The Bluestocking Women's Pub, in which we wait excitedly for the next instalment of Gosie's adventures. Gosie, Glass and the Gerbils' Dilemma.

Yes it's amazing that like 7 percent of the sun still poking through is so powerful.

Is anyone getting up for the Perseids tonight? I would love to but I'm not sure I'll make it.

Us? Worried? No! Well maybe a little bit! OK, more than a little bit.

I'm sure they'd really enjoy working for Fenella on a more let's have a day out and make pretty windows kind of arrangement. Whereas I think Fenella is more after indentured apprentices.

And I don't think the gerbils would have enjoyed rules that were not gerbil led and gerbil focused and hadn't been workshopped, written on a board, discussed further over 3 tea breaks and two main meals, discussed once more after they had slept on it, and then voted on.

Now I understand!

All the chaotic union meetings I went to when I was working were run by closet gerbils!

Although they definitely weren't cute and cuddly😁

I think they’d also rapidly become lonely without the other gerbils.

Fenella’s not going to be happy, though.

I had glasses for the eclipse and used them for some photos too.

Wonderful photos, thank you Rum!

I watched Sky's report on the eclipse and I thought this was lovely from their correspondent in Spain, where they filmed the total eclipse. I jotted it down so I wouldn't forget:
'A turbulent world stopped in awe, and watched as one'

The fact that it's not even remotely literally true doesn't matter

I'm worried about the gerbils, I think they are being swayed by two words: 'seeds' and 'most' and will live to regret it😕

I see them at some point in the future, tipsy and maudlin and dancing untidily and tearfully to Pink's
What about us?
What about all the broken happy ever afters?
What about love? What about trust?
What about us?

I think it's important we keep the lines of communication open so they know they are not just welcome, but wanted and loved in the Bluey -
Heck, they ARE the Bluey!😢

It's not often that I heap praise on The Sun Newspaper, but you have to hand it to them, today's front page is genius!

They got ribbed in 1999 for not changing Sun to Moon on the front page. They had to wait until today to set it right!

I've done my usual trick of inviting people over for lunch and completely losing my grip on reality when it comes to the amount of food to cook. And the delusion that everything has to be homemade and ideally home grown.

WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF??

Gerbils, a cold, refreshing draught please, and perhaps some reassurance. We'll be eating this stuff all week.

(Chickadee, you'd best come over to help consume the muhamarra etc)

It was too cloudy for us to see the eclipse last night. It got a bit gloomier, but that was as far as it went. To quote QI, my whelm was definitely under.

I’ve just looked up the recipe for muhamarra & realised I’ve already got most of the ingredients.

What a day. Nearly divorced MrAnony for being an absolute melt when DS missed his grades for uni by - wait for it - TWO marks on one paper.

Have requested a remark for posterity, but as a result of my being an embarrassing [wife] mum who speaks to absolutely anyone, I so happened to have struck up a relationship with the admissions tutor of a local uni who runs the most epic nuclear physics MPhys, with placements at CERN no less (I have bugger all idea what they actually do there, but apparently physics-ey people regard it as some sort of Mecca). Anyway, DS may not be following GF to same uni as planned, but will be 60mins drive away, 10mi from home (I was bricking it about the idea of his being in Manchester… empty nest melt down had been rapidly incoming) and he is going to be doing a course that covers absolutely everything he loves in physics and before today he had somehow missed. He is soooo excited this afternoon.

I’m not religious at all, but do think things have a way of sorting themselves out and that detours often take you on a much more exiting route with an unexpected, yet better than ever hoped for, end destination.

Also shows that it is mums that get shit done. With or without the G&Ts…

Well done AnonySon and AnonyMum!

We check food by the sniff test, though I did notice I kept getting dicky tummies and decided it was time to order a new fridge recently (erm, rapid decline into decrepitude as the shelves were now held together with gorilla tape and it formed 1cm thick slab of ice on the back twice a week that had to be chilssled off). Strangely in the 4 weeks since we’ve had new fridge, no issues. DC are now, for some unknown reason, actually noting use-by dates and labelling bottles with ‘opened on’ stickers. I suspect i was not the only one struggling…

I might feel a bit guilty now.

I’m not religious at all, but do think things have a way of sorting themselves out and that detours often take you on a much more exiting route with an unexpected, yet better than ever hoped for, end destination.

Me, too! Come on next stage of my paid career, where are you????!!!! 💙

I'm so pleased for your son!

I'm having great fun (for values of fun which may tend to zero) writing a deliberately wrong statistics report. Turns out Copilot can absolutely ace my usual stats assignment, so next year they'll be getting a different thing - a report that they have to mark up by hand and submit a fully justified and referenced set of corrections. Copilot could actually do a decent job of it this way round too, I checked, but I know the incoming students and they reach for AI mostly through laziness, so I'm counting on them not being bothered to scan and upload the printed copy I hand them. I'm also making them hand in their hand-annotated copy, which will hopefully dissuade them still further!

Congratulations AnonySon and well done AnonyMum!

Enjoy the muhamarra, Kitty

Here's my lunch - from left: basket with bread, plain yogurt, yellow courgette and herb salad, tzatziki, orange and beefsteak tomato salad, muhamarra, hummus, cucumber and dill salad, confit black chickpeas with orange and baharat, spinach and feta bourek.

Oh, and a bottle of elderflower cordial to have with plain or sparkly water

That looks like exactly the right sort of lunch for a hot summer’s day.

Oh wow. Can I come?

My DH swears by CoPilot in creating and summarising reports for work. What I don’t understand though, is why his workload hasn’t decreased since he started using it?

I think it will lead to lecturers/teachers/tutors having to be very inventive to limit students being able to use it… perhaps a hand drawn poster, using felt-tip and crayon?