Scruffy Mummy

Yes, ok I was feeling like being a stirer - (as many of us tend to do in the longue) at times in my previous post! Apologies to all I offended in the heat of the moment!! But my main point was the the accusations in this thread seemed to question what I think is a legitimate need for lesbian and gay parents to have a group in which they can meet and discuss issues that they share that parents who aren't lesbian and gay don't understand. Also a place where they can just 'let their hair down' and not have to always be the one to educate heterosexuals. My point Anna J was that I have seen alot of threads saying 'but how will I (a presumably straight person) learn about the issues facing lesbians and gay men if they never come to our groups'. My response to this is that I think it's abit much for people in the majority group to always expect people in the minority groups to have to come to them to educate them. Feminist and black American theorist Bell Hooks makes much the same point in talking about how white people often expect to be educated by black people - instead of white people making an effort to educate themselves! And that has always been my main issue with this thread - people say they want to find out more but don't seem to want to do the work themselves to find out the issues involved. If you make an effort to understand the issues and culture and discrimination involved, then I believe that your practice or group or whatever you do will be more open to people from diverse cultures/backgrounds/groups. With that, my lovelies, I am off to bed!

Baby groups dominated by straight mothers can verge on the desparately boring, let's face it!! Seriously folks - let's all take a chill pill! I totally get what the orginal poster was saying. Straight people like to think they are every soooooo open-minded but I've been in baby groups with mainly straight parents and have heard a fair amount of heterosexist rubbish - like 'I feel so sorry for gay people, if my son was gay I would feel like he would have such a miserable life' and yes, I've taken on the role of the educator for straight folk. But why should lesbians and gay men always have to do this? Maybe being in a group for lesbian parents means they don't always have to play that role. I'd like to see some of the posters here make an effort to get out of their heterosexual ghetto and go and hang out in a gay bar, go to Gay Pride, chill at the lesbian and gay film festival. Make an effort to educate yourselves for a change - push yourselves. Anyway, you might find you quite like it!! >:D<

31. These people who complain about dogs attacking young children are completely selfish and want to impose their pathetic values of living free from dog attacks on us poor oppressed dog loving masses.

24. I'm not homophobic but why do gay/lesbian parents (or any other group with particular experience/background in common) have to hang out together in groups when they could just assmilate into the wonderful world of the norm?

There are several other working men's cafe's in the area maya55, aside from the Grove Vale one and the one across from the post office. There is the one in betweeen All Fired Up and Locale near Goose Green, the one near the Starz Hairdressers near Tescos, the Upland Road Cafe which I very much like (open very early,great crusty toasts and no plastic chairs. And down Bellenden Road an extremely popular working men's cafe near the Cost cutters. So there is hardly a dearth of working men's cafe's in the area!!! They are good for fry ups but if you don't eat fry ups more than once a week, then you are going to be looking for other eating venues. I like the Blackbird - since it's opened, we've bought most of our bread from there and they do nice sandwitches when you need to grab a quick sarnie on the go. Not the same que's as ED Deli and more convienent for those of us living nearer Grove Vale.

There is a small stables at the Willowbrook Centre, on Willowbrook Road (it is the big white house - used to be the canal keepers house - with the big veranda next to the canal path which houses about 3 or 4 horses - I used to work in the Centre at one of the voluntary organisations based there. A couple of local people own the horses and they exercise them on Burgess park and sometimes let them graze there. Peckham has a history of working class people - not travellers - owning horses in the area although I think now this is the only stables left in the area.

People may moan on about small children being annoying in public spaces but when did you hear of a toddler putting someone in hospital due to lack of social responsiblity of a parent? Dogs that are breed for fighting should be kept on a lead and muzzled in public spaces. I don't see how you can argue with that. A friend of mine who recently adopted a grayhound was advised to keep her muzzled for a few weeks even though she is pretty gentle untill it was clear she had settled in and wasn't a biter. My friend had no problem with that.

The reason I keep mentioning the salary is because the GP's pay deal was meant, as I understand it, to also cover doctors investing in their surgeries - i.e. extended hours, more staff, etc. Yet, many (not surprisingly) have done this. So it just annoys me when I hear stories like this - because it annoys me that the government has agreed a nice pay package and we the public haven't really seen the benefit.

