Ladies and Ladies: The Bluestocking is open: again

[DeanElderberry]

Newly renovated, beautifully appointed. Food and Beverages, excellent (if sometimes unexpected service), delightful clientele, special accommodation for invalids, pedants, readers and normal people.

Ceol agus Craic

Entertainment!

! Gerbils beautiful gerbils!

❤🐀🎧🐀🎺🐁🎷🐖 ❤

all furry!

! ❤AI and Scientists❤

less furry !

All women welcome

well behaved male visitors from the Staunch Ally are welcome in the stableyard but not across the threshold of the main building

ooops. posted too soon

there ye go

Thinking back I think all my soft toys had male names. Of the toys my sprogs had, whose names I can remember, my youngest did give some of hers female names. This is discounting the ones who were tv/film characters or were in gendered clothing. It's not something I'd thought about before. Interesting.

Definitely George short for Georgina.

I didn't play with dolls much, but I had one or two which were girls, because dolls just were girls. My beloved teddy was just teddy.

But when I was very little I also had a really odd doll - it had a body stuffed with woodstraw and a plastic face, sounds hideous now but I loved it - which was a boy cos I said so, and I was outraged when anyone referred to it as 'she' or made dolly dresses for it.

OMG - I've just realised that I was having strops about pronouns when I was aged three!

I'm also wondering now if the odd little doll who was really a boy was a projection..

Gerbils! quick! bring a chaise longue and a psychoanalyst! 😨

Oh god yes the dolls were girls. Long hair, dresses. Perhaps that's why teddies are male, to play that role in the families children make from their toys sometimes. If their dolls are so strongly coded female that's the natural option. That's a perfectly sensible thing to do if the children want a gender balance.

I think I've seen kids get very stroppy when their toys are misgendered.

All my toys were deemed to be male by me. Anything fluffy that comes into the house even now is deemed to be male.

I also hated dolls (which of course were invariably girl dolls) to the point where I threw all my sister's dolls from the balcony of the flat we lived in!

And when my dad bought me a horrible baby doll in a little basket thingy, for my 5th birthday I think, I made it quite clear that I absolutely detested dolls, and left it behind when I returned home! That Christmas he got me a Big Loader Construction Set which was the best present I'd ever had at that point in my life! Although the plastic tool kit I'd had since I was 3 was also a firm favourite. (Reader I went into construction as an adult!)

I have always hankered after the Evil Knievel toy the two boys down the road had! Maybe I should buy one now I'm a grown up!

I remember when girls at school started getting Girls World heads as birthday and Christmas presents being filled with dread that I'd get one. Thankfully I never did, but I did get a Monster make up kit (a joint present from Father Christmas and Granny) and had great fun wandering round with gruesome scars and cuts with fake blood dripping from them!

My brother had the Evil Knievel toy. It was brilliant! And as a girl I got to play with it.

I once posted a picture of a large spider in a small sink on FB and called it Henrietta.

Someone asked me how I knew it was female. I replied, how do you know it's male? It was that ingrained.

Also it was huge and female spiders are bigger than male ones.

I was so envious of the boys I knew who had chemistry sets. And train sets and Scaletrix. I don't seem to have asked for anything like this, just accepted dolls. I'm so impressed by those who actually asked for the toys they wanted.

Just going to say this...thickened pedipalps.

You go gurl, say thickened pedipalps, they can't touch you for it😂

otolith...pedipalp... that's two new words to look up. Every day a school day at the Bluestocking😃

I found dolls very boring as a child. I had one called Sally and one called Barbara. My mother made Barbara a beautiful wardrobe of clothes, many of which matched my clothes (mum made most of my clothes when I was little). All I ever did was undress them and leave them lying around naked for my mum to dress again. I always anted books for a present, though I do remember having a Bayko building set which I loved, and building houses with it.

Yes indeed Mrs Delaney of paper collage fame.

