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)

I'm on a one woman mission to get the country to pronounce St Ives as Stives and Cheadle as Shid-dle (emphasis on the first syllable).

May I add compulsory spoonerising of Chipping Sodbury?

I've got your back!

And of course there's also Clahm (Clapham).

And St. Reatham.

Gateacre and Childwall (Gat-aker and Chidwall respectively).

I've been knitting these wee Xmas socks over the past couple of days. I've had this cheap wool for ages. Was delighted to find this pattern. I'm not a very good or fast knitter*. Without YouTube I'd have been hopelessly lost. They're not perfect but I'm quite proud. In the middle of my third.

Camera and camera woman are both a bit rubbish. Sorry the picture is a bit blurry.

*eta for example, managed to drop 18 stitches! All at once and didn't notice for a couple of rows.

They're very cute, Cake!
Number one offspring and I have agreed the tree goes up tomorrow. Followed by wrapping the presents.

Sweeeet! I can see them being in big demand in the elf community😃

All the best for your appointment tomorrow morning, Cake.
You may not be able to see them, but there will be a whole retinue of gerbils, capybaras, wombats, red pandas, quokkas etc etc all trooping along behind you carrying our good wishes

The DM 80th birthday dinner has been had.

We Drove Home for Christmas sadly on the day Mr Rea died.

And now we are home, revelling in Victoria Wood: In Her Own Words.

I can never get bored by watching her programmes. It's fresh every time.

And we're home! For Christmas!

Not moving for at least a week!

Here is my Christmas tree. I am pleased I put it up because I was getting VERY grumpy about having to do it.

@lcedcakethereforeIam

Better ask them to take a look at your legs while you're in there.

All the best.💙

DH calls Hunstanton, Hunston.
And Happisburgh, Haysbruh.

I’ve heard those.

I offer Godmanchester, which I have read on various online sites is pronounced as Gumster. However, I have known several people who live there, and they all call it God-man-chester.

I hope everyone is happily sleeping, except Britinme who is probably still awake.

Happy Christmas everyone I might not be here much xxx

You've reminded me of my years commuting on the Central Line in That London. Plaistow (Plahstow) and Theydon Bois (Theydon Boys). Except I suspect no one who lives in Plaistow pronounces it like that, I think it's a shorter a in practice.

Places like Hainault and Theydon Bois are a challenge to French speakers, you have to overrride your instinctive pronunciation -otherwise you'd sound very Bucket/Bouquet, or as they'd say locally, a complete w*er

In my experience, Plaistow was usually pronounced Plah[r]stow locally, but I also heard it with a short 'a' - I suspect the former is the more authentic pronunciation.

I always say it with a short 'a' which means that the opening lines of Abba's Super Trooper sound to me like
'I was sick and tired of everything/When I called you last night from Plaistow'.
Now I've planted that in your minds you'll never hear it any other way

Happy Christmas to you too dear Hedgy, I hope when you're not here you're having a lovely time elsewhere🌲x

Abba are calling from Tesco.

Now, shall I do a Christmas card for my NDN? She was really chummy when she bought the house, but when I gently suggested she might like to ask her contractors to stick to permitted hours she now refuses to speak to me. We've put up with 8 months of builders racketting, dust, muck, damage etc. She wasn't here for the first 6 months.
But I could be the bigger person...
Yes or no?

Happy hibernation dear Hedgie ❤️

If you’ve got plenty of spare cards, then you might as well send one, I think.

I just looked up the ABBA lyrics, and Plaistow is almost as convincing as the place given on many sites online. I do know what a SuperTrooper is, though (preens). I heard it in a quiz years ago, although it’s obvious when you know.

I'd say yes to a card, because you ARE the bigger ..er... puffling...
but the blandest card you can find, with very few words of greeting written inside, 'Season's greetings from Mr & Mrs Fuzzy' or something brief like that.

One that always trips up the non-locals up here is Milngavie - a suburb of Glasgow (where dh lived from the age of one to four). It is pronounced Mull-guy.

And, as the late, great Victoria Wood said, in dinnerladies - everywhere in Scotland is spelled Kirkcudbright and pronounced Ecclefechan.

I agree about the card. Be on the Right Side of History

I've never known what the real place named in the Abba song was - Glasgow seemed the most likely? but if you've ever been to Plaistow, the likelihood of Abba ever getting anywhere near it.... mind you, by now it's probably gentrified beyond all recognition, like Stratford.

I think I heard somewhere somehow what a Super Trooper is - is it a stage light?

edited to say that you can have another well-deserved preen for either confirming or denying the stage light theory

Send the card, puffling. If she wants to rebuild bridges it gives her the chance. If she doesn’t, you’ll be ‘heaping coals of (polite) fire’ on her.

@MarieDeGournay - it is definitely Glasgow that’s mentioned in Super Trooper.