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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!

1000 replies

ifIwerenotanandroid · 10/12/2025 13:40

Join us as we open our slightly wonky advent calendar. 🌲

(copies available behind the bar £12.50 each, no refunds)

The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!
OP posts:
Thread gallery
162
Magpiecomplex · 16/12/2025 07:18

At the moment they're mock exams run in lessons, so I know the students very well!

EdithStourton · 16/12/2025 09:25

I used to invigilate in a huge hall several times the size of the garden I had at the time. I paced it out when prowling between the desks, and then spent long hours planning a garden to fit it, whilst apparently closely observing the students.

Allowed me to retain my marbles while looking busy.

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 09:39

Oh! I've turned pink. Has anyone else's MN colours changed overnight?

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 09:54

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 09:39

Oh! I've turned pink. Has anyone else's MN colours changed overnight?

hang on I'll check

Magpiecomplex · 16/12/2025 09:57

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 09:39

Oh! I've turned pink. Has anyone else's MN colours changed overnight?

Me too! But I wasn't when I posted first thing 🤔

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 09:57

I'm pink but I've always been.
I think you can choose your colours in settings? but meh. I can live with pink.

How are you this morning, Myrtle? You deserve a nice quiet day to recover, relaxing, doing nothing too demanding.... but I have a feeling that life isn't always that cooperative😒

Magpiecomplex · 16/12/2025 09:58

My settings haven't changed. Must be a MN problem.

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 10:01

Yes, I'm still set as green/purple. There's a thread in site stuff. Seems it's widespread.

AuntieMsDamsonCrumble · 16/12/2025 13:06

The last few weeks have seemed very gloomy weatherwise here (on the coast of NW England) with wave after wave of deluges, accompanied by strong winds. Lots of local flooding, though mostly in the fields and minor roads (I know many people, especially in Wales, have been very hard hit).

So, when today dawned with bright blue skies and the mist just hovering over the wet fields, it literally seemed like a new beginning. I gave myself the morning off from shopping and present wrapping to take a long walk along the coast. It was very cold, but no ice and it was very uplifting to see the coastal birds out in force on the estuary - little egrets, dunlin, knot, pink-footed geese et al. The populations are thriving again after years of decline due to loss of habitat and pollution and a lot of hard work has been put into maintaining and improving the wetlands areas. I am never at my best in the winter, but this morning has reminded me that it doesn't last forever and Spring is just around the corner (if slightly out of sight).

A metaphor for life really. Smile

However, I am now frozen and ravenous, so a mug of hot chocolate and a real Cornish Pasty please gerbils.

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 13:16

It's astonishing how quickly little egrets have turned from twitchable birds, in Britain anyway, to a species you expect to see if the habitat is remotely appropriate. Cattle egret, great white egrets and spoonbills seem to heading in that direction too.

I love the way the skeins of wild geese twist and write upon the sky.

Enjoy your hot chocolate and pasty. I think you've earned them.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2025 14:00

Yes, the first egrets I saw were when in lived in the US around 1990 - few, if any had made it to the UK. I’m in the NW of England too, the little whites are very common now, and there are increasing numbers of the others. I’ve yet to see a glossy ibis.
The bird life is one of the things I love about this area.

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 14:35

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2025 14:00

Yes, the first egrets I saw were when in lived in the US around 1990 - few, if any had made it to the UK. I’m in the NW of England too, the little whites are very common now, and there are increasing numbers of the others. I’ve yet to see a glossy ibis.
The bird life is one of the things I love about this area.

Same in Ireland - egrets are so not-rare that you can now see egrets on your morning commute into Dublin by local train, there's a bit of marshy land beside the track, formerly known to locals as 'The Slob', which is now a more desirably-named Booterstown Nature Reserve.
You can do a quick bit of bird-watching when the train is stopped at the station.Smile
I've managed to get this far without saying 'Egrets? I've had a few, but then again...' but when it comes to corny jokes, I'm just a gurl who cain't say noGrin

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 14:45

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2025 14:00

Yes, the first egrets I saw were when in lived in the US around 1990 - few, if any had made it to the UK. I’m in the NW of England too, the little whites are very common now, and there are increasing numbers of the others. I’ve yet to see a glossy ibis.
The bird life is one of the things I love about this area.

I’ve yet to see a glossy ibis.

I miss
The glossy ibis
I prefer that
To the matte

Chersfrozenface · 16/12/2025 14:51

I've managed to get this far without saying 'Egrets? I've had a few, but then again...' but when it comes to corny jokes, I'm just a gurl who cain't say no

I've been thinking the same since egrets were mentioned. I've sat on my hands so hard my fingers are white.

