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].

Knowing Boily, she's probably doing all of those simultaneously! While eating Tunnocks.

Oh Swashy that sounds both scary and deeply unpleasant. I have no dog to walk, luckily, and my cats favourite activities are cuddling up next to me and DH on the couch when we watch TV, but I will sedulously avoid fields of cows if ever I come across one.

Here's a very small quokka giving you the biggest hug she can manage, Fuzzy

I'm very relieved you did NOT drown in slurry ... I wonder if it's the time of year for cows to be jumpy? Isn't it around now they're getting served by the bull?

I had a horrible encounter with cows once. Crossing a field with a diagonal footpath across it, I noticed the cows jumping about some distance away from me. As I got into the middle of the field, a muscular but short bull appeared and snorted through its nostrils and pounded the ground with its front hoof, like a caricature of a bull, only real, running towards me. The cows seemed to be egging it on.

I feared I would be trampled. I shouted and waved my arms at it but it didn't back away so I started screaming. I didn't have a dog in those days. I was near a farm and a small road. Nobody else in sight.

I was so close to the bull's face I actually hit it with my woolly hat. Again, it sounds funny and stupid, this screaming woman trying to fend off a bull with a knitted hat, but it wasn't funny. The bull stopped coming towards me. I backed away, furiously slicing the air with my hat, and made it to the hedge and the stile on the other side.

I couldn't walk past cows in fields for a long time after. I felt so frightened just seeing them standing there, remembering them jumping, and the bull running up to me. Stories of lone walkers trampled by herds of cows were fairly frequent back then.

A new word for me - "sedulously". Brilliant, thanks Brit

You’re welcome @inkymoose :-)

Good morning!

having woken early I’ve had a few happy minutes down memory lane on my outdoors perils thread - so long ago it was a previous name. It turned towards aquatic perils after we’d agreed cows are best avoided.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_great_outdoors/1434151-Outdoorsy-Shite-My-most-perilous-outdoorsy-moment?page=1

I was so distracted by Myrtle's news, Banned's splendid grandfather, and my analysis of local leaf colour (wild cherries, an American oak, and Virginia creeper blazing, everything else only just on the turn) that I never said how gorgeous I think these stripy knits are - they'd make a lovely lap blanket or throw.

Also distracted by Swashy's slurry nightmare - those sulphurous fumes are dangerous - people get knocked out and then drown. Not good to have it uncovered and unsignposted.

The slurry escapade sounds horrible and scary, @Swashbuckled. The worst that ever happened to me in the countryside was trying to have a wild wee, and accidentally weeing in my own wellies.

We are working our way through everything that needs doing before FIL goes into the home tomorrow - well, dh, his brother and his brother's wife are - I'm not much use with the computer/money stuff which is dh's job, and the others are down in Cornwall, doing the practical stuff. He has had more falls, and we suspect he is blacking out though, as I said before, he denies this vehemently, for fear of being sent to hospital. If he falls at the home, I'm not sure if they can insist he goes - he is pretty compos mentis when you are talking to him, so he does have capacity to make his own decisions (even daft ones).

Your post was a game of two halves, Woley - I laughed out loud [but in an empathetic, caring way, of course😏] at your wild welly wee mishap,
but then it got serious about FIL's falls - that is a worry, and I hope the home manages the situation well. They can't protect him 100% from falls, but they will know when and how they happen, and hopefully will do all they can to protect him.
At least if he does fall, there'll be people there to give an instant response.

How does this morning find you, Myrtle? Improving every day I hope

I narrowly avoided spitting tea over my laptop at the thought of weeing into wellies by mistake!! 😮. Sorry to hear about Swashy's mishap with the slurry, I too am quite wary of cows although fields round here are much more likely to have sheep in them.

Glad they’re sorting out your FiLs care quickly, Woley.

One difficult conversation DH wished he’d had with his DM at this stage was around whether she’d want to be admitted to hospital after ‘events’ or cared for within the abilities of the nursing home (it was a nursing home not ‘care’ or ‘residential’ home). She was diabetic and started to have mini strokes. Having not explicitly discussed her wishes while she was fully able to communicate, although DH thought she probably wouldn’t have opted to go into hospital at various points, he didn’t know for sure and so didn’t feel empowered to advocate for less intervention.

My last wild wee, I was really desperate, I thought had gone well. I avoided my feet, my clothes and there were no onlookers. Wound up getting my knickers full of marram grass when I pulled them up. That stuff is itchy!

All the best for FiL Woley. So much stuff to sort out in a life. I hope to get ahead of it for my kids. Although all I've done is told them what cliff to throw me off. Preferably after I'm a) dead and b) cremated.

