minder

If you feel you won't be able to cope then a mother's help is a good idea. At least you can have your older child at home and not have to make time to get him up and ready to go to a nursery.

Sorry to hear that monty. Tous donated one of his blue mountain coffee bean bags (worth ?45) to a tombola sale I was having in aid of the Alzheimers Society last March. He contacted me through the forum and I met him a couple of times at St Barnabas and he and friends on his stall were really friendly.

Hi Anya - you've waited a year for the space and in that time did you not know that the childminder charged this amount? Also the terms and conditions regarding her holiday pay and bank holidays? Verds, for instance, I don't think your terms and conditions were/are standard as ?60 is way over the norm. Also midivy. ?65?

Hi Midivy, I didn't say you were being negative about the childminder but you brought this up in your post so just wondered why you couldn't approach them? Hope my first paragraph was helpful though.

There is a westdulwichforum.co.uk so maybe check out if they have bigger houses there!

When your son wakes up during the night does he have a little cry or cry loudly, fully awake? If it's just a little sound/cry then could you try leaving him to settle on his own for a bit longer? We all wake up during our sleep patterns at night but then go back to sleep naturally. Why is it impossible to get a clear picture of how your son sleeps with his childminder? Does she not tell you how he has slept etc? Off course, if you are dropping off your son to a childminder at 8am and he is exhausted then she will have to do whatever she thinks is best to get him through the day if he has had no night-time sleep. If that means having a power nap or 45 minutes before 10am then I can't see a problem.

Here's the Jay and plastic duck!

barbs1968 - you're right. German is not easy to learn. I chose it at secondary school in the late 70s (as a CSE and passed) and can get by on basic German now. I understand what you are saying at the end of your last post! Saying that, I'm not very good at the spoken part of it in conversation and this can lead to problems if you don't fit in with everybody. I wouldn't be able to have a long conversation, for example, so I think learning a language from primary school age might be a good idea.

What a great photo of the woodpecker in action. I have a jay that only comes out after the magpies have flown. I know the jay belongs to the crow family but it's still good to see. Have a photo of it somewhere.

You asked for pms and I pm'd you on the 12th but it's not been read as yet?

Dairy

Hands

As Long As He Needs Me - Shirley Bassey

From your post it sounds like your 16 month old isn't getting a lot of daytime sleep. Could you bring the morning nap forward as sleeping at 9.45am is quite late if he's been awake from 4.30-5am (that's just my opinion)? Some 16month olds do still need a morning nap. If he had a half hour nap from say 8.30-8.45 and then had another sleep after lunch (at least 1 and a half hours, not just an hour) then hopefully he would be able to go through the night to around 6-6.30am. After a while, he probably won't need the morning nap but still carry on with at least 1 and a half hours after lunch.

Come inside from the wet and windy weather predicted at the weekend. Have a lovely massage, win some prizes, have a drink in the caf? and pick up some bargains!

chuff, if the stag beetles have set up in your garden, then leave them there. Don't try to move them. I've had stag beetles in my garden for a few years now but they're harmless so why worry.

Grass

Crate

My Simple Heart - Three Degrees

Maybe the system is rife with abuse but most blue badge holders are just trying to live life and be able to get around with the help of their families. This evening my Mum was discharged from King's. The only way I could collect her was to park in a disabled bay outside the entrance (she has a blue badge). Of course she wasn't actually with me at the time as she had been in hospital so how do you get around that?

If you're looking for charity shops in Camberwell (OP) then there's the Cancer Research shop in Butterfly Walk. If you have a car you can park right at the back of the shop (off Morrisons Car Park) and deliver to the back entrance.

Just watched the London Weather reporter on BBC news (while looking on here too) and I'm sure she said something like "temperatures will be in the mid teens" - well that's a new phrase to me. They then went back to the main news reporter (who had a big smile on his face) and then went on to the national weather.

Colours

Harms

Hard to say I'm sorry - Chicago