The Bluestocking, where the cheese is plentiful and the Champagne is on Boiledbeetle

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome one and all. Quick précis - women's pub, rodent staff, apparently we're sane.

I'm very enamoured with your extra long nose.

They’re lovely, Boiley. I hope they never grow up…

No extreme weather in deepest darkest Peru, but my internet and power have been off on off again since tea time yesterday. I reckon someone somewhere has tripped on a main cable and it's not plugged in properly!

It’s just dull, cold and grey in Lancashire. Meh, but better than ‘exciting’ weather!

I've seen a number of flowering camellias at Dunham Massey in the past week. No exciting weather here. I've not checked the news so I'm hoping for everyone who's had it worse than us.

The central heating is back on. The header tank in the loft had frozen so the pressure dropped.

Awwww - but 24?? Just as well we have paddocks and meadows and haggards and all sorts attached to the Bluestocking. isn't it?😄

They look so cute that my first reaction was that they aren't real - but I've learnt that nature can produce creatures that 11 on the cuteness scale - the husky rat, for instance, which I was very doubtful about when I first saw a picture of it - nah, can't be real, must be AI. Sorry for doubting you, Harriet!😏

..and when I saw that a spotted zebra foal had been born, I thought, a spotted zebra? yeah right, pull the other one!
But it's true, this is a real zebra, with a rare mutation.

They are real, although they don't seem to usually look as pristine and floozy

Top breeders give advice on buying Valais Blacknose sheep - Farmers Weekly https://share.google/90Ie0g69398mBAJze

...there's a flock in Snowdonia, or Eryrie to not use its deadname.

I'm tickled that at least some livestock auctions still use guineas 🇬🇳 one pound and one shilling, I believe. I don't know what that would convert to in decimal, £1.05?

I clicked on the FW link and it asked me what kind of farmer I am - one option was 'mixed' - certainly not, I won't have men and women sharing the same farm😁
The photo of the grown-up Valais Blacknose is disappointing - you're right, Swash, they definitely should not grow up.

Though in fairness to the adult Valais Blacknose, it looks like a smaller, black and white, curlier, cuddlier version of a Highland Cow, and less likely to kill you with it's massive horns...

edited to add that I think racehorses are still priced in guineas. And yes it's weird but kinda nice

Autocorrupt changed 'floofy' to 'floozy'! I swear I proofread it! I'm not making a joke about Wales and sheep!

Feckin' double post 😠

Weird things on MN today....

1. The 'giant serpents have come from the oceans through the sewer system to talk to me, not to my neighbour' thread was taken down while I was reading it. Devastated.
2. I've had no adverts for 2-3 days. Ugh - they're creeping back in now I've written that. It was so peaceful without them.

Also, squeee!

Oh we need both fluffy sheeplets and.spotty zebra. I wonder if they have any particular skills?

Ah, guineas. I remember those. And half crowns and ten- bob notes. DH, being younger than me, asks me "How many pennies in a shilling" and thinks we must all have been very clever for dealing with such random numbers. ( Yes, we were. Still are)

Thank you! I have spent the morning chopping branches off a partly-fallen tree. I can't see much of the roof because the house is too tall but with that proviso, I (touchwood) have got away with the damaged tree and some fencing down for which, given that the house was shaking, I am truly grateful.

Yes we were!
well other people were, I had a complete blank when it came to the daily Mental Arithmetic sessions in primary school - the teacher might as well have been reading out the telephone directory, the sounds and the numbers didn't link up in my head.
Long after I left school I learnt it's dyscalculia.🙄

But apart from me, people used to be so incredibly good at working out numbers, even when they were expressed in 12 pennies/20 shillings/16 ounces/14 pounds etc.

I asked my mother, who worked in a shop, how they worked out how much change to give etc., so quickly and so accurately - she said the accuracy was because any shortfall came out of your meagre wages, so there was a massive incentive to get the calculations dead right first time!

It's a lost skill, and I bet if they did brain scans of a primary school kid in the 60s and a uni student in 2026, they'd find the kid's brain would have much more working connections.

ps I've just seen Spaniel's post - great to hear you got through it with not too much damage

Gosh I remember old money too. I was in primary school when decimal currency came in. I can recall paying for a weeks worth of school dinners with a half crown, 6 [old] pennies a day. That is 2.5 pence for the younger members of the Bluestocking. Yes that makes me feel old🙁

The gerbils are very keen to come and help chopping trees down. Or up in this case. They'd all kitted up and rarin' to go😁

I had a book about a girl who saved up to buy a pony and was nearly thwarted at the last minute because she hadn’t realised the price was in guineas not pounds.
Its an odd unit…there must be a history but I cba to look it up at the moment.

I came across this article in the BBC news

Tonteg woman who got stuck in shop shutters in viral TikTok clip dies - BBC News https://share.google/TnbUHlVnjllHgipn9

Anne Hughes sounded like a lovely woman. I don't mind admitting it made me a bit tearful.

'Guineas' reminds me of the song 'Arthur McBride'

'Ah now my fine fellows, if you will enlist
It's ten guineas in gold I will slap in your fist,
And a crown to the bargain, to kick up the dust
And drink the King's health in the morning'

Ten guineas plus a crown wasn't enough to buy Arthur and his cousin:

For although that we are single and free
We take great delight in our own company
And we have no desire strange places to see
Although that your offers be charming
And we have no desire to take your advance
For it's right bloody slender would be our poor chance
For the King would not scruple for to send us to France
And get us all shot in the morning'

A bit of history on the guinea courtesy of Co-Pilot

• Coinage: The guinea coin was first minted in 1663 from gold sourced from the Guinea region in West Africa. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin. Its value fluctuated with the price of gold but was officially fixed at 21 shillings from 1717 until it was replaced by the gold sovereign (worth 20 shillings or £1) in the Great Recoinage of 1816.
• Unit of Account: The term "guinea" continued to be used as a monetary unit for specific high-value or "gentlemanly" transactions long after the coin left circulation, a practice that lasted until a few years after decimalisation in 1971.
• Specific Uses: Prices for professional fees (like doctors' and lawyers' services), fine art, bespoke tailoring, and horses were commonly quoted in guineas. A traditional practice was for the buyer to pay the amount in guineas, the seller to receive the same number in pounds, and the difference (one shilling, or 5p per guinea) to go to the agent or auctioneer as commission.

I thought at first she had died as a result of being stuck in the shop shutters, and I was shocked that it had gone viral, have people no respect...😡

but then I saw that her death was post hoc but not propter hoc, and I was able to appreciate her wonderful sense of humour RIP.

Oops! Sorry😬