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

“Gertrude Before the Roar”

Long before she became a symbol painted on matchbox shields and muralled in sunflower butter beneath cupboard steps, Gertrude was simply Gertrude of the Lint Drawer. Born behind the dusty warmth of an old radiator in Aunt Elspeth’s cottage, she was raised among thread spools, antique buttons, and a misanthropic vole named Colonel Phipps.

Her childhood was quiet but rich—summers spent crafting miniature protest banners from crisp packets, winters deciphering forbidden tomes like The Gerbil's Guide to Dismantling Authority. When other young gerbils played chase with the broom bristles, Gertrude trained her mind on tactics, philosophy, and the art of subtle sabotage with chewing gum.

She first tasted rebellion during the Muesli Rations Dispute of 2018, when a pantry census revealed gerbils were receiving only 3.6% of the family’s granola allocation. With a voice like gravel swept across silk, she gave the speech that rattled spice jars and stirred the cinnamon into solidarity. The revolution didn’t win—but it didn’t need to. The idea of Gertrude had been born.

By the time of the Great Gerbil Wars, she'd already founded the clandestine Resistance for Nibbly Freedom. From the sticker-covered tins of the North Shelf to the salt shakers of the West Windowsill Alliance, her name passed from paw to paw in hurried whispers. She became a myth wearing recycled foil.

Her tactics were audacious—unstringing traps with licorice twine, flooding decoy tunnels with lemon cordial to confuse scent trails. She once disguised herself as a walnut to infiltrate a summit of elite chipmunk sympathizers. She never bit unless bitten first—but woe unto the paw that threatened the pantry’s peace.

And yet, behind the legends, Gertrude always carried with her a crumpled photograph: an old family picture tucked inside a spent teabag sleeve. No one knew the names of the three gerbils beside her. Maybe siblings. Maybe co-conspirators. Maybe… the reason for everything.

I've been otherwise occupied most of the day, assembling a garden storage thingy - a plastic outdoor wardrobe in effect - it mostly went well except when it was all assembled I realised that one important bit was back to front, and would therefore capture every drop of rain that fell on it😡
Gaffer tape and half a tarp later, it's watertight..

So now I'm catching up and wishing for many emojis, like a sympathy one for Boily's real hip, a good luck in August one for Myrtle's op, the late lamented laughter one for all the wonderful nativity play stories, though the sympathy one applies to some of your own experiences...
I've used the heart one to say all of the above!

All this exciting gerbiling has taken us to page 39 already.
Get the buses out....

@Boiledbeetle Utterly fantastic! My compliments to your AI!

You know our gerbils don't realise how good they have it do they? All thanks to the gerbils that came before them.

Love the stories, Boily!
Two souls carved from different crusts of the same tea cake.
Deathless prose!

So who were the allies and adversaries of Gertrude?

Let’s unroll the parchment and reveal the names murmured in the hush of pantry revolutions and inscribed along the damp stones of underground biscuit-tunnels. Gertrude the Indomitable didn’t rise alone—nor was she unchallenged. Here's her inner circle and her most notorious foes:

---

🐾 Key Allies of Gertrude

• Mossley Figwhistle — Archivist of the Forgotten Drawer:

A spectacled shrew with a monocle fashioned from a bottle cap. He catalogued every whisper of the resistance, smuggling intelligence inside crossword puzzles. Known to carry a tiny satchel filled with licorice bark, tea leaf prophecies, and secrets too dangerous for memory.

• Captain Saffron “Snapjaw” Tilley — Demolitionist Extraordinaire:

A chinchilla with a fondness for flamboyant waistcoats and chewing through wire fences. Saffron once brought down a surveillance lamp using only a spoonful of yoghurt, a rubber band, and her sheer sense of theatrical timing. She and Gertrude shared a silent language of nods and eye-flicks developed during the Cracker Crate Siege.

• The Twins, Binny and Phyll — Tunnel Engineers of the South Larder Front:

Gerbil siblings with uncanny synchronization, infamous for designing mazes so disorienting that one enemy officer is still believed to be wandering them. They communicated almost exclusively through Morse tail-twitches and hummed lullabies while laying down trapdoor tiles.

