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.

Gosh! I didn't know that was a thing. I also have astigmatism. I'm allergic to the solutions for contact lenses so I have to wear varifocal specs. I'm thinking of getting an "office" pair for the computer because I'm always tipping my head up. The office pair leaves out the long distance bit and just has mid distance and far.

I did try contacts, years ago. The prescribing optician watched the one with the higher astigmatism correction rotating every time I blinked, and told me to throw them away!
When I say I have expensive lenses, I mean these:
https://www.nikonlenswear.com/our-lenses/vision-correction/for-presbyopes/seemax-ultimate

DH has various very expensive glasses and unhealthy eyes, poor love.
I get away with off the peg readers and sunglasses. I just have weaker readers for work as my screens are a metre or so from me.
And looking at them to check the status of the jobs I’m waiting for, the search bar tells me…
<drum roll>

It’s puffin day! Happy your-own-special-day, @FuzzyPuffling!

Thank you for the Puffin Day wishes. I feel very honoured.

I'm so delighted that my cataract surgery made huge corrections to my astigmatism ( apparently it depends on where the surgeon makes the incision- so he told me) without the complexity of toric lenses. I do have varifocals (much cheaper) and now have off the peg plain sunglasses for walking about, and reading sunnies from amazon at £7 a pair. Amazing!

Obviously I meant mid and near distance for the pooter.

I too spend obscene quantities of ££££ at the opticians. Astigmatic, appalling distance vision, crappy reading-distance visions (but very close is fine). And I always need the anti-glare version because I drive quite a lot in the dark esp in winter, and want the anti-scratch because I'm always getting whacked in the face by twigs, or putting my spec down somewhere while I thread a needle, or whatever.

Glasses are a bloody rip-off. I listened to a podcast a while ago explaining just what a horrible rip-off they are.

I did once seriously contemplate having laser eye surgery, with people who'd had it done keenly telling me that it was all computerised and terribly clever and didn't ever go wrong. Then I realised that a lot of the computers were calibrated by someone I knew who, while a very nice and conscientious bloke, had begun his working life making farm machinery. I know combine harvesters are very finely tuned bits of kit, but...

So it was back to the optician.

You can get reading sunglasses?!? I did not know this! I am going to do a search… Thanks @FuzzyPuffling 😀.

I did a bit more sanding this evening (yes, of course there was a small hand injury with a scraper….🙄). But I’ve never had vertigo.

Another reason to choose Asda. All the coatings are included.

Mine are "Opulize" brand. I plumped for +2, for no reason than that was sort of in the middle! 😁 Absolutely fine for reading a book/map in the garden/ beach etc. And blooming cheap!!

@Swashbuckled I sympathise with the minor injuries. I nettled myself when weeding the other day. I also managed to break my secateurs. I'm gradually accruing a long list of new things I could do with that I won't be informing DH of all in one go:
new secateurs
new pair of jeans (one of my pairs has decided that crotch holes look modish; I disagree)
new pair of Birkenstock equivalents (I have several pairs, and the cork has cracked on all bar one of them)
new pair of trainers (current ones have no grip left)

Off to work down the day's list of Jobs to Do (Urgent!)

I get very cross with dh when he uses, and wanders off with, my glasses that are specifically for when I'm using the pooter, @MyrtleLion. I have spare reading glasses, but no spare pootering glasses, so it infuriates me when I have to go hunting for them.

I've taken to hiding them, but he recently found my latest hiding place, so I need to think of another one, to foil his evil plans.

I'm safe today, though - he's off in Lunnon Town for meetings - he got the 04.28 train from Glasgow this morning! I've got a quiet house for the day, apart from when the cleaners come this afternoon. I could be making a start on assembling hydrangeas, but I'm still wary of that - I think I could get myself in a dreadful mess with wire and hot glue. It'll have to be done sometime, but I need to work up the nerve (wussy).

