Bluestocking: the one where Boiled gets to the bar first!

[Boiledbeetle]

The things I do to get to the bar first!

Follow on thread from

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5207342-bluestocking-do-androids-dream-of-electric-hair

We've had and seen the common woodpecker but I was listening to Graham Linehan's news in the garden on headphones and a new bird call which I'd never heard before was drowning him out. It was so loud. The cats were all like 'what the fuck is that?' as they were disturbed from their sunbathing. So I put the Merlin app on and bingo.

We have alot of wildlife as we corner onto an ancient woods which is there as a windblock for the farmers fields behind us. But this one is a right screamer.

Merlin is magic

When I lived in the US in about 1990 we'd see little egrets and find them exotic. Now we've got loads of them, plus an occasional great white and a few cattle egrets (near the longhorn cattle at the WWT, appropriately).

I was amazed when I first saw spoonbills (on the Wirral and then Lancashire) I thought they belonged in Africa ... but then while re-reading one of the Arthur ransome books, turns out they were in Norfolk in that era.

Oh, I thought you meant the b/w one, but there really is a black one - I never knew that!

Starlings, you say?

Ah, the Bleestocking has a mumuration.

Can I bring this fun guy into the conversation?

In our woods, our neighbours arrive every year in the autumn hoping for a week of foraging Cepes. The foraging of mushrooms here is a huge hobby and people trawl the woods a few days after a warm rainstorm hoping that they catch cepes and other mushrooms at their best. They then flog them on FB marketplace. Each year so far they have missed the window or it's been too dry for them.

Anyway, I am not a mushroom fan [not since I read Alice in Wonderland] and my interest is botanical. 2 years ago in our first October here, I wandered into the woods and found this fella. Then I found hundreds more. But this guy was the size of a dinner plate.

I'm in the middle of making a load of pottery mushrooms, these are the latest ones. It is to test some [very] old glazes I've been given and as you can see the glaze hasn't adhered properly so I'm going to refire them, and put them into groups of 3 on little plinths so that once done they can go into the garden. That might freak the neighbours out next autumn!

If any AI comes up with viable mushroom based creations, I may be up for making one into reality. I'd like to make a range of mushroom based small hanging planters.

I actually like the mottled effect on some of them.

We have mushrooms like that, with pores instead of gills, show up in our tiny suburban garden. Penny buns or ceps in English, porcini in Italian. I've never dared to eat one because I'm not confident of the species and the slugs usually get to them first.

@AlisonDonut I input your description & the AI said...

I like the mushrooms as they are too, they're kind of wabi-sabi.

Thank you. I'm going to save those pics and bloody make some of them.

@AlisonDonut - I love your pottery mushrooms, especially where the glaze hasn't adhered as you wanted - I think it gives a very organic effect.

One of these days, I am going to find a local pottery class and go and do a workshop - it looks like such fun. What I really long to make is the perfect coffee mug - holding about a pint of coffee, and nice and sturdy. Maybe in blues and greens. Coffee tastes better out of the right mug.

I can't remember which one of us mentioned visiting Martin Mere, but there's a place that's opened up not a million miles from there that does pottery. It's an arty gift shop and cafe but a pottery as well. I think it used to be a farm shop. We were passing and popped in to have a nosey, too late to go to the cafe unfortunately, seemed to have nice cakes. They seemed to do pottery lessons, offer shared use of a kiln, so on. As we were leaving I glanced down and there was a bit of paper on the floor with my name on it...coincidence spooky 👻

I'll try to remember the name of the place.

No that's just plain spooky, Cake😱
Unless it was a scrap of a local newspaper and your name in real life is
'Tarlscough Telegraph' or 'Burscough Bugle'😂

If you can get to a pottery class it really is life changing. I love it.

First pot in progress. Obviously we add our own flourishes so these will be on matching saucers and I was under observation by quality control...as usual. Will update as I go.

Yeah, I'm getting Hitchcock there, @ifIwerenotanandroid ... 😳

The Newburgh News. I think the place was the Eden Gallery. Although googling pottery near Burscough brought up loads of hits. Some will be people making stuff to sell at craft fairs and on Etsy, but it does seem like pottery may be having a moment.

There's a tiny, wee potters wheel you can buy on Amazon for just over £30. I suspect the motor would burn out if you tried to throw anything bigger than an egg cup...maybe a espresso cup...and how you'd fire it?

I'm the Martin Mere fan, cake - we get to it from the other direction, don't often go to the burscough/parbold side but that looks like somewhere I should put on my list for next year when I'm retired and we can expand our usual range!

I keep converting Martin Mere to Marton Mere in my mind.

Are they different places?

Yes, the latter is a local nature reserve, not one I've been to (yet).

The former is a WWT reserve with collection of wildfowl, visitors centre, cafe, playground, kids activities plus a reserve with hides - one of the main migration destinations for Whooper swans, which fly in from Iceland every autumn. We've been countless times over the years. It's somewhere that can be enjoyed by both small kids in wellies and blokes in camo with long lenses!

small kids in wellies and blokes in camo with long lenses!

Neat summation of every WWT reserve I've ever been to. Originally I was one of the small kids in wellies, but I don't think I'm ever going to be a bloke in camo... Slimbridge is the one I know best - I can still tell the difference between Chilean and Andean flamingos!

DH grew up in Gloucester, his dad used to take him to slimbridge - he was a Gosling😂 - and we've been there quite a lot over the years. I like water and reed beds.

I've been to Marton Mere, a number of years ago. It's near Blackpool, through a caravan site. They used to have a small starling murmuration (a mumble?), they roosted in the reeds.

Hurrah!

I've got some of that clay you don't need to fire & some cheapo implements, but I've had it at least a year now & haven't touched it. I'm hoping to get inspired by Alison. Then there's the lino printing kit...