Feminist Pub XVIII, in which the Bluestocking greets the first signs of spring with a glass of something soothing

[PuffinsAreFictitious]

Just starting this one as the last is nearly full

Good morning! I just slept for 10 hours. I really needed that. There were various attempts to wake me early by beeping (phone), sword prodding (DD), and licking (cat), but I managed to just turn over and ignore them all.

I have just had coffee at home and intend to go and find the one shop here that sells hot cross buns.

Ah you have reminded me to put HXB on the shopping list for next week

Mmm hxb, some in my delivery later

Sleeping, my most favourite activity ever! When I'm working I have to do with

I slept for about 7 hours (which is far more than I've managed most nights this week), and then crashed for a couple of hours this afternoon, too. Which is good, but I sort of object to losing my own time to sleep rather than work's time, given they've been causing the insomnia through bad management-induced stress.

Not that falling asleep at your desk is looked on as a good thing. Colleague now has a CPAP thing though, so it hasn't happened for ages.

presenteeism is so endemic

Yes, it was noticeable in our most recent redundancies, how many of them were home workers. (Men as well as women, so it's not just about being mummy-tracked.)

Is your boss Marissa Mayer?

Yes LordCopper indeed. I think I'm the only pub regular based in my town, which is a shame.

No. We don't have a female boss.

Weirdly, the other day, I was chatting to our head of HR about how more flexibility was a good thing.

Just popping in to restock nibbles and put a new barrel of bitter on.

If this cold I have doesn't do one soon, I might just go a leetle bit crazy.

Hot toddy?

Something to help me sleep? I woke up with a headache (which painkillers are starting to take the edge off), and can't get back to sleep. Mainly because I'm wondering how DS is getting on travelling across Europe by coach.

Did you get back in touch with your ds Oubliette, or are you not allowed to in case it embarasses him?

I'm sure your ds will be fine oubliette. The kids are normally far too excited to miss home, while the parents are anxious wondering how they're getting on.

Oubliette.

Their Twitter feed tells me they made it to Austria safely

That must have been a journey and a half!

I suspect his main problem was trying to unfold himself after sitting for that long. Coach travel is gruelling

It is a long time since I did a coach trip of that magnitude. I went from Yorkshire to Switzerland by coach in 1989 (with Guides) and remember being fairly exhausted afterwards. I bet DS sleeps well tonight! Really hoping I do too - I have to work tomorrow and I'm too busy to have an 'off' day

Travelling is exhausting. I expect they'll either be asleep or sussing out who has the best room for the midnight feasts! How old is he?

He's 9 Bertie - so still quite small to be traipsing across Europe without me.

Oh wow, that is small! Bless him. Are you in France then?

I'm in Bedford. So he had a really long coach journey (interspersed with a ferry crossing) - around 20 hours travelling in total and he's doing the same trip in reverse at the end of the week

I was somewhat nervous while he was in transit - I'm feeling calmer now I know he's there

Can I ask my question? It's also about language/discrimination.
We adopted our DCs from overseas, both from the same area, in a country where I also have family. We and my overseas family appear "white" as does one DC. The other DC is pretty certainly at least partly of an ethnicity that is very rare here, but will appear to British people to be South Asian (our CM is Asian and her DGCs are similar age and have similar colouring).

I have noticed two types of comments about this DC's appearance:
"Doesn't X have lovely colouring?" I'm assuming they are talking about skin colour, but class this along with "you have beautiful children." or "I wish I had curls like that".

The other I'm not quite sure how to reply to. It seems to be denying the ethnicity if that makes sense. One relative who I was telling about the ethnic background and what we plan to tell the DCs, including some negative information. The relative said "oh X is not that dark" meaning we don't have to tell the negative information. The other comment was along the same lines - "X has more olive skin really, no?" meaning X will not be mistaken for "Indian" (this was in the context of choosing a more mixed school setting)

DH says just put X in white shorts in the summer and it will be clear to all (only the face is olive!). I'm never too sure what to say.

That sounds tricky, drspouse. Maybe faking blank incomprehension - "sure, she's olive, but of course she's still X, why would I lie to her?"