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.

The very first conversation I had with dp was about Hildegard von Bingen.
I was sitting at one of the few computers in the department that you could get onto the internet with (in the distant past of 1994) and he was loitering close by in the hope I'd be gone from it soon. He had just picked up his copy of the Gothic Voices CD A Feather on the Breath of God. He showed it to me and said "it's my new best thing" and I replied "Oh, I had an Auntie Hildegard" to which he replied "yes, yes but was she a nun?" and I said "yes, as a matter of fact she was". Maybe not the most promising chat up line but we're together 30 years next year, two children, one cat.

Wow - what a brilliant story, @Igneococcus! I met dh when we were both queuing for the Last Night of the Proms - I’d met some people in the queue who took me to the pub after the Thursday night’s concert (I slept out in the queue from Thursday), and I met dh at the pub - standing in the gutter outside the Builders Arms in South Ken, to be precise. And we’ve been married nearly 33 years.

I'd love to go to the Proms, it's just such a treck from Argyll&Bute. I'll need to see what's on at the Edinburgh Festival this year.

Brilliant meeting stories!

I also met DH in a queue at the beginning of a conference. He liked the look of me and we started chatting. Cue five years of both going to the same conference and meeting up before we both realised it was more than friendship. Moved in the following year, married seven years later. We don't even go to that conference any more.

Best. Decision. Ever. And my dear late departed friend was also unexpectedly at the same conference and met DH but died before we got together.

Sounds promising @MyrtleLion

I’m sitting in my garden with a cup of tea after visiting a neighbour .Have done a little idle weeding between mouthfuls. It’s quite lovely.

Am contemplating getting some lavender for some empty pots. Idle thoughts, idle sitting, watching the world go by. Perfect for a Saturday afternoon.

I am thinking of going to the actual pub. Either to day drink by the river, or to eat chips as well. The pub is near the restaurant. I love in a beautiful part of England.

We’ve been out for the day to nice gardens, followed by an estuarine walk along which I could hear eider ducks.

It looks like you've gone over 48 hours without buggering up a lower limb through DIY, Swash.👌
Maybe stick to the tea and idle thoughts for now?

I’m very good at thinking idly about gardening, @Swashbuckled - but absolutely rubbish at actually doing it - always have been, much to mum’s disappointment.

I am quite good at buying plants and making dh plant them for me.😁

I've spent the week clearing the 'vegetable patch' that was totally neglected last year. I just about removed the weeds and burned the brambles in my new incinerator (that the woman in the hardware store assured me is legal) before the first tentative drops of rain started. I have plants to go in, and will be glad if they can go into moistened soil tomorrow - at the moment it's like a brick until thumped, then it's like dust.

In the course of digging I found some immense dahlia tubers that must have grown last year without my even spotting them through the grass and nettles. I've planted them up in pots so I can decide where to put them when I know what colour they are. I found something else in another spot that might be a dahlia, or yet another of the many many hogweeds - no visible leaves which is a point against the hogweed possibility. I'll cherish it until I know for sure - there was a very pretty lilac and white dahlia there a few years ago, I'd be rather chuffed if it has survived.

Well done on your power interview Myrtle - I hope they grab you, they'll be very foolish if they let you slip.

Sympathies @EdithStourton . It's one of the worst bits about getting older, seeing our friends head off, leaving us behind.

I know @MarieDeGournay 🤣.

I did end up cleaning all the garden furniture, but that wasn’t at all challenging to my hand muscles so they’re still flexible. Very happy 😊.

Walked the hound and went into a garden centre we passed. No lavender. Most strange. Unless they’d had a coach-load of day trippers in from The Lavender Lovers Soc. (Like a plague of locusts, they must have been.)

I have a large bed that I’m very good at thinking about and completely ignoring! I can’t see it from my house, which helps me forget all about it. But it’s shameful.

It’s on a slope, very high up, and on the other side of a deep stream. It feels dangerous to go up there, particularly with a spade as it’s a vertical drop. The soil is rubbish. But passers by in the village regularly stop to look at the fish in the stream and stand next to my bed of shame. I google possible solutions to this conundrum every year and end up just slipping into despair and doing nothing. I have regular angst about it 🫤.

