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.

Are you sure it’s not personal, @inkymoose? Perhaps you have a delightful moosey aroma, undetectable to moose and to people, which is irresistible to wasps.

Two wasps do seem to see you as a special target, especially if one goes to the effort of burrowing through a motorbike suit to reach your tender places.

I had to avoid singing in my school choir for at least one October, when there was a wasps nest outside the choir end of Chapel. 💒 I’m sensitive, you see.

We've always had dunnocks (but not house sparrows), including a disabled one which had a gammy foot. We must be doing something right, because it lived & reproduced for several years.

I didn't read all the wasp-sting-stories in detail [😬]but I'm sure Inky's has to be the most stylish😎

I got stung as a kid when I stepped on a wasp, so while it did hurt like hell the wasp came off worse.

Why, thank you!

At my last house we had particularly unpleasant neighbours, and I mean really personally unpleasant. (Major reason for moving).
I confess to planting a Victoria plum tree in the corner of my garden, as close as I could get to their seating area in the hope it would attract wasps. Sorry, not sorry.

Chairing meetings and keeping them tightly to time, and letting the quiet un-pushy but sensible person have their say while shutting down the repetitive ones who just like the sound of their own voices is very satisfactory.

Still not being on any more committees once I've got out of the two I've been shanghaied into. Not. Shan't won't can't make me.

Though I did volunteer one of the shanghaiers to help me lead a group of visitors on a tour of the village. I'd better tell her about that.

I see your Jerry and Darren and raise you Ellie and Nan who very nearly left us hosting a republican (Irish history style) cheerleading session that would have alienated several of our most hardworking members. Including me.

Which reminds that we really do need to have a meeting to establish some protocols about how we decide who does what and when - the group has coasted comfortably for about a decade, following the rules wrt money and insurance and publication copyright, but letting other things drift, and that incident revealed the traps the naive can walk into.

In t'early days of t'internet we had real problems searching for Scunthorpe and Sussex - I kid you not! Plus the company I worked for discussed the rubber industry in Thailand. "porn" is a very common word ending in Thai addresses - like "ham" or "ford" in Britain.

My job was to train the browser in these exceptions and that is how I got into software engineering.

I'm sure I've mentioned the bloke I knew who got called into HR in the early days of filth filters being installed on office computers and asked just WHY he had received a file that mentioned SEX hundreds of times?

He explained that it was the osteoarchaeological report on his recent graveyard excavation. Hundreds of skeletons, some of them (probably) male, some of them (probably) female.

Is this why it's called gender now?

It's cold here today so I'm marking indoors. Ignore the mutterings and occasional shouting. Although if I could have the same team of attentive gerbils bearing snacks as yesterday, that would be greatly appreciated.
@MarieDeGournay you might want to put Louise the Cheese on high alert for lunchtime, I fancy a cheese toastie.

Klaxon: reading some of the threads, here's a timely reminder that its the Easter school holidays in the UK.

It is indeed, which is why I'm having so much fun marking. Would you like to join me in a cheese toastie for lunch and distraction from marking?

I'm up for a cheese toastie - something warm on a chilly day!

Edited due to autocorrupt changing 'toastie' to 'toast'.

Excellent, cheese toasties all round! They are of course calorie free, fat free, gluten free, lactose free and suitable for vegans and vegetarians, despite being made with proper bread and real cheese.

Marvellous.
Though I think someone should advise little Germaine Gerbil that sitting on the cooker could be a rather risky activity - what if someone's paw slips and a ring turns on?

Are the baby gerbils playing hide and seek in the milk jug?

I would love a cheese toastie if one is going, please-and-thank-you, @Magpiecomplex. I remember seeing Jamie Oliver make a cheese toastie that had cheese on the outside too - you toasted the sandwich in a pan, took it out, put grated cheese in, and put the toastie back onto the melted cheese, which then went all crispy and delicious. Of course, it was about a thousand calories - and involved bread, which I don't eat any more.

I love that image, it made me smile out loud! I'm such a sucker for pictures of cute furry little animals, especially doing things like wearing chefs' toques and making cheese toasties😊
Me? loving cute and whimsical? Who knew? thank heavens for anonymity

Louise has been notified, and even as we speak is testing the maturity of various cheeses with Android's double entendre about used balls, so lunch will be served promptly.

So interesting! I would've quite liked to have done that job if I'd known about it. Trouble is, (late diagnosed) autistic me would never do anything anybody suggested when I was a teenager/young adult. My condition did mean that I did a few really strange things, including training to be a Piano Tuner for one year at a college in London.

If Lousie needs help testing the maturity of various cheeses I would be prepared to break my 'never volunteer for anything' rule.

I've just been misgendered! I feel horribly triggered and I need several cheese toasties to recover from the trauma.
Cold caller called me Sir... 🤣🤣🤣

It could be worse, you could be called Louise. I think I blew my chance of her letting me help with the cheese.