The Bluestocking: where conversation should supersede cards

[MyrtleLion]

The Blue Stockings Society was founded by women emphasising education and mutual cooperation. Men could attend as invited guests, but in this Women's Pub, they are only welcome to peer enviously through the windows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Stockings_Society

All women welcome!

All tastes catered for.

All food containing calories will not increase waistlines.

All drink containing alcohol will not intoxicate beyond the mildy merry and slightly inhibited stage. Guaranteed no hangovers.

Don't mind the gerbils, hamster, capybaras, quokkas and other assorted rodents. They're all female, all staff and very accommodating...

I find I celebrate dark chocolate day frequently.

Thank you @MarieDeGournay!

I changed my mind and went for the pink edging - I may do a second round to make a deeper border - if the Six Nations rugby doesn’t distract me too much.

Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge this morning, the sweet box is wonderful.

Boily - I think I can make it scan and even rhyme in a sensible accent "...there may be snowdrops, and croci and daffs - let's face the chill winds and laugh'

Oi, Errol, are you calling my (perfectly normal) RP accent not sensible?!

"Daffs" and "laugh" dont rhyme for me. 😟 Otherwise it would be perfect!

The thing I mainly miss about the UK is early spring. I've been here over 22 years now, and we don't even get snowdrops and crocuses until mid-March at the earliest. Winters are not quite as cold as they were when I first got here, when January temperatures would regularly drop to -20C (I don't think they've dropped below 17C so far this year and that only briefly - mainly they've been between -10C and +2C). Snowfalls have also been less than normal - we've had a couple of 3-5" falls, including last night (even as I write DH is out there with the snowblower clearing the driveway, bless him) but in previous years we've had up to three feet at a time (not often thank goodness!)

Daffs and laugh rhyme in a Yorkshire accent, which I never really managed to acquire despite growing up there after the age of 5.

Oh @Britinme that sounds very cold. And no early flowers till March would do me in.

I took a photo of my Iris Reticulata this morning. Such cheery things.

I had snowdrops before Christmas this year. Hundreds of them now, and aconites. Snowflakes and a few daffodils in bud - must pick some because I need them open on Monday. I saw irises like those in town during the week - I don't think mine have budged yet.

<Weeps... contemplates whether it is too early for a G&T or to ask the gerbils for hot chocolate and Tunnocks>

@FuzzyPuffling - your irises are lovely. My mum was a mad keen iris grower and breeder - there is an iris she bred, named after me, and one she named after my dad, that won a medal for iris breeding.

I spent ages, one year, doing an embroidery for her - blackwork tiles round the outside, with cross stitch irises in the centre, for her Christmas present. She did like it, but told me I had used the wrong shade of yellow for the patches on the drooping petals, and did I mind her unpicking it and doing it in the right colour!! At the time she had bilateral cataracts and could only see things clearly if she held them right up to her eyes, so the thought of her and a pair of sharp embroidery scissors near all my hard work, was horrifying. Luckily dsis whipped it out of her hands and took it to the framers before she could have a go.

When she died, it was one of the things I brought from her house, as a memory of her, and it’s up in my front room now.

Woley what a beautiful piece of embroidery. You are extremely talented.
( I hope you didn't change any colours until.you mum had had her cataracts done. The world is a very different palette afterwards!)

And wow to having an iris named after you. I might need an iris called Woley in my garden!

That is a fabulous piece of embroidery. I love all that blackwork.

I used to embroider a lot but my eyes aren't quite up to it these days. I did this one thirty-odd years ago, based on a print a friend had.

That is lovely, @Britinme!

That is gorgeous blackwork! I am so envious.

No, it's more that we have many sensible accents at our disposal in the U.K. so we can make all sorts of things rhyme.

Did you say you were in Maine, @Britinme ? I never got that far up the coast but had a lot of work trips to Boston which seemed to have long bitter winters. Lived in Pennsylvania for a couple of years - "doesn't get below zero very often", they said. Fahrenheit, they forgot to mention. It went from too cold to too hot literally overnight without bothering with spring; fall was nice though.

It's really beautiful and I love the philosophy!

I've attempted to show some gerbils serving you a G and T with hot chocolate and a Tunnocks teacake with mixed results.

Beautiful irises and fabulous embroidery - I'm very impressed.

That is beautiful work, Woley.

You don't, ahem, fancy making me a cap with blackwork on it, do you? It would be wonderful in another part of my life, wink wink, nudge nudge.

A cap with blackwork ... are you a hanging judge?

This you, Cher?

Ha, no. Probably fortunately for the odd person I've come across.

More this.

I hesitate to ask, but when do/would you wear that?

Oh, I have various, and varied, aspects to my life. All perfectly harmless (I'm tempted to say "Alas!")