The Bluestocking: All You Need to Know About Risk Assessments, Jazz Hands, Battenberg and Sourdough (But Were Afraid to Ask) - and gerbils. Lots and lots of gerbils.

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the perfectly overblown, gloriously chaotic all-women’s pub where you can have a bit of a lie down if you need it.

Expect serious debates on musicals, cake and knitting, and whimsical musings on women’s rights and why the world’s on fire (again), all under the calm supervision of our support staff: gerbils, capybaras, and the occasional quokka on secondment.

The alcohol won’t get you drunk, the pastries won’t make you fat, but the conversation will digress, and that’s the point.

Remember to namechange before posting if you’re sometimes someone else.

I’m so sorry you continue to be in pain, Myrtle.
joining in the best wishes for recovery and for a good interview!

Our council has a website where you can check which bin it is that week. I don't have it on a permanently open tab on my browser, but it is bookmarked!

I have it bookmarked too, so I can check the changed schedule at Xmas/new year.

I love that image, Marie, thank you 💙

The wound is a lot better. It doesn't need a dressing any more but I still have my feet up moat of the day. Generally I'm sleeping better but still not through the night, and I'm tired and feeling poorly. The ankle hurts to walk on but I have to walk on it and exercise it to get the most mobility I can.

Just generally feeling under the weather, not helped by cold and dark nights and then time of year.

Our council has cut the bin collections right down. They only take kitchen/garden waste weekly now and they've introduced an annual charge for that. The green waste bin is by far the biggest. I suspect at this time of year most people's green waste bins just contain kitchen scraps. Actually, now I think of it, the council have said they'll continue taking kitchen waste foc, it's just garden waste removal you'd be paying for. We mulch/compost our garden waste and most of the kitchen waste. We save a small amount of bigger sticks for our wee fire on bonfire night. So we've not paid the surcharge.

I always thought at this time of year the green waste collections could arguably be cut right back. Little garden waste should be being generated. Leaves can be left for the worms or brushed onto beds, rather than collected for binning. Even taking fallen leaves into account though, I suspect the amount of green waste collected at this time of year falls off a cliff. People can be a bit squeamish about food waste attracting flies, which are the only scavengers who might get in a wheelie bin that's properly closed. They're not really a problem though in the winter. I'd feel ridiculous dragging one of these massive bins out so I could have a few chicken bones taken away. Which would probably stay frozen to the bottom of the damn thing.

It seems, to me, an odd way to conduct things and more like a way for the Council to rinse make money. Which, as it's optional, is fair enough.

Anyway, now I've got all that off my chest.

The last place we lived in London stopped garden waste collections the week after the clocks go back and restarted them in the first week in March.

I’ve loads of stuff needing cutting back at this time of year, buddleia etc! And excess ivy while it’s safely out of bird nesting season. I’d like to compost some of what goes in our brown bin but unfortunately since our well meaning but misguided neighbour encouraged an influx of rats, DH has vetoed it.

That seems more sensible.

I'm going to contact my Council and ask 'em if I'm really supposed to put a few grams of kitchen waste in this huge bin. They do supply compostable bags (or they did). I could leave the tiny bag out for the bin men to pick up. They're not very strong though. The bags, not the bin men. They might get overlooked or blow away.

Bet I'll be told to put it in the general waste.

Mowing season is longer than that nowadays!

We pay for all waste collection. There's a general waste collection every week, and recyclables and other compostable waste on alternate weeks.

When they started charging, the recyclables were collected for free, and I thought it was a good idea, 'the polluter pays' and it encouraged people to cut down on their non-recyclable waste.
Except of course it didn't - people just put anything and everything into the free bin, thereby messing up the recycling process😠
So they started charging for everything. Which has caused people to just leave anonymous bags of rubbish out on the street..
The problem is people, isn't it?🙄
I think they should just go back to collecting all rubbish for free, and it can be paid for centrally. Stop trusting people to do the right thing, binwise, cos a % never will!

Apparently, according to my LA's website, Council's aren't obliged to collect any garden waste foc.

I wish they'd standardise which colour of bin is for what type of waste. Round here you can always tell if you've crossed the border because the spectrum of bins changes.

