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.

My other favourite author! I used some of my Christmas money to buy the full set of St Mary’s from World of Books. I can’t decide whether I’d be a historian or in R&D though.

Back to pounds and ounces, at primary school in the early 60s we had to know our 14 and 16 times tables. Fortunately I am not dyscalculic but am sympathetic to people who are.

We also recited the relationships between gills, pints, quarts and gallons. When the metric system came in we learnt the couplets to convert inches to metres, pints to litres, and pounds to kilograms, which I’ve taught my own classes when imperial<—>metric conversions have been on the syllabus.

My friend went to her local girls grammar school. According to her the material for the summer dresses was designed by the Art teacher. Guess where the school was? (photo incoming)

Blackpool?

I'd have loved seahorses on my school dress.

Anyone remember those red exercise books, slightly shiny, with all sorts of useful tables and measurements on the back?

I've read some Mills and Boon, including Betty Neels. In some ways they're awful and predictable and so sexist, but they're also incredibly easy to read and guaranteed happy ending. When I was incredibly sleep deprived for 2 years when my son wouldn't sleep for longer than 1 hour at a time at night I listened to them as audiobooks as I was too tired for anything else and if I wasn't going to get the chance to sleep at least they were nice and relaxing. My husband found them hilarious, but wisely kept quiet about it as he was getting to sleep at night (baby would only feed to sleep no matter what we tried so all the night duty was on me).

I think I've tried some of everything mentioned here, but recently started the Hamish Macbeth books having never got around to trying then before.

Love Jodi Taylor too - both St Mary’s and the Time Police. A soft spot for the Nothing Girl too.

I had read somewhere that GH’s Infamous Army (the Waterloo one?) was so historically accurate it was used in army colleges. As usual I don’t recall where.

R&D for me, although I might be considered too sensible. Maybe the Technical Section, but I don't look good in orange. 🤔

It's supposed to have been used at Sandhurst. I've yet to get more than a few chapters in, I'm afraid I took an unreasonable dislike to Bab Child's gold-painted toenails.

She is very good at character observation, and has a nice sideline in terrible teenagers and awful dogs. Not every book has either, but the Reluctant Widow has both. Such a joy.

I think pulped Mills & Boon were used in the construction of the M6 toll.

I would have to be in R&D. Although it could be fun to be a historian to try something a bit different.

I had a chemistry textbook published by Mills and Boon. Never quite understood why.

Wasn't the brand name Silvine? You can still buy them, even with tables and measurements!

I remember sketch books with illustrations of the classical orders of columns on the back. I think they had blue covers.

Also Frederica!

I would have to be a historian at St Mary's. Anything I tried in the way of R &D would be even more disastrous than the bunch that are there come up with. And I would love to time travel.

And of course cheese plays a Very Very Important Role in the books. Mikey & Adrian never leave home without it.

I’ve just bought the first St Mary’s book on kindle - something for when I can get my teeth into something new.

All the recent MNHQ posts about community threads took me back to the days of quiches. Are you the only Wolef left, @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius?

I might have thrown 'The Song of Achilles' across the room when the author witters on about them hauling the wooden boats up the beach to give them a chance to dry out.

Dear God, woman: if wooden boats dry out, they leak. This is why, if you are at sea on a wooden vessel, the decks are washed down with salt water every day.

Another chuck-worthy book was one that had skylarks singing in the woods.

Dear God, woman: if wooden boats dry out, they leak. This is why, if you are at sea on a wooden vessel, the decks are washed down with salt water every day.

The Bluestocking is so educational. I’m not relaxing here, it’s work.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Exactly right.
Seahorses and shells for the seaside, a seagull from the town’s crest (the crest was also on a badge on the school hat, and on the exercise books) and a treble clef because the school thought it was musical. I’m not sure about the foliage, seaweed possibly.

The fabric must have made the dresses expensive, and many of the girls who went there were from lower-paid families judging by much of the housing in Blackpool then. Encouraging pupils from those families is a good thing for a grammar school, in my opinion.

I'm sitting quietly in the corner as I've never read any of those books..
I loved your poem, Britinme

I just slept on and off through a programme I really wanted to watch. My lovely DH kept pausing it to let me catch up but gave up in the end. Why can I do that, yet when I wake up at 3 or 4 am I cannot get back to sleep?! 🙄😩😠

just catching up…
Thank you for the poem, @Britinme, very evocative. Our back doorstep was slightly worn from dad’s carving knife sharpening.
While some of those things belong to that country where they did things differently, Gardeners’ Question Time and its wise men (and women) still value the soil.

I really must start reading again! I’ve never read any Jodi Taylor, sounds intriguing. And I think only ever one Georgette Heyer. I’m part way through a Discworld re-read, sporadically during train journeys and also badly want to reread Dorothy Sayers.

My teenage pulp was Woman’s Weekly Romantic Fiction (mum’s) complemented by Alistair McClean (older DBs).

Have you displeased the Sleep Gerbil in some way? I can't imagine how, because our gerbils are the most forgiving and understanding of creatures... Maybe her GPS coordinates for Chez Bowed are off. Have a chat with her before you go to sleep tonight, and remind her of your location. As the Sleep Gerbil navigates by the road network, you could explain to her in detail that she could follow the A186 then turning onto the AI for 14 miles then take the off ramp to the A4530, OR the M69 as far as Exit 42 and then the A1469 OR alternatively turn off at the A4061 and taking the B1429 for 6.5 miles before rejoining the A4061 and then ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 😁

Have you tried watching programmes about the solar system? They always send me right off. I'm usually asleep before the intro has finished. In fact just thinking about it...🥱😴💤