Well our one isn't. I've looked 3 times.

Are Marks and Spencer doing them this year?

That's a shame You should complain!

I haven't looked. Am after cheap ones so that might rule them out. I went to look in Poundland but didn't get as far as going in because the queue was horrendous.

I want 12 of the little net bags for people I'm seeing on Christmas day.

Yes

another possible option for you there, Flossie...

If they are selling them here.

I bought some from Sainsbury's. Christmas isn't Christmas without some chocolate money.

Chocolate money, satsumas, sprouts and After Eight mints. A Christmas quartet par excellence

Sainsbury's is 1 hour and 20 minutes on the bus (each way) if it has a clear run. I'd have to be pretty desperate to do that just for chocolate coins


I haven't had any of those for a long time.

I had white chocolate versions a couple of years ago. Not the same, not the same...

I like white chocolate. But white chocolate after eights are .

They just don't work...a bit like plain chocolate oranges...

gotta be milk chocolate oranges

I am in such a bad mood and it's so unlike me

Oh dear. Hope things are okay.

YES.. now I'm deliriously happy again (Mother in Law has cancelled her stay due to snow)

We're now going to have a delightful and relaxing holiday!!! (instead of a miserable stressy one )

Everyone's allowed to be in a bad mood at some point

Making sausage rolls for a bit of an experiment. I have bought ready-made puff pastry from the chiller cabinet to do this. The manufacturer's website has a recipe but using the frozen version of what I've bought - but not a problem, as the first instruction is to thaw it.

Recipe calls for:
- 1 pk of frozen puff pastry sheets. I determine from their website that this is 1kg, 2x500g sheets.
- 454g of sausages, skinned.

I have:
1 pk of chilled puff pastry sheets. 500g. So half as much as I need.
400g of sausage meat.

So, logically, I've got far too little pastry for the meat I've got.

Have made the sausage rolls, and have run out of meat way before I've used the pastry up! These are clearly going to be the fattest, sausage-iest sausage rolls in the kingdom!

(Going to the supermarket later, will check my mince pie recipe, and buy exactly the right sort of pastry that they specify for it )

Sounds like they're going to taste lovely! yum..yum...

Well, they're not brilliant but having just tasted one (can't inflict them on anyone else until I've confirmed they are cooked through, etc), they are really rather yummy.
They are actually 'slightly spicy sausage rolls' - the recipe called for a thin spreading of mustard on the inside of the pastry. Being me, it's a bit more than a 'thin' spreading, and it is in fact 'devil's mustard', a kind of wholegrain mustard with extra chilli for a good kick.

I have a feeling that when he gets home, dinner will be cancelled and instead it'll be sausage rolls for dinner!

You're making me hungry. They sound lovely.

What should I so with all this old sun lotion?

I don't like waiting for people to come out of viva exams.

Put it on a snowman to protect him from the sun

Superdrug. 99p per bag wth a buy one get one free offer, so 50p per bag.

If I'm ever a mother-in-law I do hope my daughter-in-law won't feel like that about me!

lots of rain here...goodbye, snow...

Was listening to the demos on the electric piano upstairs, and my younger sister asked what I was doing. I told her, and showed her the book of sheet music which came with the piano, and has them all in, pulled out the headphones and showed them to her. The ones I showed her were debussy's arabesque 1, which is one of my absolute favourites and chopin's fantasie impromptu, because of how fast and impressive sounding it is she was suitably impressed, when before she'd go "yuck, boring". Then she asked "why don't you play things like that?"

I wonder why I have to take these new antibiotics an hour before a meal... I'm a student, I have no idea from day to day what time I'll be eating... How annoying.

I seem to be developing an addiction to Baroque...

Completely in love with BWV Anh II 113 and BWV Anh II 132 from the Anna Magdalena book

I just gained an addiction to romantic violin music. Bought some along with a book that my teacher requested I obtain.

Ant and Dec's Christmas Show = Noel's House Party, with different presenters and no Mr. Blobby...