Must be 20 years ago we saw a pair of hoopoes in the Vendee. My friend who lived slightly further north just didn't believe me - oh no hoopoes didn't come that far north. Climate change was evidently not on her radar at the time. I mean, hoopoes are pretty distinctive, you do know when you've seen one.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2025 14:53

The place I’ve seen the most egrets was a reserve on the Wirral - it was getting on in the day and there were dozens roosting in the trees, which is not something I knew they did. It was also the first place I saw spoonbills… I’d thought they were an exotic African species. But then while re-reading the Broads-based Arthur Ransome books (required reading on a boating holiday there imo) I was surprised to see mention of them in one of them.

lcedcakethereforeIam · 16/12/2025 15:27

I saw a glossy ibis at Titchwell earlier this year. I think they've bred dahn sarf as well. I think there's been lots of them around, although that's the only one I saw. Perhaps they'll soon be as common as little egrets?

I've only ever read Swallows and Amazons and that was a moment ago. If I ever catch up on my tbr pile I should give some of his other titles ago. I was constantly at my local library as a child, other than school it was the place I walked to most frequently. I remember seeing his books, they had distinctive covers and they filled a big chunk of the shelves, but they never tempted me.

AuntieMsDamsonCrumble · 16/12/2025 15:42

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 14:45

I’ve yet to see a glossy ibis.

I miss
The glossy ibis
I prefer that
To the matte

Grin
Magpiecomplex · 16/12/2025 15:59

I've been watching long-tailed tits today, while invigilating another mock. Lovely little things.

Swashbuckled · 16/12/2025 16:34

Seagulls and sanderlings for me.

ShinyBlueTractor · 16/12/2025 17:03

Magpiecomplex · 16/12/2025 15:59

I've been watching long-tailed tits today, while invigilating another mock. Lovely little things.

Lil pink balls of fluff! They're so sweet

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 18:00

Swashbuckled · 16/12/2025 16:34

Seagulls and sanderlings for me.

That sound like a line from a shanty, or a poem by John Masefield

Let Errol like egrets
And Crumble her dunlin
and Cake her geese flying free
Magpie loves tits
Of the long-tailed kind
but it's seagulls and sanderlings for me!

An 'Arrrr' is optional at this point

I say Swash - do you like any two-syllable seabirds? 'Sanderlings' doesn't really scan😕

ErrolTheDragon · 16/12/2025 18:14

Or Walter de la Mare?
In primary school we had to learn and recite - with individual and group lines - a poem which I believe is his ‘The Storm’. I can’t find it online - I think maybe it’s not yet out of copyright. From over 50 years recall it begins:
First there were two of us
Then there were three of us
Then there was one bird more
Wild, white seagulls
Treading the ocean floor.

Chersfrozenface · 16/12/2025 18:22

Found it - it is 'The Storm'

First there were two of us, then there were three of us,
Then there was one bird more,
Four of us--wild white sea-birds,
Treading the ocean floor;
And the wind rose, and the sea rose,
To the angry billows' roar--
With one of ustwo of usthree of us--four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.

Soon there were five of us, soon there were nine of us,
And lo! in a trice sixteen!
And the yeasty surf curdled over the sands,
The gaunt grey rocks between;
And the tempest raved, and the lightning's fire
Struck blue on the spindrift hoar--
And on four of us--ay, and on four times four of us
Sea-birds on the shore.

And our sixteen waxed to thirty-two,
And they to past three score--
A wild, white welter of winnowing wings,
And ever more and more;
And the winds lulled, and the sea went down,
And the sun streamed out on high,
Gilding the pools and the spume and the spars
'Neath the vast blue deeps of the sky;

And the isles and the bright green headlands shone,
As they'd never shone before,
Mountains and valleys of silver cloud,
Wherein to swing, sweep, soar--
A host of screeching, scolding, scrabbling
Sea-birds on the shore--
A snowy, silent, sun-washed drift
Of sea-birds on the shore.

Swashbuckled · 16/12/2025 19:13

MarieDeGournay · 16/12/2025 18:00

That sound like a line from a shanty, or a poem by John Masefield

Let Errol like egrets
And Crumble her dunlin
and Cake her geese flying free
Magpie loves tits
Of the long-tailed kind
but it's seagulls and sanderlings for me!

An 'Arrrr' is optional at this point

I say Swash - do you like any two-syllable seabirds? 'Sanderlings' doesn't really scan😕

“But it’s seagulls and puffins for me!” ?
That scans well…

knittedChristmassysloth · 16/12/2025 19:22

Swashbuckled · 16/12/2025 16:34

Seagulls and sanderlings for me.

I love sanderlings!

They are very difficult to photograph. I saw some on the beach in Scotland and they made me laugh out loud because they are so hilarious with their tiny little legs whirring underneath them.

I borrowed a couple of photos from the Internet because mine were pants.

The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!
The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!
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