I hope the exercise went well. The weather is dry and sunny here but bogging cold. And I'm not going out, as I'm too busy falling asleep sideways in my huge armchair. Literally. Or in fact laterally.

My teddy was a girl and when people insisted she had to have a name (rather than just Teddy) I called her Topsy, Probably after the Topsy and Tim books.

I have a lovely pink climbing rose called "Mary Delany".

I have also had a very very frustrating morning involving phlebotomy, computers and lack of communication. Fortunately my very helpful GP surgery has sorted it out, after I went down there and spoke to a human.
And I'm lookingvafter a sick husband. Gin please gerbils.

My boycat is called George. It's an excellent cat/tiger name.

Well, I'm back from living the middle class pensioner dream: buying foodie treats at our excellent farm shop, & then walking at a National Trust property. The day is bright & sunny & very mild.

Teddy is a prefectly adequate name for a bear. Teddy Android was chosen by me at 1 year old, apparently, when I spotted him & refused to leave the shop without him. I still have him now. As a young bear he wore a skirt as that was easier to make than trousers, so he was an early opponent of strict gender roles - as indeed was I, because I always made for the Meccano at school & got dragged away by teachers who told me to let the boys have it 'first'. Strangely, it never got to be my turn. I also wanted a chemistry set & never got one. I was going to buy one for myself recently, but they were all a bit safe & naff.

I also have a second bear (bought for me by DH when we were first together) & he's called George. It's a fine name for any animal.

My childhood bear (a present from my parents, when I was 3, and still have) is called "Amanda Panda". I think I was fond of words and rhymes, even back then.

I have a Winnie the Pooh who was won in a raffle and given to me by my mother because I had chicken pox for the second time when I was 18 months old.

His grey felt facial features were lost some time ago, so I embroidered eyes, a nose and a mouth in sparkly colours, so he looked a bit odd for a time, but it is now his face. He lives on the spare bed with Brown Bear (male), Pink Pig (girl) and Duck, also a girl.

Pooh is very old and outlived my doll, whose name I have forgotten. She wore a beautiful pale blue satin dress that I am told was mine as a baby. Pooh wears an orange silk v-neck top that's probably a bit grubby now, but he loves it.

George was also the name of the wife of W. B. Yeats.
She was baptised Georgiana or something posh like that but always went by George.

I think I can get away with sharing random trivia, or even randomly sharing trivia, like that in the Bluestocking..

Feel free, dear.

I've still got the pooh, piglet, tigger, eeyore, kanga and roo my mum made when I about 3 in a box upstairs. They need a bloody good clean and mend, but I'm scared if I try to do it I'll end up with a pile of fluff and material and no toys!I

In non stuffed toy news I have just hit a new year resolution high point.

Since January 1st I have selected 100 items to go either straight in the bin or to the charity shop!

Woohoo! Terrifyingly you wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't know that my home is 100 items lighter!

Note: No stuffed animals were included within this number, that will probably be in March when I start running out of other things to get rid of (who am I kidding it will be about 2030 before I got that point!!)

"Under bare Benbulbin's head, In Drumcliffe churchyard, Yeats is laid"

We went to Sligo on several holidays (because of Yeats) and I at age 7 I declared.."Yeats is dead" is a far better stanza. See, I did like rhymes!

AI has no idea about Mrs Delany, & on being instructed to do FLAT paper collages of flowers still does raised ones, but some are very pretty, e.g.

Since January 1st I have selected 100 items to go either straight in the bin or to the charity shop!

Well done Boily, though I note the word 'selected'. It doesn't really count until the items have gone. I speak from experience!

DH is the opposite of me: if he buys something, the old one of that item gets thrown out straight away. Hence, since buying new pans, I now find myself without the one which was a perfect fit for my bamboo steamer. Grrrrrrrrr.

The cleaner is here tomorrow and she's taking the charity items! The bin men took the straight in the bin ones the other day!

I also photographed what I chose to get rid of so I can't cheat and remove something! Otherwise half of it would be back on a shelf or in a cupboard!