redjam

I was brought up on: 'Spaghetti bolognese' made with a sauce made from a tin of corned beef, a tin of tomatoes, a chopped onion and some dried thyme. Nothing else. Findus Crispy Pancakes with cheese sauce, served with Green Giant sweetcorn. Mince, rice and Surprise peas (dried peas - no one else seems to remember these), all mixed together. Ambrosia creamed rice pudding with a blob of strawberry jam in the middle. My mum would eat boil-in-the-bag Weight Watchers ready meals, generally some kind of nameless slop with a minuscule portion of claggy rice - truly the saddest things to ever grace a plate.

Camber Sands has scarred me for life after we nearly lost a friend's young son there on a sunny day when it was packed. It is so huge and featureless that when he took his eyes off our group for a minute he then completely lost us and wandered off the wrong way. Longest half hour of our lives trying to find him again. Luckily one of the lifeguards discovered him as he was wandering around on his own crying, poor thing. Also it was madly windy (despite being a glorious day) and the sand was constantly blowing in your eyes and mouth. Then there were the circling/divebombing gulls eyeing our picnic. And that's before you even get on to the tide coming in, which can be a bit hairy as it happens so fast (think quicksand - and remember those poor London boys who died a couple of years ago?). We only lasted about another fifteen minutes after we'd found the boy then we'd all had enough. God, I'm making it sound terrible, aren't I? I've been there before and had a lovely time but honestly, that last time I was there was so traumatic I don't think I'll ever go back.

Your best bet is probably a childminder or (if your house is big enough) an au-pair from Germany or Portugal. You can get nannies to do after-school jobs but you might have to do a nanny-share with another family or find a nanny with a young child of their own to make it practical (otherwise you'd have to pay them to do nothing while your child is at school). Reciprocal child-minding arrangements with friends is also an option once they've settled in but I appreciate it's not much use if you work full-time or before you know who your kids' friends will be. Most primary schools offer an after-school/breakfast club which is run by a separate company but based within the school (I don't know of any separate ones that are off-site as you'd have the problem of how to get the kids there). But you're right, they do get very booked up in advance - plus I think it can be a very long day for Reception-age kids if they're effectively at school from breakfast to teatime. So yes, childminder or au pair is probably your best bet. Hideously expensive and all a complete nightmare to sort out. And that's before you face the trauma of what to do over the endless, oh-god-is-it-that-time-again school holidays. But you somehow muddle through then before you know it they're off to secondary school and suddenly you've got a whole new set of challenges ... Ah, the joys of parenting. Good luck!

nxjen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > JohnL Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Can't we have a monarchy AND an executive > > president who we elect. > > > > I know no-one else does but we can be first :) > > Interesting idea. What would be his job > description? *Ahem* Or hers?

I reckon after a few months of excruciatingly boring diplomatic meet-and-greets and opening ceremonies, and having every tummy bulge analysed for signs of pregnancy, she?ll realise that life as a modern princess is a long way from the Disney fantasy and she?ll be heading back to the (Hollywood) hills as fast as she can. That said, er, happy wedding day, guys! Don?t know why I didn?t get an invite.

How has the bride behaved badly? (Genuinely don't know, not been following it much.)

Love my Henry too. All professional office cleaners seem to have Henrys and I figure what's good enough for them... Also as a previous poster noted it has a long hose and lead which means you don't have to lug it about much (one drawback is it's quite heavy but then I think they all are). We've had ours well over a decade and never had any problems.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I sometimes think people like to think too highly > of ED. The nappy valley element which has grown > over the last decade has pretty much destroyed the > younger/nightlife scene that was quite evident > before. The main stretch is too far from the > station and other than local families, these sorts > of businesses would be struggling even at > weekends. Peckham doesn?t have that problem. > > Louisa. Um, have you been out in Lordship Lane at night recently, Louisa? If you go out at the weekend most of the bars and restaurants seem to be doing pretty well from what I can see, judging by the numbers of people around. I agree it's a shame if Londis turns into a chain eatery but I don't doubt it'd do well, even if it does turn out to be (yawn) a Pizza Express.

Snap, kristymac1 - we joined at virtually the same time! I'd been lurking on it a while before we made the decision to move to ED though. I'm such a fan of the forum - it's helped me out so many times (not to mention making sure I'm always up on local gossip).

moondancer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think you are well named and not too clever Why this very aggressive post, moondancer?

Thank you for all your hard work, James. Your visibility and willingness to engage here has been so good for the area and has given me a much deeper understanding and appreciation of the work local councillors do. You have always had the community's best interests at heart. I'm sure you will enjoy the break (!) but I hope we will see you in local politics again soon.

