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

I used to wear a lot of JJill stuff, Chickadee, and have occasionally made an order to collect when I'm "back home." Not sure about sizing now 😫

I know! I'm very excited. I'll be sailing The Virago up The Humber, do you want a lift?

Wave to Hull as you sail past and blow them a kiss from me.

I’ve lost 27lb this year and gone from their XL to L. I’m probably about a US 16/18 which is a UK 18/20. Trying not to buy stuff right now though!

I came across a Hull accent at work recently, and thought of you!

Congratulations @Chickadeeinme and @PastaAllaNorma on your significant weight losses. It takes determination.
Before Covid I used naturally to do a lot of exercise without really trying, but can’t now so any weight I lose creeps back ‘an hundredfold,’ or so it seems.

The cost of returning GS things can be really annoying so I factor that in when buying and play the system. Always return at least £40 of things (if anything) to avoid the handling fee. Don’t use their return label, unless returning a lot, pay for postage yourself and then there’s no shipping fee. At least things now go back to Covent Garden: for a year or so recently you had to post everything back to Sweden, and so it was simpler to pay their £7 shipping fee.

M&S sizing has always been inconsistent but they have also deliberately changed their leg lengths in the last year or two. I’m 5’4” and sometimes their new ‘Extra Short’ trousers are too long. I bought some very comfortable trousers from there earlier this year but had to shorten the Regular length legs by 6”.

@AsWithGlad I’ve been on the Wegovy pill since March, which helps significantly. They start you on the 1.5mg dose, which doesn’t do much, to see if you tolerate it well, then up to the 4mg dose. After 2 months on that I’m on the 9mg dose and hoping not to have to go up to the 21mg dose, which is the highest they do. I’ve been losing 4-5lbs a month but that has slowed somewhat recently. I could do to lose another 25lb but if I only lose another 10 I’ll be reasonably happy.

I never really acquired one of those (though I can put one on!) because my mother sent me to elocution lessons as a child so I wouldn’t. But when we moved back to Hull just before I turned 5 (my dad’s home town though I was born in India) I had the kind of Anglo-Indian accent which on a little white girl sounds a bit Welsh, so I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb at primary school there. I still get noticed for my British accent here!

I went to university in Hull back in the 90s, then lived up there for a while working as a reporter on a free paper called the Record, based in Queen’s Gardens.

There were 4 of us on the staff & wages were £50 a week if there was enough cash in the tin. I was sub-renting a room in a student house for £15 a week (probably illegal come to think of it) and shopping cost £5 per week at Kwik Save.

I still don't understand why they make the "standard size" be for the 5'9" models they use, and usually a size 8 or 10 (and even a 10 I've only seen this in the past 10 years or so)
Believe me, Angle, they don't!
Not unless the 5'9" models have relatively short legs for their height.

'Model if slim and leggy and the blurb says:
Sophie is wearing Size 10 jeans...'
No she bloody isn't, because your Size 10s end 3" above my ankles, and these come all the way down... Or perhaps she is, and the baggy top disguises the fact that they're undone and the waist is halfway down her hips.

I certainly will. I'm confident that a galleon crewed by 2 women, a Saluki, some gerbils and a group of Caribbean Maintenance Lobsters will slip unnoticed up the river. We did it on The Potomac after all.

Sounds perfectly normal to me. Wouldn't give you a second glance.
Are the Vixens not with you for this mission?

Daft question for all the academics here… what happens if your Director of Studies [and only really/main contact] and/or supervisor gets made redundant before you submit your thesis and have your viva? [Not happened, but apparently DoS has returned from summer break to announcement of redundancies in the department.]

I don't have an answer, I was fortunate to avoid that situation but I know something similar happened to one of my colleagues. I would suggest that you ask, firmly and persistently, for a guarantee in writing that in the event of your supervisor leaving the department for whatever reason, the university will commit to finding you an appropriate replacement within a reasonable amount of time. Do you only have one supervisor? I had three, but the third retired halfway through and wasn't replaced. I suspect he was only given me as an honorary thing.
Would also be worth reading the regs for postgraduate degrees for your university, it may already say what happens.

Thank you will look at the handbook - feels a bit insensitive to ask my DoS right now as she’s only just got back to work after summer break.

I have one supervisor (who basically pitches up on a zoom with DoS, says stuff, but has not actually every given me critical feedback on anything other than ‘too much conversation’ and ‘bit overwritten’ and ‘I did make notes on your document but managed to lose them’… and I hate to say it, but is male so not really attuned to issues of motherhood, feminism and autism and may have been cajoled into being my on-paper supervisor I realise in hindsight); and a very enthusiastic DoS who has essentially been my main supervisor and fed back continually. She has been a real champion for my project, so would be gutted to lose her, especially as am now just 6m away from submission! She gets what it’s about and how it has evolved. 😭

No, the Vixens went off to California on their Top Secret Mission once we had Emily back safely. They're providing security for a mysterious family who are flying to the UK next week and are convinced that they will be on international news footage. Silly girls.

