scareyt

Based on Sunray Gardens gossip, the Village Infants catchment has grown this year and the Bessemer one has shrunk, as more people have put Bessemer as first choice. The head at Bessemer is great and her own son is in year 1 there so I think she's going to stick around for a while! They had a very recent Ofsted which said great things about improvements being made. Basically everyone I know with a child at either of those schools is very happy with it, and if you aim for houses near Sunray Gardens / North Dulwich / Dulwich Village you would definitely get into one or other of them and could well be able to choose between them. Bessemer is probably slightly more diverse. We bought near Sunray Gardens while planning a family, and couldn't be happier with where we are. I used to commute from Herne Hill and the Victoia trains are much more reliable and easy to get on than the Thameslink ones which often seem to be messed up and always overcrowded by Herne Hill as they have come from further away. Denmark Hill to Farringdon might well be a better commuting route so it might be worth looking in that direction a bit more, which would probably rule out the Village school but still get you into Bessemer.

I grew up in SE London and loved it. From about 14 a group of us used to spend whole days "bus hopping" with a one day travel card and end up all over the place and I loved the freedom. My parents didn't have a car but there was always ?20 or so in a special place just inside the front door, so we knew we could always get a cab home if we needed to. My parents' only rule was if you're out late, travel home with a friend & they would stay the night, or my Dad would then walk the friend home if it wasn't too late. Yes there were risks but I'm sure that being responsible for my own safety & transport made me resourceful and independent, and was a better risk than trusting the driving skills of other teenagers. It worked for us, and we were actually quite innocent compared to my friend's country cousins who were getting up to all sorts due to boredom!

Is he due to start reception in Sept? He might be worried about that. I would take a break from swimming lessons for a while, he can always start again in a few months or after he's settled at school. We had the same thing, suddenly our then just 4yo took against his new swimming teacher and wouldn't get in the pool, after all the faffery of getting us there and getting him changed. But the timings and location of that class wouldn't have worked with his school day anyway so we stopped and found different lessons a few months later and he now goes in happily every time.

We're going here in August for our first time camping in France. All the bigish sites seem to have a package where you bring your own tent but you can hire a set of table, chairs, loungers, sun umbrella, barbeque & fridge from the site for 10 Euros a day. Which solves the problem of packing the car so full you can't move. http://www.campingchantepie.com/en/

Im sorry this happened to both of you. It's crap isn't it. And it's not even just the unpleasant incident that's the worst bit, it's the feeling unsafe and nervous for ages afterwards when you're just out and about minding your own business that's so crap. But it gets better eventually. SteveO, you need to educate yourself if you don't want to come across like a complete and utter cretin. I would love to do a self defence class like this one. http://www.impactbayarea.org

I love Frozen! I think it's a great film, miles better that anything else Disney have ever done. My 4 year old son was a bit obsessed with it too for a while, but is over it now. I'm glad he saw it before other kids at school convinced him that everything involving girls is rubbish. I also think a whole week of it at a nursery is a bit weird though.

I had lower back pain since being pregnant that was much worse in the mornings and I was convinced our medium firm pocket sprung mattress made it worse. I also sleep on my side. And if I ever slept on a really firm mattress on holiday I would wake up in agony. I did loads of research and ended up buying this mattress: http://www.backinaction.co.uk/back-in-action-mattress It's memory foam and not only does my back no longer hurt but I now sleep through the night, every night, which I never ever used to before. It's brilliant. It's not sweaty but my husband did find it too hot so we got a superking frame and an Ikea mattress for his side. We dithered about it for ages because it's so expensive and our old bed wasn't very old but it was totally worth it. They have a show room in Marylebone where you can test it. (The second time I went to test it I nearly fell asleep because it was such a relief to be comfortable.)

Whippersnappers is a structured class but this sounds like just what you're looking for - it's held in a lovely space with great equipment and is an easy bus ride from Lordship Lane. http://southwarkgymnastics.co.uk/classes/tiny-gym/

Or try a soak in Biotex

Sb that cupboard is so beautiful I might cry. Also on the what not to do question, having recently been invaded by mice, I would add to make sure the kitchen fitters don't leave handy gaps between floorboards and skirting / around pipes & wires etc for mice to use as super-highways, and then hide them behind fitted cupboards to make it impossible the block the holes! I spent a few fun evenings lying on my stomach on the kitchen floor stuffing wire wool and grip fill into various gaps hidden behind the kick boards that could easily have been sealed when the kitchen was fitted if they had done a good job. I would also never have a dark colour kitchen counter again, ours is almost black, and carefully examining it from various angles each morning for a while to check for new mouse droppings was not a fun experience....

That sounds like a completely unmanageable number of children in the playground at once. Could they not stagger it so reception kids use it at a different time to the big kids? In my son's old nursery they only had a teeny tiny playground so they took each class out at a different time which worked fine.

Hi we used SarahJane from shutterbaby last year and she was lovely, put us all at ease and got some great shots.

We got a set of 5 Peter pan finger puppets which are fun and about the right size.

If you want a regular thing, Gymboree do a couple of sessions a week for siblings of different ages. It's lovely for both ages but you have to pay monthly and it's not cheap.

Hi Bessemer Grange childrens centre do some nice messy play stay and play sessions. They change the timetable quite frequently so check days and times but it's free and they have some really nice stuff.

The curtain shop on the high street is brilliant.

Hi, I made the posts above to publicise the consultation on behalf of the project group. Speaking purely for myself now, I also received the document you mention which was circulated to all the Friends of Carnegie Library, but I could not make much sense of it. Clearly there are many people who have very strong feelings about the library, and they are not all going to agree on the best way to protect it from the impact of the ongoing budget cuts that are affecting every local council in the country. But if you want to know more about exactly why someone has written something, it's probably most sensible to ask the person who wrote it.

I was going to say Rocca too. Staff are lovely with kids and the food is excellent.

I saw Sophie at ESPH for back and hip pain and she was brilliant.

We have this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Honeywell-HH950E1-Warm-Steam-Humidifier/dp/B004E9SMC6/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1416170916&sr=1-2&keywords=humidifier+steam I read somewhere that the cool air ones can get germy if you don't clean them religiously. It's overpriced for what it is - basically a big ugly kettle - BUT it really helps with those horrible nightime coughs that go on and on. It's the only thing I've ever found that makes a difference. For an emergency you can just boil a full kettle a few times in his room - if it's a small room that might be enough to help.

The lady in Bloomers is lovely and they have loads of sizes.

Spanners they do lots of drumming at Whippersnappers classes - might be worth going along to see how he likes it? We bought a cheap little keyboard for a 3rd birthday present that was great for just mucking about on and sounded surprisingly good (to someone who has no musical training at all!) called Farfisa. It was ?30 from Church's of Bond St and recently died but that was after being used and abused as a toy for a long time. Something similar might be a good starting point to see if little kids are going to be interested in learning.

Galt marble runs are brilliant and get played with for years. There's the construction element of designing the run and then the fun of sending marbles down it.

I have one from Lakeland but gave up on it because it always left the tiles looking streaky.

Thanks for posting that. It's very powerful. I guess it's not rocket science that if you make a kid feel like crap every lunchtime they are going to disengage and would rather be anywhere else than at school. But it's not obvious until it's pointed out. I used to get free school meals for a while and everyone in the queue could tell. (But we also had no telly which marked me out as a total weirdo, so the free meals were the least of my problems!)