I can't post pictures of my lovely river because I value my anonymity, but I can post this image of a pair of great crested grebes on my river. Not sure if they are a male and female pair or a couple of boys on the pull, but they are lovely.

Had more than a couple of pints at the restaurant and had some lovely food. Now home to watch a film, drink the prosecco we should have drunk last night to celebrate my interview, and eat chocolate bars. Mine's a double decker.

I don't eat a lot of chocolate as I prefer hard boiled sweets, but i am in Schrodinger's job, simultaneously having the job and not having the job and I've decided embrace the "having the job" bit. As I said in my interview when as asked whether I would be disappointed if I couldn't implement my ambition, 'optimist or pessimist, the outcome is the same, but the optimist feels better while waiting to find out'.

They laughed.

Thanks for the sympathies, everyone. I don't know why the comfort of strangers helps, but it does.

The busy day helped: I was too occupied to feel maudlin. I got home to find (as expected) that DH had headed out for the evening. Brains and Batshit were thrilled to have me home, so we circumnavigated the garden and I made a mental list of all the the things I need to do out there. If tomorrow is half decent, I'll get out there an ignore the bloody house.

I've just listened to that Hildegard of Bingen piece, @MarieDeGournay - it's lovely and very soothing.

Soooo... it's high up on a slope, the other side of a deep stream, you can't see it from your house BUT you have regular angst about it.
You've just 100% destroyed the saying 'Out of sight, out of mind'😂

I know! It’s a weird one. I feel like I have a responsibility to make it look nice for the villagers and passers-by but can’t see it from my windows so it’s easy to ignore. I do pass it every time I drive in, but it’s easy not to look 🤣.

The stream also runs through my garden so I have riparian rights, which are also an added responsibility/bugger as I need to get down there a couple of times a year with a long ladder and “weed” the stream! That’s a BIG job.

I mean, it’s pretty, but it’s definitely equally burdensome.

Post your gardening dilemma on the Gardening board, swashy, someone may have a genius idea.

We’re supposed to get a bit of rain this evening, for once I’m hoping it doesn’t all get dumped on Ireland before it gets to Lancashire.

I just might. Thanks @ErrolTheDragon 😊

Gorgeous AND uses words like 'riparian'... just when I thought my feelings were becoming platonic😍

🤣

Apparently this is me “weeding” the river. I was surprised by the appearance of the bull. I imagine it saves the water coming in over the top of my wellies though.

You know the expression 'Not in my wildest fantasies'...🙃

Maybe somebody mentioned 'bull rushes' within earshot of AI hence the appearance of the bovine. The riparian bovine😂

I'm sorry I'm late to wish luck to Myrtle for the interview but I can still hope for the best in actually being awarded the job.

I'm so sorry for your loss @EdithStourton

I've been on holiday this week in Suffolk. Had a lovely time, not a drop of rain. i managed to inflict a massive blister on one of my heels. It's painful and was leaky but after a few days I managed to get to a chemist and the pharmacist sold me these amazing plasters. We've seen lots of bitterns, Marsh harriers and barnacle geese. The warden assured me they were wild, not feral birds. Also bearded tits, Cetti's and Dartford warblers and a short earred wol. Sand Martins, swallows and several red kites. Me and fella went for a walk on Dunwich Heath, saw ant lion pits, a beautiful green tiger beetle and an ADDER!

Oops! Said that a little louder than I meant to. Where have all the gerbils suddenly gone to?

Welcome back, Cake, it sounds like a lovely week, bar the blisters.
Very ornithological - that seems to be quite a theme for Stockingers

Swashy, that looks like a water buffalo to me. Their milk is very high in butter fat.
(You can always rely on me for random facts that you never knew you wanted...😂)

The Suffolk coast is very lovely - and there are some epic blister plasters available now. We discovered them when DD was playing ridiculous amounts of sport.

Brains and Batshit enjoyed their morning walk, but weren't impressed that I opted to stop now and then for a quick session with Merlin. It seems to be blackcap central here at the moment.

I was thinking water buffalo too. There’s a wildlife reserve in wales which has some, I think they help manage the wetland environment. Iirc they were fairly small as bovines go.