The Bluestocking does a late night flit again

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread, you know the drill!

I've not given much though to monotremes, but this is an amazing story Penelope (platypus) - Wikipedia

I don't know what they expected giving her the name Penelope and thinking she'd mate with any old platypus. I'm impressed and a little baffled at the changes they made to the habitat. How did they work out what changes were needed? Although I'm thrilled that the word 'platypusary' exists. I wonder what it's abbreviated to in Oz?

I had planned outside jobs at the other galleon today, but it’s raining. I’m just sitting in my own place drinking coffee, wondering what to do with my day.

I have to rebuild the top row of a garden wall at the other place. I chipped all the cement off the bricks yesterday and they’re clean now. But there is over an inch of mortar which is the “bed” I want to put them on to. This just isn’t budging. Part of me wants to build them on top of it but I know it’s be a bodge job. If any Blue Stockingers have Brickie knowledge, please share it. I’ve tried googling but it’s hard to get this specific bit of information.

This is so amazing that I wonder... not, it has to be real, there are so many links and references... but you couldn't make it up.

I love this bit
Cecil and Penelope were temperamental and seemingly worked to change their new environment to their likings. Cecil "quietly went about dying" until his tank color was changed, Penelope refused food until her tank's awning was replaced, and Cecil's heart pumped dangerously until a zookeeper's uniform was changed from white to a dull green.

You just know that these days they'd have a TV programme called 'Real Platypuses of The Bronx' and them and their 'crib' would be all over TikTok and Insta 😂

So Penelope ran away and was never found... well that's what they think, but we think differently - there's a small nondescript mound at the back of the Bluestocking and for some reasons bunches of flowers appear on it every 26th July... and when Puggling arrived here, we noticed that she went straight there, and spent a long time just lying quietly beside the mound...

You just know that these days they'd have a TV programme called 'Real Platypuses of The Bronx' and them and their 'crib' would be all over TikTok and Insta 😂
Hopefully the "all night orgies of love" would be tastefully handled 🫣

Hello there Swash💙
It's raining where you are?? I don't want to compromise your anonymity or anything but I thought ye were all scorchio scorchio over there - where do you live? In the Amazon Rain Forest??

I'm afraid I know nothing about bricks and mortar beds, and could only admonish the bricks with a firm and unsympathetic 'You've made your mortar bed, now lie in it'

Returning to monotremes, and why I couldn't guess its meaning from my small stock of Latin and Greek roots.. '-treme' didn't ring any bells.

So I googled the etymology and I rather wish I hadn't, TMI about the rear end of Puggling & Co😟

monotreme(n.)
"animal of the lowest order of mammals," native to Australia and New Zealand, which have one opening for the genital, urinary, and digestive organs, 1833, from Monotremata, the order name, Modern Latin, neuter plural of monotrematus, from Greek monos "single, alone" (see mono-) + stem of trēma "perforation, hole, opening; eye of a needle, dot on dice," related to tetrainein "to bore through, perforate" (from PIE root *tere- (1) "to rub, turn"). Related: Monotrematous

I also think 'animal of the lowest order of mammals' would make a great insult in a play
'Have at you sir! you are an animal of the lowest order of mammals and you shall feel the sting of my blade!' ! En garde! 😁

Yes, I do @MarieDeGournay
Sending selfie.

Re. platypuses...

Ah, a cloaca.

Also, monotremes use electrolocation to detect prey, and male platypuses have penile spines and spurs on their hind feet that deliver an extremely painful venom.

They really are a bit niche.

Before DNA became a thing it was all about the teeth. Scientists used them to decide how closely related species were and draw up the evolutionary family trees. Monotremes pissed them off because they've lost their teeth. Although there may have remnants as embryos...?

I vaguely remember that 'platypus' comes from flatfooted? Assuming I'm remembering correctly*, a scientist when faced with this thing, having the responsibility to describe and name it for Western knowledge, decided that its most striking feature was its feet! As an additional kicker, it turned out the name had already been given to a flatfooted beetle so they had to change it, to Ornithorhynchus anatinus although obviously platypus stuck as a common name. At least that has references to bird, nose and duck.

*reading Stephen Jay Gould decades ago

If its cement mortar and hand tools aren't getting it off you could try a pneumatic hammer drill with a chisel bit fitted. Otherwise you just have to keep chipping away at it!

Ha i knew boiled the builder would come to the rescue with advice.

Takes a bow

Would some sort of grinder work? Not the app., although men have all sorts of kinks. 🤔Might involve dressing up.

Or you could try drilling into the mortar bed with a normal drill and a big drill bit to try and break it up/ help loosen it.

😂😂😂

Telling the kids, in all honesty, you've got them a pet Platypus and presenting them with this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_cylindrus

Although <glances anxiously at Boiled> they're lovely

Well I know a lot more about platypuses (platypi?) than I did.

And walls.

And my garden is very envious of Swashy's rain. It's a bit Gobi desert here. Not what a puffin likes, at all.

Bessie reckons Penelope the Platypus, and Puggling too, must be related to that master of espionage Perry The Platypus, star of the Phineas and Ferb cartoon series (if you don't know it, you are missing out). When they met up for a drink a few weeks ago, Penny had swiped the stethoscope within minutes.

Alexandra, you might find you have an urgent need for this in your kitchen. I have one. He's called Sperry.
https://cookinglife.eu/products/ototo-spatula-splatypus

we had a short quite sharp shower this morning while we were walking in the park but fortunately there was a bench under a large tree.
also saw a Great White egret flying up the river - very near the centre of the town - plus a Little egret further down it, a couple of herons and a cormorant so waterlogged that it really only had its neck showing. It hauled out onto a rock to dry off, to my relief. It’s a curious feature for such an aquatic bird that their feathers aren’t waterproofed; the waterlogging keeps their buoyancy low which helps them dive and swim under water. That’s why they periodically have to dry out, wings heraldically spread, whereas other water birds are likely to be seen oiling their feathers.

Thank you. Very much. Sperry and Sperrina are now winging (or waddling) their way to my house.

I love that it's called a "splatypus".

May have to get one for DH's birthday. We have a difference of opinion on what's a "fish slice" and what's a "spatula".

Waah..out of stock 😞

This page, with its range of topics from the peculiarities of platypuses to platupus-shaped kitchen utensils to building advice from Boily to selfies from the Amazon rainforest, is what makes the Bluestocking the Bluestocking

Swash, I'd advise you not to go out in the rainforest in that outfit, the torrential rain will fill the upturned brim of the hat and will overflow down the front of your very fetching dress

edited to remove random asterisks - but that reminds me - big meteor shower tonight, and the sky should be very clear✨

Oh dear, I'm afraid I chortled in a very uncouth way at the thought of Swashy bobbing her head in greeting and deluging her cleavage.