newboots

Have you considered advertising in Shoreditch/Dalston/Clerkenwell? Its quite a commute from here for a few hours work per week.

My daughter, who was 2 years 8 months at the time, started at Gumboots about a week before our second child was born. She did two short days 10-4 (it was in the old days of Gumboots, when they still had funny hours) per week. I'll be honest and say that it didn't really occur to me that I shouldn't inflict this big change on her when a new baby was about to arrive. She had been on the waiting list and a place came up and that was the timing, so she went then. She was absolutely fine, made a few good friends, took to nursery like a duck to water. And it gave me a couple of less insane days at home with the newborn, too. She stayed there for exactly one year until she started school nursery 5 morning a week.

Hoona - I understand your worry. I live outside Charter's miniscule catchment and my son does not have the sort of SEN that would put him at the top of their list of criteria after looked-after children. He has expressed very strongly his desire to go to a co-educational school and just cannot get his head round why some of his friends who live nearby will be able to go (due to older siblings already being there). It will be the same with some of his friends going to Kingsdale too (the lottery does not apply to siblings, strangely). I am going to put Kingsdale on the form but in my experience the chances of getting a place are very slim, so I think in the end he will go to Forest Hill Boys. His sister is at Sydenham Girls (now in Y8) and it has been an excellent school for her. All I can do is cross my fingers that FHB is as good Sydenham Girls! As far as I know there aren't any other realistic state options for East Dulwich, apart from Harris Boys.

Loz, if you want a debate about feminist writers and The Guardian then you need to start your own thread in the Lounge. Op has nothing to do with The Guardian. You have gone off on a baffling tangent.

Intelligent debate about what? Please do spell it out.

Op, perhaps you can settle this argument I am having in my own head right now: do we have to put up with sexist crap on the EDF?

Some charming individual has dumped a whole, presumably out of date, chicken wrapped in plastic on top of a street bin on Dunstans Road. You can imagine what is happening to that carcass in this weather and now the whole thing is swarming with flies. Who would do that? I feel so sorry for the poor person who has to clear it up.

You will receive an email ... or at least that is how we heard the news 2 years ago. I am not sure what time of day it was as we waited until our daughter got back from school to even look for it. But it was definitely here by 4pm.

I think you could have a great time in Venice (which really is tiny) but would feel shortchanged if you tried to squeeze in all the amazing sights of Rome in a day and a half.

So, the adults who had provided the sweets were allowed to just leave?

Oh I thought I saw Danny Boyle on the street when it was all closed off for filming a few months ago. Seems a very short time from filming to broadcast.

My lovely teen (only 14 days in to teenagehood, mind) has been an absolute delight today. Other days I couldn't say the same. It's all hormones ya know.

I moved here in 1996. Previously lived in Brixton, Tulse Hill, Dalston, Balham and an achingly dull couple of years in Devon. We were introduced to the area by friends, one of whom was born here and went to Alleyns on a scholarship. I think I'm going to say that was my favourite time in ED. We rented a half house on Landells Road (?600 pcm) for a couple of years and then bought a small 3 bed terrace for ?110,000. Meals out were at Tandoori Nights or Spaghetti Western or comedy at The East Dulwich Tavern. Lunch was at Free Range (?) or the cafe at the back of Grace & Favour. Kings On The Rye was still a night club, I think. It never felt like an iffy area to me, but then I had Brixton and Dalston to compare it to. We were not young when we moved here, we had average London incomes and could afford to house ourselves - sadly that has changed now.

How terrible for you! I believe some buses have cameras in their cabs (that's certainly how I got my fine for straying in to a bus lane in Camberwell) - do you remember the bus number by any chance?

I will say that Southwark does seem to be generally cleaner and tidier than Lambeth, where I work.

Unless I have misunderstood anything, Chris and his family have been the victims of the new landlord going back on his word. Sadly there is not much you can do to legislate against lack of personal integrity, but it sure does rankle. I will be sorry to see the shop go if it does and will have no problem whatsoever in boycotting whatever replaces it. I like to hold long grudges.

Awful, isn't it? There are people over the road from me who must be super-consumers because their bins are always overflowing, boxes of recycling left out with no lids, huge cardboard boxes stacked up getting wet in the rain. I can't understand it because there's only 3 of them and 1 is a toddler. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to them to put some of their extra recycling in the back of their 4 x 4 and take it to Sainsburys.

Yes, I should think so. Let me have a think ...

raasaygirl - yes, that's what I did. That is the type of small brown bin I was referring to. I am sure there are lots of households who could swap from larger to smaller. Its just a case of ringing the council. Right, will stop banging on about it now.

Yes, the big freeholders in Chelsea like the Cadogan Estate and the Grosvenor Estate have some pretty restrictive covenants in their leases about what can be on show at the front of their properties (such as no Estate Agent signs, no laundry drying on balconies and, quite notoriously, no net curtains in some cases) which is rather Big Brother ... but then you get those lovely unfettered uniform terraces which do look good, no doubt about it. Meanwhile, I'd be happy if we could just have fewer wheelie bins in East Dulwich!

I am just wondering how necessary it is to have a large brown wheelie for almost every property in East Dulwich? I am lucky and have a garden large enough to house a compost heap, so have done away with my brown wheelie. If I have a lot of garden waste to get rid of (too much for the compost) then I use those free paper sacks you can get from the library. For food waste I have one of the small brown bins, which we don't even half fill (family of 4) every week. I just wonder if any other ED residents could swap their large brown bin, if they hardly use it, for a small one? I get the impression that most of them are empty or almost empty nearly all of the time. It could free up a bit of pavement space and make our front gardens look less cluttered perhaps?

The only shops I use on the main drag of Lordship Lane on a regular basis are Farmers, Greetings, Dulwich DIY, the Co-Op, Dulwich Caff and Mon Petit Chou. I've been in to most of the other shops, bars and restaurants on LL, but only infrequently. And there's actually a surprising number I've never set foot in, even after 17 years in the neighbourhood.

Huge sympathies! I'm afraid I don't know any night nannies, and you have probably already thought of this, but it is worth trying different types of formula too. My daughter really hated the expensive Hipp Organic I wanted her to have when I was moving her on to bottle feeding, but guzzled down a full bottle of lowly Cow & Gate, for example.

Fair enough Bella. But have you looked on those For Sale boards? People have found stolen bicycles and similar on Gumtree. It really is worth a look.

Have you all been watching Loot/Gumtree/Ebay/Local Facebook/EDF to see if any of these prams are for sale? If you wouldn't leave a wallet filled with ?800 in cash in your car overnight, why would you leave a bugaboo in the boot? I am not unsympathetic because obviously the thieves are the bastards and it should of course be possible to leave everything lying around without risk of it being stolen, but it is a legitimate question in a relatively high crime area I would have thought.