Thank you, Dean (about the knitting). I was thinking of making a scarf or a baby blanket like this using 'real' yarn, when this is finished - but the edges are uncontrollable & having researched it, it seems everyone has the same idea & the same problem. One solution is to do a wide & narrow rib, but it won't look the same (might try it, though).

I haven't sewn up any knitting for decades, so it'll be interesting to see how much of a mess I make of that. I just keep telling myself, 'It's just a cat blanket, it doesn't matter,' which is quite freeing in terms of experimentation.

are cats inclined to take apart blankets if there are any stray ends? My dogs had no toleration for labels, zips etc on their bedding or cushions. This extended to my clothing if I was foolish enough to leave items such as fleeces or my walking trousers in reach - I was forever having to resew the buttons on the latter. Thank goodness for riveted jeans zips.

There will be no stray ends, even though the strips have over 100 ends on each - they'll all be sewn in. (Clever Myrtle for doing a scarf the other way round, so all the ends could be left & made into fringes.)

No, I think it's just dogs who destroy everything. I fell in love with a Malamute & thought I might get one - until I saw owner's photos of the devastation they can cause. One utterly destroyed an entire sofa while the owner was out; another chewed CDs & DVDs! I didn't know any domestic creature could do that.

. I just keep telling myself, 'It's just a cat blanket, it doesn't matter,'
'..just a cat blanket'? be very careful not to say that out loud anywhere near a cat, Android😱
😁

Oh, it's OK, Marie - my ginger boy hates crocheted (& probably knitted) blankets - I think they remind him of being in the animal home where he had a huge & lovely enclosure with lots of different height surfaces & multiple crocheted blankets. He was only there a month before we had him, but it seems to have traumatised him a bit (although he did have his pompoms removed while he was there, so maybe it's that).

The NHS never fails to amuse me with its ironies.

I have just been sent a six week follow-up appointment post seeing the consultant in September. I think that appointment might be a bit redundant now.
And the doctor doing rounds this morning who told me they are going to try to close the wound today and they will use deep mattress stitches as that's the best way to avoid infection. You couldn't make it up.

I've slept most of the morning as it's been very busy with physiotherapists and visitors.

They're hoping to put in a PICC line because the cannulas are making my veins swell. I've been switched from one set of IV antibiotics for two different types.

If they can't close the wound I will have another VAC machine (and they may include it even if they do close it), and more surgery probably on Thursday. The cultures should come back late this week when they'll know which antibiotics to use. With a PICC line I can be treated at home, but I might have to stay longer.

I'm so sorry to hear about Swashy's dip in slurry and her encounter with cows.

Cows are very social creatures and they behave a lot like schoolgirls in the playground. They will isolate individual cows who have breached their social rules. And they do gang up on other cows.

I remember watching a herd pass by on the way to milking and they were all very nosy about who I was.

Best avoid for now as per your plan, Swashy.

I'll let someone know how I get on when I come round after the op and hope they let you all know.

See you on the other side, Myrtle, hope it all goes well.

And the doctor doing rounds this morning who told me they are going to try to close the wound today and they will use deep mattress stitches as that's the best way to avoid infection. You couldn't make it up.

🙄

How did you manage to stop yourself shouting, "I told you so! I bloody told you so!"? 😂

All the best.

Hoping the mattress stitching goes well, @MyrtleLion , and you avoid another operation on Thursday. Here’s to all the favourable outcomes.

Mattress stitching takes me back to knitting , @ifIwerenotanandroid .Will you use that to join your seams? I think it will be a glorious blanket once it’s finished, worthy of any being.
I don’t quite understand about uncontrollable edges.
The classic thing to do is a border of a few stitches in either garter stitch or single moss/seed stitch, which stops the rolling. If your pattern doesn’t have that you can add one.

Many people pick up stitches around the edges of blankets knitted in squares or strips and knit a garter stitch border on those. Alternatively you can do a simple crocheted one. One complication can be working out how many stitches to use, but we can advise.
Woolly Hugs’ blankets made from squares all have these borders.

Thanks, Glad, I'll investigate how to sew knitted seams. I can't remember what I used to do.

I didn't add any garter stitch edges, & when the 9" wide strip got long enough it rolled itself up into what some knitters describe as a snake, about 3" across. One advisor says if you add edges to it after the event, it just takes the edges with it & rolls up again. I'm hoping that sewing the strips together (& pressing them vigorously) will level it out a bit. If not...😬Well, at least it was fun to do.

What an escapade with cows and slurry, Swashy. I hope you feel recovered now.