Mrs TP

My hubbie says you can convert to jpegs if you open them and then click save as and change the file extension to a jpeg. But yes also try photographing the original photographs and compare the quality with the scans to see which better. All a fiddly job but one of my best received pressies in recent years was an album made via an apple package.

Cheers all. Been checked at the vets no urine infection thank goodness but does mean a behaviour problem we have to break. His favourite child did coax him into the litter tray with success earlier and we will give all the other tips a go. Just making a big fuss of him at the mo and trying to build his confidence up again.

I keep sneaking a peak at this post from behind a freshly laundered cushion - it is so wrong and completely gross but funny.

I have twin 3yr old cats, one male and one female. I have a litter tray set up just inside our back door, which they use when in the house but they do mainly toilet outside. The male cat became stressed and anxious last Weds and became hesitant to go outside. He only usually goes out of the back door and did roam the local gardens quite happily. I have seen two other new cats in our garden recently who were fighting amongst themselves and probably with my two. Our male cat got so nervy on Thurs eve that me and my 9yr old daughter sat with him on the patio whilst he had a little mooch around but was out for less than 20 mins. Since then he has got braver and started going out again and even stayed out (unusual but not unheard of) all night last night but he has also started peeing by our front door and not in the litter tray. I am pretty sure he is stressed by these other cats and seems to be recovering from a definite negative encounter of some kind although not injured. However he has taken to peeing by our front door on part of a fixed mat, that I can't easily rip up. Any tips on getting him back to using the litter tray?

James Barber - I meant more signage relating to the zone i.e. it's start and end zones are now thankfully clearly defined and I am not just seeing the odd random 20 on the road.

What is also needed are signs telling pedestrians to cross at the crossings. How many of the RTAs are people being run over from jumping out between parked cars, near buses etc. Yes if you are driving slower you have more chance of stopping, doing less damage etc but there are plenty of crossings so all pedestrians should use them. I don't mind the zone, which seems to have more signage every time I drive down there but I do object to pedestrians jumping out all over the place when there are endless crossings.

Just a thought but are there likely to be any spaces in the Sydenham schools reception or are they over subscribed as they are in ED? If you could move her I would as you are going to have another 6yrs of doing the journey. If you were much higher up the school with firm friendships made I would be loathe to move her. Settling in woes are horrid but better to be having them in a local school than travelling, being in a rush and having less time to deal with them and raising everyone's stress levels in a school further away. Good luck - lovely houses in Sydenham!

I do think there should be a siren in ED and surrounds in the morning giving a last warning to all school children to finish getting dressed / finish breakfast / clean their teeth / get their shoes on / get their book bags etc. However, in the absence of all this I just do it all for my youngest, even often feeding her her breakfast, even though she is 4 and just started school and perfectly capable of doing it herself. The more I do the less shouting there is. The older ones get better at sorting themselves out and understand the timing countdown i.e. we have 20 mins left / it is half-past etc. We do still have the odd spat if they get distracted by some random thing such as suddenly tidying the doll's house etc. Mine, including the youngest, are all capable of doing everything but the more I do, especially for the youngest, rather than tell them to do (and repeat myself endlessly in increasing decibels) the smoother it is. From time to time she pitches in and will decide to eat her breakfast unsupervised or will suddenly get herself dressed and I have a pleasant surprise rather than disappointment at her not doing anything, which I just accept as the norm. I sound a right pushover but I have been through it all with my older two and demanding that they did everything from day 1 at school but realised it was just me getting stressed and so help them more and end up much less stressed. As for the name calling that is a completely different thing and of course needs addressing. Poopoo is quite light though the full phrase if she wants maximum impact is 'poohead bumface'. Good luck.

I noticed them up near William Rose butchers too - I think it is to encourage us to gawp at the long queue. I am just not sure if it was two separate zones or one running from approx Neros to the butchers. The first bit from the roundabout is stuffed anyway so rarely any danger of reaching 20 mph but you can usually pick up a bit once passed the crossing by Iceland - no more! As long as they are new - I have been within the law. I was just having one of those 'oh lordy have these been here for 6mths+ and I have never seen them' moments.

Oh dear have I been missing something - how long have they been there?

KikiMac - We hit the 3pm Sunday show and yes the bird joke was missing - hooray. However, it was left to the otherwise fantastic clown to introduce some 1970s inappropriate humour during the dads' section making signs that one dad was homosexual as he sat behind another, rather than at the side of him, and continued his hugely not funny gestures for the next few mins - doh! Other than that was fantastic and a full to busting house added to a great atmosphere.

And some people find comfort in sharing their stresses too. But yes had cause to be there recently with child with broken bone outside of filming season - not my cup of tea but do not object to it at all and love the show - and it was heaving with wannabies - bonkers!

Ah the annual pilgrimage to Zippos - love it and v excited for taking our brood apart from Norman and his budgies with the inevitable line 'these birds make the money, these birds' (pointing to the assistants) 'spend the money'. Never mind the animal rights activists who like to protest each year we need some sister power to get this joke out of his routine ...

