The Bluestocking: Next stop, Christmas!

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

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

My decorations are up, all presents are wrapped and under the tree, shopping is done so I’m feeling smug enough for a celebratory gin and tonic please, bar gerbil. I’m hoping to do some leisurely baking over the next few days before chaos ensues with the arrival of my three grandchildren and their two cousins and all four parents plus a couple of other people on Christmas Day.

Happy solstice everyone!

I’m watching the Newgrange stream. It’s good to join in with the 5000 years of human observation… hoping as doubtless the ancient astronomers did that the obstinate low cloud will break!

I was also tucking into venison swirls and carrot cake... Brains was underfoot, eagerly hoovering up the crumbs.

I'd think the black treacle was used as a sweetener as well as to add some depth of flavour (I just add some granulated sugar and almond essence when I get my sloe gin going). It's generally consumed neat, but is very good with tonic.

And, as I have learned, champagne.

Having posted on LinkedIn that I’m retiring I’ve now got quite a few replies I should go through and respond to. It should be a pleasure yet I’m procrastinating. I think it may be that realistically it may be the last time I personally hear from some of these people.

I’ve somehow got to this age without ever having tasted sloe gin. I should probably start making it, there’s lots of blackthorn around here.
The idea of using champagne as a mixer is one which I’m sure the bargerbils will happily adopt. DH has bought a bottle of bollinger to mark the end of my career - official final day is the 27th and DD will be home then to share it. I think he might look askance if I ask for sloe gin to mix with it.

I watched it too. The light didn't come blazing in, which was a pity, but the light came, which is what matters☀

I was in the chamber once, not at solstice. Although I'm a bit claustrophobic, I made myself go in and experience it, I knew I'd be cross with myself later if I didn't.
It felt very special, but the part that really stood out was leaving the chamber - the passageway is narrow, so you have to slightly force your way out of the darkness and then the light hits you.. it felt like being born

It feels like the real New Year, the turn of the year, the start of the brighter days.

It's a doddle to make - half-fill a Kilner jar with ripe (and ideally pricked - it's tedious but I've always done it) sloes, add a couple of ounces of sugar and a few drops of almond essence, fill the jar with a half-decent gin like Gordon's, tighten lid, shake, and leave in the dark. I shake mine a few more times, and leave it in the dark until I next need the bottles, but some people strain theirs off for Christmas.

If you're a sloe-gin regular, you keep an eye on the crop from the time the fruit sets. I have my favoured picking spots for dry years, where I know the blackthorns have their feet in water.

Then there's the annual Walk of Shame through the tills with 3 litres of gin...

But even I wouldn't waste Bolly on sloe gin - enjoy it as it comes, and have a wonderful retirement.

I was told the secret to that drink with fizzy wine and orange juice (a mimosa?) is any cheap champagne but really good quality orange juice. Perhaps it's a similar thing with sloe gin? Bathtub gut rot but nice ripe sloes.

I admit 'brains underfoot' created a momentary mental image that wasn't at all Christmassy.

I've still got lots of Christmas stuff to do but I'm not going to sweat it.

'Cunting quiche'😄, i just wish 'Patricia' had been called 'Lorraine'.

I admit 'brains underfoot' created a momentary mental image that wasn't at all Christmassy.
Soz.

I braved Waitrose this morning in search of decent cheese and overpriced everything else, came home for a very satisfying game of fridge Tetris, and am now contemplating putting the tree up. Was waiting until number one offspring came home from uni. He's been back since Tuesday 😂.
I think I'm all done for food apart from the duck which is being collected on Wednesday, and no croissants! We always have the croissants in a tube which you assemble and bake yourself, and can't find them anywhere this year.

I feel for that OP.
Everyone has known a Patricia at work.

I am going to have a go at cherry gin next year - frozen cherries and gin, plus sugar if I want gin liqueur.

Ds3 bought me champagne for my birthday so I’m saving that for Christmas day.

It took some time to pick up the new car. Tax, money, ownership etc.

The second we got in the new car there was a problem. We'd been given a spec that said the seats were electronic and had a memory feature - exactly like the car we just sold. But actually the seats were not electronic. The Walrus is a big guy. 6ft 3 and bulky, despite losing five stone in 10 years. Having the seats allocated to the keys means when I unlock the car, the seat and other settings move to my personal configuration. No having to adjust the back, the distance from the pedals, the radio, the colour scheme etc. Just unlock the car.

I didn't understand how this happened because the spec is agreed before the vehicle is manufactured. I was very upset and disappointed. I wouldn't have bought the car if I had known it didn't have electronic seats.

We could have unwound the sale and we'd have had to retax the old car, re-register for the congestion charge and Dart charge, been issued a new logbook. All of that. Which would have taken another hour. They didn't have another vehicle with electronic seats. They had the audacity to say it would have cost more with the seats! Then why didn't they question it when it was the only thing I wanted - almost "I'll buy any car you have that has these seats", right from the first conversation on Monday?

