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...

Hector the dog wouldn't voluntarily go into a room with a cranefly and if carried in would make a great unnecessary fuss, like a silly dog, not like a big brave dog. Such a daft animal, I did love him so much.

called them blackjacks

Was that in the UK? If so, maybe it answers a question I have had for years, which is what did Victorian and Edwardian writers mean by 'black beetles', that seemed to infest houses then. And what happened to them?

I can't say I'd noticed beetles in literature.
Perhaps what happened to them (and their offspring) was the vacuum cleaner?

Kafka could probably tell you more about that.

My first memory of beetles in literature:

AT half–past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a deathwatch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder—it meant that somebody's days were numbered.

Hearth crickets, they have almost died out too.

I've read that Deathwatch Beetles are a bit maligned, they are nocturnal and just happen to be heard when people are sitting up with a dying relative, they are making their tapping noises every night but nobody hears them.

I've never heard/seen a hearth cricket in Ireland, have you, Deano?
I'm not 100% sure I fancy the idea of them in my house, but they are spoken of with great affection, so I guess it's just me....

Derek Mooney and the other RTÉ nature bods went looking for them a few years ago and although they found people who remembered them I don't think they found any live ones. They did find a few people who remembered getting their socks eaten by them.

Sock-eating crickets?! You'd remember that all right!😄

I remember hearing an interview with an very old man reminiscing about cycling from Galway to Dublin for a football match [about 140 miles!] with a friend when he was a young lad. He said it was lashing rain, and of course they had no raingear. He said that in Mullingar a man gave them dry socks. 'I have never forgotten the kindness of that man' he said, about 80 years later.

A small gesture, forgotten by the giver, remembered for ever by the recipient.

It reminds me of the lines from a poem by Helen Waddell:
Would you think Heaven could be so small a thing
As a lit window on the hills at night?

The Heaven of small things

(Not sure why I've come over all philosophical!)

That was my friend V's favourite poem.

Our house gets invaded by huge, grey spiders every Autumn. They scurry from under a chair to behind the telly or from by the fireplace to under a chair. I am uncomfortable when I can see them but if can't see them then they don't exist. They all go back outside in the Spring.

I have a friend who spent 2 years in Afghanistan about 15 years ago. Knowing my discomfort around spiders, she very kindly sent me a video of a camel spider. These are about 8 cm long, have 10 legs and can run at 18 kmh. They seem to chase you but, apparently, they are just trying to stay in your shadow.

'very kindly' 🙄

Thank god I'm not currently tempted to feed that into the AI image generator!

So here's a gif of a ...
Camel 😁

Eeeeeeek

We get those. The house spiders, not the frankly horrifying sounding camel spiders! Apparently the house spiders are males out looking for opportunities to get their leg(s) over. We have wooden floors and you can hear them scuttle!

Wow this thread moves fast, from school uniform to spiders.....

I'm just settling down to a large glass of red. The fat rat and the retriever are primed for a couple of days of van life - ing before I have to settle down to the first job I've had for 8 years!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone fancy raising a glass to our adventures?

We are landlocked here so heading for costal adventures. It's going to be chilly but dry.

Enjoy the new job, Dime!

Chin chin!

Oh for fucks sake the second line didn't appear when I picked the gif. Sorry about the husband to be line!

That sounds exciting! Best of luck with it all.
And THANK YOU for changing the subject from sp-d-rs!

BTW don’t leave the pub it is very unsafe at the moment

Cracking news. Have a bottle of @MarieDeGournay s Coté de Nuits to celebrate.

Well..... I was a bit surprised to find I'd got a husband to be tagging along on the road trip!

Especially as (most of the time) I'm keen to get away from the existing one!

Congratulations @lifeturnsonadime !

🎉💐💕👑🥂🍾

Well done 👏 on the new job. Wrap up well for the coast.

Hooray for new jobs! I have an occasional job editing dissertations for students studying for a psychotherapy qualification. Usually fascinating stuff, but frustrating in that I can never share why they're fascinating because all that stuff is highly confidential (albeit hidden by pseudonyms, but even so details can be outing).