The Bluestocking - holding the line and losing the thread

[lcakethereforeIam]

All women welcome, pull up a pygmy hog, the bargerbil will serve you a drink, the flying squirrels will bring you something to read and the goats will do...I'm not entirely sure.

There may be more than the usual amount of chaos as we transition to the new thread.

Good news indeed, Myrtle. Fingers crossed that it is indeed LPR, if that's the most benign outcome.

Genius!
My DM always said she was coming back as cat, the sort with an indulgent owner, AND somebody down the road susceptible to the 'see the tragic starving kitty' routine.

I'm glad the proceed went well, Myrtle.

I only found out recently that well-fed and cared-for cats do that 'I am a poor starving stray, please take pity on my and feeeeeeeed meeeee' thing - I'm torn between thinking 'Have they no shame?!' and grudging admiration

Oh, I absolutely admire the sheer cheek of cats.

You go on holiday:
Dogs: kennels. Basically borstal, though Brains trots in as if she's going to Butlins. (Batshit believes whatever Brains tells her.)
Cat: gets the run of the house, slave in 2x/day to put down food and lavish attention on poor lonely kitty.

You return and open the front door. Tiddles comes to the living room door, sits down as you put down the suitcases and then, as you offer greetings, sneers, stands up to head back towards the sofa, and gives you the finger with his tail.

The dogs, when you collect them from kennels, are all over you like a rash, absolutely thrilled that you have COME BACK! All they want if a long walk, dinner at home and a chance to get as close to you as possible all evening.

Tiddles, meanwhile, is still sulking that you bothered to come back, declines his Whiskas and takes himself to Mrs Bloggs 4 doors down who pumps him full of Dreamies, as she's been doing all week.

I remember a few years ago someone putting up a post, I think on a local Facebook page, with a picture of her cat and asking "have you been feeding my cat?"

Turned out the cat had seven houses it regularly visited for treats.

😂😂

One of my colleagues had his cat arrive home wearing a collar, which outed it, and also enabled him to add a label declaring ownership (or whatever the relationship between human and feline is)

Wouldn't surprise me at all if that were true for our ginger cat. He was 9 kg at his peak, down to about 7 kg now but I bet he manages to convince people that he is half starved. He often comes home smelling of smoke, there is somewhere with an open fire that he hangs out at.

A late cat of mine used to come home smelling of lavender. I don't know whose house he was in, but he was definitely somewhere.

I think ours might go to the hotel behind our house, the pub has an open fire but I know that he is also hanging out with someone at the cul-de-sac next to our street.
Oban has a cat that is locally famous, Monty, a grey tabby. He hangs out at some businesses, at the ferry terminal, at least one of the pubs, the lady from the West coast motors office often posts on the local FB page that he is currently visiting, first time I've seen him he was fast asleep in a cat bed at the the Pets at Home store, he sometimes queues up at the Green Seafood shack on the pier. Tourists and locals absolutely adore him.

I love all these cat stories, what conniving little bundles of fur they are😂

Our local Morrisons had a famous cat who used to sleep in the trolleys and hang around like she owned the place. Sadly she got run over en route to her home close by, but there's now a lovely mural of her opposite the entrance to the shop. RIP Grace.

One of my kids' favourite books when they were young was 'Twm Chwe Chinio', which is a Welsh translation of 'Six Dinner Sid' by Inga Moore.

I googled Twm Chwe Chinio, Cher - of course I did, something new and exciting to find out about! and one bookshop had it listed under 'English Literacy' -
good luck with applying English literacy to Twm Chwe Chinio!!🙄

It reminded me of how different Irish and Welsh are, sometimes I can spot a bit of a similarity, especially if you can interchange the 'p' sound for the 'k' sound, but usually there's nothing..
I suppose if you say 'Tom Six Dinners' in Irish, it would sound like Tom Shay Djinayr, which isn't a million miles off, but that's tenuous..

Needless to say I'm sitting in Pedantry Corner while thinking this through

Tom Shey Jinnair would be exactly correct in Manx. I always find with Manx that the anglicised spelling puts me off, but if you say it out loud it makes sense.

That's really interesting, Sionnach - I found I could work out the meaning of a lot of the placenames when I was on the Isle of Man by saying them out loud

I waded my way through Chaucer by reading it in my head in broad Suffolk.

That mayed a hull lot more sense arter I done that.

I dun much asame n Dorze'

Not just me then, comprehending Chaucer through the medium of a local accent.

You be Dorze', Jane?

I read a book about William Barnes - who wrote the poem/song Linden Lea - a fascinating man, and I loved the way he could be absolutely proud of being a Dorset man, and at the same time absolutely proud of being just one man amongst a world of equals, all of them equally proud of where they are from

Such a lovely combination, if only more people managed to be proud of their identity without putting down other people's...

We learnt that song in primary school - the words are gradually reassembling themselves from the recesses of my brain and I’ve got a most pleasant earworm

Tomorrow won’t be ‘cloudless sunshine overhead’ though, hope those of you near the path of the incoming storm have your hatches appropriately battened down.

Chaucer wrote in the vernacular of his time. It is the root of all accents but not dialects spoken from the Wash to Shropshire and then down to the Plym estuary. Read it out loud and with your local buz and it feels fresh on the tongue.

Funny thing accents. I spoke the same English as everyone else until I went to a state selective girls high school. My accent was recalibrated by the school and I thought that I spoke RP. That was an illusion that collapsed on my first day at Uni.

Now I'm just proud to come from Dorsetshire.

It is a beautiful song, I've always loved it, even before I knew about the Dorset dialect angle.
This is a nice simple version of it -

G'night all, stay safe from the storm!

G'night Swash - it was great to have you here for so long the other night, and lovely that you joined in the fun and games.
Remember that you can pop in and be however you feel like being, even if it's just sitting quietly while Bluestockingness goes on around you, we're here for you however you are feeling at the time 💙

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Ooh I used to sing "Linden Lea" and always loved the words.."I be free to go abroad, or take again the homeward road".
I'll be ear worming that today too. Thank you.