Today's Top Tip.....

[gness]

...for those who like to lie in the shade, reading and sipping a glass of white and enjoying the quiet until Mummy and Daddy let loose two of the noisiest children ever.....on scooters and trikes that could do with a good squirt of oil.....
No matter what Edward and Selina did to disturb the peace no notice was taken ....not even when they went deathly quiet did Mummy and Daddy notice.....
All parents know that's when you panic.....noise is usually fine......silence needs to be investigated....

Mummy and Daddy did nothing until Selina appeared and announced....Mummy, Edward is playing with a dead rat........

That was when Edward arrived swinging by its tail.....the dead rat.....

Never have I seen a Mummy move so fast then grind to a halt......not wanting to touch the rat which Edward was refusing to drop.....because, Edward reminds her, he loves rats......
Not bloody dead ones!!! Screams Mummy.....
Daddy comes late on the scene......well you know men......carrying a plastic bag into which he thrusts Edward's arm and the dead rat and shakes the bag til Edward lets go.....

The family leaves......Edward under Daddy's arm.....Mummy muttering about baths and Dettol.....and Selina smirking in the way little sisters do....

So...my tip.....if you want rid of the noisy family always carry a bag containing a dead rat and give it to the inquisitive Edward.... :-)

[bookbinder]

I do that all the time.

[gness]

Well you might have said before now, BB!... :)

[gness]

Need...no......enjoy...yes, Spath...x

[sunny-dave]

I think the impressive thing was how quickly the UberMummy went from helpless shoulder shrugging [ from the 'we just let them express themselves' school of (non)parenting ] when mildy chided about the appalling racket little Mezzanine and Gulliver were making - to a very direct, shrieking, intervention when the rat pressed the right button in her cerebral cortex ...

[pixie374]

Lol. Gness, you and dave should write a book... you have a way with words. (A dead pigeon works if you run out of rats) x

[gness]

That's a thought, Pixie.....Tilly had quite a few dead pigeons last year.......x

[pastafreak]

Nasty I know, but a pile of dog poo that does a close imitation of choc pudding works. Or was it the other way round...???

[gness]

Ooooooo!!! Pasta!.... :-)

[pastafreak]

Not something I would do...but it's tempting sometimes.

There is a small gated remembrance garden in the park by me. Leafy, cool, a variety of lovely plants. A great place to read in peace...
...until a mother comes in with a loud and very fractious child. Can't they see that it's a place of calm...where those of advanced years can *concentrate* on relaxing....

[jourdain2]

Good tip. I'll collect the next rat that expires on our lawn, freeze the corpse and have it handy when ghastly grandson next visits. (Beginning to get worried about him, so uppity, quite unlike the others.)

[marval]

Thank you for the tip Gness, I must remember this.

[gness]

Many years ago there was a letter in our local paper....remember when that was what we did...from a lady complaining that she had been asked to keep her two extrememly noisy and boisterous children quite in the library....
Her complaint was that.....children do make a noise so there should be a member of staff to entertain them when the adults were choosing books....
I dithered a bit before writing my letter about behaviour in a public library....
I say dithered because the lady was someone I'd become friendly with through sitting on the same committee.......
The next meeting was a little frosty but we both, in a friendly way, stuck to our guns..... :-)