in the garden during th day. Having foxes reproducing in our garden and running around our children was not, I found, such a positiv way of introducing the kids to "wild" life or its rightful place beside us. There was no joy and wonderment: only fear and confusion. I do feel very sorry for the foxes that we had to kill. They deserved better than to be reduced, as civil servant says, to dependent visitor attractions in the gardens of well meaning but misguided human "animal lovers".

Saffron, I think I know where you are coming from. It's even trickier to get your head around this kind of thing if one parent has a faith (or at least, a cultural habit of involving the church in key life events) and the other really doesn't. We have this issue. My husband is not religious but would no more fail to christen a child than he would fail to celebrate Christmas. I have never hidden my atheism from the vicars who married us or christened our children. I would probably have been silent about it unless directly asked, but each time I was directly asked. So I said, I don't really get this, or even particularly like it, but I love my husband and as he's giving up/has given up his country to live with me in London and raise our children here, and he wants it, and I kind of feel I owe it to him to be honest. I have been amazed by the openness of the vicars to adapting the service so that I could participate whole heartedly. The baptism pledges for example were in each case adapted to a promise to raise the child to live in communion with all people of good will. We had totally secular marriage vows and a friend of mine was allowed to say a wish for us, instead of a prayer. This was the Swiss church however. Not sure how far you'd get with the CofE.