Otta too funny! I've heard 'a boy pulled his trousers down and did a wee in the playground', 'we sang some lovely God songs', 'they made me do letters' and that she thinks one of the TAs is cute!!!! She is my 3rd and last, I miss her desperately but am enjoying her moving on and growing up (blub blub). Try talking about your day - what you had for lunch, who you saw etc and see if you get more info that way. Good luck.

That is loads for CP. We've done full weeks a few years running in either Easter Hols, the June half-term or summer hols in nice 2 bed lodges right near the pool at Longleat CP and have never paid more than ?1500 for 5 of us. Last time we went was Easter last year and they must have really racked up their prices since then. If you don't have school age children then holiday out of term time while you can. We seem to be the only people amongst our friendship group that don't have relatives who live in lovely far flung destinations we could bed down with relatively cheaply. Hols are expensive.

The 15 hrs per week is also school term times only. State school nurseries fall in line with school term times and are open for approx 38 weeks per year and so it is approx 38wks x 15 free hours. Private nurseries are usually open around 50 weeks per year (closed over Christmas only) and have to make the 38 x 15hrs stretch over 48 weeks and so you don't get exactly 15hrs per week. Each nursery seems to implement the 'free' hours differently and you will need to speak to those you are considering re waiting lists, applications, time availability, flexibility and implementation of the free hours. You can only claim the free hours in one place. However you can go to more than one nursery. I know someone who paid for a morning place at Amott Road and then had a free place a Goose Green School nursery in the afternoon.

Depends on what your little one used to as to how tired or not but would still offer a hot meal in the evening. School lunches are not all they cracked up to be no matter how lovely the sample menus you may have seen look. Go with the flow within the parameters of what you find acceptable re bedtime and food for first half-term or so with the whole adjustment. The children will be at all levels from 'phonic fluent and beyond' to 'what is a phonic?'. We go through it once per child but the teachers do it year in year out, trust them (unless your child desperately unhappy day in day out). It's tough. I'm just about to do it for no 3 and my first is in secondary school so I should be v chilled but this is my last and we have had much more pre-school time together. I trust the school but I will miss her dreadfully :( A new journey for you both but we didn't sign up for babies we signed up for growing developing individuals and you at a new exciting phase - good luck.

I did see that news story re the jets but wondered if they would have passed over this way? To be the fair the 'gear change' flOwer mentions is a possibility especially if right over our house. There was a really loud hydraulic noise and I actually thought a bin lorry was going to fall through our roof. Generic planes have woken me again this am - argh and no doubt I will be stuck in a rut of hearing them for the next few mornings.

Was it just me? They woke me up and I thought WWIII was starting. Hubbie slept blissfully through and thinks I am making it up.

Fab classes really enjoyed them and would recommend to all. Sorry to hear you moving on but imagine you have secured the best replacements. Good luck.

If you are going to buy labels with his name on for sewing or ironing or sticking then buy loads. They don't have an expiry date and he is going to be in formal education until he is 18 and will need plenty over the coming years. My eldest is 12 and we are into our third packet of 100 with her - mainly because of 3 school residential trips and for those I named everything. At pre-school I would recommend naming the items they are likely to take off so prob just shoes / jumper and anything non-wearable you are sending in with them such as bag, beaker etc. As they move to primary and start to do PE then name everything they take off for getting changed into their PE kit and of course the whole PE kit itself. I use the iron on ones. There is a knack to getting it right, some come off straight away and others I have battled with for ages to remove when giving the clothing away in later years. They can also come off in the wash but no probs to put another on. Just keep the packet of labels somewhere you will remember. Someone posted on here the other week re how she had found someone to sew labels on for her. Also there are the laundry markers.

We have just got back from Looe and lovely as it was it is not beautiful golden sandy beaches. The local stone is slate and the beaches are grey sand and pebbles and not pretty. Looe beach itself is relatively narrow and quite a walk from the nearest car-park. Seaton further up the coast (4 miles) has a much wider beach but again is also grey sand but close to car-parks and a fab cafe and (grotty) toilets close by. We stayed just outside Polperro, which is a beautiful fishing village, Looe is the nearest seaside town and it is lovely and does have a beach but it is quite small, v busy and grey sand. Looe town is cute and not a nasty over-developed seaside resort - we drove down to Newquay to see a golden sandy beach and Newquay town was grim, over-commercialised and shabby but the beach lovely but also full of jelly-fish due to the earlier heat-wave. Looe is great for crabbing, has a fab playround, loads of seaside shops, a small arcade and merry-go-round, boat trips, small beach, seaside shops, tea-rooms and restaurants but I don't think it is the best Cornwall has to offer. Going again I would head for the north coast of Cornwall or go much deeper south past St Michaels Mount. Mixed reviews it was lovely but the beaches were disappointing, just not the endless golden sand we had been promised Cornwall offers. The beaches are grey.

Wow!

Our school made it quite clear that home visits are optional and no probs not to take part.

They are doing it at our school but the down side is they are doing it over the first two weeks of term. So the teachers are out on home visits and not in school and consequently the children don't start until the 12th Sept. And on that day they only do 1hr and times are then gradually built up until their first full day on 20th Sept. Mine is desperate to start and was asking me if it is today - heartbroken when I told her it is another 4wks!