The Bluestocking - where women are women, and small furry animals are gerbils, quokkas, capybaras, or a red panda called Rosy

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome all to the Bluestocking Pub, a haven safe from harsh reality [mostly] full of good company, and excellent food and drink served by the most efficient team of gerbils in the hospitality industry.

I've been working on a presentation for my job interview on Friday. As is obvious.

Bluestocking interaction will be limited as a result. I'm impressed that I don't have ny norkage to the point of dressing in men's clothing.

Good luck on Friday, Myrtle! The gerbil cheer squad are practising hard.
You look super-efficient in those specs

We'll make sure the gerbils keep plenty of chilled alcoholic beverages to hand, @MyrtleLion. Good luck!

That's a really useful post, Android, I've forwarded it to Louise the Cheesemonger - when she's testing how mature the cheese is, she's going to read out the bit about my fascination with used balls, and if the cheese sniggers, it's left to mature a bit more😂

Many years ago I belonged to a message board with a rather overzealous profanity filter. Any attempt to use the word "snigger" got automatically redacted to "sblack person". Made for some very confusing posts occasionally!

Flies: sky raisins
Wasps: chilli sky raisins
According to dogs, who are not supposed to eat raisins, but hey-ho.

I had to escort a giant bumble-bee out the other day, in glass, trapped by a letter from the bank.

My day took an unexpected turn for the better this afternoon. I am on a committee*, on which for some time there has been an extraordinarily annoying bloke. He pissed off the dyed-in-the-wool countryman in very short order ('Arrogant tit, that blook.') He pissed me off when he found it hard to understand that I knew more about legal processes than he did, and was rude and patronising about it. He pissed off the retired military man, who does not suffer fools. He pissed off the super-efficient woman who keeps the records up to date: her face had been a study in one or two meetings.

Anyway, joy of joys, he has resigned. The tone of his resignation letter, which landed in my email inbox this after I'd got back from walking the dogs and had made a nice cup of tea, has pissed off anyone he hadn't pissed off already.

I feel gratified and vindicated. Middle of the week n'all, but I'll probably have a whisky before bed.

*One of several. I hate committees, but end up on them due to an ingrained sense of social duty. I entirely blame my DM for this: she was the secretary of a selection of committees and very hot on social duty. I have seen the same pattern play out with various friends. I need to tell my DDs that they are doomed: they too, in the fullness of time, will wind up sitting in village halls or cricket club pavilions (or on Zoom), watching the clock on a Tuesday evening and wishing that Jerry and Darren would just get to the bloody point and stop wanging on.

My DH eats like a bloody goblin.
His capacity to scatter his dinner over himself, the table and floor would put many a toddler to shame.

I once got attacked by a nest of pissed ( apparently) wasps who flew through the frame of my sash window and got eleven stings.
I was not well.
But I still have a great deal of respect for wopsles and don't kill them. Or run about flapping.

@EdithStourton I got the social duty gene too. I've found that the best way to stop Jerry and Darren wittering on, and on, and on, is to chair the committee. I'm notorious for running extremely tight meetings!

Ouch! One wasp sting alone if nasty enough, Fuzzy: eleven must have been horrible.

I got stung in the armpit once. That was bloody uncomfortable.

This is why I chair the committees I'm on. I can shut up those who've wanged on. My favourite put-down: "You've made your point." It's highly effective.

My DM was the secretary of everything when I was a kid until one evening she wasn't at the AGM of something and they still made her secretary. She quit all of her committees the next day.

My DM was the secretary of everything when I was a kid until one evening she wasn't at the AGM of something and they still made her secretary. She quit all of her committees the next day.
The nuclear option. You have to be decisive with committees or they can take over your life.

I'm going to end top chairing one soon, I can sense it approaching. I shall remember 'You've made your point' 😂

I feel sure he must be related to me.

And my norks are not just gravy magnets but general food magnets: whatever I'm eating will find its way onto or down my top.