I don't have a problem with scheduling an appointment and organising my work or childcare around that appointment. I would expect that as a matter of course. What I have a problem with is the idea that I wouldn't be able to make an appointment - that I should just sit around all day and await a phone call!!! Of course - if I have something I think is life-threatening/urgent - like a heart attack or seizure I would drop everything and go to the hospital or doctor's surgery - that's not in doubt! But if it's one of the many nebelous/minorish-but-maybe-complaints, I would like to be able to make an appointment. If I have to have a telephone session, then I would like to have a telephone appointment - so I can ensure that a) I am avaiable and b) in a place where I can take the call. If, I have to wait in for the gas person to come to fix the boiler, I would know in advacnce and re-schedule committments. The gas company also give you some choice of days and times for them to call. It wouldn't matter if my kid is around or not - they can still come and repair my boiler. It's quite a different matter - trying to have a sensible conversation about a health issue with a lively toddler jumping up and down or having a tantrum. I can imagine the scence now 'Yes, doctor - I'm a bit worried about... put that down, stop it now!...sorry about that, yes, where was I? oh, I have this lump... no don't throw that down the loo...' Being able to have a scheduled appointment with your GP (not an A&E doctor) really doesn't seem like alot to ask especially considering that GP's have an annual salary of ?100,000!!

Oh, and I had what I thought was conjunctivitis a year ago - and went to the chemist who gave me the usual drops. It cleared up abit but it turned out it was something called blertiris - a different condition which required different treatment. So you can't always self-diagnose. AND, if you have small children - how realistic is it to be able to take the call when you are in the playground or when they are having an all mighty tantrum? And there might be some things you don't want to discuss in front of your children - maybe you don't want to worry them or it's an intimate problem. GOSH - I am so annoyed. If my surgery brings this in, I will be livid.

Excuse me but didn't GP's recently get a lush ?100,000 per year pay deal???? And for that we get a returned phone call - not a proper appointment? Weren't these GP's supposed to invest in their surgeries? Surely they could invest in a few more staff? Or evening appointments. I'm sorry but it's not good enough. Call me crazy but hey, I'd like to have a doctor's appointment at a time that I can make it!! Most of us work - and get a darn sight less than ?100,000 a year thank you very much and we can't just sit around all day waiting for a clinican to call us back!

No, no - most of us are very friendly and kind. My toddler had a right lie-down-on-the-floor-end-of-the-day-tired-out tantrum in Sommerfield on the weekend - all I could do was stand there and wait till it was over really and I got many kind smiles of understanding and one lovely woman said she thought I had a great deal of patience. (But I knew that shouting at toddler when he was in this state would only make it worse!!) But there is the occasionally type A person - man, woman, parent, childfree who doesn't like you in their space at all. Case in point. Was walking with a friend on the path along the Goose Green Playground with our toddlers about a month ago, We were engrossed in conversation and didn't notice the jogger coming towards us. Instead of simply saying 'Excuse me', he said 'FOR F**** Sake' as he jogged around us!! I was sure there would be a posting about selfish, inconsiderate ED mummies on the forum that evening. Personally, I think it's a London thing!

I guess so - but Blue Mountain doesn't have newspapers that it buys and makes avaiable - only copies that might be left behing by others. I could have said that it was my own copy and my own 80p I suppose but he didn't give me a chance before huffing off! Maybe he was having an off day? I was once on a train at night reading the Guardian and a lovely woman came over and asked if I was finished with G2 as she always did the crossword but hadn't been able to buy the paper that day. So I said I wasn't finished with it but I didn't mind tearing out the crossword page. I did that and she was very happy!

Rightly or wrongly, I tend to blame private education when I see an arrogrant, posh person (male or female) pushing their weight around! We all have our prejudices - however rational or irrational they might be! And Azul, you've described my partners other irritating habit of nicking half my brekkie perfectly.

I was in Blue Mountain cafe last week (sans toddler!) waiting for my partner. I had bought the Guardian and was half way through it - I also knew my partner (being to tight to buy his own bleedin paper) would read it as well. Anyway, a young assertive looking young man came over to me. 'Can I have that?' he said, putting his hand assertively on my paper. 'Well, no' I said with a smile-'I'm not finished with it and my partner is coming and he'll want to read it.' He looked pissed off and walked back to his table - muttering 'some people' Well, I just looked at him in complete astomishment!!! Personally, I blame a private school education myself - teaches folk they somehow deserve more than the rest of us!

