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.

It's the "Cannot waste it!" mentality, isn't it?

My turkey was the driest I've ever made it. Had forgotten about buying butter until Christmas day. (I always use the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall method.)

@EdithStourton Neither of us can discuss this with our partners, as they're both from posher backgrounds than we are, and mince and taters wasn't on their childhood menus.

Commiserations to both partners. They clearly had deprived childhoods 😁

@FuzzyPuffling Thank you!

I feel deprived. I only ever had one grandparent and we used to see her once a year when we went down from Hull where we lived to Kent to stay with an aunt and uncle and Nan used to visit from Woolwich. Since this didn't start until I was six because we lived abroad until I was five, and we stopped doing it by the time I was in my teens, I doubt I even met her more than a dozen times. I don't remember having any personal conversation with her and certainly never ate any of her cooking.

This came back to bite me when I had grandchildren as I had no idea how to be a grandma, and as I live either 3000 miles or 350 miles (depending which set you're talking about) from my grandchildren I get to enjoy them maybe twice a year. However, I do have rather more contact with them than my grandmother ever had with me, and I think they actually like me (I honestly didn't either like or dislike my grandmother - she was just someone we saw rarely). However, my mum wasn't close to her either as she was given to her own grandmother to be raised as an 18 month old and lived with her grandma until she was 10.

Of course my children had no grandfathers living and only saw their grandmothers (one died when my youngest was 2 and the other when he was 3 and he remembers neither, and the other two only remember them slightly) once a year anyway, because of distance, so they don't have much of a clue either.

I felt quite ridiculous guilt when I had to throw out half the ham (a bacon eye) I'd cooked for the festive season, but did not deliberately get flu and lose both my appetite and the decision-making skill that would have put it in the freezer after a few days. After two weeks I did not think it would be wise to eat it.

Anyhow, I did a job this morning that has daunted me for years (literally), and replaced the very cracked firebrick lining in one side of the woodburner. In all honesty it wasn't that hard, though I was soot halfway to the elbows by the end.

I don't think I'll ever be able emulate Boily with getting rid of STUFF and all those showers, but one step at a time.

And I did some clearing in the kitchen and found a pineapple.

Blimey! I was thinking the Blue Stocking had gone quiet. I've only just realised I missed the ride to the new place and you're already half way through it.

I hope I haven't missed too much.

OMG

I've got Highland cowitis.

It started with the slippers and has now spread up my legs.

Save moooooooo.

Shower No. 11 completed.

<scratch scratch scratch scratch>

And I only got rid of 15 things today!

But neither of those things compare to being covered in soot in pursuit of a fixed woodburner.

Although you probably do need a shower now!

Bravo.

Was the pineapple hiding?

😂😂😂

I had a shower! Half an hour ago. I'm in bed with a hot water bottle, two cats, a laptop and an NCIS Los Angeles DVD.

@DeanElderberry that was all going very normally until you "found a pineapple".

And where did you get a new fire brick from please?

Moooooo

DH's mother was a TERRIBLE cook. No one ever taught her how, and she had zero interest in learning. DH can produce a decent meal, but on the basis of what I've been fed over the years, I can't say the same for his siblings.

My family, OTOH... All DM's side could cook (from 'decent' to 'stellar'), and the women on my father's side come from a culture where cooking is regarded as an art form (some of the more modern men are pretty decent in the kitchen too). I cook things from both sides, as well as other recipes picked up along the way.

The way I see it, you have to eat, so you might as well enjoy every single second of it.

One morning when the stove was out I made a rough template showing the correct size and shape, then went back to the hardware store the stove was bought at (more than 20 years ago), and the nice young man took me to the storage area and lo, there was a brick that looked right.

And was right.

I can't decide whether to buy a second one and replace the other side (which has cracks but not to the point of collapse yet) in the summer.

Finding a pineapple? Well, you know how it that happens.

One time, my late husband spotted a highland cow cushion cover in the local farm shop and purchased it for his granddaughter who was in her first student house down south: "Somebody had better remind her that she's half Scottish!"

I am now wondering whether highland cows or something similar are ever seen outside Scotland. Longhorns look a bit leaner, I'd say.

If I send you a template of our firebrick, could you ask the nice young man if he has a suitable replacement please @DeanElderberry? Ours got cracked by the chimney sweep, in a moment of supreme irony.

I was driving somewhere recently, somewhere Not Scotland, and saw some belted Galloways. Not really highland cows, but definitely Scottish.

We get Aberdeen Angus around here too, sometimes.

I'm sure a nice young man in an old-fashioned hardware store near you could do the biz. My chap was able to look up the stove the brick was meant for, and I could see it was correct. If you know the make for yours that should get you there.

I'm relieved not to have to be on the lookout for a chunk falling out when the fire is hot.

Are they allowed to call themselves highland cows if they aren't actually munching grass in a field somewhere in the higlands?

I suspect ours is the 1855 original, unfortunately.

I hope I haven't missed too much.
Of course not😂😂😂

Sorry you got left behind😕
Have a consolatory gin and er.. nonic😄
[recycled image]

I've seen highland cattle in several places in the North of England, particularly around the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, where they are prized as "conservation grazers" in areas that are being rewilded. They are known to eat some of the vegetation that can otherwise take over an area of grassland, but without grazing out the smaller native species in the way that sheep do.

I'm sure they still think of themselves as Highland @Boiledbeetle - although they may take on a Yorkshire accent.

I believe so - it's the breed that counts. When you think about it, it all sounds a bit dodgy...I've definitely seen Highland cows in the Lowlands and lowland breeds in the Highlands.

I'm half-Eastern European born in Scotland, so am I Scottish or am I Eastern-European? My best friend at high school solved it by declaring that I was a mongrel. I'll happily take that.

I've thought about it and I've decided that Highland Coos outside the Scottish Highlands are even more Scottish than those inside - a bit like Scots who emigrate and join Caledonian societies.

@Magpiecomplex you wore my slippers the other day. You may wish to look in a mirror.

I'd better let @inkymoose know as well...

Too late, she's noticed.