I once felt something in my hair & swept an open hand over the top of my head, at which point the wasp stung me in the loose flesh between thumb & index finger. That was less than pleasant.

Ah, you too.
Chairing the bloody things is clearly the way forward.

Because EVERY committee has a Jerry and a Darren.
And if Jerry refers to children as 'kiddies' one more time, I may scream. 'It will be a lovely event with lots for the kiddies... The kiddies really enjoyed the face painting last year... Ah, yes, dogs in the kiddies' play area...'

My DM always used the word 'kiddies' with a certain edge to her voice. I realise now that she'd probably served on several committees with Jerry.

To be fair, my actual Jerry was an absolute gem, and a genius at making really difficult questions sound disarmingly simple, but I have encountered many of your Jerry stereotypes, and they don't half love the sound of their own voices.

One of my DC was an absolute muck magnet. I could put her into a clean car wearing clean clothes and get her out two hours later covered head to toe in crap. She would somehow use her ice cream to paint her clothes. She once managed to be sick all over the inside of the car, including into the ventilation system and the middle of the road atlas. And of course, when she properly cut herself open, she got blood absolutely everywhere. She was still bleeding when I got her to A&E, blood all over her. Tiny cut. It took great skill on her part to distribute it so widely.

She is definitely related to DH. Half goblin.

That was a good day, Edith. Making the world a better place, one annoying bloke at a time😃

I couldn't bear to read your wasp-sting stories 😱. I'm very afraid of them, have never been stung and aim to keep it that way.

I recall that they were always at their most unpredictable just when school restarted after the summer holliers, and one teacher made me sit still while a wasp crawled over my head - it felt like really sadistic torture, though in fairness I suppose she couldn't have me running screaming around the classroom..

But it clearly scarred me emotionally, I still shudder to remember it.

That was a horrible experience, Marie.

Sadly I can take no credit for the departure of the annoying bloke, but I can still rejoice in his absence.

Thank you

Never underestimate the power of a pissed-off woman just sitting there being pissed off😃

Woah!

Two things.

First thing. Wapses (or wasps as some people call them). We have a mixed orchard at the bottom of the garden. We would take ripe fruit as we wanted it and leave the rest to rot. Bad plan! Rotting fruit produces alcohol. Wapses like alcohol. Drunk wapses are very aggressive. Best advice: harvest responsibly or accept the wapse stings.

Second thing. DH saw a Dunnock (hedge sparrow) in the garden this evening. He tried to take a photo but all I got was a dark blur against some out-of-focus grass. Still, I haven't seen one for years and it is nice to know that they are still around.

I’ve successfully avoided committees all my life, but DD has already acquired one.

I had to evict a wasp from a hotel bedroom this weekend. I trapped it against the window with a glass at my full arms reach, unable to slide it down because of the panes, DH couldn’t take over because it was in full sun and he’s very sensitive due to his treatment. Random letters or bits of cardboard had we none, so I said we could use the cover of my book…I didn’t mean he should rip it off.

I’m not sure but I think most wasps up and about at this time of year are queens looking for somewhere to build a nest, the one slain by the cat looks quite plausibly sized.

We quite often get a dunnock, they’re very unobtrusive little birds, almost like little mice clearing up on the ground. It’s only since we became Merlin addicts that I realised they’ve got a nice song.

n o

w a y

😳

There's no point in flapping really, is there? If the wasp is going to sting you it just goes ahead and stings you.

I have been wasp-stung twice that I can remember. The first time, I was walking up a steep footpath in Wales when a wasp descended from somewhere and stung me on the back of the hand. The second time I was driving along on a motorbike and wearing a full body zipped-up motorbike suit, windproof and waterproof but not wasp proof. I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my breast while I was driving under a bridge on the dual carriageway. I had to stop to investigate what was going on, laboriously remove the top half of the suit, and found half a wasp rotating in my unfortunate nork.

I suppose the only consolation is that it isn't personal.