The Bluestocking Pub, where we continue to read about gerbils nobly and bravely working undercover in the Fen.

[AsWithGlad]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the best (perhaps only) online women's pub. Nothing in the food or drink can harm you, everything is served by a very enthusiastic crew of gerbils, who enjoy doing this, and any curious menfolk are welcome at the Staunch Ally down the road.

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5564959-the-bluestocking-womens-pub-in-which-we-wait-excitedly-for-the-next-instalment-of-goseis-adventures

The nights really are drawing in. I was out last night and gave a friend a lift back before heading home myself, and we were exclaiming over the moon - about three-quarters, pale pinkish-orange, and showing through wreaths of cloud.

I used to work with a right cheerful Charlie, who would come striding into our office one morning at some stage in early July, rub his hands together as though chilled, and announce lugubriously, 'Nights are drawing in now, don't you find?' He would retreat grinning from the hail of abuse to spread his optimistic message along the corridor.

This summer was better than last summer. Last summer was extremely stressful for various reasons, and while this one wasn't entirely a bundle of laughs, it was a marked improvement. I've got some happy snapshot memories:
Being mid phone-call at dusk, and looking out and seeing a barn owl flying past the house;
Spotting DH stewarding at the village fête, complete with a fluorescent yellow waistcoat with 'NFU Mutual' emblazoned across the back;
Sitting at my desk watching combining across the road in the evening light;
Being down in the hayfields and seeing the little rust-red leveret get up and run;
Sitting on the beach sharing my fish and chips with a little boy whose family I have known since I was born;
Seeing a water deer flush from right next to the track;
Drinking a cold beer in the shade in the garden after walking B&B and then watering everything that most needed it;
Swimming in the river with Brains (Batshit isn't so keen);
Hearing a small splash when next to a pond, and looking up and seeing a grass snake swimming away;
Going to a wedding reception in a village hall and dancing with the MoB;
Sitting on the garden bench with DH watching the eclipse.

I'm so lucky to live where I do, with the countryside starting at my garden gate and a network of friends and acquaintances which begins next door and stretches for miles. I'm grateful for it every day.

Also, it occurs me that Glossy's opposite number in the Staunch Ally would be Matte the Mouse.

The seasons are changing but looking from my window I don’t yet quite feel that ‘summer’s out of reach’.

Very good

Good Morning. The great bed delivery and removal went smoothly, but was followed, predictably by about three hours of 'Where is Tiddles?' I'd put both cats into the room we've been sleeping in all summer - not a big room, about 12 x 12, and the men were as quiet as people doing a job like that can be - no shouting, no banging. Boo, experienced cat-of-the-world who chose (in 2015) to join a household with another cat and two dogs and three humans and a constant coming and going of carers and cleaners and occasional builders was entirely unfazed. Tiddles was The New Kitten in November 2019 so her cattenhood was spent in a world with one human, one other cat, one quiet elderly dog, and she finds strangers round the place very disconcerting.

I eventually found her cowering in a back corner of the bowels of the sofabed, and although she emerged to eat she is still skittish. I've tried to explain about the enormous bookshelf that is arriving tomorrow, and that it will not be a threat to her, but I don't think she's listening.

The good thing about the search is that it solved the previous evening's 'where did that earring go?' mystery. I'd heard it hit the floor after I took it out at bedtime but it vanished. A strong flashlight, the better for spotting a furtive (and furry) black cat, revealed that it, too, was in the bowels of the sofabed.

I was horrified at @MyrtleLion's travails with paperwork and deliberate bureaucratic obstruction (and at @Boiledbeetle 's ditto). We have plenty of official screw-ups here, but not, I think any exact parallel of that.

Today I must keep clearing the room around the new bed, go to coffee morning, and get my hair cut.

HAGADAPA

I saw a hare yesterday. It's happened to me before, driving along a small country road just before dusk. Each time it's been an absolute thrill. Each time I have wondered at first what the animal could possibly be, so tall and slim, a miniature deer, but not moving the way a deer moves either. Then seeing it close up. The long body, the long legs, the intelligent expression, the tall graceful ears with a darker central stripe, the wary amber eyes.

I slowed the car to gaze. The hare had to cross the road in front of me then jump onto the steep high verge on my right to continue in the direction it was going, which was past me. I looked into its eyes as it hesitated beside my car, now up, paused, beside me at my eye level. Then it vanished into the long grass.

Poor Tiddles! I understand her - I too feel like hiding inside a sofa when there are men clumping around doing things to my house - useful things, beneficial things, necessary things - but Tiddles and I just don't like it.

Not being a cat, I have to stay out, make cups of tea and coffee [well that's entirely my choice and my pleasure, there's a small bit of Mrs Doyle in my DNA], allow my downstairs toilet to become gender neutral for the duration😱, and then shell out large sums of money.

