The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

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

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

They are delightful to watch.

Black-headed gulls are my faves - common as muck, I know. I don't bird-watch apart from in my own garden or by the river in town (mainly kingfishers, herons & swans, though on one magical occasion - & stretching the definition of 'birds' to breaking point - there was an enormous flock(?) of bats swooping just above the surface of the river).

I've just realised that it is only 9 days until Christmas. Am I too late to put the sprouts on?

I love black headed gulls, if they weren't so common more people would realise how beautiful they are. Coincidentally, I'm currently drinking tea from an Emma Bridgewater mug decorated with them. Fortunately not by them😄

I told a friend I'd like to be reincarnated as a black headed gull. You get to fly and there's still a chance of pizza 🍕

Yep. Put a note in next year's diary. October 20th should do it.

Good grief - they're £40-£70 each on ebay! Better take care of yours, Cake.

I rather fancy this one, which is a bit cheaper though still more than I've ever paid for a mug.

Yes they are.

I have wrote a poem. Writ. Writtened. I'm a bit embarrassed because I don't think it's finished.

Sanderlings scoot and skitter,
Camouflaged by silver stones and sea foam,
As a great black-backed gull struts, stalking
Along the shallow shore-waves.

Meanwhile a fresh North-Easterly
Scuffs the watching pirate's hair,
Thrums her woollen coat collar, numbs her lips.
She turns away a little, sees

Sanderlings scurry in zigzags, Teeter and twist through tiny rocks.
A second giant gull flaps down,
Submissive yet flirty, keeps its distance.

The gulls skulk around their carrion quarry,
Some blackened sandblown bird's carcass,
Eye each other, waddle and shriek,
See off all trespassers.

That's ridiculous! Are they collectable?

There's a matching plate, over £60! Gutted.

I don't know if it is finished or if it is good poetry but you have absolutely captured birds on the foreshore.

Brava!

Why thank you!

blushes with delight

Thanks @Chersfrozenface- I was close!

ah, lovely birdy poetry. Well done @knittedChristmassysloth!

Today was starlings: I saw a couple of hundred when walking the dogs this morning.

I also heard a bird calling which I think was a grey partridge.

I walked the dogs again at sunset. It was meant to be a quick one but I ran into a fellow dog-walker so we had 10 minutes of conversation, with his dogs blagging treats off me, and Brains and Batshit blagging treats off him.

That's a great poem, knittedChristmassysloth, I love it, I'm glad you posted it
And thank you for the Walter de la Mare poem, Cher. He had a special gift hadn't he? Always best read aloud.

G'night birdwatchers, sleep well🌛

I must down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
I left my shoes and socks there.
I wonder if they're dry.

Boom tish!
thanks - someone had to do that!

I love these threads! Especially the way the Bluestockingers can pick up any subject and take off in a spontaneous flight* of poetry. This time birds. Who knows what next will inspire imaginations. Not being the least bit poetic myself, I am in awe.

*bird pun intended 😀

I used to think it was 'the lonely sea in the sky'. It used to bug me, how do you go down to something that's in the sky? I tried telling myself, 'Cake, it's Chinatown poetry'. Which helped a little. This has totally cleared things up. I can finally sleep at night, thank you.

'the lonely sea in the sky' sounds like a later work by Turner

Thinking of Woley and Mr Woley, I think it's her FiL's funeral today

Can anyone else see a scary face at the bottom of that Turner?

❤️ Woley.

Well I can now.
ah, it’s ok, I’ve managed to turn it into a nice dog face.

All best wishes Woley.

Thank you all. It is a suitably grey and stormy day.

Hope today goes well, Woley.