I'm way behind - not just because I have to nip over to Chat, but because there is now another big job to be done on my house - not so much a huge job, but one that has a whole lot of side effects, and scheduling in the trades that need to move X before Y can be replaced and when to book the delivery of A B and C is flowchart territory🙄

Of course none of this will take me away from my important task of ... checking whatever it is about stained glass that I'm supposed to be checking wherever it is I'm supposed to be doing it,I think it was 'Everywhere Else', wasn't it? - sorry, Gosie, I need you to run through my mission statement again🙃
But I'm 100% committed to doing it, whatever it is, now where's my flask and sangers? [Hiberno-English for 'sarnies']

The pill looks like a real step forward?

My DS (now 18) and I have used wegovy and then mounjaro. I lost 6.5 stone over 18m and have been on ‘maintenance’ for the last couple of years as nervous of coming off - I am hypothyroid and PCOS/insulin resistent, but it was covid, menopause and serious stress with my eldest that say 5st weight gain 5-6 years ago. Similarly for my DS - autism and covid x 4, glandular fever and some level of isolation/low mood meant his weight ballooned during lockdown. He was the youngest person in the UK to be put on it and has been monitored by a prof at Liverpool uni and at Eli Lilly. He also lost 6 stone - the impact on his self esteem has been incredible. It’s been suggested for both of us that we move to the Wegovy tablets for maintenance over the next few months - especially as I know DS will forget to jab at uni.

Been life changing for us - both of us have found it’s helped Adhd symptoms and reduced migraines for both of us (I went from several a week to a couple a year!)

Yes please, I think I still have my sea legs from the last adventure.😁

You OK, Android?🤕😮
You have to learn to pace yourself before the next Olympics😁

I hope the new job in your house goes well, Marie. I do love a good flow chart and had an epic one when I moved here and needed to co-ordinate all my tradespeople.

I shouldn't worry about the latest Gosie adventure. All our work for Gosie and our Bluestocking friends is done under the influence of the dream gerbils, which means the job gets done while leaving us feeling rested in the morning.

Of course, the dream gerbils do occasionally get distracted......🤔

@Thehorticulturalhussie I must admit I was intrigued by the Caribbean maintenance lobsters. They turn out to be very efficient!

My MSc supervisor took paternity leave, several months, the full whack, good for him, three months into the thesis-writing bit. At the time my then partner was exhibiting more signs of his borderline personality disorder and alcoholism, and the Walrus, who was a very good friend, recommended I move out.

I did just that and deferred the thesis for a few months. I was then allocated a new supervisor who was amazing and brilliant, and we met in Manchester in one of the old libraries, I wish I can remember which one because it was so lovely. It was close to the central Library. We then had lunch and went somewhere else so I saw some really amazing places and felt full of confidence about everything.

At the time I was working in a pub and as a celebrant and had to leave a naming meeting early to do an additional shift at the landlord's request. This turned into a "chat about my work" and I was furious because I had left this meeting early to get there and found I was being told off for talking too much (ADHD obviously), which I kind of thought was the point of a pub.

The Walrus and I had been invited to the same wedding in February and there we realised it was more than a friendship. Eventually we arranged to move in together at Christmas, so there was a lot of rental house-hunting and as he was in a town several hundred miles away, it was a palaver to find somewhere. I think I saw it on my own and then he saw it and came to the pub to tell me he liked it. He also suggested I leave the pub when we moved in together and finish my thesis full-time because I had about six weeks to complete it and I was nowhere beginning to write up.

And so, because they had been such bastards, I gave them a week's notice on the 10 December, three days after the Christmas shifts had been posted. And I did not give a single fuck. We moved into the house on the 16/17 December. I met DSD five days later.

I completed the thesis a day early, with my brilliant supervisor being terrific all the way through, and on the morning I should have submitted I was planning a lazy lie-in when I was called by another celebrant who had lost her voice that morning. She asked if I would take her funeral that day at 1pm. She sent the script over, I got up, got ready, printed the readings and the script and conducted the funeral which was packed - a very much loved 40-something woman who had died of cancer and loads of family and tonnes of children who were friends of her kids turned up along with most of the community. By far the largest funeral I had conducted. And I had so much praise, even though I just spoke someone else's words. But her father said, not everyone could do that and mean it.

And that is the story of my thesis.

I got a Merit in the thesis and a Merit in the MSc itself. I think I would have had a Distinction if my ex hadn't been so awful and had all the upheaval. But I'm very proud of it.

Briliant!

You're doing the difficult ones. Mainly because you have excellent diplomacy skills. Frankly if anyone can get into the locked ones and the ones with just a phone number, it is you.