The Bluestocking Women’s Pub - The Return of Salad and the Lion

[MyrtleLion]

It’s been a while since I last saw everyone!

Welcome to everyone, regulars, lurkers, newly ventured in.

A place for women to discuss whatever takes their fancy, where the bar staff are attentive gerbils, Rosy the Red Panda is available for cuddles and all sweet things have no calories and all alcohol leaves the drinker slightly merry and hangover-free.

Previous thread is here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5326705-the-bluestocking-womens-pub-where-brains-can-exist-in-a-single-state

It's lovely to hear from you Swash, thank you for taking the time to call in to the Bluestocking.

I'm glad you know we are here and thinking of you - getting on with things, being our usual selves in the Bluestocking, but always leaving space for thoughts of you and your dear daughter. And a mooring for your ship. x

💙

Safe harbour, always.

Who was the stepdaughter's mother? Was it the wife who wanted a son?

Horrible to think about, anyway

Greetings to our lovely Swashy.❤

I asked the gerbils to make an appropriate cake for when you drop in, & I think they've excelled themselves. What flavour is it? Your favourite flavour, of course.

I was in my 50s when I found out, completely by accident, that my maternal grandparents weren't my maternal grandparents, but that my mother had been born to the unmarried sister of one of them & then taken in by them & brought up as one of their own children.

That was pretty devastating, & what I found unforgivable was that my brother had been told the facts as an adult & then told never to tell anyone else. So when I would be asked by doctors about my family's medical history, I confidently gave the info from the wrong bit of the family.

I also felt robbed of the chance to talk to my mother about her circumstances - I felt so sorry for her - as she'd already gone.

And there was another great aunt whose granddaughter I would've liked to be, but no, my actual grandmother had been someone I despised. 🙄

No idea who my actual grandfather was. I'm tempted to do a DNA thingy, but I have a feeling it would be asking for trouble.

That must have been an incredible shock for you, @ifIwerenotanandroid - I can't begin to think how you process something like that.

There are some fascinating stories here, from people's genealogical research. I haven't found anything terribly shocking, but I did find out that my dad had a sister, who died young (she was younger than him). As far as I knew, he was, and always had been, an only child. Sadly he had died long before I found this out, so I was never able to ask him about it.

I have piles of photos, that I brought home from mum's house after she died, along with some papers (dad and mum both did some family tree research), but amongst those papers was a big, vellum deed for a house - the name on it isn't one I recognise from the family tree, so it doesn't seem sufficiently relevant to keep it, but I was thinking I might send it to the relevant County Records Office, because it might be informative for someone, someday.

My grandmother found out that her aunt was actually her half-sister while waiting for her mother's funeral - the funeral director came in the room and asked for the eldest daughter and she went to get up, but the aunt was there first. It explained the very 'proper' up-bringing she was given 🤔

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius It really was difficult to process. I kept going back over everything, rewriting people into their correct relationships & reviewing oddities about the past, but it got so complicated. My mind was reeling for a few weeks.

It will be a kindness to someone if you do donate that vellum deed & they find it.

android no wonder you were reeling. Lies and omissions do that - my father left some very important stuff out.

One of my cousins-at-various-removes found out as a young adult that her 'father' was her step-father, her actual father having been her mother's first husband (I don't think she'd been told about him at all).

And Swashy, thank you for popping in. Consider yourself hugged, if hugs are your thing.

Yes. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. The mother persuaded forced her husband to father a child with her daughter. In Scotland it’s a criminal offence to have sex with a stepchild aged between 16 and 21 and who has lived in the same household before the age of 18 and been treated as a child of the family. That offence doesn’t exist in England, though I believe it should.

Clara. Finding herself currently diluged with customers has taken on some apprentice gerbils.

It's going quite well

Scratch that.

Ooops!

@EdithStourton

Re "Where did you get that cat badge? I NEED one!"

I got it as a present.

If I had to guess I'd say it was probably from Amazon

At least that cat only has people to contend with. YouTube randomly offered me this, which apart from the Bluestocking having a much nicer pond, I can imagine the various creatures here re-enacting.

Looks like it's Temu.

Sorry the link is so huge / if it doesn't work.

https://www.temu.com/uk/1pc-ew-people-cool-black-cat-enamel-pin-for-men-satirical-cartoon-metal-badge-funny-humor-accessory-for-backpacks-hats-apparel-footwear-decor-g-601099565727876.html?_x_sessn_id=q5tg7u9lqm&refer_page_name=bgn_verification&refer_page_id=10017_1748007265578_lrs464ysr9&refer_page_sn=10017

https://amzn.eu/d/260x2CB

There is a two pack of embroidered patches on Amazon but so far I can't find Ew. People with a cat on a badge

Ebay UK

Search for "Ew, People cat badge".

I'd post a link to one or two on offer but the links all appear a mile long.

It’s not means-tested for a reason. If the government say he’s entitled to it and no lies have been told on the application then I don’t see what the problem is.

Perfect! Thank you.

Also thanks to Cher - I'll take a look at Ebay as well.

The almost-a-week of SIL nearly drove me round the bend. It's so nice to be doing things without someone else's running commentary fretting along in the background. 'Now, where did I put my key? What on earth have I done with it? Is it in my bag? ....No. Is it on the table? ....No. Is it in my pocket?...No. It MUST be in my bag. Oh look! I'd put it in the teeny-weeny little pocket just here! It was hiding!'

It was either that or stream of consciousness: 'When Mike and I were still married and we went to Norway I was so impressed, Scandinavian cities are aways so clean, don't you agreeAnd then you come home and there's litter everywhere I don't why we can't our act together, do you have any idea I think it must be something to do with...' I couldn't get a bloody word in. Or if I did, it was promptly stomped on by the continuing stream of consciousness ramble.

Hence the urge for rude doormats and 'Ew People' badges.

And poor Clara...

This is cute AF and so funny! The cat's face is priceless😄It takes 'being an attention-seeking pest' to Olympic levels, before briefly trying this in-tim-acy thing the dog and ducks seem to be so into.. but not for long.

I can't imagine AI being able to come up with anything so unlikely, so cute and so funny

Cute video, Errol. I've managed to train Brains and Batshit to ignore poultry, and I don't plan to push things any further.

Brains and Batshit are intermittently doing the whole Jedi mind trick thing of staring at me while thinking 'WALK?' very loudly.

Poor you, Edith!
I know just what you mean, I was on a train once going to Leeds no I tell a lie it was to Carlisle no it was definitely Leeds, or maybe York, anyway there was a couple sitting opposite me, a nice looking couple, well turned out, and it was terrible, one of them talked and talked and talked non-stop, well I say non stop but she did stop every now and then to have a drink of tea, they'd brought a flask of tea, or maybe it was coffee, I can't be sure, but most of the time she was just talk talk talk, how the other person could put up with it I don't know, is there anything worse than being in the company of someone who just goes on and on and on and doesn't give you a chance to get a word in edgeways, I know I couldn't put up with that at all, and I think it shows a complete lack of self-awareness too, which is something I really can't stand in a person, don't you agree that a lack of self-awareness is something that's really hard to put up with, I'm sure you agree, it's just so dismissive of other people, I'd hate to be like that, how can anyone tolerate it all day every day, it would drive me up the walls - Edith? EDITH? Cooo-eee, Edith? Where are you?
😄

Wrong thread?

Completed booknook.

There may be another one on my desk.

And I may have ordered two more to arrive in the next month.