Mrs TP

A guide group meets in St Clements Church Hall which you access via a slip road in Barry Road near Mulberry CLose. We used to do something else there but there are pix of the guide meetings up on the wall and also contact details on the notice board in the entrance. You can also visit the guiding website and key in your postcode to find a local group.

I don't see any probs with taking them. Why don't you have a chat with them and see how they feel about it?

My hubby suggested last night we have two more incase we fall out with the three we have! He was joking but he would be well up for more ...

DaveR - yes, funny how things effect people in diff ways.

Are we getting it Thurs night or Fri night?

And is it just me but I am not comfortable with taking little ones to Portugal? I know bad things can happen anywhere but this destination doesn't enthuse me.

These villas do look great for up to 2 children but we have 3 and I see they put the third up on a camp bed in the lounge, which is not for us. You should check out the size of the bedrooms though - I note there are limited pix of the villa interior. We were cramped in Thompson accommodation year before last in Menorca. Everything in the resort was great except the complete lack of space - tiny kitchen / lounge area with concrete sofas with cushions on the top in the style of caravan sofas. And we paid for 5 of us to go but on arrival had to pay an extra 25 euros to hire a cot for the fortnight - even though I had paid the same price for all 3 children already and this price included the beds for the oldest two, so why was I double charged for the cot? Also with Thompson we did some of their trips as didn't hire a car that time. As we got familiar with the place I realised their trip prices were beyond ridiculous when compared with doing it yourself. Now I know that is how it goes and I was happy to pay a percentage extra but we went on one trip to a waterslide park, which when we got there I noticed was free entry for my youngest who was 2 but via Thompson they had charged us the full child admission price of about 10 euros. I complained and got my money back from them but it took a battle. I checked out the villa you went to in Pollensa last year, beautiful and spacious but of course such luxury comes at a cost!

Do you have space at home and do icing cakes and biscuits (make them in advance) or making masks (have some card templates ready cut out in the style of Venice ball masks) and stick bits and bobs on them? It is hard keeping everyone happy!

I developed a phrase along the lines of 'you don't have to like me but I am your mummy, I love you very much and it is my job to look after you and I am going to do that the best way I can. I look after you, keep you safe, get you to school on time and to make sure you behave. You might not like it but that is my job.' I would often make this into a much longer speech and generally they would stare at me dumbfounded and we would carry on. However, doesn't always work and we have had the complete meltdowns.

I think you really have to push this with your GP. Not easy if they are not sympathetic. Or speak to your health visitor or ask his school if they have a nurse. Worrying for you especially as you not getting medical support for this matter but reassuring he is healthy in all other respects. Good luck.

Who did you book your villa with in Pollensa?

Saffron I was looking to click the like button on your comment then ...

Funny that in contrast to Saffron I am only child with emotionally abusive parents and so wanted more than one child myself so they would have each other for emotional support should I end up like my parents - fortunately I haven't. I always wished I had siblings. However no matter how much we wish for idealised relationships we can't control how others will get along all we can do is teach our kids to respect each other and bring them up in a loving, nurturing environment. It is good to seek the input and thoughts of others but ultimately there is no right or wrong just want suits your own particular set of circumstances.

Try to imagine yourself in 30 years time - will you be regretting the children you didn't have? You do have to consider you own situation and your partner's wishes but I think if you are considering another you are half way there. I know you are considering going from 1 to 2. That was a no brainer for me but I was in a similar mental space to you considering whether or not to go from 2 to 3, in fact there is almost a 5yr age gap between them. It just all seemed a bit unmanageable but I just wasn't finished with having children and it ate away at me all the time. At one point I thought I am not going to think about this for a whole year, I'm going to forget it, get on with things as they are and reconsider at the end of the year. About 2/3rds into the year we started trying for no 3. I'm done now with 3 but after watching 16 kids and counting last night my hubby said in all seriousness 'oh are you sure you wouldn't like another?'. I consider myself too old now but actually no I wouldn't like another and am happy with where we are at. I didn't set out to have 3 the decisions were made along the way and I am happy with them. Yes it has its difficulties but what doesn't. And 3 - well that tv show is called Outnumbered for a reason. Happy thinking and it will all work out in the end.

Usual chaos here - does anyone know if the ballet classes are back on this week or next? Thanks.

Too many things happened over last 48 hours to detail. I phoned St Thomas's today, they told me to go in and pick up the injection kit, which I have done and a district nurse is going to visit and inject tomorrow. MIL is having oral warfarin as well so not such a huge panic (I didn't know this til today) and her last blood reading early last wk was within normal range but the hosp want to continue the injections until a second within normal range blood result within next few days. Complaints lodged and me on to our next family trauma ...

