The Bluestocking Arms Women's Pub, where women make friends with Beetles, Androids, Cakes, Dragons, Hedgehogs and other women, where wit and wisdom flourish

[inkymoose]

Here at the Bluestocking there's a place for all women. A break from Reality, and many laughs and stories to share. Have your fill of Tunnocks bars and tea cakes, sing feminist anthems, drink as much beer or gin or hot chocolate as you desire. It won't make you fatter or drunken but oh, it's fun. Sit in the garden with our Lion resident or the Quokkas and Capybara. Express your opinions loudly in Pedantry Corner. Ask for whatever you fancy to be served by our obliging Gerbil staff. Come in, all women, welcome!

Happy Beltane!

When I was in Suffolk the other week it was so dry I was worried if someone dropped a match the whole county would go up. It's only got hotter and dryer since.

It was proper warm in the NW yesterday. Got my knees out in the garden! I was removing fox poop from one of my raised beds (Stephen, if you must know). It stank. Later, when I was hanging out washing, I could still smell it! Then I noticed some young men talking loudly on the other side of my fence. Worried about what I might overhear, I coughed, loudly. They went quiet and, I assumed, moved on. The smell of pot, young men or, possibly, whatever Lynx has persuaded them to spray on themselves shortly disappated.

I remembered I did hear a cuckoo last Saturday in Wales, but didn't see it. I did see lots of orange-tip butterflies. They're always Spring to me.

Copilot is in a mood today. Maybe it's the weather

And if the support gerbils with regular food and drink don't work, @ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly, I shall have to come and Look Sternly at you.

I was reading a thread last night, the OP's beloved dog had just been put down. She was absolutely broken with grief. I nearly posted a link to Kipling's Power of a dog. I don't know why, it might have finished her off. It was late and I was tired. Fortunately, I reread it and decided it sounded a bit 'ffs, what did you expect. You gave your heart to a dog to tear'. So I didn't post anything. I can't find the thread now.

Also, I do have thanks to a plopping poster, part of whose user name made me realise that 'fixing' a stain just makes things worse.

That’s a poem I stay clear of. It’s nearly 3 years since we lost our old boy and it still catches me sometimes. Today, I’ve no idea how, I found a dog biscuit in the plastic boxes drawer.

@ErrolTheDragon

That would be most alarming - but it would work! I shall be filling my flask for this afternoon. Water really is manna from heaven and we don’t know how lucky we are to have an endless supply of it coming out of the tap. So simple. We are fortunate in this part of the world.

It is warm! Voting has occurred. We shall drink lager left over from the Liverpool match in the garden this afternoon.

The walrus is taking his daughter to dinner tonight to celebrate her getting a job - though no idea when it will start - it's a role related to her SEN disabilities but I'm sure we'll find out eventually. As they are going into town, I shall go to the restaurant by the river and then adjourn to the pub where the walrus will join me.

Kipling's 'His Apologies' is another great dog poem - funny at the start, but a bit of a kicker at the end.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_apologies.htm

People and dogs - it can be such a wonderful relationship. Brains and Batshit drive me bonkers at times (Batshit especially), but we have had at least two dogs for nearly 20 years, at least in part to dodge that awful interregnum between dog and dog.

It might have been recommended on here already, but I've recently listened to the Trig podcast with Maya Forstater (27th April). Very good, and she mentions MN towards the end, as being a key place where women could discuss these issues anonymously (and therefore not risking their jobs etc) and in detail, and organise. She comes over as having a lovely sense of humour.

The neighbours have commented on our "canopy" - summer parasol that is movable and adjustable. Nice to have a bit of garden envy since the decking is rotten and the weeds are growing through the gravel.

It will be changed to a patio soon. Hopefully this summer but it will depend on me having a job or a legacy finally being paid.

We thought we had fledgling blackbirds but Merlin has identified them as starlings!

And a beautiful robin sat on the fence and loudly announced his presence.

I’d not come across that one.
Characterising a pet dog as a ‘servant’ is a bit wide of the mark though. While I was certainly my boy’s goddess, I was also undoubtedly his slave.

I've noticed several wrens recently. I feel very proud of myself for being able to actually recognise them after all these years not knowing what they were!

