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].

Currently slobbing on the sofa with the Walrus, trying not to fall asleep...

Home now with the biggest carrier bag of drugs I've ever seen.

At last!! So glad to hear you are home, Myrtle.
Enjoy the Slob of All Slobs, you've earned it!

Is Myrtle still not free?!?!?!!!?!?!?!

I've enjoyed catching up on the hymn discussion and have also picked up a Plough The Fields earworm. I think somewhere I have a sax quartet arrangement of it called 'We Plough The Fields and Scat' that I created a few years ago for some harvest festival event. Wasn't particularly good, other than fitting the theme effectively.

I'm struggling with knitting chaos here. In the last week I've started three new projects so there is something to suit a variety of different moods, which is all very well but my desk is being taken over with yarn. I'm enjoying doing the 'Three Forths' hat for my brother in law (features all three of the Forth Bridges - I'm half way up the railway bridge at the moment, clearly easier to knit than paint) and am doing some fair isle slippers for my sister although those are proving a bit tricky.

I took so long to type that, she escaped! Hurrah for Myrtle's freedom.

I've been steadfastly ignoring the presidential election, in theory because I don't have a vote but mostly because I have a vague suspicion at the back of my head that I might be related to Heather Humphreys.

Possibly this is me being paranoid, because she's from Drum and my ancestors were from Glaslough and these fine distinctions matter, but the gene pool in Monaghan is not very deep and I have aunts who look exactly like her. It's most disturbing.

Hurrah!

Glad you're home @MyrtleLion

Bet the hospital doesn't feel the same without you.

Surely when you've finished knitting the Forth Bridge you should traditionally unravel it and start knitting it all over again.

I've been thinking about my favourite hymn, I don't know a massive number of them, but I think it's Hills of the North Rejoice. Although rhyming 'nigh' and 'victory' always annoyed me.

I've just googled it! What...what's happened to the words? It's like a completely different hymn!

Yay! You're home.
Enjoy a restful night in your own house.

Sorry about the various earworms...

My current project is a baby blanket. Nice and simple for in front of the telly.

However, I have a sock to put right. I buggered up the toe. It has been sitting in my work basket glaring at me since the spring.

Love 'We Plough the Fields and Scat', Alex😂
I was still smiling at that when Cake came up with the unravelling the Forth Bridges comment, and that made me smile even more😂😂
V witty.
I didn't know there were three Forth bridges... so I am being educated as well as amused😀
What an unusual motif to be knitting, Alex, lucky BiL!

I didn't know there were three Forth bridges...

A friend who lived in Queensferry used to call them the Three Forth bridges to Fife...

This is the tune I remember to Hills of the North Rejoice - always a hymn I loved to sing in school assemblies.

1

That’s the tune, and the words I knew - but there’s a new ‘improved’ version, it seems. This hymn came to my mind after mention of ‘The day thou gavest’, I briefly wondered if someone would have decided it came not from north nor south but from the past, which is of course another country…

https://hymnsocietygbi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/1205-Moorsom-Hills-of-the-North-ready.pdf

Yes. That's the version I remember and a cracking rendition too.

Signing off early, lots to do tomorrow, so g'night fellow-Stockingers, and may the Dream Gerbils bring you the kind of dreams you dream of..
Myrtle's probably being a good night's sleep in her own bed, so put that at the top of your list, Gerbils🌛

Goodnight @MarieDeGournay - sleep well!

Goodnight all.
well, and good evening @Britinme
and good whatever time of day to anyone who may be quietly lurking in rooms of the Bluestocking which extend into other time zones.

As it happens, Cake, the rail bridge is a rather tricky motif and I have had to unpick rows several times. So am def following the spirit of your suggestion! Hoping the two road bridges will be simpler.

Sorry for anyone going to work today but can I just say I'M ON HALF TERM BREAK already?

Half term is a bit of a closed book to ne these days, apart from not having to do school runs for DGS, and avoiding town as it's full of kids!
Happy half term to all those getting a rest.

Yes, we’re at the stage of only being interested in school hols for when to not book holidays etc.

I'm picturing Marie's lots to do. Travelling to the polling station, queuing to get in, hoping her Id is accepted, checking the paper is perforated correctly, then consulting her list of candidates' good and bad points and carefully putting the number in each box, all the way down to the end . . . . .

I'll be doing the same, so even if the turnout is as low as predicted, there'll be two votes to count.

I've been on half term all week! But still working... Got the day off today though, and I'm going to London to see a friend.

I dream of being able to do things when everyone else is at school! But I'm very thankful for the holidays I get. I'm also not school based so I can do a bit of manipulation of my days so in July we are going on holiday before the school year ends!

I have just been asked to have two of the DGC for a few hours this week, so their mature student parents can both write essays in peace!

I've got a long weekend, so I might crack on with some of the genealogy work that I've been neglecting.

I'm continuing to collect details of family members who made an impact on history but have been mostly forgotten. In the case of Catherine Drew, if she's remembered at all it's as a pioneering woman journalist, but I've been fascinated to discover that she wrote novels - they seem to have been decades out of print and almost impossible to find.

Drew, Catherine | Dictionary of Irish Biography