You guys are so funny! Man, this has got to be a set up by a Radio 4 comedy - when people ring the number above, they get Alistair McGowen impersonationg Phil and Kristie, no??? As re-processions roll on, particularly once all the greedy buy to letters stick their failing investments on the market, property shows will quickly be out of fashion.

Chav - that sounds like my small town! It had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in all of Canada and several girls in my high school class were pregnant in high school. Rural life is far from perfect! Yes, the social net in Canada is better than the US but worse than the UK. Toronto is more like London but has it's fair share of social problems including homelessness and pollution. Oh, and my brothers wife is a toxiologist working for the governement and pollution in Canada in rural areas is quite high. Why? Because of the pesticides used in farming. In my area, they used to fly over the fields in small planes and spray the pesticides, also dowsing residents in the nearby area! I've probably got more toxins in my body growing up there then my son will living here. Sorry - I'm being a downer again. Go Canada, woo hoo!!!

Ok after my message of negativity I'd like to say that Toronto is a very nice city - and has some lively districts - Queen Street is very cool. The islands are fab - a really fun trip out for the kids! Go in the middle of winter though if you plan on living there for good as the summer months might give you a false impression - there is a sound reason why those underground tunnels (with malls!) were built that mean you can tranverse most of the downtown district without ever going outside. The winds are pretty biting! Toronto will still have speed cameras though!! Do drop into Canada House in Traflagar Square - they have all the national and regional papers which will give you a feel for the country. Immigation to a new country is a long process - my family immigrated from the States to Canada and I immigrated from Canada to here!! You will need to get a work permit and, if you have a partner, they will either need to get one or not work if you have one. Then, after a specific amount of time (in the UK it is after living here for 5 years with no restrictions on your visa and when I did it in Canada 20 years ago, it was 7 years with no restrictions) you can apply for citzenship. In some professions, you can do an exchange with someone in your field - librarians have a really great system and a friend of mine exchanged with a librarian in Boston for a year - they swapped jobs and houses! It gave my friend a great experience of living in a new country with none of the insecurity of leaving jobs/friends/life for good. Anyway, sorry to have been so negative - many people immigrate to Canada and love it. But no country is perfect and I always think if you are immigrating to excape problems usually those very same problems can re-emerge in a new country!! Please look into the cost of maintaining your house in the winter - seriously the weather is evil and it costs much more to maintain an older 4 bedroom Victorian house in the winter than a newer build or apartment. If you are only using it in the summer, you might be better off selling it and buying a holiday place that is easier to mainatain.

Oh and the education system is pretty patchy - at least that was my experience going through it and my brother who is a teacher - although loyal to the education system points out some of the problems - particularly schools in rural areas. And what young people do for fun is pretty grim. The lowest point for me was as a 14 year old on a 4-H (a young club for rurual young people which is actually very good) exchange trip to Mankota Sascaskewan (it was so horrible I've forgotton how to spell it) For fun, the kids there would drive out to the 'lake' which was a quarry which had small amount of rainwater in it and drink beer and crush grasshoppers. fun stuff!

