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!

PERFECT

Now if you could just come do that in real life.

I shall send you soothing thoughts, hopefully that'll help a bit.

I'm very tempted to run the soggy end bit of the cucumber that I'm supposed to be putting in the bin across my head first

Worth a try!

Does sliced cucumber on your eyes really work? Wondering if it would help stressed out 17yo who has AS levels exams starting tomorrow. Full of cold and hayfever. What joy.

I have been known to stick cold cucumber slices on my eyes due to hayfever. It works slightly better than my refrigerated eye mask.

Going to run upstairs brandishing cucumber now. Changed his bedding, pumped him up with non drowsy anti histamines… this is my last line of defence against red-eye!!

<stumbles in channelling Father Jack>

DRINK DRINK

I have just survived a two and a half hour committee meeting.

I wish it was acceptable to tell people that they are utter imbeciles.

And no, I don't care if it's gin or port. Just lots, please.

And wish your DC well for the exams, Cautious.
<hic>

I'm very very fond of Chopin, so thank you for that, Cautious - beautiful.

I knew it! When you showed that half cuke in your fridge last month.

Actually, given Bing put the cucumber slices on the head rather than on the eyes, which I thought was a mistake indicating ignorance of beetle anatomy, maybe Bing foresaw the future . . . .

My current herbal remedy, applied belatedly, was arnica ointment to my hands, which were very sore after weeks of extracting rocks and nettle roots from the garden. It made such a difference - the pain was beginning to keep me awake at night.

Maybe that top bit isn't the head. I realise my knowledge of beetle anatomy is a bit shaky too.

It's bone dry here West coast Scotland, the hills haven't even properly greened up yet, there isn't enough water. I'm just hoping people are sensible and leave there effing disposable BBQs at home when they go into the hills.

I'm in the West of Scotland too, @Igneococcus - near Paisley - and it is very dry here too. Not only that, but it is sunny as well!

@EdithStourton - I have sat through some dire committee meetings in my time - I have a nasty habit of volunteering for committees whenever they need members. The worst was the playgroup committee, where I was the secretary, and we had a meeting that lasted over 2.5 hours - and then we got to the final item, under AOB, which was a lovely old lady talking about going to visit Peru, and how school children there could only go to school if they had their own pencils, so she was going to take some with her, and would the playgroup like to donate some pencils for her to take with her too. On and on and on she went, about sodding pencils.

We finally managed to get the meeting to a close - mainly because two of us had to go to collect our children from school - and then I got home, sat down at the computer, and relived the entire, awful thing, whilst writing the Minutes. I lost the will to live.

I might try to assemble some hydrangeas later on, so if I don't get back into the Bluestocking, it's because I have glued all my fingers together, and am waiting for Rescue.

It's the pronotum. I didn't even have to Google it. In woodworm beetles it comes to a point which is one way of distinguishing them from biscuit beetles.

I stayed in a b&b once that had a dead woodworm beetle on a window sill. I couldn't bring myself to tell them they might have an infestation. I still feel guilty. Keep telling myself they probably already knew and I'd just embarrass them.

I feel that, if I am any sort of beetle, I am definitely a biscuit beetle. Is there a chocolate biscuit beetle sub-species, I wonder?

If you were a biscuit beetle, Woley, would you be a Tunnocks-biscuit-beetle?

BTW your description of the meeting and the sodding pencils and then having to relive it all through the minutes was great, I was enjoying it so much I almost forgot to feel sorry for you😂

• Fexofenedine every day, even when not the season or symptomatic.
• Beconase two pumps each nostril morning and evening even when not symptomatic - it’s a steroid (like a preventer inhaler) and needs to bed in for a few days.
• Eye drops containing sodium cromoglicate used four times a day even when not symptomatic will also help.

it can take up to a week for these to work but these combinations are the best for preventing hay fever. I am so used to taking them that I once assumed I’d grown out of hay fever and stopped. It came back with a vengeance, so I take them all from March to late September and the fexofenedine every day in winter too.

The last couple of days have been a bit of a saga. Our holiday hotel flooded and we only found out yesterday. We were booked from 1-11 June. I’ve spent a lot of time being very upset because they were offering a much lower quality holiday at the same resort instead and not even a full refund for the balance of the cost, let alone compensation.

They also offered a direct swap to a different location but said we would have to pay the difference in flights among other inconveniences.

We then discovered the resort is full of dust and mud and I can’t go because of my asthma. I also have my orthopaedic operation coming soon (but no date yet, even though they’ve brought forward the pre clinic appointment by six weeks). I don’t want to be unhealthy before the surgery.

I asked ChatGPT which explained our rights under the Package Travel Regulations 2018 that we should be offered like for like and have any additional costs paid for.

I rang today and they are transferring us to the other resort, paying for the flights and for a hotel at the airport the night before because our flight is now at 7am instead of 2pm. We can also reclaim the additional parking cost and transfer cancellation fee after the holiday.

I feel so much better, but it’s been very stressful.

That is good news, @FlowerUser - I'm glad you've got things properly sorted out, and can look forward to a much-needed holiday.

Thank you. DH was annoyed at missing out on the lounge for lunch. It's not quite the same at 5am, but we will have a nice early dinner in the hotel and he seems happy with that.

Glad it's been sorted but the initial offer was outrageous! I expect they thought it was worth a punt because some customers might have agreed it.

Fexofenidine doesn't work for me, unfortunately. And I have a very helpful feature that I can't take the same antihistamine more than two days in a row without getting vertigo. This is why my medicine cupboard looks massively oversupplied with antihistamines - I have three types in there so I can alternate them!