We have wrens in our garden - very small and very fast. And VERY loud, given thwir tininess. I'm sitting outside with a cup of tea and one has just stopped singing.

There are baby birds in our garden, I think - I can hear intermittent squawking- but Merlin doesn't seem to know what they are.

Seagulls here. They were noisy first thing this morning but shut up pretty quickly.

There's a swallows' nest over my front door - been there for years - but a wren has stuffed it with moss and is raising a family in it. The same thing happened years ago, and once the wrens left the swallows reclaimed their own home.

Back on St Patrick's Day I went out to dinner with friends and took my green white and orange trifle. I had originally thought I was invited for lunch and intended to take alcohol-free white wine (quite nice) with me so I could drive home. In the event, I accepted the offer of a lift but took the bottle anyway (and some real wine) but they declined to keep it and gave me some alcohol-free red they had tried during Lent and that they assured me was nasty.

So I didn't drink it.

Today, having finished the bottle I opened on Easter Sunday I scooted round the house looking for a screw-capped red and was glad to find one. Started drinking it with my dinner (I'm going to be heading out into the garden to do a bit more work so ate early) and started wondering what was wrong? can wine go off? it really did taste strange. So I looked at the label, and guess what it was?

Not recommended.

I had better not ring them and tell them they were right!

DH has had to have a close encounter of the medical kind, and is off alcohol for the duration. Poor sod bought himself some alcohol-free lager. He declared this to be Very Nasty. I tried some, and he's not wrong.

If anyone wants alcy-free pale ale, Adnam's Ghost Ship 0.5% takes some beating. Any free house or restaurant in East Anglia that doesn't serve it generally isn't any good at anything at all. I wouldn't have included the 'generally' till last weekend, when we had a meal out at a place that had the vibe of an East End secondhand car dealership, and didn't have any Ghost Ship, but the food was bloody brilliant.

Friends & rellies in the East have sent us some of Adnam's finest over the years, & DH loves his Ghost Ship.

Can confirm, fella spoke very highly of the Ghost Ship in the Eel's Foot but I think it was the proper boozy version.

At the restaurant by the river. And OMG. I just love being here. We go often enough that they know us and the deputy manager told me to "plonk yourself inside" and she'd tell me when a table was available on the terrace. Less than 5 minutes later I'm there.

And I'm served quickly, which is mildly annoying as I intend to wait for the Walrus to finish his meal and walk back to the river to join me, but I love this restaurant so much, I'll let it slide.

And I've been aware of this 30something moron at the next table. He is droning on and not listening to his female companion.

Snippets of conversation include
"Well, it will mostly be sad adults who will watch the new TV series because she's so transphobic".
"Narcissism is on the rise because too many people care about what other people think of them".
"Capitalism just needs to get its shit together".
"Influencers are ruining everything because they're feeding their own insecurities, and they don't really know what's actually going on. "

Yeah, right, bruh.

No insight, no understanding, and no letting his companion give her opinion.

I could go on - he's just said, people becoming aware that their parents are not perfect people.

Kill me now.

Generally it's wonderful when men start to work out that they're not the centre of the universe. But this guy is just awful.

Oh, both versions of Ghost Ship are worth drinking (IMHO anything by Adnam's is worth drinking but I might be biased). I can remember when they stopped horse-and-dray deliveries: it made the local news.

And though I have visited several hostelries in that general area, I have never been to the Eel's Foot.

Android, it's good to know that Adnam's is exported from the East!

I grew up in Norfolk and loved Adnams. I was very surprised when I was in Derbyshire and they were serving it because it requires great care. The publican told me he let it sit for at least 24 hours before adding it, so it could settle properly.

But that's the furthest I've travelled and drunk Adnams that's tasted good.

As you say, never had a bad pint from that brewery.

And he's still droning on! People should just accept me because why should I do the work to change their minds?!

😕He may look only in his 30s, Myrtle, but he must be the same chap who caused Sartre to write 'L'enfer, c'est les autres'!

I hope you manage to have a lovely evening in spite of that

Apparently the Vulcan Arms has a benchmark on it! But we didn't go there.