The Bluestocking Women’s Pub - Where Everybody Knows Your Username

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome to the Bluestocking Arms, the home of good company, excellent drinks and delicious cakes which magically have no irksome contents like gluten or sugar or calories or the kind of alcohol that causes problems - but you wouldn't know

Food and drink are served by a keen staff of gerbils, and other animals such as capybaras, quokkas, etc., also fulfil vital roles, while looking cute AF.

New Bluestockingers always welcome.

I agree with Dr @DeanElderberry, @MarieDeGournay - and as a former nurse, I can mop your fevered brow, if necessary!

I am still struggling with my mobility - all my joints seem to be painful and stiff, and where I could walk a little bit, about the house, without too much difficulty, now I am staggering along, holding onto the wall all the time.

I am doing a slightly lower impact version of the physio exercises - I have wondered about having a few days off altogether, but as I've kept them going every day since I started, I don't want to break that streak.

It's possible I over did things slightly at the weekend, so maybe things will start to improve soon - and I see the physio again in a fortnight, so if things aren't any better, I can get her advice.

And for all aching, squished etc.

I went to the Doc's yesterday. We have a book online system now! I've not been for a while. I got a 'phone call back offering an appointment later that same day! I was very surprised, told them it wasn't an emergency but they insisted. I've had a painless lump near my collarbone for ages but it's been growing a wee bit so I thought I should have it checked. When filling in the online form I joked I was thinking of sticking googly eyes on it and giving it a name. It wasn't to be entirely facetious, I thought it would demonstrate my lack of concern. I didn't want them to waste an urgent appointment on me. Any road up, it's a sebaceous cyst and it's called Neville. Although in hindsight I wish I'd gone with Lance.

I got the appointment so quickly I didn't have time to find the googly eyes😢... probably just as well.

I'm being referred to some sort of minor procedure thingy.

It's not a particularly pleasant experience is it!

Hopefully all is well when you get the results.

Googly eyes 👀

😂

We have an online system and I booked to get some silver nitrate on my granuloma - overgrowth of blood vessels while healing.

Well,it went black and then peeled off after a few days leaving new skin.

The black but remaining is a stain and will grow out.

I am quite OK as MrFuzzy took me out for lunch afterwards.

Hugs for all those battling health issues and/ or the nhs.

We’re having a medical day too but it’s DH not me.

A glass workshop at the hotel this morning.
Two pieces of blue glass.
Add coloured liquid glass.
Heat in microwave in ceramic pot for 17 minutes.
Wait one hour and this is the result!

A Eurasian Hoopoe!

Myrtle, I know I'm shallow, but I think your day sounds much more fun than all the medical stuff!

I am lying on a Bali bed enjoying the warmth and sunshine!

I always feel guilty because my favourite thing on holiday is to enjoy the warmth and read lots of paperbacks. Others get in the pool. I don't even sunbathe because I'm so fair I burn.

This hotel has so many lovely experiences I don't feel quite so guilty.

Sympathies to the stiff and the squished and those dealing with Lance or Neville or whoever.

Lovely pendant, Myrtle. My idea of holiday bliss is lying damply in the shade after a cooling dip, feeling comfortably warm, with a cold lager and a good book.
And hoopoes are lovely.

I'm envious of your hoopoe sighting @MyrtleLion.

I'm declaring an end to the working week and as soon as I've finished my mug of tea I'm off down to the river for a walk.

My holiday vote goes to mountains, extra points if there are opportunities for botanising, swimming or eating bilberries!

I've said it before. Hoopoes are gaudy.

Speaking of gaudy, I might have been wrong, but there was a repeated very unfamiliar noise coming in my bedroom window over a period of about 20 minutes this morning that I think might have been a woodpecker drumming. They were absent from Ireland for centuries, partly because all our woodlands had been destroyed, but they started returning about 20 years ago, and I know someone who lives about four miles away in birdy distance had a nest last year, so maybe . .

I saw a couple of large non-native flightless birds the other day wandering through the town. One was a peahen, dully caparisoned in brown, pecking dimly at kerbside weeds. Her follower was a nervous peacock, who stuttered in his pursuit, stepping awkwardly sideways and fluttering his long, lush tail feathers while pretending to look in the other direction.
Even the gaudy have their place. But that doesn't make them better or funnier or more wonderful.

😳

😂

Back home, when I had a garden, I used to love birdwatching. Mostly just sparrows and finches and blackbirds and the like, but I enjoyed watching their antics.

Gaudy didn't come into it much, except on the occasions when a pheasant might turn up.

I envied my sister, who had a peregrine in her garden for a while. The peregrine is not gaudy, but it's very cool when you see one.

We regularly get pheasants and occasionally a woodpecker on our feeder. But a couple of years ago we had a peahen turn up in our neighbourhood for a couple of months. She was rather lovely - much calmer than daft squawky Mr Pheasant. Eventually she was caught by someone from a couple of miles away who had a flock as the consensus was she’d be better off with them, though she seemed quite happy.

One of my colleagues lives in a village with resident peafowl. Apparently they're really rather stupid!

The magpies were fun to watch too! They were cheeky wee skitters, and at least once I saw one pulling the cat's tail.

I never saw the peregrine closely enough to tell if it was a male or a juvenile female. The adult females are usually quite a bit bigger than the males.

Popping my head in this evening to say hello again. I can't admit to reading the whole thread since I last poked my head in, you lot are far too chatty!
However the spam cocktail on the other page as I quickly skipped through looked a lot like my 8 year old's creation the other day when he decided to mix milk with summer fruit squash. Needless to say I made him tip the lovely curdled lumpy mixture out, and I hope he never becomes a bartender himself! The gerbils would be shaking their heads in disgust 😂

We've recently moved semi-rural and I'm loving birdwatching in our garden. A few weeks ago we had baby blackbirds in our hedge, and we get plenty of sparrows and a robin or two. I keep being on the lookout for Bluetits though as I know there's a few in the local area. I don't know about stupid peafowl, but around here it's the pheasants that always seem to be intentionally trying to get themselves killed!

Sparrows, pigeons, magpies and seagulls here. Nothing exotic- just the noisy, fighty ones!

What a beautiful garden, too. I'd I were a peahen I'd choose the Dragon Garden 😍