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].

💕 @MyrtleLion

So sorry to hear your news and of the loss of such a lovely lady to the world. 💐

I mentioned upthread a favourite hymn I sang to my mother:

Hail, Queen of heaven, the ocean Star:
Guide of the wanderer here below,
Tossed on life's surge we claim thy care;
Save us from peril and from woe.
Mother of Christ, Star of the Sea,
Pray for the wanderer, pray for me.

[which is where Kate O'Brien got the title for her novel,. Pray for the Wanderer]

I googled it to find out more about its origins, and realised there is a 3rd verse which we never sang, and it ends with the lovely and appropriate words

Pity our sorrows, calm our fears,
And soothe with hope our misery.
Refuge in grief, Star of the sea,
Pray for the mourner, pray for me.

I hope Myrtle's paw is being 'done' successfully.

Is anyone in touch with Boiled Beetle? I miss her.

Yes I've felt Boily's absence too, Deano.
She has been absent from the Bluestocking like this before, and it wasn't due to anything bad, so I've been assuming that she's just cruising in the Caribbean or something - as in this post from a previous hols - and will be back soon.

I hope that's the case anyway

They're still doing the hip replacement from this morning. I was due to go down at 3pm but I'm still here. I am 4 on the list. A hip was 2 and I'm hoping another hip was 3 and that's what they're doing now.

It's the second time I will have been bumped. No food or water all day and the Walrus won't be visiting. It's very frustrating. If I am bumped it will be Monday before I have the operation. Ten days after the first op and a week after I was supposed to be debrided at 3 days post op.

I appreciate urgency and it's a major trauma centre, but when do I get to be the priority? No thought to me needing my life back and getting mobile again. And I'm a bed blocker, leading to waiting list delays.

Oh Myrtle. I will have a firm word with that angel.

Oh that is so miserable for you. You have been so stoic and good natured about it all, but you're right: it must surely be your turn to be the priority. I'm hoping they've come and whisked you away in the last half hour and you're currently unconscious and being suitably sliced and stitched. x

That's awful, Myrtle, the very least you should be able to expect is to have the procedure at the time you've readied yourself for😠💐

A lot of Bluestockingers are going through difficult things at the moment, so I think we should recruit one of these because they must be such good listeners

Marie those, Whatever-they-are, are gorgeous. We definitely need them in the Bluey.

I hope Myrtle gets her op today I feel quite frustrated for her. Major trauma centres are supposed to provide capacity as well expertise for urgent trauma cases.
Love the new marsupial Marie - what is it?

Cutie pie seems to be a Great Glider. It only eats eucalyptus leaves. I think we need a communication portal so that very lovely down-under denizens Like Glider and Puggles with special requirements can talk to us and the Quokkas but don't suffer health consequences. Did we ever find out what caused Giant Wombat to be a spectral emanation?

Thanks Deano, for IDing it as a Great Glider Possum - and it was discovered a few years ago, contrary to the text on the photo.
It looks like the Quokkas have got the antipodean dietary requirement thing under control, they have a little menu written on a piece of eucalyptus leaf

Pops head around door - Helen Lewis is on HIGNFY tonight

Thanks, misscockerspaniel, and may I say that if you'd like to stay for a while, with a name like that you'd fit right in here

I'm hoping that the next thing we hear from Myrtle is that they have at last done the op, and that she's resting as comfortably as possible💐

I enjoyed HIGNIFY this evening!

Oh Myrtle how very upsetting and depressing for you. I hope by the time I read. your post they actually got you into the operating theatre.

Just popping in quickly for a double gin to celebrate establishing a source of free horseshit for the garden. Some horses have been moved from their summer quarters to a paddock near me, so I had a horsey chat with their owner over the fence. I enquired about muck and she was very much, bring a barrow/ trailer/ entire lorry. RESULT!

And while I'm here, massive consolations to Myrtle and I hope the op a) has happened and b) is a 100% success.

Also, @MarieDeGournay , that hymn was sung at the funeral of a very dear Catholic friend of my DM's (it was the first time I'd come across it, being an Anglican). She outlasted DM by several decades, and when she came to visit she would properly mother the adult me in a way that no one else did any longer. I'd trot off on the school run, and come back and find she'd not only done the ironing, but had nipped out to the shops and got me a new hot water bottle complete with cover, since mine had sprung a leak.

The operation was cancelled at 5pm. The hip replacement who was second on the list overran by several hours.

I was very distressed.

They moved me to a new bay without a shouty lady and with some interesting and interested women which has been lovely. One has a china tea cup so I may consider asking the walrus to bring in my pot and cup, though really I just want my cardamom tea.

Anyway at around 10pm they came to tell me I'm nil by mouth again because I'm listed for 2pm on Saturday. This is a relief, though obviously it's not guaranteed.

Aargh! Have you actually eaten anything today? I hope they took good care of you between 5 & 10pm. And let's hope it really does happen tomorrow.

Good news about the new location.

All the best for tomorrow. 💙

Oh, Myrtle, I am so very sorry to read about your travails.

Let's hope that being in a new bay signals the start of things all now going well.

In particular I hope to read a post from you later on Saturday, with your procedure having taken place at 2pm. 🍀

@MarieDeGournay hymn makes me think of a primary school close to where I was growing up, which was called Our Lady Star of the Sea.

Googling to see if I remembered correctly I see that there are several churches with that name in England, all near the coast.

Good to see you @EdithStourton and hope all is well.

My garden could do with some horse- based- soil- improver, but I'd have to get it from Dartmoor. It's a thought, though.

@MyrtleLion I'll keep trying to do the hope thing rather than the getting furious on your behalf bit. I'm glad that at least you are with pleasant people.

Re: Star of the Sea, I've had to consult a map to disentangle a puzzling memory. My father's younger brother died in his early 60s, very suddenly, a heart attack in the middle of a busy morning. I was working in Dublin, and my parents came to stay with me for the funeral (that side of the family are Dubs). We were all in a state of baffled grief (it was only two days after the death) and after dinner I suggested we go and look at the sea, so we drove over to Dollymount, and walked out the harbour wall. There's a Star of the Sea statue at the end, and my father sang the hymn as we watched the sun set over the water.

It's that last detail that puzzled me in retrospect, since we were on the east cost, but the Bull Wall runs NW-SE, so there's a stretch of water between the statue and the city.

A still, beautiful evening and a memorable moment.

link with explanatory map and picture of statue

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Wall