The Bluestocking, where the short days shorten and the oaks are brown

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome all, regulars and newcomers, to the Bluestocking Women's Pub, a place of refuge and inspiration and camaraderie and silliness, where all alcoholic drinks are non-intoxicating, cakes contain no gluten, sugar or calories, but still taste yummy, and the attentive staff are small but very professional rodents wearing snazzy little outfits.

Other roles - such as acting as foot stools, looking decorative in the garden, or just being impossibly cute when you need something impossibly cute to go awwww at - are filled by a team of miniature pigs, quokkas, wombats, etc etc.

If real life is difficult, you can bring your troubles to the Bluestocking and a comfy chair will be found for you at a roaring fire, a miniature pig will settle down happily to support your tired feet, and a gerbil will serve you promptly with a comforting drink - very large G&Ts or massive mugs of hot chocolate with extra cream and marshmallows are popular choices [don't forget: no calories in the Bluestocking].

I’d be wary of foraged mushrooms, too, Swashy.

Yes, I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Marie.

otoh, my grandmother used to sauté the nettle tips in a little butter, then add them to a bechamel sauce and serve them with ham and potatoes.

Sounds like an interesting variant on parsley sauce.

Tesco - 6am on 4 Nov for Delivery Saver customers, 11 Nov for everyone else. Don't be the one who gets up for 6am on the 4th, queues online for an hour & then can't order anything & asks why (there's one on MN every year).

Thanks for this. As there will only be the two of us this year, I probably won't bother, but last year when we were 9 for Christmas week (both offspring plus spouses and 3 adult grandsons) I was up at 5.30 on the first day, ready to put my pandemic-honed delivery slot booking skills into practice once again. 😊

hello everyone, have been consumed in end of season gardening work, problems in family, grand hoglette, glue ear, up and down motorway to babysit, doing my business accounts, doing accounts for my boat share co-op.

so a bit busy.

Sorry for your loss Marie.

Swashy, foraging is an amazing skill to master i keep meaning to make it my hobby when i have time

I have a book on fungi which helps identify good and bad.

It is, and she was a good and inventive cook who, of necessity, used local seasonal ingredients, but also she did have a belief in the importance of eating nettles at least three times in the Spring 'to clean the blood'. He own mother had a reputation for having 'a cure' which can mean an ability to charm warts or headaches, but can also mean having a traditional recipe for a tonic, and the nettles lore might have come from her. Honey and cider vinegar for a cough was another thing I got from that family.

I'm sure Spring nettles have a lot of micronutrients.

OMG my irish nan said all of this

They knew

@MyrtleLion , I hope it all goes well tomorrow.

@DeanElderberry I read about the blood-cleansing power of nettles some years ago, so it must be a well-established folk remedy, as is honey and cider vinegar. Honey of course is an amazing substance with known antibacterial properties for cleansing and healing wounds.

I definitely want to start foraging for nettles then! When is the best time of year for this @DeanElderberry

@MyrtleLion Wishing you all the very best for tomorrow. x 🙏

Adding my best too @MyrtleLion

Best wishes to @MyrtleLion fir a successful outcome.

@Swashbuckled i don’t think crab apples make great jam - too small and fiddly to peel and core. They do make great jelly, but you have to figure out straining them through cheesecloth or muslin after stewing (without sugar). When I’ve done it, I have to turn a chair or a stool upside down on the counter to hand the cheesecloth bag off the legs and have a bowl under it to catch all the drips. I usually leave it to drip overnight and make the jelly in the morning.

I just stew them, Brit. Quarter them away from the core, so just four cuts each crabapple. Keep the skins on, add water and stew. No sugar. Not a refined approach, perhaps, but I like the tartness. They’re more chewy than stewed apples; taste deeper if that doesn’t sound too crazy. Then I add stuff to them.

Love to Myrtle, & all good wishes for tomorrow. 💙

And in 20 years time, when my tiny crab apple trees might actually be fruiting, I shall try Swashy's recipe.

I'm not sure myself as I haven’t been home since the 6 October.

Our house is a terrace and the house to our left is also terraced. These are our NDNs in this situation.

Our NDN called round yesterday and asked the Walrus if he could hear knocking. He couldn't and went to bleed the radiators and his DD who lives on the top floor said she could hear knocking. He told our NDN what he'd done, and she told him their neighbours on the other side could also hear knocking.

Our NDN then did some investigating and said she thought they were pile driving in a building behind our row. (I can see this might require an MN diagram).

The noise is not apparent outside the houses but can be heard inside. So I'm wondering if the noise is travelling underground to our houses and up through the walls.

I had a PICC line put in today which meant the cannula in my hand was removed.

So I started knitting again and here is the first of two boot cuffs. (actually I knitted another one earlier but it was too big).

Love the choice of colours.

Hurray for the PICC line, Myrtle, and what good colour knitting.

So, the knocking sound was similar to the sound plumbing can make? How odd.

Sorry for your loss, Marie. Hard to see the fabric of our youth and adulthood crumbling away.

Good luck with the op today, Myrtle. LOVE the boot tops - lovely colours and nice tension.

A diagram!

The building with the pile driving is called Building.
I'm at M, NDN is N, their other neighbour is O. To our left is from the front door with the houses behind us.

Garages are behind the houses marked G.

There is a single lane road between the building and the garages.

No-one can see or hear a pile driver but it's the current theory for our three houses to all hear the knocking. We haven't asked our other neighbour if it's audible.

The Bluestocking really is amazing. Cute rodents, a giant wombat, non-inebriating booze, and now a diagram!

Nothing to add, other than that you clearly have a very tidy mind, Myrtle, to have carefully labelled you and your neighbours as MNO in alphabetical order. I'm very impressed 💙

I noticed that and was quietly pleased with myself.

Surgery is now later at 1pm. Small boy with an open fracture gets to go first. I'm not arguing.

If the wound can't be closed then I will have to have plastic surgery next week and stay in at least five days after that, missing the play at the RSC on the 25th. I suspect that will be the case. 😭😩😢

I hope the op goes well Myrtle💜

Fingers crossed the op goes ahead, @MyrtleLion. I used to be an operating theatre nurse, and we did always do our best to try to fit everyone in, even when an urgent case was bumped to the head of the queue. It isn’t always possible, but we do try.

Good luck Myrtle!
Hope the op goes well and is another step along the way to recovery.
The gerbils have reprised an earlier routine from a previous thread to send you lots of good wishes and encouragement