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)

15 days, yikes. Glad you're on the mend.

We're invited to a party this weekend and are both starting to feel antsy at the prospect, as not caught flu so far and fairly keen not to be felled before Thursday. Should we go full bah humbug or decide to roll the dice and have some fun, it's Christmas?? Tbc..

ive not looked into this but I guess we could be eligible …
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5462547-is-this-actually-mn-because-it-seems-odd?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Oh Deano that sounds awful, poor you!
And this was despite the fact that you got the flu jab?? now that's scary, I've been feeling quite safe because I got my jab, but there are some mutations I believe, and it looks like one of them had your name on it😕
Hope you sort out the troublesome practicalities, and start feeling much better soon.

Thinking of you and your DH today, Fuzzy

I too have had the flu despite having had the flu jab. It's nasty and settled.on my chest. And inhad to work through it for the meetings and presentation preparation and interview last week only to not get the job. 😢

The Big Drive was fine but the Walrus hadn't put fuel in the car because he didn't want to sell it with a full tank, so I had to put some fuel in it and that pushed my arrival time back by 30 minutes. They were able to scan me early and I managed to get home for 7pm. However because it was nuclear medicine there was no WiFi or phone signal. I managed to read some chapters of the Women Who Wouldn't Wheest.

I think we are at the beginning of the end of the Gender Wars, and these women have done so much and sacrificed a lot. We haven't completely got there - the government rubbish about the SC ruling stopping small boys going to the loo with their mums is ridiculous. But I believe we will prevail.

We then went directly to the restaurant by the river and celebrated Christmas starting. Picking up the new car later. I'm very excited.

I haven't had the flu, thank goodness, I'm just exhausted. Christmas might happen once I can find some energy.
to all.

Port and lemon please, bargerbil.

I don't know if it's the flu, but I seem to have been prone to every bug that's going around this winter. I have a theory that my immune system took a battering during the pandemic and has never got back to normal.

Sleep patterns are not great, but I'm taking the opportunity to read some Dominic Sandbrook.

Ds2 and his girlfriend have arrived from Australia - they’ve had a cup of tea, and now they are out with dh and the dogs - I think they need a walk and some fresh air after all those hours on planes.

I am watching Christmassy cooking TV - all the clever stuff I have no energy for, or intention of doing!

I made the red cabbage thingy on request of my daughter, but it didn't taste quite right then i realised i had not put any apple in it!!!

So rectified the issue.

i them spoke to my daughter on face time, she had not gotten any Brussels sprouts (shock horror)

luckily i have some i blanched and froze.

Personally i love Brussels.

to add i have no intention of going near a shop this side of Xmas as it is now officially mayhem out there

I will be braving the shops on 23rd /24th when I will officially be a Lady of Leisure. Probably a mistake but never mind. Some of it will be the local farm shop so that shouldn’t be too bad.

I wouldn't say I'm mad about sprouts, but with a bit of gravy and a bit of cranberry sauce, I can thole them fine. I find they go well with wee sausages.

Meanwhile, today for some reason DH decided that before getting the rest of the house in order it would be a good idea to tidy up one half of the garage, as the forecast was dry so we could take a lot out onto the drive.
Unfortunately, we found some (old, we think and hope!) rodent droppings so we had to take everything out and sweep and mop the floor.
Knackered. But I’ve found some of my cache pots for indoor plants and got some of my gardening stuff better positioned so that’s something,

One of my DC is hosting Christmas for the first time and has been forced to realise that if you don't get organised early, shit can go down.

Like a lack of critical poultry of the right size for the number requiring Christmas dinner.

I suggested that phoning the local butcher might be a cunning plan. Fortunately the local butcher came up trumps, but I'm sitting here with my feet up and a glass of wine down the hatch already, as this is not, actually, my problem, for the first time in 25 years.

And I know it's almost Christmas, as I was guiltlessly ingesting sloe gin with Champagne at 10.40 this morning.

I’m back by the sea. Have got things looking a bit more homely here.
Me and the hound have lit some candles too.

That’s good.
And another clever hound!

He’s always been a bright spark.

My DH is in sole charge of the Christmas food. I leave him to it. It's wonderful! It will all arrive like magic on Monday with no shopping by me.

Sloe gin with champagne sounds very decadent for a Saturday morning @EdithStourton
I am impressed!

A friend has given me two small bottles of sloe gin that she’d made. She added black treacle to it somehow. I’ve never had it before so wasn’t sure how to drink it.

Mine's been in charge of the cooking on Christmas Day for years now & always does it perfectly. I organise the food, though. Some will come tomorrow but the 2 main bits have to be collected from M&S. Last year the store was OK inside but getting to it, & trying to park there, was hell because the traffic backed up from M&S & gridlocked the entire small town, which we had to cross. This year I've ordered to a different foodhall which we'll approach from the countryside: we'll find out if that's any better.

Best wishes to all our flu sufferers. Hope it buggers off soon & leaves you feeling splendid in time for Christmas.

Dh does all the cooking, but I plan the menus and do the supermarket order - and I have just written a timetable for when everything has to go into and out of the oven on Christmas Day.

Dh has just got back in - having written a menu for next week, I then failed utterly to order some key ingredients - I think my brain has completely turned to porridge.

I'm back from a couple of days visiting old friends; my on-line grocery order has arrived and I've finished wrapping presents, so I finally feel as though I am getting organised. However, I have lost the 2nd lot of gift tags I bought - to replace the first ones I bought several weeks ago, which I also lost. I obviously put them "somewhere safe", but they must be in two different safe places, otherwise I would have found the first set when I put the second set away 😬(are you still following?)

I just need to pick up the turkey on Monday, take in the veg box delivery and get a few odds and ends, so I think I can relax for a while. I took a sample of the damson gin to my friends' and it was declared to be a "fine vintage" (even though it's only 3 months old!)

I haven't gone back over the thread yet, but I hope all those suffering from pre-Christmas bugs are on the mend.

Gerbils, could you send round the hot-chocolate bowser please, with a plate of mince pies.

Edited for typos (it's the damson gin!)

I'm sending the Smile Gerbil over to the Bluey this evening because I don't feel very sociable, but I don't want to overlook the flu and the scans and the return to the seaside and the new car and the dear friend's funeral and the DS home from Oz and the food and drink...
The Smile Gerbil brings appropriate wishes for all of that to all of you x

If anybody is interested in seeing the solstice sun [hopefully!] entering the chamber at Newgrange tomorrow morning, as it has for the past 5,200 years or so, it's streamed live on

• _www.rte.ie/player_
• _www.opw.ie/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gov.ie/opw_
• heritageireland.ie
• youtube/opw

I don't know if they are all accessible outside of Ireland, but some of them will be .Starting 08.40.

After tomorrow, sure there'll be a grand stretch in the days

DH is home and so tired he fell asleep during Strictly. I'm very tired too so it will be an early call for the dream gerbils here.
Sweet dreams everyone.

Marie , thank you for the smile gerbil. X