I have a Terribly Important Dilemma - after the poems earlier in the thread, I bought myself a book with a poem to read each day - but do I start at the beginning, and ignore the dates, or start on today's date, and go back to the beginning in January '26? Earthshattering, I know.

I imagine if you get your DH some glasses of his own, he'll still use yours? Annoying.

I would start today because the editors have probably curated the poetry to reflect the seasons etc.

And (whisper it secretly) no-one will know or even care which poems you read when...

You are a very wise woman, @MyrtleLion. He has put a pair of glasses by the computer, but will still use mine if he's misplaced those.

You're right about the poems, so I'll start those tonight.

Myrtle are you on tenterhooks, waiting for that call?
Hug a panda/ quokka. Watch a dancing gerbil. Have a cuppa..

Would be be deterred if you got something like Edna Everage or diamanté pooter glasses , Woley?

Mine are fortunately no use to DH. Apart from the weaker work ones, I have many other pairs dotted round the house where I’m liable to need them plus of course a handbag pair.

He used to be a devil for nicking my nice pens till I got my late DMs gold Parker, engraved with her initials. That one he won’t touch!

If it didn’t deter him, it would at least be very amusing, @ErrolTheDragon!

Yes. Recruiter emailed this morning to say no update but I've heard nothing since.

Oh bless you...worst bit is the waiting. X

I had to wait 12 days to be told no last time. But that was for a first interview.

I feel like the longer I wait, the more likely it is to be no.

Thinking of you, Myrtle. Waiting is horrible.

DH has terrible habits with tools. He scatters them around the place so that I can never find what I want when I want it, and will gaily break the last hacksaw blade and not bother to get any new ones. Driven nuts by this, some years ago I bought my private set of essentials, with their own special toolbox, which live with my stuff in the house.

Now and again DH, unable to cope with searching the shed, will ask to borrow something. All good, but with the proviso of PUT IT AWAY PROPERLY!

And what did I find the other day when I was doing a spot of DIY?
No hammer
Two screwdrivers missing
🤬🤬😡🤬🤬

I have found the hammer, which he claims isn't mine even though I described it accurately prior to discovering that he had 'put it away' (stuffed it into a random location amongst all the DIY stuff). He denies all knowledge of the screwdrivers.

He's out tomorrow morning. I'll be going through the big manly toolbox in his absence in search of my screwdrivers. I will then find a new home for my toolbox and not tell him where it is.

I sorted out the larder today. I even labelled the shelves so he knows where to find or put the pasta.

Let's see how long that lasts, before I have to do it all again. I give it a week before I'm finding the soy sauce tucked away with the Ovaltine.

🔨grrrrr

And this is the reason why provided they’re proper fully functional tools some women may decide to get themselves a pink set. Easier than labelling everything.

Ideally of course they should be designed for women. DD, wrestling with a recalcitrant bolt in a first year engineering practical was amused when the helpful demonstrator said he’d get her the ‘ladies spanner’ - and returned with a longer one so she had sufficient leverage.

Better make sure there's someone(s) to protect it when you're not around

@DeanElderberry, they might need AK47s to keep DH in line. Gerbil-sized ones would sting enough to divert him.

And yes, Errol, it is very interesting but I have yet to lose have 'borrowed' any of the floral tools that I own.

I love the little gerbil tool-guards, Deano! And Edith's idea of arming them with a small stinging AK-47 is a great idea😉

The Good Scissors. Every Irish mother - or so it seems from talking to friends - had A Good Scissors, and woe betide anyone, especially their DH, who either used it for something unapproved, or mislaid it.

DHs tended to 'borrow' The Good Scissors for unapproved jobs. And not leave them back in the right place.
Marriage-testing behaviour😦

None of us could work out what it was permissible to use The Good Scissors for, only our mothers knew..

They obviously needed a châtelaine - having The Good Scissors actually chained to their person would have been perfect!

Myrtle I hope the waiting is brought to an end soon with 'it's champagne not prosecco!' news