fidgetsdad

Fidgetsmum here... Cakes etc often sink in the middle when the mixture has been overmixed. Something about the proportion of incorporated air.

Thanks Fox, and thanks to the others who PMed.

Agreed Sillywoman. It is a montessori, although not strict, and for some kids it just doesn't work as well. I know quite a few boys there that are friends with my daughter and they love it so I think it's more to do with the individual rather than gender.

Do the council deliver more? Are we supposed to get them from somewhere? Do we have to buy them? Also, we've run out already, just put the last bag in the bin, and I don't know what to do with my food waste in the interim. Can anyone tell me? Thanks

Brilliant. As EDF was down, we had to make our minds up without seeing the advice and that's precisely what we did. Now it's in we feel a lot better about it all. Thanks very much.

They've already announced they're bulging Bellenden, which is our closest. Essentially what we really want is: DKH (we're 512m - 2011 was 286m) Goose Green (we're 443m - 2011 was 'all on time applicants were offered a place' but it was a bulge year) Bellenden (we're 386m - 2011 was 492, but they're taking a bulge this year) So essentially, on distance we don't think we stand a chance of getting into DKH (Do they ever announce extra bulges that they haven't already later in the process?) on distance, and potentially that's the same for Goose Green. If we ignored what we 'want' (although we wouldn't be really upset if we got Bellenden), then we should surely go Bellenden, GG, DKH? Oh and please - no advice on which school is better - I couldn't take any more confusion and we're really happy with our preferences. Thanks everyone in advance for your advice. This whole process is HORRIBLE!

With the deadline tomorrow, we're suddenly having last minute panic about choices we want to make for primary schools. How much weight should we give distance when deciding what order to put the schools in? Currently, for our favourite school, we are double the tiny catchment distance (2011), while our number three choice is our closest school and is having a bulge class. Should we be considering distance as important, we wouldn't have a problem shifting our top three around - we just want to maximise our chances of getting one of our top three. We live in a bit of a black hole - we're not in the catchment area for any schools based on the 2011 figures, but are a few hundred metres outside them all. Grateful for any advice

Thanks Saffron - that's a great help!

We had a baby boy on Christmas Eve with the Brierley, and have nothing but praise for the way they approached every aspect of our pregnancy and birth. My wife was very keen to have a natural birth, but having had a horrendous experience with our first baby, with a long and painful recovery period and a great deal of stress, she was extremely worried about the outcome, getting very close to opting for an elective c-section. All of the Brierley midwives we spoke to were brilliantly, constructively helpful and set up a positive atmosphere ahead of the birth and during labour, really listening to my wife's concerns and giving her exactly the experience that suited her and to which she responded best. The result was a three hour labour and birth at home, even though our baby was a 9lb 14oz porker.

We've got a Delphin on our Audi - they fit Mercedes too. It's the biggest one they do and effectively doubles our boot space. We got it because it seemed to have won all the awards. It's certainly well-built and capacious, and you hardly notice it's on there apart from a tiny bit more wind noise.

My wife is about to start expressing using a Medela swing pump and storing the milk using the Playtex drop-in system. We only need to sterilise the teats and pump bits, so are using the Lindam steam steriliser bags. With our first baby, we used a different system and chucked everything into a big plastic steam steriliser, which we no longer have. Does anyone know if it's okay to leave the bits in the bag (there's quite a lot of water left in there), or what you do with the bits once they're sterile storage-wise? Obviously it's inconvenient and inefficient to sterilise before every pump. Any thoughts gratefully received. Thanks

Right. Rather embarrassing this. Apparently the men were detectives taking part in an intelligence operation. We got a call from the Southwark Intel office and they thought it was rather amusing that we took their men to be polished criminals. However, the unclear, unconvincing badges, their reluctance to go into detail about what they were doing, and their arrival just as we'd finished packing the car and were obviously going away for the weekend all combined to make us suspicious. As well as the fact that lots of other neighbours were in at the time and they didn't speak to any of them. It's taken nearly a week for them to finally get back to us and relieve the worry - during which time we've spoken to over ten different police people, none of whom knew who they were, and all of whom thought their behaviour suspicious. Just trying to make us sound a little less neurotic! Still, we've now get a super-secure house! Just need to deal with the mice now...

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Thanks very much indeed, Sanity Girl. Looks like the same bear. He'll have to go through a whole lot of abuse if he's going to look like Charlie - the pic I attached was quite old, before our daughter really got active! He'll look pretty different, but if it worked for Barry Manilow...

Thanks Sue for your kind and helpful advice. We can't find an identical one anywhere, so unless someone finds him, we're going to have to weave an elaborate adventure story - Charlie's Odyssey... Simon

Our 20 month old daughter has lost her dearly beloved teddy bear and soulmate, Charlie. He's been her constant companion since birth and went AWOL somewhere between Beauval Road and Dulwich Library (perhaps inside the Library, although staff haven't seen him). Attached is a picture. He has a label with "Histoire d'Ours" on it. Really good bottle of wine or equivalent to anyone who returns him. Many thanks