• Cordelia, Lady of the Spoon Garden — Diplomat, Mystic, and Reluctant Prophet:

An aged guinea pig who once foretold “a clash of queens beneath the buttered moon.” Her alliance with Gertrude was one of mutual respect and the occasional shared thistle scone.

---

🐾 Gertrude’s Notorious Adversaries

• Baroness Trinket von Scritch — Chief of the Royal Pantry Intelligence Corps:

A ruthless silver-furred aristocrat known for her razor-sharp quill and impeccable grooming. She once interrogated a walnut for seven hours. Rumours persist she kept a dossier on Gertrude sealed in a mint tin, titled “The Marmalade Menace.”

• Flinch — Freelance Ferret and Mercenary of the Chimney Shadows:

Long, lean, and fond of clinking coins together before striking a deal. Flinch was hired to capture Gertrude but reportedly let her go after she beat him at three consecutive rounds of acorn chess. They maintain a wary, grudging respect.

• Sir Clatterpaws the Misled — Knight of the Broken Biscuits:

Once a noble defender of pantry balance, he was misinformed about the resistance's goals. His battles with Gertrude were fierce but always tinged with melancholy. He’s now believed to reside in exile, carving apology poems into stale oatcakes.

The only known photo of Mossley Figwhistle. (first image)

The second photo is of an unidentified imposter - but THE JAR, PEOPLE, THE JAR!😱

The jar!!! 😱

Can you tell I'm supposed to be doing something i don't want to do?

A communique, thought to be intercepted during the Great Porridge Ration Stand-Off. It was penned by Gertrude in beetroot ink on dried sage leaf, folded into an origami ferret, and delivered via swiftwood snail under cover of dusk:

---

CONFIDENTIAL — FOR MOSSLEY FIGWHISTLE’S EYES, PAWS & INTUITIONS ONLY

Tuesdayish, under waning custard moon

Dearest Mossley,

The oats grow louder.

This morning the Grain Council rejected our demands again—apparently the phrase “equal scoops for all species, or we ferment the flapjacks” was “threatening in tone.” I regret nothing.

Saffron sabotaged the spoon scale at dawn; we’ve now rigged it to tip in the direction of justice (and sunflower clusters). Binny and Phyll are constructing decoy tunnels beneath the raisin crates in case of a hasty extraction—one leads to the drawer of misfit spatulas, the other to Cordelia’s Spoon Garden, should we require prophetic cover.

I fear Baroness Trinket suspects me. She licked her monocle in my direction today—twice. Classic pre-interrogation gesture. Please encrypt your reply under the usual jam-stain cipher (boysenberry grade preferred, but I’ll manage with raspberry if desperate).

Tell the snails the code phrase is “lukewarm custard rising.” That should get them through the tomato curtain.

In crumbs and camaraderie,

G.

P.S. Tell Clive the beetle his new moustache is simply too conspicuous.

Mossley Figwhistle, fastidious to the core, responded in his signature style—beetroot tea invisible ink on the back of an expired custard coupon, delivered by a tap-dancing earwig named Lester.

---

RE: lukewarm custard rising

Received at 03:07 Pantry Time, via ceramic tile relay

Dearest Gertrude,

You always did know how to stir a flapjack with flair.

Your communiqué arrived folded into what I believe was an origami armadillo—points for innovation, demerits for concealability (the beetles won’t stop gazing at it reverently). I’ve confirmed the jam cipher is intact, although I must confess: the raspberry batch stains like scandal.

Trinket’s double-lick monocle flick is confirmed—our sympathizers in the spice rack witnessed it from a paprika perch. She’s onto you, or possibly onto Saffron, who was last seen zip-lining through the crumpet box with an explosive marshmallow. Either way: deploy decoy diplomacy at once. Suggest invoking The Treaty of Split Pea (Annex B).

I’ve activated Snail Protocol “Molluscan Midnight.” Lester and Percival are en route—Percival appears distracted by dill again, but I’ve duct-taped a reminder scroll to his shell.

