The Bluestocking does a late night flit again

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread, you know the drill!

@BannedontherunThat’s a bargain!!

We’ve had a hosepipe ban for a while here. I’ve just had to water all my pots with a watering can. I would fall into despair at the prospect of filling that up with a watering can, bargain though it is.

So glad you had a nice afternoon Swashy.

Glad to hear you had a nice lunch, Swash.
Hope you get the hang of floating on other people's good will, there's lots of it about for you, a whole Banned's swimming-pool-full and more

Seeing your pool, Banned, reminds me of the line from the rapper Nelly's song 'Nelllyville'
Think that's cool? 40 acres and a mule?
Fuck that! In Nellyville it's 40 acres and a pool.

I used to really like him, but the usual thing happened - accusations of mistreating women, in fairness he was never convicted, but it takes the shine off - pity cos he writes clever stuff.

It's going to reach the dizzying heights of .. oooh, maybe the low to mid 20s here, so nothing like your 29/30s, Banned. Stay cool over there!* *😎

@Swashbuckled we have not got a ban as Severn Trent so lots of reservoirs and welsh water, so to speak.

i n a drought many moons ago i would save bath water and washing up water, to solve the problem. Now i have a big row of water butts.

@MarieDeGournay I love your ability to site prose and poetry from all over the place.

I have come to think that one has to separate the art from the artist, where what they say, do, or create is profound to me.

I assume you know about Paul Simon, from Simon and Garfunkel i love his words and how he uses a word like a pocket.

one of my favourite lines from Paul is,

“loosing love is like a window in to your heart
everyone knows you are blown apart”

And then there is the piss take of Bob Dylan, in the song a desultory Phillipic.

and there is the dangling conversation

its a still life water colour

on an hour late afternoon

And the sun shines through the curtain lace

as shadows wash the room…..

It was a evenly matched tussle, but in the end I managed to distract him with raw mince!

I've now hidden it all as he insists on sticking his head in everything!

In my very small LP collection when I was in the 6th form there were several Simon and Garfunkel LPs - eventually I found I was singing the not-tune (harmony?) line as I listened to them so much. We had been never taught music theory at school and learned each voice part in isolation without thinking how they fitted in with each other.

Old Friends was an earworm for me recently:
Can you imagine us, years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy...

Myrtle, I hope the BBQ feels more worth it after a few strong coffees! Was that the DB who had the heart-to-heart with your nephew? I hope he is feeling supported and stronger.

The BBQ was at my DB’s who lives about 40 minutes away. The other DB who had a heart to heart lives about 160 miles away. My nephew is feeling better, but he’s struggling because his dad died.

The BBQ was lovely, seeing my brothers and my two SILs, but my mother lashed out at me verbally, suddenly without any provocation. My DH was really shocked and we had a long talk about how and why she does this to me but not my brothers. He thought I responded really well. He said it explained a lot of things that I’ve told him about her because he had never seen it before. And he was so lovely about me saying why I’d tried to go NC in my 20s. Apparently it all makes sense now.

My SIL was also really shocked, saying she had shut me down in front of everyone. I’m still processing it. I’m glad I’m going to be immobile because it means I won’t see her for a couple of months. She’ll be 80 at Christmas so I’m going to leave it for my two brothers to arrange a celebration.

I love a bit of Paul Simon. There's a generation of singer songwriters who were really poets at heart, and I miss them as they leave us.

Warren Zevon still speaks to me a lot, in different contexts.

If California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing
Until I pay my bill.

Crafts day. I'd better get myself out of bed because I spilled a glass of red wine last evening, all over my bedside table cloth and over the blanket cats like to sit on. A much duller event than anyone could imagine, and resulted in my drinking hardly any wine, since pouring a second glass seemed an indulgence.

BUT I'd like to get stuff washed and out on the line before I head over to next village to meet my pals.

Gosh, you all sound busy! I'm getting as much sloth emulation in as possible before I go back to work on Wednesday. New job technically starts on the following Wednesday but practically it will be from when I go back. Our temperatures are much the same as Banned's, but with a hosepipe ban too, so I'm not especially looking forward to trying to work in my new and airless office. I might have to see if I can run a power cable through the window and sit outside!
Senior offspring and I are visiting my mother today but other than that and some more laundry, not much happening.
💙to Swashy and Myrtle, thinking of you both.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience at the BBQ, Myrtle, It's very sad that you it happened and I'm glad there were other people around to see it and support you, for a change.