Yes, they don't make it easy to understand. Kingsdale moves in mysterious ways...

I'm really not sure about the numbers of places that go to scholarship students (I seem to remember it says it somewhere on their admissions page but it's not v. clear) but yes, my understanding is that effectively you have two separate goes at the lottery: one through the standard banding and one through the scholarship pool. This is based on my memory from two years ago so someone might have better insight than me. Have you looked at their website? There is admissions information on there if you can be bothered to wade through it.

I started a thread about this a while ago and got some good responses: http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,1781771,1783776#msg-1783776 I did Coder Dojo with my daughter recently in Victoria and it was good though alarmingly I found myself having to help her as it was less 'taught' than I anticipated, which meant we had to work out quite a lot ourselves (we were creating a website). So that was ... interesting, given my non-existent knowledge of coding. Still it was free and I'm sure we will go back - I'll be a bit more prepared next time! I looked into Spark4Kids and it sounds good but it's eye-wateringly expensive. And I have now twice emailed Codeclub.org.uk as apparently they run one at Dulwich Hamlet but I have never heard back. If anyone knows anything about this club I'd be interested to hear about it, but I'm assuming it's now defunct.

Yes, it's important to realise that winning a scholarship doesn't necessarily get your child a place. But it does increase the child's chances of getting in. I've always understood it as meaning you essentially get two chances to be drawn out of the bag (and you have better odds in the scholarship bag). Not sure if bags actually come into it but you know what I mean... It's quite an opaque system but basically I'd say it's worth going for any scholarship if possible, as it will help your chances if you get one.

Yeah, I've been telling myself it's great for the insect population. Unfortunately it's not great for the view from our kitchen window, which looks like a badly maintained timber yard. Anyway, my husband says he's going to get out there with an axe. This all sounds very manly and swoonworthy, until you remember that the closest he ever gets to manual labour in his daily life is carrying his laptop. Oh well, who needs fingers anyway?

Hmm, don't fancy wielding an axe. But sounds like we need to look into hiring/buying a decent saw, sigh... Good idea about posting it as logs for firewood - need to inspect it properly to check it's not too rotten. Or we could just leave it another year and pretend it's not there (our brilliant strategy so far).

We had an old dead silver birch in our garden which we got a gardener to take down a while ago - though he couldn't dispose of it for us, unfortunately. The trunk is in two sections of about six foot each - and it's basically just stayed in our side return for the last year while we dither about how to get rid of it. It's too big to go in our car to take to the dump and Southwark won't take it in their bulky waste collections. What do people do in these situations? Do we need to rent a chainsaw or something to cut it in smaller pieces?

Yeah, you never wanted to find yourself alone in the stockroom with this guy either... As soon as I was 16 I got a job in the local library which was far more civilised, with a bunch of middle-aged ladies in cardigans. There was only one bloke who worked there - he joined quite soon after I started, promptly had a not-very-secret affair with the female boss, then absconded with the takings (which amounted to sod-all as the only income was from 20p library fines) and got arrested and splashed all over the local paper. Redhill Library had never witnessed so much excitement! Still, preferred him to Mr Wandering Hands...

Working in a really grim little chemist shop age 15, for a right cow of an old lady boss who never cracked a smile, and her creepy middle-aged son who always liked to find an excuse to stand right behind the teenage female shop assistants in the very small space behind the till. Think he would have got on with your boss, womanofdulwich...

Maybe try this guy? http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?30,1840834,1840834#msg-1840834

Still can't quite believe this. So I've now got to do an hour's round journey by bus to get over to Peckham every time I miss a parcel? Either that or wait two days (presumably?) for redelivery - and just pray that you happen to be in second time around. Are they really the only two options now?

Um, I'd have thought the Mayor of London has slightly more pressing matters to attend to than the exact route of a temporary bus diversion in East Dulwich, no?

The EDF at its best! I know we're not talking about round here but I always like to fantasise I could go back in time 120 years or so to when this area was first developed. I'd love to see what it was like when all the houses were brand-new, presumably much more homogenous in style as there'd be none of the later additions, no cars on the streets etc. Would all the front gates and paths have looked the same as each other? Would those Edwardians be moaning about litter and dog poo on the pavements as now or would horse poo on the roads be the issue du jour? Would the gardens be used for growing veg or flowers? What would the streets look like without all the modern-day signs and road markings? Wouldn't it be fascinating...

Keeps 'em off the streets and out of trouble...