Jedward

Yes, it is very sad isn't it.

When I first became a 'daughter-in-law' it was a horrible realisation that all those mother-in-law jokes and cliches are actually rather true for a reason: they can't bear that their son loves another woman perhaps as much or even more than themselves. My MiL was extremely threatened by me... in her own mind.

I forgive my own mother for a lot of things because she's the only mother I'll ever have and I'm loyal to her. My husband has his mother on a pedestal for similar reasons. However I would never choose to be friends with a woman like his mother so we're thrown together because of the whole 'family commitment' thing and her behaviour causes me dreadful stress.

My mother-in-law also takes advantage of the fact I'm extremely polite and submissive and over the years has pulled off some appalling behaviour which my husband just won't accept as her fault.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place as they say. So I'm very glad she lives over 100miles away. But I do think it's dreadfully sad that I would be quite happy if I never saw her again.

Wonder if they have a fan club...

On the subject of Mothers in Law - I am one of the luckiest guys around! MIL is superb!

I don't think you'd have much to worry about, BM, you're far too nice to earn the common "monster-in-law" title!

Oh dear! I've been so lucky in my mother-in-law; sorry you're finding yours so difficult. Perhaps she will mellow in time, when she sees that you are making her son very happy. Meanwhile, I suppose you just have to grin and bear it. Do you get on OK with your father-n-law?


Thanks for the vote of confidence, Solari, but I wonder whether mothers really know how they'll react towards the woman their son chooses. I'm sure it's easy if you really like the chosen one, and very difficult if you don't!

Well my mum has been 100% right about the girlfriends I've chosen in the past, even if I've sometimes stubbornly refused to agree with her each time!

Mums seem to have some sort of magical instinct that their kids choose to ignore!

My daughter in law loves me, but I know my Mum's daughter in law doesn't like her very much at all, and I don't know why, as my Mum has always been really good to her and welcomed her into our family with open arms. My brother's first wife loved my Mum and still keeps in touch, so it can't be anything wrong that Mum has done.

grr at useless spam posts...

I totally agree!

Sorry, I'll stop it now....

I haven't seen any spam recently?

Looks like they've been removed thank goodness! Stupid bleeps, i have enough trouble using this phone at the mo without trawling through that rubbish! (angry emoticon)

It was there to greet me this morning (about some Xbox 360 repairing thing). Posts all over most of the forum, which I dutifully reported and put 'reported' posts on. The moderators have now removed it all.

I think it's too late for 'mellowing' - she's actually getting worse as she becomes more elderly. Old people seem to think they have the right to behave selfishly.

Sadly my Father-in-law passed away some time ago but the situation with him was actually worse! He was not an educated man and was very bitter about it - I was at University when I met him and he was dreadfully rude to me as a result. He also believed women should 'know their place' and I was studying feminist theory and was fiercely independent... cue further distress. I was a timid thing tho' back then and never said a word to him - even my husband doesn't know (and wouldn't believe) some of the horrible things he said to me.

Although I love my husband deeply I nearly called it off because of his parents. Now we've been married for a long time there's an uneasy truce with me usually taking the blame for any problems. (His mother's a Saint apparently )

My Father's mum used to be awful to my mum, I can remember when I was young and we were all round my Aunties house and my nanna was there too. My Nanna and Mum had a great big row and Mum got all of us kids and we had to go home on the bus, we never really understood why.

What I will say that over the years they became closer, and when my Nanna was terminally ill with cancer, she kept asking for my Mum, over all her own children, she wanted my Mum with her. She came to love my Mum as a daughter - maybe there is still hope for you?

I hope so, I have been lucky with mother in laws, my mother in law from my first marriage was fantastic, and I still keep in touch with her now.

My husband's Mum unfortunately died 7 years ago and we got on to a degree, I used to fet wound up as she could see no wrong in her son, but at the end of the day I loved her and she loved me.

As a mother in law to my son's wife, I always let my daughter in law know that I can see the faults in my son, and she loves me and I love her.

Hope things improve for you Lottie.