The Bluestocking - your local women's pub, warm, friendly, and not at all unusual in any way.

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the welcome is warm, the conversation is wide-ranging, the food and drink are delicious but magically free from anything they need to be free from, and the bar staff are highly-trained, professional, efficient and very friendly gerbils.

Yay!

I am heartened by the fact that I'm not the only one in here who derives great pleasure from a novelty sheep toilet roll holder!

DH’s DS, who was in his 30s at the time, died by suicide about 16 years ago. He’d been in an industrial accident that had left him with permanent nerve damage and was in constant pain. I didn’t know him well because he had mainly worked abroad and only been back in the USA less than a year, because of the accident. Eventually he had been told there was nothing more that could be done for him surgically, and his primary care doctor had told him he shouldn’t rely so much on heavy duty painkillers, so he had (foolishly) stopped them cold turkey and self-medicated with alcohol. His wife had chosen that evening to go out to a party and he called his dad to tell him he had a gun and how he was feeling. They lived a two hour drive from us so DH set off straight away and I stayed home to man the landline and called DS’s mother, who lived closer. Sadly she arrived just too late and DH arrived as the ambulance was taking DS to hospital where he died an hour or so later. I’ve never seen DH so prostrated by grief, and because DH’s DIL claimed her husband wanted to be buried at sea (he worked at sea) and it was February so the weather was not fit for such a burial, he spent months hunched over his computer looking at weather reports until he finally put his foot down and insisted it wouldn’t get any better than it was in June so it took place then. Like many men, he basically doesn’t mention the loss of his son, and it is still tender for him if I mention his name. I remember my first SIL’s father doing the same when SIL’s teenage brother died in a car crash. I think many men don’t know how to express grief except by stifling it.

Jeepers, Brit what a very very sad story. I'm so sorry. X

That's a tragic story, Britinme How your DH has managed to get through those 16 years since losing his DS is a testament to his strength and no doubt the support he gets from you, even though he doesn't talk about it to you, he knows you are there for him if he ever wants to.

I don't let DSD's memory slip away - I bring him up casually in conversation when some need arises, the way I do with my own DH1, and I think that helps in dealing with that kind of grief. It's not that they're still alive, it's that they were important. I told DH2 before we married that DH1 had been part of my life for 36 years and I basically wouldn't be able to talk about the past without talking about him as well, and DH2 has been totally OK with that.

It's the shapes our lives take. We are all deeply affected by such terrible events when they happen to us. Sometimes it seems impossible to get past it or to get round it. Grief is a strange thing but so so necessary...

... as is laughter and friendship and fun, even if it's in a fictional place like the Bluestocking. I like popping in here. Paradoxically I feel a bit more human after a visit, considering I'm an enormous and rather silly moose!

I'm not a fan of the "least said, soonest mended" school of thought, especially in the case of bereavement. Grief will manifest itself sooner or later and can cause ongoing emotional problems if not acknowledged and processed. That doesn't mean we always have to give way to our emotions (although there should also be a time for that). But being able to talk about someone or just sit quietly and think about them, is important and helps us, eventually, to remember the good times and the funny things about them, as well as the more difficult memories.

It's nearly two years on for me, but we seem to have settled down into an acceptable routine since DH retired. Could do with a bigger house, though (or doing a Boily clearout of ALL my stuff to free up a couple of rooms) as sometimes he's using the dining table or the lounge when I want to use it. But we work around each other & I really appreciate having him home as compared to never seeing him due to work & hobbies - NOT gym, running or cycling, unlike 90% of DHs on MN, apparently.

I'm the one buggering off hobbying while DH stays at home... I possibly have too many hobbies. He needs more, he's only out twice a week and doesn't really have any at home except gaming.

Whereas I knit, crochet, garden, do most of the painting and decorating (which I enjoy...)

@Britinme your DSS's story is just so sad. Like your DH, mine is terrible at expressing grief or pain. I always feel that it can't be good for him.

