Roll up, Ladies and Gentlecreatures, the Bluestocking has been redecorated

[DeanElderberry]

Here for your delight and delectation is the hostelry by, for, and about wise, intelligent, creative and kind women, their assorted avatars including (but not limited to) a remarkable beetle, an astute android, a wise cake, and an assembly of companion creatures and animal assistants.

Food and drink available in abundance, all with remarkable non-damaging qualities.

Males may congregate in the nearby Staunch Ally and sometimes visit the stableyard to view outdoor performances by the gerbil waitstaff (who need to be distracted after the moment after that terrible 'misunderstanding' about the meaning of safe sex).

last thread here if you need to know why the Quokkas need some extra cuddles, and why the Cabybaras are being particularly efficient just now

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273255-the-bluestocking-all-gerbils-welcome-must-have-own-frou-frou-skirt?

If I drink tea, it's because I'm craving s hot drink but can't face coffee or even hot chocolate.

If I'm drinking tea, you know I'm genuinely ill.

I can't abide tea at all. I drink coffee all day - I have a mug that holds over a pint, and it lasts me until teatime (I am quite happy drinking cold coffee). I do occasionally have a cup of Egyptian spice licorice tea (the Yogi brand), but that has no actual tea in it. I used to drink a lot of fruit juice, and full sugar cordial with fizzy water, but that's a no-no now, so I drink fizzy water with ice and a couple of wedges of lime.

I need to decide whether or not to put my foot down. My knee is still not much better, and is only improving very slowly. I'm fine as long as dh is at home, but he wants to go down to London, to the office, next Tuesday, which will mean me managing at home all alone, and I'm just not sure I can. I have said this to him, but he seems to think we can work out some work-rounds so I can cope (he will make coffee and leave it out for me, we will find something easy for me to prepare and eat at lunchtime, and I can leave the back door open for the dogs all day if necessary), but if I am no better, I really don't want him to go.

Am I being a complete wuss - in which case please send a gerbil to slap me upside the head - or am I being reasonable?

I wonder which is more enjoyable on a rare sunny morning?

Doing a very overdue round of washing and pegging it out to dry in the sun

OR

Googling to see what a washing machine error message meant, pushing a snaky thing up the drain, then realising the sink drain outlet doohdah was full of grey stinky stuff, bailing out and dumping the grey stinky stuff, then opening the trap in the washing machine, flooding the kitchen floor in the process, and finding some sticks and string and one of those colour catchers in a place where no colour catcher should be. Then having a shower that only partly removed the truly evil smell, despite much scrubbing with posh soap, and making a second attempt at doing the washing prior to washing every stitch I was wearing during the previous operations.

You decide.

And an unrelated question can anyone explain why every time I see that statement Being a man was too much hard work so I became a woman I start to twitch?

I want turmeric cocoa. I want to go to TKMaxx and buy all the artisanal Italian and French soaps they'll have in for mothers' day, mothers being notoriously in need of a wash. Probably because of their toils down the drains.

Waaaah! Where have I been? I've missed about a week, which might as well be a lifetime the way the time-altering qualities of the Stocking works. Well it's been a busy week is all I can say and I'm here now. We are having a mattress delivered this morning and the time window they set us was 7:30-10:30am, so we are both grumpy at having to get up at 7 to clear everything out of the way, especially since they may not get here for another almost 3 hours and it's going to snow before then.

Is it gin o'clock yet?

I want to go to TK Maxx now 😕

I never go to TK Maxx.

I don't like rummaging.

I think I'd rather go with option 1 (assuming there isn't an option 0 to just leave the washing and do something, anything, else) but, for someone who notoriously hates rummaging, I quite enjoy fixing stuff on the rare occasions that I have the skill set to do it.

Woley , is the London trip a want to or a need to?

@IcakethereforeIam - it’s a bit of both, to be honest. He can work remotely, and does, a lot of the time, but it does look good for him to turn up in the office sometimes, and he feels that the days away are good for his mental health - he has always loved travelling, and he enjoys the train journey to and from London - it is definitely good for him.

Most of the time, I’m OK with him being away - a quiet day on my own can be nice, and I can manage without help - I don’t always like it, but he does so much for me that I know there has to be some give from my side too.

If you can manage I'd let him go, but I sympathise with you being freshly injured and him not being somewhere he can get back to you quickly if you do need him.

T k Maxx online is your friend. It has search options to negate the rummaging.

I don't try to look at the clothes in TK Maxx, but homewares are usually manageable and the fancy soaps are great.

My repair efforts worked - two loads of washing are now out and blowing in the sunshine so I'll have clean clothes.

The reason I HAD to repair it rather than sit and cry is because I couldn't even open the machine until it was sorted and the wet clothes would have festered.

I'm so proud 🥲 you were the hero that washing machine needed.