We also realised it didn't have a charger to a three pin plug, just to a charger post which would cost £1,000 to install. We don't use the car very often, so we don't mind if it takes 18 hours to charge. And we live very close to a massive supermarket with fast charging if we need a boost.

So they gave us a three pin charger as a gesture of goodwill. Worth about £200.

But I was very disappointed and upset. I know we got a great car and the money we released from selling the old car will help us out financially. I think I was told as a child to be grateful and I was not allowed to have the time to be disappointed or angry. I find it hard to express these emotions because I'm not allowed them and it's easier to move on and ignore them. And the expectation was on me to sort it out and ask for a goodwill gesture, not on them to make it right. They just kept saying "unfortunately" , as if it wasn't entirely their fault.

I suppose the onus is on me to manage these feelings but I just don't know how, because I was never taught how as a child.

That's such a disappointment, Myrtle😕
and you're absolutely entitled to feel hard done by as that was a specific feature you needed and said you needed from the beginning.

@MarieDeGournay is right, @MyrtleLion - your feelings are entirely valid - they have cocked up a very expensive purchase for you.

I am sorry @MyrtleLion that you were disappointed with your new car, as you had every right to be. It is one thing to be grateful for something nice, though unexpected, that comes your way, but quite another thing not to get the item you have specifically ordered and paid for, especially given the cost of a new car. I hope it doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the car in the long term.

@MarieDeGournay It feels like the real New Year, the turn of the year, the start of the brighter days. I have always felt that New Year was just an arbitrary date, with no real meaning, either religious or astronomical. It was not even celebrated on 1 January until the Gregorian calendar was introduced in the 16th Century. I rarely bother with New Year these days, but do quietly celebrate the turning seasons.

@ErrolTheDragon I hope you enjoy your last actual day at work tomorrow. I can assure you that the view from the other side of retirement is great. It may take a while to get used to, but it is not so much an ending as a new beginning with delightful possibilities.

That's pretty crap, Myrtle, it's understandable that you're upset. Hopefully the rest of the car will be less underwhelming.

In other news, Mr Magpie has saved the day and found croissants! I then had a second round of fridge Tetris to get them to fit.

Sympathies @MyrtleLion - that’s really crap service.

Myrtle, that is such a bummer. Every sympathy.

Errol, I hope you enjoy deciding what you do in your own time.

And on this darkest day, here are some snowdrops.

You are all so lovely, thank you for letting me be upset xx

It is a very nice car and I know I will have a lot of fun tomorrow when I spend an hour setting up the radio and shortcuts. I drove it home yesterday (with the rear view mirror pointing at the ceiling - in my defence it was dark!) and its automatic braking is much gentler than our old car. Its automatic full beam actively avoids blinding oncoming vehicles and has a dark spot so it also doesn't dazzle the car in front.

It has lots of great accessories and it has helped us out of a tight financial spot. I just needed a bit to be upset 💙

Lovely snowdrops, thank you Deano. Hope you are feeling better.

Magpie - I came within a nanometre of embarrassing myself by saying 'Fridge tetris? that sounds great!' but you didn't mean moving magnetic tetris pieces around on the fridge door, did you?

Crumble- we celebrate 'Nollaig na mBan', Women's Christmas, on 6th January. I often wonder if it is because women held on to the old pre-Gregorian date for Christmas? Women perhaps being the preservers of tradition, and 'Thanks but no thanks, Greg, we thought the old calendar was hunky-dory'😄

Myrtle - there is a nice, soundproofed, logic- and blame-free 'Annoyance and Upset' space in the Bluey where anybody can be upset as heck cos they just are💙

I like the sound of your version of fridge Tetris, Marie! You should try marketing it!

Myrtle, you have endured a really rotten year with grace and restraint, be as annoyed and upset as you need to be.

In many parts of Ireland 6th January was 'little Christmas', not specifically for women. A day to welcome the three kings, and the last big feast before farm work cranked up again and the youngsters went back to school. According to my mother, if they ate turkey on Christmas day they ate goose on Little Christmas, and vice versa (my grandmother kept poultry, so there was a choice).

RTÉ, which despises both religious practice and women, has grabbed onto Nollaig na mBan with great enthusiasm, which is mildly irritating. Give them another three weeks and they'll be telling us St Brigid was a goddess. Not real women with power derived from Christianity, oh no.

I got to church yesterday, muttering the responses to avoid triggering a cough. Someone is going to stand in for me as minister of the eucharist on Christmas eve, and I hope I'll be back in reading form by next weekend. I was also advised that when the new readers-and-ministers rota is circulated I'm to consider that if 'Jim' is on the list, that means me unless Jim shows signs of being ready to do it. He's just turned 90 and the opinion seems to be that it would be rude not to have him on the list, but over-optimistic to expect him to notice when it's his turn. The minute compromises of village life are what makes the world go round.