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

I’d been thinking of school nativities recently. I helped a very little with costumes for a recent, excellent, production of Jesus Christ Superstar. One of my jobs is to watch the dress rehearsal and quietly nitpick ( her word) the costumes to my friend, who is in charge of Wardrobe.

(I am always careful never to comment on anything that can’t be easily fixed.)

The person playing Mary Magdalene was dressed in sage green but provided her own head covering - in blue. Under some of the lighting the whole outfit
looked blue. Nobody to my knowledge commented on this. I think there must be fewer traditional nativities in school nowadays.

How do you know she isn't?

I wanted to be Mary. But it always went to a blonde girl, despite Mary's origins in what is now Israel, where she most certainly had dark hair, and potentially darker skin.

I was the Narrator. Simply because I could read and I was precocious enough not to be intimidated by public speaking when I was 5. I am still that precocious and very happy giving speeches.

Reflecting on the nativity, I had the only speaking part and the other children were silent, like a tableau. And maybe that was a good thing. Who wants to be a blonde girl, playing a silent pregnant woman?!

I've never got over not being Mary though.

<checks definitely on correct thread this time>

Gerbils are playing guess the song

@Swashbuckled

💙

Is this the real life?
is this just fantasy?

In my years at Sunday school I did get to be Mary, and the Angel Gabriel (yup, long blonde hair) the Narrator. But I never got to be a King; they got the fun part of coming in from the back down the aisles, with their crowns wonderfully bejewelled with rowntrees fruit gums.

Much like @MyrtleLionI never got a part in school plays but because I had a good caring voice* and could read well I was always the prompter.

*My art teacher’s nickname for me in secondary school was Gabby La Bouche.

That would be “carrying” not caring.

That is VERY cool, I always look (glance) at his ex-church when I go over to visit the Earl of Rosse's Great Erection, or one of the other local attractions.

If you had any Methodist ancestors you could search for Cooneyites and get a twofer on Irish midland religious schismatics.

My school nativity play gripe was the teachers deciding because I was Irish I must wear a Welsh costume (anti Celt prejudice ran deep in 1960s East Anglia) and all the other children saying I was a witch. And the angels had such lovely wings, all pink and white tissue paper feather.

When my dark-haired, dark-eyed DD was cast as Mary one year, I was absolutely astounded.

The one at the bottom is Planning Something.

I'm not sure what. I just hope its not another game of Monopoly, because we remember what happened the last time the gerbils had a go.

(For those who missed it, fights, screaming, rude graffiti, crying, reconcilation.)

(For those who missed it, fights, screaming, rude graffiti, crying, reconcilation.)

And that was just Edith! So imagine the chaos from the gerbils!

😉

Not true at all! <sulks>

I'm sure they're was graffiti, but i can't find it now!

We never had nativity plays in school, and I think they still don't happen in Irish schools.

Maybe because the other 364 days [or the school-day proportion thereof] were so steeped in religion that we got Christmas off😄

In his last year at play group, ds2 was Joseph, and carried it off well. Less successful that year was ds3 as a lamb. He sobbed his little socks off, and would only take part if he was sitting on dh's lap - so the playgroup nativity included one adult engineer, and the world's saddest lamb.

That is the funniest nativity play story, ever!😂
And I'm including the video of Mary and one of the other characters having a vicious destructive tug-of-war for possession of the Baby Jesus ..

I (mousy brown hair) never got to be an angel either - I coveted the white dress with blue ribbon sash so much.

DS1 was very blond and did get to be an angel. The sight of him standing there angelically picking his nose with one angelic finger buried up to the knuckle will never leave me.

I hate to interrupt the nativity play reminiscences, which are very funny, but I have an update on the permanent Bluestocking:
Goneril Gerbil went up on the roof to see if we were ready for the topping-off ceremony [note safety gear!] but when she came down she asked Constance of Capybara Construction if there wasn't something missing, two sticky-up thingies at each end or something??? and Constance checked the plans and said 'Oh bugger. CHIMNEYS!'

So chimneys are now being made at the Capybara Construction HQ, aka my kitchen table

edited to kvetch about how tricky the roof has been, but then I decided not to destroy the magic that it was all done by Capybaras and Gerbils and deleted it😄

I was a school governor for many years, and sat through many nativities. I developed a checklist of things to watch out for.

Mary a good six inches taller than Joseph
Leading character absent mindedly scratching their bum while on stage (hiking up costume for extra points)
Nose picking
A child who had obviously memorised the whole script and got very annoyed with people forgetting their lines
A king who couldn't see out from under their crown
The Baby Jesus being casually manhandled by one leg, one arm, or the head
Child too busy waving at family to deliver their lines

Can someone urgently send me a physio gerbil, actually a physio giant wombat may be better. I've got cramp in my hip.

It hurts!

That's what the snagging list is for!

Love it so much. ❤️

um... which hip would that be, Boily? L'embarras du choix..

I think I'd stick to the gerbil physios, the giant wombat ones can be a tad over-enthusiastic😱

Hope you feel better soon

I do hope we remember this part of the Bluestocking at Christmas and have a full and glorious nativity play, performed by all our animals.
I'm loving all the stories, even if they are mostly of disappointment.