I've checked the website re. foodwaste. I'd forgotten we'd all been given 'food caddies'. They were small bins for your countertop. They were slatted plastic like the shopping baskets some supermarkets used. Even with the compostable liner and emptied daily ours always attracted ants in the summer. So I threw it out and bought a smaller but solid alternative. They'd probably tell me to use the food caddy that i don't have anymore. I could get another and keep it outside but cats, foxes, magpies and rats would be into it and they're so lightweight it'll get blown around.

Bar gerbil, could I have a couple of crumpets with butter and a pot of tea? I'll be by the window in the snug. Could you ask one of the flying squirrels...are they hibernating? Not yet? Could you ask them to bring me a book? They know my taste. Please tell Balrog she's doing a fantastic job with the fireplaces, everything is so cosy. Thank you.

Flying squirrels? we have flying squirrels in the Bluestocking? I didn't know/had forgotten. Very useful for getting books off high shelves
May I join you in a crumpet and a cuppa, Cake? I'm feeling peckish, and that sounds perfect!

In case Fuzzy looks in: Sending 💙to her and her DH x

I hope the Bluestocking flying squirrels aren't shocking notice-boxes like that Bobo.

he video won't play, you'll have to google the duplicitous (but very cute) rodent.

except it will if you click on the youtube option

That video never gets old

Oh, that video is gorgeous. 😍The little blighter is obviously highly intelligent and knew exactly what he was doing.

I wonder if it had an accident with a brush when it was little and got lots of sympathy and attention. We had a dog which hurt her paw once and henceforth would limp if she was feeling ignored.

We live in a cul-de-sac. The bins on the road leading to it are collected on the same day, but on the opposite schedule. If it’s blue bins for us it’s black ones for them. Also, there’s a snicket joining our cul-de-sac to another one. Their bins are on a completely different schedule.

Our council went onto a four day week so bins are collected somewhere Tuesday - Friday. When it was first announced we were told it would mean fewer changes because of Bank Holidays. There was some scepticism, but it’s proved accurate so far.

Is a happy discussion of Bin Day a predominantly British trait or more universal, do you think?

Idk - when I lived in the US, in a townhouse development, we had to ‘haul our trash’ to some central skips.

I've had that experience with videos as well - that 'not available' message has had me thinking it wouldn't work, and then it did...

I love that squirrel, and housework makes me feel like that too😁

I do feel for all those forced to have multiple bins and containers and different weeks for different colours of bin and container.

I don't have to sort my rubbish. At all. I have one bin that all waste goes in. I don't even have to put the bin out on the road. The bin men (they are all men) come every week and take it from by my back door.

I love my bin men.I

ETA they even took my old microwave which was sat next to my bin the other week.

There is always one person on the street who knows what bins go out - a binfluencer, if you will. I stole that joke from FB.

Our council has taken all the fun out of the guessing, and texts us the night before the bins go out, to tell us which colours to put out. And we have seven day a week collections, too - ours get emptied on a Sunday!

Balrog is having a blast keeping the fires going, she's enjoying that for once she is not being followed round by a gerbil carrying a fire extinguisher.

The gerbils are busy delivering crumpets and tea to all.

It is looking like we will be having FIL's funeral in the week beginning December 15th, and basically travelling Glasgow to Penzance and back is going to be fun, whether we go by train or drive. Dh really does not want to drive, and I can't say I blame him, so we will probably do it by train, but might break the journey going down. Coming back, we can do it in a day, but will be shattered the next day - but it does mean dh can get the dogs from kennels a day earlier.

I am going to do my best to get a lot of the Christmas organising out of the way in the next week or two, because there won't be much time once we are back from Cornwall. I am going to make the Christmas cake next week, and also make breadcrumbs for bread sauce, stuffing, and maybe braised red cabbage, so that can all go in the freezer. I am considering buying the red cabbage - it feels like cheating, but we have enough going on at the moment - I'm sure the Baby Jesus will forgive me!

Oh Woley I'm so sorry, I didn't know your FIL had passed away - I've been a bit distracted from the Bluestocking recently, and I must have missed the sad news.
Sympathies to you and your DH, it will be a very sad as well as a long journey for the funeral.
A stop-over sounds like a good idea - it's worth making the journey as easy as possible for both of you.

I think the Baby Jesus will be 100% on your side when it comes to making arrangements as easy as possible, in the circs, He has a reputation for being loving and forgiving - and for much worse things than cheating on the braised red cabbage!