Defo a pound. Although I had a conversation with a young girl doing a table sale outside her house off Whatley Road in the summer and she proudly showed me her first toothy gap and told me she had got ?15 for the tooth and her mum was there to agree. I nearly fell over!

I'm reading this with Nit spray in my hair as discovered nits in my youngest two today and both have been too close to my hair for comfort over the last couple of days - they treated too. Now for some quails eggs and rye toast for supper as we squalor in our middle class filth.

I've been through bad phases with mine, when it seems to be just one bug after another after another, compacted one year by the two oldest getting chicken pox either side of a school half-term holiday. We have had winter seasons when one or another has seemed to be ill for almost 3 mths coming out of one thing into another. In the whole grand scale of things it has always been minor illnesses but worrying at the time and esp when it seems relentless. Just have to grin and bare it, do get her checked but she will soon be out of it and you will have winters when you don't remember her being ill :)

Thanks all - a different district nurse called this am has taken over and has all back in control - phew.

Oh the fun never stops in our house ... After a 7 wk spell in hospital my mother-in-law was discharged just before Christmas and is going from strength to strength - hooray. One of her medical probs was blood clots on her lung and she was being treated with warfarin in hosp and now has a district nurse visiting her everyday to continue warfarin injections at home. She told us today that the district nurse has not been for the last 2 days as my MIL does not have any needles left for the injections. Apparently, my MIL has to supply the needles herself via repeat prescriptions from her GP. Her GP says she does not need the warfarin and is refusing to re-supply needles but the hosp specialist has said she is to continue treatment. What can we do? She lives in Lambeth and is under St Thomas's.

I get depressed going locally, but every now and then make the effort to go near to where I worked and go to Stagedoor in Horseferry Road, Victoria - my stylist is Claudia but all the others fab too. Think I have tried everywhere decent in SE15 and SE22 and nowhere quite hits the mark despite the prices, worth the effort going into town. Local ok but just not quite hitting the mark.

Thanks for your feedback. Barndoor the specific link isn't working but I will certainly have a good look through this website for help. Yes the alcove does link to an outside wall and also a chimney breast at either side but the damp started in the middle of the alcove and spread outwards to both of these places and did not start in them - it is really odd. We have inspected the outside and the chimney and they are both absolutely fine. Also the room itself is not damp and we do tend to have our heating turned up toasty so the air is quite dry - poor Christmas tree barely has a needle left on it. I'm convinced it it coming in from next door - possibly condensation in the unused room - but am at a loss as to how we can insist our neighbour addresses the problem.

We have lived in our mid Victorian terraced house for 14yrs. Last month a damp patch started to appear a few inches above the skirting board and on an internal wall - specifically an alcove wall in the lounge - adjoining next door. We spoke to our next door neighbour and showed him the damp on our side. He said he doesn't use his lounge and has the room locked up but that there are no radiators or other water outlets in the room. Said he would open the room up and have a look on his side but he is somewhat illusive and we have not heard back from him. The patch has got bigger over the last 4 wks spreading outwards more than up and down and is roughly oval about 18 inches long and 6 inches deep. It is above the skirting so does not appear to have risen up through the floor but come through from next door at a higher level. We had our house insurance out to have a look and they said no obvious cause and nothing insurable and we are a bit stumped as to how to proceed with is. Anyone any ideas?

We were tearing our hair out with our middle daughter. From a tiny baby she was a dreadful sleeper and it continued until she was 7+. She turned 8 last April and most of last year was fine but thinking about it, it coincided with one of our cats choosing to sleep at the end of her bed or under it - just near her really. Much as she does share a bedroom with her younger sister she loves the company of the cat (I know probably a 1001 reasons why the cat should not sleep near her). Now it gets a bit much on the odd occasion she still comes into us and the cat follows her as he is getting to be a big lump and takes up loads of space too. We did try everything to settle her prior to the cat doing it for us, new bedding, teddies, PJs, reward chart, being v. sympathetic, being v. strict, hubby camping for a week on her floor next to her, seeking advice from doctors / health visitors / other parents and eventually a neighbour (who is a midwife) suggested getting a bigger bed and putting up with it as she would grow out of it - she did (fingers crosses it continues). None of this helps in the meantime as sleep deprivation is horrific but relaxing into what was happening and not stressing / worrying about it did help. Thinking well it's just the way she is and accepting it worked. She's still last to go to sleep and first to wake up at any movement and everything is in her bed to help her settle - secret notebooks, pens, books etc but she stays there most of the time. And has even managed the odd sleepover - early ones were horrific with her being retrieved at 10.30pm sobbing at the prospect of staying elsewhere for a whole night. Afraid all this rambling is leading to sympathy rather than a solution :(