The Bluestocking Women's Pub, where brains can exist in a single state

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all. The booze here is minimally intoxicating, the food is calorie free and the staff are warm and cuddly. And if the thread title sounds nonsensical, blame the guy Myrtle was listening to this evening!

All these pics of black cats and I am beginning to wonder if we’re not a coven after all.

Rosy isn't really black, if you look you will see that she has a very delicate lacy little white jabot.

Love the word ‘jabot’. Only came to know what it meant/what it was through playing a silly ‘find the hidden object’ game on my ipad. That and ‘herbarium’??!!

Thanks, boiled, I found a solution that won't need running all the images through some program, phew.

I knew someone whose official job was 'Keeper of the Herbarium'. A strong feminist whose watchword was 'do you know what the men are at now?' and a stylish woman who would have rocked a jabot. RIP

Mind blown @DeanElderberry the older I get the more I realise how small my life has been. Just slipped down a RHS rabbit hole (where there is, apparently a current Keeper of the Herbarium). My autie self loves strange and unusual bits of knowledge …

Neither is mine! She does actually have quite a lot of white hairs, but hers are all in separate one single white hair locations so much harder to spot. Also when I catch her on the cctv at night it turns out she actually has a ringed tail of two different shades of black that are not visibly different to the naked eye!

She identifies as a witches black cat though!

Ginger cat for some balance (if I can get an image to load).

I've got two....

Love cats but am very allergic as is my DH (asthma so bad had to call paramedics). If there was a vaccination we’d both take it, but I’m not sure I have the temperament to be a cat mummy - nearly every day on the neighbourhood whatsapp one has gone missing and we are checking sheds and attic spaces. Honestly, I’d be a bloody basket case.

Managing a dog who runs away at the scent of a deer is hard enough … he has a tracker, an airtag, and can only be released in fenced areas now after his last foray saw him being rounded up by the film crew of The Citadel at our local forestry site. I shall be tuning in, just in case his tail made an appearance though.

I do have another one, he's a massive cat, who refuses to look at the camera. I have so many photos of the top of his head and his tail it's ridiculous!

Oh dear, I've missed out that last beauty. Just for the moment you'll have to imagine he's been distracted by a box in the corner of the bar.

That's a slightly disturbing image - have the cats been brought gerbil snacks? I can only hope that as with jelly babies and gingerbread persons it's a visual resemblance only.

Have you seen the giant gerbils behind the bar? They wouldn't dare.

CatBastard is mainly black, and I am more than happy to be part of a coven.

I see myself as a Nanny Ogg type witch, though I don't terrify my daughter in law or the other dses' girlfriends, and I know their names!

This is CatBastard. He is sulking because, now I have my nice recliner chair, I’m not sitting with him on the couch. He keeps sitting there and sulking at me.

I aspire to be Granny Weatherwax when I grow up. That or a steam train driver. Maybe both, Granny Weatherwax would be a great but absolutely terrifying train driver!

Nothing, absolutely nothing would get in her way, @Magpiecomplex!

I would love to be Granny Weatherwax @Magpiecomplex but suspect IRL I’m just an older and more harassed version of Magrat pre-Queen. Less occult jewellery though.

I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer growing up, but am growing down. It's a curious place to be.

All the cats I've ever had have been tabby toms. I don't know if there's any significance to that.

There's a black and white cat lives around here who's trying to adopt me, but I assume she has a real home and just wants extra meals.

Hello @SionnachRuadh and welcome. I had a tabby boy once- he had the tiniest squeak- meow ever!

Hello am back of my boat missed you all hope you remember me !!!!

I had a feeling that my hymn of praise to the beauty of black cats would provoke a bit of ginger whataboutery!
Yes that too is a very cute cat.

SionnachRuadh - you are very welcome, tá fáilte is fiche romhat annseo!

To non-Irish-speaking Stockingers: we now have a lovely new animal in our midst - SionnachRuadh means red fox.

The new thing I randomly learned yesterday (while checking that the numeric taxonomic ID and scientific name of the dwarf gray hamster had really changed - yes, it’s been reclassified into its own genus) was what Selachii meant. I’d assumed it wasn’t a random name dreamed up by Terry Pratchett for an unpleasant noble house, but I’d never looked it up. Or their rivals the Venturi …ha, well of course…

bonus - google incidentally tells me there’s a law firm called Selachii