Thank you for the quotes from songs, Banned and Sionnach, I loved them!

You're right, Banned, I appreciate artful and clever use of words wherever I find them, different levels from pop songs up to yer actual literature

I've had a really really spooky experience this morning- in fact I'm still having it as the ad is still over there <<< beside this post.

Last night I had a weird dream that I was invited to Liverpool to give a lecture but when I got there, they actually expected me to say Mass! I was trying to get around it by using one of the congregation's Mass leaflets as a cheat-sheet but they cheerfully told me they didn't have them at this church. I was considering suddenly losing my voice or something drastic like that but fortunately the dream shifted to an actual lecture which I also hadn't prepared, but I've always been able to muster up a 45 minute lecture at short notice anyway, so it ended OK.

This morning, when I opened MN, there was an ad for....PRIESTS' VESTMENTS! A website called 'chasuble.com' .

It suggests that the algorithm that targets ads to users has access to my dreams!😱😱😱

A very very large brandy please, bar-gerbils. Definitely NO communion wine, thank you!

😲 I knew it was only a matter of time but I thought we had a few years yet. They'll be advertising directly in your dreams next. Mark my words.

I had a parcel delivered to me on Saturday. It should have gone to a different house. Normally when this happens I'll pop it through the correct door. This time though the address was over 100 miles away! Somewhere in the NE. I don't understand how it happened. It wasn't my house no., the first bit of the road name (if you squinted) was similar. The rest completely different. It had a different postcode that even if you accepted that capital Rs and Ks could be mixed up was totally wrong for my house!

I didn't want to just stick in the postbox as the stamp had been franked and I could see the actual recipient being asked to pay the postage again. So, I got my red pen out.

The address was handwritten, very neatly, I wonder if a machine cocked it up because of that.

I'm sorry what happened to you @MyrtleLion. If it's any consolation at least anyone who perhaps thought, in the parlance of MN, that you were BU know can see YANBU.

I'm glad things went well for you Swash.

I knew it was only a matter of time but I thought we had a few years yet. They'll be advertising directly in your dreams next. Mark my words.

Wasn't there a Black Mirror episode a bit like that?

Spooky things are happening with online advertising. I'm sure I noticed this first with the YouTube algorithm. I swear that I once thought about the 1986 Sylvester Stallone movie Cobra, didn't google it or anything, and for months afterwards YouTube thought I was the world's biggest Stallone fan.

I didn't mind that much, because whatever you think about Stallone as an actor, he's a very amusing talk show guest, but it was still unsettling.

So sorry to hear about what happened at the BBQ, @MyrtleLion. As you say, there's one silver lining to being immobile. I hope that the healing goes well and quickly.

@Swashbuckled I'm glad the get-together was good. I'd be delighted to open the fridge and find a bottle of prosecco in it!

Why don't I get adverts for vestments? I'd actually find that useful!

Until unseeie juice is really a thing I try to avoid watching stuff like Black Mirror. I've always, perhaps unfairly, thought the bloke who devised it was a bit of a misanthrope. I didn't want to see his take on the way the human race might develop. I suspected it wouldn't be uplifting and heartwarming.

'Chausable.com' would be such a Father Ted thing. Did FT have a PriestsNet? Which has got me thinking that Graham Linehan, unlike Charlie Brooker, isn't a misanthrope. There was always a sort of affection in his shows. Although I've not watched Motherland(?) yet, so i should say of the ones i've seen.

Here you go Fuzz, they even have a sale on at the mo: Chasuble - Chasubles - Liturgical Vestments - Church supplies store.

More spookiness of ads: the day before yesterday I put new batteries in a couple of watches; I already had the batteries from ages ago, so I hadn't bought them online recently.

Today I got an ad for watch batteries😧

I've currently got the Ordance Survey telling me to 'touch grass'!🙁

I've got " co-pilot". Doesn't it know i have minuscule interest in tech?

Marie that website is so interesting - who knew you could buy a mitre???- but too RC for my needs!

Currently 30% off! Those canopies are gorgeous 😍 Much nicer than the green ones you get from B&Q or Go Outdoors.

I quite fancy the processional umbrella for my garden table....

I love Paul Simon for the poetry of the lyrics as well as the music. Ditto Joni Mitchell (though not so keen on the later jazz stuff). James Taylor also has good lyrics and so does Carol King. I’m giving my age away aren’t I?

I have no idea who you are talking about 😁