It could be worse, Tids, it could be worse. And they'll probably attach the new bookcase to the wall so it won't fall on you and look on the bright side: you might be able to climb up it and oops! dislodge any glassware or ceramics displayed on top.😃

Hope the rest of the deliveries go well, Deano, and won't the rooms look grand with their new furniture?

Pasta, I'm glad you're on the knee list at last, not too long I hope.
I'm on a similar waiting list which appears to be endless, but fortunately I'm not too bad in the meantime, and I'm hoping to reach the top of the list at roughly the same time as my mobility is getting really bad.

Edith, it was lovely to read your summery summary We are so lucky that you write beautifully about the world around you, thank you💙

I'm echoing Errol's catchy-uppy distribution of 😂🙁🙃 where appropriate, adding the occasional pumpkin/nights closing in/stained glass .

Sorry I can't be more individually responsive - I'm very busy trying to get access to that private trust in Lincolnshire, dontcha know😏

Footage of the new cat barista at the Staunch Ally.

https://x.com/GlossiCat7/status/2094972335157645542

Your garden is beautifully flowery and so green!

I cheat at this time of year with some pots placed on the flowerbeds. I’ve got too many geraniums really, most of which aren’t repeat or continuous flowering ones so they’re over by now.
We had enough rain here that the lawn didn’t go fully brown and was recovering before the south got any. DH commented when we were walking the other day that he’s really appreciating the green and wouldn’t want to move south again nowadays.

That did make me smile.

I hope Matte the Mouse was just on another shift when that footage was taken. I’d hate to think that the milk- drinking cat barista had been nibbling nobbling the competition.

HAGADAPA

Shhhh!
It's still summer.
It definitely, definitely DEFINITELY is.
For ages yet.

Autumn is ages off and winter's probably far into next year or something.
Or not at all, and we'll skip straight to spring.

I didn't mention it last night because I was too miserable but I had another incarcerated hernia thing. It was stupidly painful, I feel like I've been kicked by a horse again and I spend from 7pm in bed crying until it eased around 3 am.

I didn't even get to go out for my celebration meal. Arse. I'm very fragile today.

Poor scared Tiddles, Dean, excellent work Staunch Ally cat, hurray for Errol's garden, WOW about the hare, inky and good luck to Marie for her surgery wait.

Oh Pasta, that’s shit, I’m so sorry. Hugs from me & a soft furry rub from Kitty.

I’m so sorry, Pasta, that sounds utterly grim.

I keep getting sidetracked today.

Must be the weather.

Oh @PastaAllaNormathat’s awful. I’m so sorry. Gentle sympathetic e-hugs and I hope the doctors can find something to help you with it.

Pasta, I am so sorry to hear about your incarcerated hernia. I had to look up what it was.

Is there anything that can be done to stop it happening again, or to more effectively reduce pain when it’s happening?

I hope you can have a very gentle undemanding day today, to start your recovery.

Boily, has your skirt bunched up at the front, or are you in a male disguise so you can boldly find your way into The Staunch Ally in search of extra Tunnocks?

Sadly not, unless I lose yet another 20kg and the surgeon decides it's viable - which is increasingly unlikely because it's so big now

Essentially my c section scar opened up 14 years ago. They operated to put mesh across it, which came unattached at one side and did some more internal damage.
There was emergency surgery then when it strangulated and sections of my intestine started to die but within a year it had split again. Unfortunately that was during COVID and the referral to repair for lost. It keeps tearing further and further along and the hole in my stomach wall through which my guts can fall out is now about 8-10 cm across.

Hurts like a son of a bitch when the innards get stuck outside, if you see what I mean, but the consultant says it's not worth surgery because it will only open up again unless my BMI was a healthy weight. Which it's never even close to being.

Not ideal. And probably far too much information. Sorry.

That sounds so painful to have to live with Pasta especially when it keeps recurring. That must be so frustrating.

Patrons drop in and out all the time and can still be investigating stained glass...

Thanks. It is, and it's not much good for my sex life either. 🙄

Stil, onwards and upwards.

Sheesh, Pasta, that sounds grim. Intense pain is just horrible - you can't get comfortable, no distractions work, the time crawls, you can't do anything so the time crawls even more. All you can do is lie there and hope that whatever pain meds you have take effect quickly. 💐 Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Errol, your garden looks amazing. I'm running out of flowers (note to self, stock up on dahlias, chrysanthemums and heleniums for this time next year. And sedums.)

Inky, your hare encounter was beautiful. I've never got really close to one other than fleetingly, and they are such special animals.

My evening plan is to do a spot of gardening to fill up my brown bin, eat the dinner that DH will be cooking, and then head further towards the finish line of the jumper I'm making for the baby brother of the little boy mentioned earlier (he who shared my fish and chips).

Next instalment next.