Not knowing what to say so that you end up saying nothing is understandable but sad. One of my parents' close friends alternated between breezily pretending nothing was wrong and then, gradually, fading out of their lives. Another friend suggested that she (the fader away) was so afraid of aging herself that she couldn't cope with the manifestation of age and illness in others .

And I heard myself asking 'did you get over Christmas okay?' as we walked out of church a few weeks ago, only to remember, pretty much as I finished the sentence, that the person I was talking to had been widowed less than two months ago. I was able to recover from that by reflecting on there being so many 'first times' to get through. And she knows I do care, even if I'm an idiot.

Ceremonies like the blessing of graveyards can be good as a collective acknowledgement of the griefs we feel, though I was a little irritated last time when our local cross dresser emerged from his usual fog of skunk and stale alcohol to ask me how my mother was. I think I refrained from saying 'still dead'.

Can we get this woman in to train the gerbils?

https://x.com/i/status/2013506781851590888

That is amazing, Boily! The way she can control them all is unbelievable - I watched her hands very carefully , some of the movements are like twirling a baton but there's so much else going on.
Any idea who she is /where she's from?
At first I thought of eastern Europe, where 'rhythmic gymnastics' were a big thing, but I'm thinking more of China - something about the level of complexity and the control..

Anyway it's beautiful and amazing and a wonderful tribute to human ability ad creativity - thank you for posting!

It is isn't it. I wouldn't even be able to control one

No idea who she is, it just popped up whilst I was doom scrolling on twitter.

The gerbils don't seem to be taking their training seriously.

Crikey, it's quiet in here tonight...

I'll just slink back home for a quiet nightcap.

I went to the secret fishermen tonight. Some came in late. They had been night fishing by attaching a rope to somewhere on the cliff top and descending 300 feet down vertical cliffs (unattached to the rope; that was just there in case they needed to make a grab for it). It’s January, and cold, wet and windy at the coast. It’s the passion that drives them. Fair play, I said. And respect, obviously.

Sorry it was so quiet when you wanted company Edith

Swash - that's a very dramatic and dangerous occupation, and as you say, fair play to them, they must be totally mad really committed to go night fishing in this weather..
'night fishing' reminds me of the REM song 'NIght Swimming', which is beautiful - I'm not a great REM fan, but that song always stops me in my tracks.

I hope everyone has a good night, acceptable dreams and a restful sleep.
Will Myrtle change out of her Pyjama-Day Pyjamas into The-NIght-After-Pyjama-Day Pyjamas I wonder?

Dream Gerbils, Sleep Gerbils, do the biz for everyone, please🌛

What??? Is this a job they do or something? What are they fishing for and can't they just go in a boat like normal fishermen? I am intrigued.

Are you sure they aren't smugglers?

Could you please get a grip with thread titles. Anyone from outside will think you're half wits. The Bluestocking women's pub is ludicrous

1. 'Bluestocking' is self evidently women
2. 'The' denotes a pub name

The Bluestocking is all the information you need. Have been itching to say this about other Bluestocking thread titles but now it's all too much. I suggest if anyone's been having a drink there recently, you check their feminist credentials.

That's a very fair question @FuzzyPuffling and I think we need an answer.

Nee nah nee nah nee nah...thread police arrives.
I think you'll find the door is that way. ➡ Try not to slam it on the way out. It disturbs the gerbils.

No I was a complete stinky-pants and just got into bed.

Pyjamas went into the wash this morning and I'm wearing proper clothes after my shower. Though I'm not actually wearing any trousers yet as the Walrus did the washing yesterday but left the clean clothes downstairs.

I have a dentist appointment at 10, so I'll put them on when I go down to leave. Our living room is on the first floor next to our bedroom. He's in his study-cum-dining room downstairs.

The gerbils are unionised, management is unrepentant, the bar is open, and the thread titles are staying. Do mind the door.

I will take this either as humour or possibly a plea for caffeine so welcome and what’s your brew?

My brew was always a pint of Creme de Menthe and that was on a good day!