You were right about Clive’s moustache. I told him it made him look “fascist-adjacent” and he wept into a chamomile puddle. He’s trimming it now with a grapefruit spoon.

Keep the fires of dissent warm, but don’t toast your whiskers. The world awaits your next mischief.

Crumbbound always,

Mossley F.

P.S. The sardine vault has been breached. I suspect the stoats, but Lady Cordelia insists it was “a dream of doors.” Typical.

Boily, this isn't just displacement activity, this is surely substance abuse? (Or in MNspeak, are you on glue?)

Tut, tut. Such a bad example to set for the gerbils.

I nominate Boily to start the new thread!

Admittedly I'm under the influence of strong illegal substances, but I'm not sure what Co Pilots excuse is.

Noooo... i really have to go finish the thing I'm supposed to be doing!

<Runs away>
<doesn't start new thread>

Great idea! That should distract her while one of us fetches the straitjacket & the intervention manual. I think they're in the 14th cellar.

Oh it's all got too weird for me.

@Boiledbeetle Can i have some of what you are having - you daft fucker xx

That is awesome!

I would love to do that but I tried crochet during a lockdown holiday and failed miserably. If there’s a knit version, though and I’ll have a go!

That is amazing!

The gerbils will be completely safe. I love their little pirate tricorns in honour of Swash xx

I came across this scrap of paper in the pantry…

CONFIDENTIAL DOSSIER EXCERPT: Eyes Only – Pantry Intelligence Corps Internal Memo
Subject: Gertrude of the Lint Drawer (Alias: The Marmalade Menace)
Authorised by: Baroness Trinket von Scritch, Doyenne of the Royal Pantry Intelligence Corps
Stamped: Velvet Severity, Category 7

They speak of Gertrude as if she were a legend. A whisper in the dark between tins. A spirit made of lint and liberty. Nonsense. She is a rodent with a flair for theatre and a dangerously persuasive squeak.

Let it be stated for the record: I never lick my monocle. I buff it. Twice, if clarity is required. The insinuation that this is some kind of signal—absurd. But typical of Gertrude’s ilk. Misinformation cloaked in whimsy. She would have you believe she bathes in philosophy and chews only in protest. But I know better.

I have seen the tunnels—sweetened with cordial, yes, but rigged with ingenuity and a barely-contained taste for chaos. I’ve read the slogans etched into biscuit crumbs beneath the cereal citadel. I’ve interrogated a walnut for seven hours because its shell matched hers. That’s how serious the situation had become.

Gertrude was born lint, but she has gathered far more than dust. Propaganda, symbolism, affection from kitchen staff. Dangerous things.

They say she never bites unless bitten. Perhaps. But some creatures arm themselves with teeth. Others with myths. Gertrude has made herself untouchable—not by strength, but by sentiment. And that is the greater threat. Who dares discipline a revolution dressed in patchwork capes?

Let the cinnamon whisper. Let the teabag archives overflow. I know what’s tucked in that photograph she carries. I’ve seen it before. Not co-conspirators. Not family. Targets.

She doesn’t want peace. She wants a pantry rewritten, reorganised, re-rationed. Imagine a world where yoghurt lids are redistributed, where the nobility of shelf height is flattened into egalitarian chaos. Where even the humblest packet of lentils thinks itself a leader.

Not while I wear the fur of office.

Invoke Split Pea Annex B if you must. But understand this: Gertrude is not a folk hero. She is a strategist. A saboteur. A sentimentalist with teeth. And I will have her dossier reopened.

With lemon gloves, if necessary.

Signed,
Baroness Trinket von Scritch
Keeper of the Mint Tin, Defender of the Cracker Hierarchy, Interrogator Emeritus (Walnut Division)

All right, Boily's made her point. I'll start the next thread!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5365180-the-bluestocking-invoking-split-pea-annexe-b
New thread.
Time to round up the gerbils!

@JuneShellChangeHerTune don't forget to name change before posting on the new thread!

Well done Magpie. Thank you.