I was born in the States and moved to rural Nova Scotia in Canada when I was 10 years old. Although I took on Canadian citizenship I left the country after university and have no regrets at all. Despite what many patrotic Canadians say, Canada can be very boring. And Canadians can be a bit smug sometimes - sorry all the unsmug Canadians out there but there is only so many times you can listen to how wonderful Canada is, how it has no social problems, how much better it is than the US (that's not hard folks - can we not define ourselves in any other ways that being anti-American?). Canada does have social problems - racism exists there and the country has a history of being just as evil to the aborginal peoples as anywhere else. Rural Canada is the worst honestly. I grew up there and wish my parents had stayed in NYC!!! HOWEVER, certain Canadian cities are very lively, multicultural places - Halifax in Nova Scotia one of the places I would consider living if there was a nuclear attack on London and I was forced to make a life back in Canada. Toronto and Vancover are two other ones. And it's lovely in the summertime - beautiful. yes, Canada has a points system for immigrantion. It's just as difficult to immigrate to Canada as it is to immigrate here!!! If you have a job that there is a particular shortage in then you are in luck! This varies from year to year - one year hairdressers were on the list!! Just being skilled worker isn't enough - it depends on the profession. My mother and us got to immigrate because the school that she applied to work at couldn't recruit anyone in Canada (she was a clinical psychologist who specialised in working with deaf-blind children and was recruited to head the deaf blind department). I don't think owning property will enable you to work there - if you start a business however, you will get special rights to start the business but it depends I think on employing a Canadian. The best and most reliable place for info is the Canadian Embassy - go to Canada House. They are VERY friendly (good CDN trait) and also there is a very nice art gallary. Don't trust some company - the embassy will have all the information you need. If I were you, I'd sell up and buy a lovely holiday cottage near the ocean - one of Canada's best features. The other issue is that it is VERY DIFFICULT to maintain large old Victorian style homes. The weather is brutal and means you will have to shell out for alot of maintaince - you can't just leave these houses unheated in the winter for instance. In the winter, do you realise that the snow will be up to your waist???? And even higher in many places??My parents who are retired sank loads of money into their house (4 bedrooms, 1 acre plot, etc. etc) ending up with a $60,000 loan against the house when in their 70's just so they could keep up with the maintaince sbut FORTUNATELY have just sold it to a well off oil man from Calgary who has alot of money they want to spend on doing it up and resorting it and they are moving into an apartment in a sheltered seniors complex. In all the 15 years they owed it, it didn't appreciate in value - because no-one wants to live there!!! There is no market and they need so much WORK and UPKEEP!!! Sorry to be a downer but you asked for opinions!

I noticed there was a thread in Wanted/recommended and I think they have got it off the ground now! Best wishes to everyone involved.

Gosh, I'm feeling so guilty about my downstairs neighbour!! (my three year old goes to bed by 8:30pm at the latest though) We do respond immediately when we hear him banging on the ceiling and get sprog to stop whatever he is doing. Sometimes, it's abit tricky though. And when we get the banging in the middle of the day when sprog is doing something like playing his drum for a minute or two I think it might be abit unreasonable but I always get him to stop or we move to another area in the flat where it might not be so annoying. I think there is a balance - and I think that by 8pm it's not unreasonable to expect more quiet. Maybe they are just really embarrassed so that's why they don't respond to knocking?

It can be quite challenging - balancing both paid work and being a parent. When my son was one, I was working about 2 days a week (I say about as I'm self-employed). He was with a childminder for 2 days a week from 6 months to one year. Then at 14 months, he went to nursery 3 days a week. He is now 3 years old. Things I think that really help are: 1) sharing pickup and drop off with your partner if you aren't a single parent. It's a big challenge to have to get up, get a wiggly toddler fed, dressed off to nursery, then yourself to work and then repeat the same thing. I find life much easier on the days I can just sail out of the house and leave my partner to sort it all out and get sprog to work! Then if you are sharing pickups you can also stay behind at work one or twice a week to get stuff done and go out for an after work drink with colleagues or friends. 2) Give yourself some time to have an 'induction' period again at work - as if it was a new job. Just to settle in and re-familiarise yourself with new developments, new colleagues, etc. 3) Remember that although you have had a year off work and you've had some BIG changes in your life, you are still the intelligent competent woman you were! To be honest, after my maternity leave, I LOVED work!! You get to have un-interrupted tea breaks, read the paper on the train, go shopping without a wee one in tow, talk to other adults about things other than babies!!!!

Well, I've heard from the agent and it's all good! She really liked the proposal, felt I had got the tone spot on and just had a few minor points that need correcting! Once I do the corrections and sample chapter (in addition to the introduction I did in the proposal), it'll be all good to go and she'll take it to some publishers. She was honest about the length of the process and said that it could take a while (particularly as non-fiction book by non-celebrity/high profile authors is particularly difficult) but she has faith in the idea and my writing - so I'm feeling pretty happy!

I used to work ages ago as a library assistant and we did initally take donations but as was pointed out above, they took up an inordiante amount of space and we never had the time required to go through them, look them up on the catologue, label them, enter them in on the computer, etc. etc. Plus there was always the problem of books that were in poor condition or old textbooks that were so out-of-date they weren't accurate. And then we were lumbered with getting rid of these books which often took up about 40% of the donations. So we had to stop taking donations in the end Seriously, it would be better to lobby the Council to increase the book budget than encourage donations of books to local libraries. Oxfam has several charity bookstores in London selling donated books.