The varieties tested included black, green, oolong and white, as well as chamomile and rooibos teas.😨
And they call themselves 'scientists'? There's tea, Camellia sinensis, that makes tea. Then there's various plants that can be used to make herbal infusions. Herbal infusions are not 'tea'😡.
<breath in anger, breath out love, breath in anger...>

Love tea. Real tea.

I like the taste. I like the mild caffeine lift - not a hit, just a little lift.

I like that it is so much part of my culture.
I like that it can be a panacea for all ills, emotional or physical.

I like the weird terminology my granny had around tea: 'I'll wet the tea now' 'I'll put your name on the pot' 'Will you have a cup in the hand?'.
I like that despite her ground-breaking innovations in medical care, Florence Nightingale recognised that 'There is nothing yet discovered which is a substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea.'
I like that in his incredible tour-de-force The Task, William Cowper made space to praise tea:
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

And I like that now that Deano has her laundry drying in the sunshine, I'm sure her reward (apart from the feeling of achievement) will be.. a nice cup of tea.

I'm sorry that a cuppa cha won't do anything for Woley though - hope you're more mobile soon!

I wrote a whole poem called "Mother of Empires" about tea, and when I do readings I often finish with that one because it's so very English and goes down well with American audiences.

Oh please share!! I'd love to read it.

Mother of empires

Young children at a British mother’s knee
learn how to make a British cup of tea
and practice till they make it perfectly,

for it takes time to teach the children well
the art that brings the kettle to full boil
and measures tealeaves, warms the pot then fills

it to the brim until it’s liquid gold.
Such simple amber joys are never sold
in Maine cafes where they prefer the old

cup o’ joe, topped off with half and half,
the cappuccino, latte, or they quaff
espresso, or its bastard child, decaf.

You ask for tea: it’s offered made from herbs,
with water so lukewarm it seems the verb
‘to boil’ escapes them, and I have to curb

my feeling that herb tea is like a frail
insipid cousin in a flowered dress, pale
and neglected, standing near the wall

at parties, one who nobody quite sees.
I love my tannic, British cup of tea,
mother of empires, nectar of the free.

I don't think it's one of my best, but I love it just the same (just as we love all our children, including the less-than-perfect ones).

Thank you for sharing, I love it, Britinme💛
It expresses my feelings, especially about the verb 'boil' being ignored [and the tea bag placed on the saucer beside a cup of hot-ish water😨] and you are kinder to herbals than I'd be, but I love the imagery you use.

I'm just going to put the kettle on - will I put your name on it?

Love it.

I can't remember my first cup of tea. I remember toddlers where I lived with a bottle of milky tea they'd carry round with them. Possibly that was me. I remember loading a mug with sugar then balancing the empty cup on my face so the warm, semi-dissolved layer would gradually trickle into my mouth. Neither of my kids drink tea, or coffee. I understand tea drinking is declining in this country, I think that's a shame.

When the camellias are flowering, I'm always tickled that they're first cousins to the species we drink.

Glad you like it :-). I wrote this about fifteen years ago. Nowadays I think I would write "frock" rather than "dress", but otherwise I wouldn't change it.

I think you are right, @IcakethereforeIam - and hopefully I will be better by then. I’m seeing the physio tomorrow so maybe she will have some advice.

I have just spent a happy half hour going from George Orwell's essay on making tea to David Aaronovitch's paean to the same essay to ISO 3103 on brewing tea which won an IgNobel prize.

And then I read about the Royal Society of Chemistry's debunking of parts of Orwell's essay, including their recommendation put the milk in first. This makes sense because adding cold liquid to hot liquid leads to curdling. Fortunately, I don't have milk.

And I ended my exploration of the rabbit hole of tea-making by reading two excerpts about tea from the writing of Douglas Adams, which are charming and funny: https://englishinheikendorf.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/two-short-texts-by-douglas-adams.pdf

I'm also a participant for UN Women UK in the UN Commission on the Status of Women 2025. Sadly they are of the "be kind" brigade and allow in men who say they are women. This angers me because they're talking about child marriage, equality in the workplace and the murder of women by family members. None of which will ever be experienced by men and the inclusion of men dilutes our message.

So tea is very soothing right now.

Love the poem! And the Cowper - 'the cups that cheer but not inebriate' was one of my DMs catchphrases but I never knew its origins, I've not come across that poem before.

Woley, I think in your position I wouldn't be too happy about being left, unless you've got someone local you could call on in an emergency eg a dog doing something daft that you couldn't deal with.

When the camellias are flowering, I'm always tickled that they're first cousins to the species we drink.
I am too, Cake, and also tickled by the fact that the camellia is named after a 17th century Jesuit, Josef Kamel or Camellus in Latin.

Trivia is nearly as good as tea.

I much prefer trivia to tea.