Bluestockings & Orange Wellies: Welcome to the Degu Station!

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

Well, that's self-explanatory, I think.

Previously known as:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5176773-bluestocking-the-gerbical?page=1

What I should be getting this year is my free travel pass. Must investigate how I apply.

I'm not due to be a pensioner for a couple of years yet, if I've got the maths right. Should I use that time to learn how to put my hair in a bun? I'm rubbish at hairdos. I usually go with long and straggly. I think I'll just embrace my inner crone.

Woley, don't forget the Werthers.

I’m making a list of all the pensioner-worthy things I need. I have the cat and the rocking chair.

I'm 66. Can I advise?

Round these parts old ladies do short hair, comfortable shoes and a comprehensive knowledge of the family connections of everyone local who features on RIP.ie

Mints i think they are obligatory.

large purse with lots of small change for when there is a queue behind you, on the bus or in the shops.

Spring shopping bag.

one of them plastic rain hats

And if you really want to get into the swing of it, them nice fluffy ankle boots with a zip in the middle of the foot.

I'm doing it all wrong

You have to go to the garden centre a lot, & eat in their restaurant (we do) & nick grapes & eat them in the supermarket because "I'm on a pension you know!" (we certainly don't do this).

You must also bore the pants off any captive audience (librarian, shop keeper, etc). I encountered one doing it this morning, & as a favour to the shop owner, I lurked behind them being obviously second in the queue, so that they turned round, saw me & decided they'd better go. Otherwise they were settling in to be there all day.

I don't know at what point I'm due to morph into being a typical pensioner instead of me-but-somehow-old. Let me know if you notice it happening, yeah?

This is a question for the dog owners here.

Why would someone attach a bag of dog poo to the rear wash wiper of their Audi? Is it to not have the smell in the car? OCD? We were coming up with ridiculous scenarios, like: if your car smelt really bad, you could hang it from your rear view mirror as an air freshener.

Or, what happens if you suddenly need to wash the rear window/hatch? Would the bag fly off into someone's garden? And were the people in the car in front of us going to do that deliberately to neighbours they hate, as they arrived home?

Or, are there people who pick up their dog's poo & hang the bag from someone else's car?

It's a mystery.

Pedantry Alert! Pedantry Alert! Please gather in Pedantry Corner to discuss this:

I've just spent the day in outpatients & various other hospital depts. [mostly tests and injections, nothing too awful] so there was lots of staring at signs in waiting rooms, including several that said NURSES STATION.

Surprisingly, I found that, on reflection, I didn't mind the absence of a possessive apostrophe. The nurses don't own the station. I think the word 'nurses' is being used descriptively/adjectivally or something like that.

Is there any grammatical justification for that argument, or have I had my pedantry removed surgically unbeknownst to me while under sedation??

Oh you must have ancient photo albums to hand, so you can bore the arse off various visitors about great uncle Fred twice removed who came to skeggy with you in the last century.

You can spend so long stuck reading and rereading the same signs that they stop being English. That's how 'ambulances' became 'am-boo-lank-keys'.

It needs an apostrophe, imo. I don't know why but Nurses Station gives me the ick.

Eta

I'm assuming the sign is for the benefit of patients and visitors? It's where they'd 'catch' a nurse. So perhaps it should be Nurse Station, like Train Station.

How did you know Skeggy is in my history? Spooky.

Welcome to the station for nurses. How may I help you?

It should have an apostrophe.

Oxford and Cambridge colleges refer to Porters' Lodges, e.g the Porters' Lodge at St Hilda's and at King's.

Train Station? Train Station?!

It's railway station.

You can spend so long stuck reading and rereading the same signs that they stop being English. That's how 'ambulances' became 'am-boo-lank-keys'.

I remember a long ago comedian saying that he saw an ambulance in his rear view mirror, read 'ECNALUBMA' & assumed it was a Swedish furniture store. Not hilarious, but it comes to mind every time I see a blasted ambulance. Still, better than any other association I guess.

Bus Replacement Nurses.

But... but... train station? the place where the trains are stationed? Not owned by trains. No apostrophe.

You're quite right, apologies.

Train or railway, definitely doesn't need an apostrophe.

Better than Nurse Replacement Buses.

Have I derailed or not, I honestly can't tell. Derailing onto railways

Very cute, but I think I'd want to see her credentials before she injected anything into me😨
But deffo cuter than any of the nurses I saw today. Not that I was checking out the nurses, of course😏

It should be NURSE STATION. A location for storing nurses when not in use. Similar to a broom cupboard where brooms are stored when not in use. The main difference is that a nurse station is completely pointless as nurses are always either on their way to do something, doing something or on their way to do something else.

I think the singular versus plural thing may go like this.

Plural people - porters' lodge, servants' hall, nurses' station.
Single body of people - staff room, police station. (Fire station may be a shortened form of fire brigade station.)
Things - singular, as an adjective - bus station, on the pattern of apple tree, shoe shop, coat rack.

I see someone emptied out the gravy browser as they needed it for the evening shift.

The gerbils could have warned me!

Is that regular gravy or cake gravy, Boily? Looks a bit chocolatey to me!