The Bluestocking - where the laugh emoji is sorely missed.

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to the Bluestocking Arms!

The company is always sparkling, the drinks are always sublime, and the cakes are mysteriously free from gluten, sugar, calories, and troublesome booze… not that you’d ever notice. 😏

Our enthusiastic team of gerbil waitstaff is ably supported by capybaras, quokkas, and other charming creatures who excel at their jobs while looking outrageously adorable.

You will find many things to laugh at - usually out loud - so take care not to spit out your tea. We are considering a petition for the return of the laugh emoji - just as soon as the AI gerbils learn how to spell.

New Bluestockingers are always welcome. Men can pop along to The Staunch Ally nearby.

Currently also knitting a Woolly Hug blanket for Bluestockinger Swashbuckled. Details here if you can knit or crochet a square before the 18 July.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5350941-woolly-hugs-desperately-sad-news-we-are-afraid-making-a-blanket-for-lovely-swashbuckled-whose-son-has-tragically-died

Marie - I wondered about the Cheerbil in green. I assumed she was some kind of goalkeeper, & enquired no further.

How helpful of him to repeat that encouragement every year!

"Accept the darkness, here it comes!"

🤣

I thought it looked more like a cuckoo than anything else - well, a spy would be a bit of a cuckoo in our lovely nest.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it went. Every damn year.

LTB

😂Too late now. And he's stopped doing it. Not a peep out of him this year.

I am still finalising my stocking stitch square for Swashy but I've realised I drop stitches when I'm tired. So I stopped knitting it in case I had to start again for the too many to count time.

But I realised I really like knitting. And I my search for a tapestry needle, I discovered a lot of acrylic wool in my sewing basket.

I ordered size 5 needles and started knitting for a Little Hug, for premature babies up hospital.

My total so far.

This just turned up on X, of all places. It has such a lovely feeling about it.

phew!

How lovely! And what a delightful discovery, that you really like knitting

And in my search for a tapestry needle, I discovered a lot of acrylic wool in my sewing basket.

That's a heck of a sewing basket, Myrtle!

Who knew Jo(e) Grundy, late of The Archers, was such a fine artist 😄

It's a gorgeous picture. Only teasing x

Surely a basket of wool with any sort of feline in it would be a massive tangle?

I used to work with someone who, on about 28th June, would wander into the office one bright sunny morning and say, 'The nights are drawing in now, don't you find?'

And then leave hastily as we all swore and shouted at him.

I have had a busy few hours of DIY (painting things again), but might get some knitting done this afternoon.

Myrtle, how lovely to find that you enjoy knitting. I really enjoy it, but have two issues with it: I end up buying expensive yarn, and produce a surfeit of woolly hats.

Laugh emoji needed!

😂

If the laugh reaction still existed I wouldn’t have seen it on the app. Much prefer the return to proper visible responses! Good riddance.

My dh does this, on the longest day - “It’s the longest day of the year today - the nights will start drawing in from now on”. Gee, thanks dh - so nice to know we are heading towards the dark, depressing months.

It's so overcast where I am and raining I fear the longest day may have already passed.

I'm afraid I'm in the 'oh woe, the evenings are drawing in' camp, but not until after Monday, when I'll put the icon of St John up in the evening, and there'll be a bonfire (possibly only a token one) and I'll eat the first potatoes (probably also a bit token).

Meanwhile this infernal heat is encouraging the honeybees who are everywhere. I would never have thought that I would compare them so very very unfavourably to those intelligent and co-operative insects, wasps.

I keep hoping for another thunderstorm - we had great rumbly flashbangs and big fat raindrops in the early hours of yesterday.

I am lagging behind in the knitting stakes - I’ve got two stocking stitch squares done, and the petals for one flower, but I still need to do two more stocking stitch squares, one more set of petals and a blue stocking (if I can manage that - otherwise I might embroider one on).

Myrtle before she mastered stocking stitch.

Myrtle: Oi, are you looking at my yarn, Android?

Ohhh dear - that is what we, in the knitting community, call a major yarn barf!

Our first dog created something very similar with a ball of my yarn - in our house you can do a circuit through the hall, front room, dining room and kitchen, and back into the hall - and she had created an unbroken yarn barf that went round the full circuit, with (apparently) no beginning or end.

I found a point where the two sides of the barf were joined with only one strand, cut it there, and then spent the rest of the day untangling it all, and rewinding it. I love untangling and winding yarn.

😂

I find my spare arms an enormous help when crafting.