The Bluestocking Boxing Day sale: 1 gerbil for the price of 2

[Boiledbeetle]

Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5457910-the-bluestocking-next-stop-christmas

As the patrons, and gerbils, of The Bluestocking Pub sleep off their Christmas Day food and alcohol intake the capybaras will be getting paid double time to move the pub and contents to the new thread overnight.

All welcome, as long as you are a woman. The men have their own pub The Staunch Ally. It's just down the road, then turn left at the bridge.

You don't have to be mad to drink here but it most definitely helps.

Leave the real world behind and join us in the mayhem and surreal life of a pub staffed by gerbils. Where the food is always exactly what you ordered and the drinks don't give you a hangover the next day!

I've been catching up on marking mock exam papers. I apologise if my profuse swearing disturbed anyone, and I will now be taking a walk up Peak Woo for some therapeutic screaming.

I'm intrigued by the extra set of claws, Maggers...

Android set me up with those. Very useful when your arms are actually wings.

We haven't even touched the cheese as yet! That pleasure is still to come.

I recommend starting the cheese immediately. You don't want to make it feel left out!

is that even legal?

It does no-one any harm to learn to wait. Even cheese... 😁It's just DH and me this Christmas for the very first time, so we're taking things at our own pace and enjoying being relaxed about what we eat and when. 😊

😂😂If it isn't we're turning into law-breakers at our advanced age. 😳

You rebels, you.

well, we did things backwards choc then cheese then mince pies and finally roast dinner so I’m not well placed to criticise 😂

Somebody in a book somewhere said that the nearest they came to anarchy was not eating 'Eat Me' dates

Magpie, is there no rest from all that marking??😕Poor you. It was jolly decent of evolution to give you an extra limb so you didn't have to stand on one leg while marking😄

Love your crib, Fuzzy - that sounds very hiphop, doesn't it? 😁
I of course mean your lovely nativity scene.

Deano, I've always wondered about the timing of adding the Magi to the crib, because they arrived on 6th Jan but that's also the day by which the decorations have to be taken down. Does the crib get a few extra days, or what?

Thanks Marie. My late mum got it for us from Oxfam almost 40 years ago. We had a cat who loved to steal baby Jesus- its amazing we still have him. Jesus, not the cat.

My new job means less marking, Marie, but not none. I teach a lot of examined units this year so I get huge stacks of mocks to mark at regular intervals. The only benefit of this is that they're actually quite quick to mark, as long as I can read the handwriting!

A mixture of reactions to that - the backstory makes the lovely nativity scene even more precious, and
😂for the Baby Jesus/Cat interaction😂

One of my DC was something of a class swot, but her parents' evenings were utterly predictable:
Every single teacher would tell me how well she was doing and then comment on her appalling handwriting. Too small, too contorted, too illegible.

My DM had lovely handwriting, but exactly none of her descendants inherited it.

And I'm wondering a cat felt moved to steal the baby Jesus...

😆😆😆

The decorations only have to be taken down by the 6th if you're a Godless pagan. Otherwise the decorations do not get taken down before the 7th. and the crib, at least, stays up, Kings/Magi and all, until Candlemas (February 2nd)

Early February is great, with three special feasts on the first three days: St Brigid (Mary of the Gael); Candlemas; and St Blaise, when we get our throats blessed. And every second day fine from then on, and half St Brigid's day.

Tell me more of this half St Brigid’s day…

Saint Brigid's day is the first day of Spring, and the 'every second day fine from my day on, and half my own day' is very well-known folklore.

For the last few years we have had the first Monday of February as a new bank holiday so we're having to make new traditions. It's a good day to encourage people to meet up, preferably indoors, after the darkest and coldest weeks.

Surely pagans have more Gods (and Goddesses) than just the one, rather than being Godless?

Well done Boily! I need to imitate you, particularly with books. DH bought me three really nice books for Christmas. I ensured they would be really nice books by dint of going to our local bookshop, which is in the same parade as the supermarket we usually go to, and when I bought his books for Christmas I had a chat with the staff (who know me well, unsurprisingly) and pointed out a few books I liked in case he came in search.

However my bookshelves are overflowing and I really don't have space for more, and I'm already secreting hundreds on my Kindle. I guess I just don't read as fast these days, and I'm really reluctant to let go of a series I've enjoyed in case I want to re-read it. How do I bring myself to part with books I may never re-read but were really good books?

fair point

Definitely leave decorations up until after the 6th - I think the idea of taking them down then was so shops could start selling valentine's and Easter stuff. In parts of Spain there is an extra figure in the Nativity being a bit rude, but fortunately that doesn't seem to have spread abroad. I was gifted one of these a few years ago, but have resisted using him.

I had cheese and biscuits for lunch instead of dinner today - it's nice to mix things up a bit.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. William Morris 1880.

Keep them if they are beautiful. Take a picture for an album and then charity shop if not. You can always read synopses online.

The flu may be over, but I am breathless with unresolved asthma. The Walrus suggests seeing the doctor on Monday for steroids. My inhalers are not cutting it.

Otherwise we are having a lovely relaxing Christmas. Watching Frankenstein.

For the last few years we have had the first Monday of February as a new bank holiday so we're having to make new traditions.

Do schoolchildren, and teachers, also have February half term?

I have a St Brigid’s cross in the hall just inside my front door - it was a thank you gift. We’ve only had evangelists once since I put it up, so perhaps they knock on the door, see the cross and swiftly pretend to be there to sell fish or clean the drive, or something.