The Bluestocking - the one where the nights start to draw in

[Boiledbeetle]

Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5401672-the-autumn-bluestocking-mist-mellow-fruitfulness-and-hot-chocolate

Settles down in the comfy chair by the fire.

Swash has indeed gone chasing a fish stealing puffin

(Although when she swapped her eye patch for sunglasses is anyone's guess)

I was the year below you so 1988, and the first year to sit GCSE instead of O levels and CSEs.

I also have no idea what the current year names mean in age!

OW!!!

Found you! Surrounded by marmitey goodness. 🖤🖤🖤💛♥️💛🖤🖤🖤

Since it is Sunday morning, I will share my dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast: toast buttered with marmite, some sliced or grated cheddar and a poached egg on top. Personally, I think it works well as a lunch or tea meal, but he is definite that it is the best breakfast.

I'm guessing Swashy switched to sunglasses at the same time she acquired a third hand.

I'm a couple of years younger, in the short window before A* grades became a thing. But I have kids so I do understand the current numbering system. If I remember rightly, I think it arrived just before I left school - I think I left Lower Sixth in the summer and came back to Year 13 half way through my A levels.

I did O levels in 1977, but biology was one of the 16+ trials so I got a CSE certificate for that as well as the O level one.

I suppose the continuously numbered years make more sense than starting again in secondary - I’ve no idea how areas with the middle school system numbered classes back then. Otoh not as bad as private schools - DH, for his sins, went to a cathedral school and used terms like ‘shell’ and ‘remove’ as though everyone knew what they meant rather than them being mysterious terms from old school stories.

I went to a blooming snobby posh school (scholarship bod, I wasn't, and am still not posh) and Year 7 was called "Upper Third".
Thereafter, Lower Fourth, Upper Fourth, Lower Fifth, Upper Fifth.
Nonsense. But followed on from the Prep department. I didn't go there, that was all fee paying.

Can you tell I didn't like it?

Me too Fuzzers, an alien environment in so many ways (did yours also have a ridiculous uniform?), made worse by the attitudes to the Irish in early 70s England. I feel lucky that I escaped after upper IV and moved on to third year, fifth year, and sixth year in Irish convents, a much more tolerant environment.

No there is never a fourth year in Irish secondary schools. There is often a Transition Year that happens in the fourth year.

Not a very nice morning here but I'm full of stewed apple and poached egg and toasted home-made bread, so I think I'll mix the batter for the drop scones and then go on a little pilgrimage. I'll pray from the Bluestockingers' intentions, as well as for the parlous world.

Always useful to have a third hand! Somehow I managed to totally miss that!

It's quite reassuring that AI still occasionally forgets how to count.

Great to see you mobile enough to be back in the Bluestocking, Myrtle, causing quite a stir - knocking Fuzzy off her perch, making Swash disappear - but we don't mind, it's lovely to see you a mobile and smiling lioness again
Then Swash reappeared with three hands [or maybe it was somebody behind her doing a 'waving not drowning' performance?] and Fuzz swooped down and stole the fish off her plate - and Android still didn't wake up!

I hadn't realised I was missed! I've been very active on the FWR Board, particularly live pasting tweets for Graham and Sandie, and on the deleted thread where a company called all its female staff together to say Dave is returning as Daphne and she feels uncomfortable in the men's. Would you ladies mind accommodating?

The issue remained unresolved after a frank exchange of views. I would have said: No, he's a man, Supreme Court, men's feelings don't trump women's rights, this meeting is also a breach of our rights, why aren't you telling the men to accommodate him and that bullying or harassment would be gross misconduct on the grounds of gender reassignment?

I was surprised that some posters suggested firing Dave/Daphne. That is the kind of discrimination that the Equality Act was designed to protect trans people from.

The Bluestocking had been quiet and I didn't think anyone would be very interested in me sitting on a sofa, knitting and watching TV. It is difficult being bored but occupied.

There's 'you', Myrtle, who has been around all the time, and there's 'you', Myrtle, a lioness in a jumper and jeans who frequents a women's pub and who was missed when housebound, and who has managed to return here on crutches this morning, to a rousing welcome. Except from Android - has she woken up yet? Need a jump-start or something, Android?😃

I sometimes wonder how I would have reacted if one of my male colleagues had turned up one morning claiming to be a woman, and requiring us all to play along with that... It makes me v v v happy to be retired, because I honestly don't know what I'd do, except that I'd feel deeply unhappy that Dave had ruined the atmosphere in my workplace.

so - after the Mass which was lovely (packed solid restored medieval church, preacher from Indonesia, blessing with relic of the cross) I went to the book and bead shop looking for a holy picture of St Carlo Acutis, an lo! a book about one of our own:
apols for doubling image!

Aw. I was going to mention this series, which was recommended in the paper last week. Haven't seen it. It's on iPlayer.

I thought you might want to see the essential kit I keep by my side while elevating my leg.

Crutches, wool, my current cable knitting (which I am doing without a cable needle and as such I am immensely proud of myself), remote controls (TV, fan, Apple TV, volume and Virgin), glasses case, headphones (so I can watch TV while the Walrus is asleep - our doors are open so I can walk to the ensuite easily), sock with textured sole (for emergency sock use to keep my foot warm and also so I don't slip) and latest copy of my industry magazine which I haven't got round to opening, let alone reading.

All on a cushioned tray which was designed for eating from, but has ended up being a way of keeping everything in one place.

I also have a side table covered with other things, but it's very messy.

That's some fancy cabling, & I've never heard of it being done without a cable needle.

Be careful, though: beings from another universe appear to be forming in your sick room. If you get any trouble from them & the Walrus is asleep, just give us a shout - there's still a transporter in my lab & we can be there in a jiffy.

Looks more organised than the arm of my sofa, Myrtle! I had lunch out with an ex-colleague today, nice to be able to talk shop without it turning into a collective whinge.

Thank you!

I first tried the cabling with a small plastic crochet hook, but it was too bendy. Then I tried just dropping stitches, sliding the next three onto the right needle, picking up the dropped stitches on the left needle, then moving the slid stitches back to the left and knitting from there, but the dropped stitches were difficult to pick up.

Now I

• slip the three stitches onto a different knitting needle (size 4 as that's all I have),
• slip the next three stitches onto the right needle
• return the slipped stitches on the size 4 needle onto the left needle
• return the right needle slipped stitches onto the left needle.
• knit all six stitches.

It's very tight so I restarted and loosened the tension. Is the tension tight using a cable needle?

The beings from another realm are concealing personal items like my wedding album. I wasn't too worried about them, but maybe they are stealing anything identifiable so I will lose all memory of who I am...

🤔

Our uniform was only stupid, it was elitist and very expensive. ( eg Harris tweed coat in petrol blue). Mine was mostly second hand.
At one point the PE staff wanted me to get running spikes as they thought I might be some good ( fools!) and I never even told my parents. ££££.

I am delighted to see the book and telly starring my media- savvy family. Some pufflings obviously don't hide in their burrows all day!

Speaking of school uniforms - I was googling something else and found this, from a Dublin girl's school - nice idea, and well executed

It's a long time since I cabled @MyrtleLion . I guess it must tighten the knitting overall, because of pulling stitches this way & that. Could you make a cable needle out of one of those famous wooden skewers?

It's my birthday soon and I've asked the Walrus for a knitting needle "system" which will have cable needles included. So it seems silly to get a single cable needle right now.

I will do other squares and I may try duplicate stitch where you sew a pattern over a knitted or stocking stitch square.

This is the finished square. It's clearly not perfect 😂 but it's good enough.