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.

I have not. I was looking at some photos of the loft, as you do, and noticed the dog! It's definitely like seeing things in clouds. The insulation hasn't been put back properly last time an electrician was up there so it's all bunched up, hence the dog looking clump!

Hopefully just the small piece in your mouth and not a whole wheel of the stuff?

Has one of the gerbils grown a set of horns? (not the ones on her feet)

Well... I did buy three whole cheeses, but each of them is quite dinky! And one is star-shaped.

That's what happens when you nick a beetle's slippers

This appears to be a snooker/Quidditch hybrid game. What JKR would have come up with if Harry Potter had been a louche lounge lizard rather than a spotty schoolboy.

I'm very relieved. I thought from your previous picture that you might have got lost in a secret underground passage with collapsing pit props, hence the mysterious pale beast. Potting gerbils sounds so much safer.

I would come and watch the game but I'm supposed to be working on The Difficult Document and I've been distracted by the continuing awful world news, most of which seems to have originated from a certain 'president'. I must stop doomscrolling.

Tonight's dinner featured two kinds of cheese. Neither of them remarkable, but the combination was very good.

I used to be very on top of the news: daily or at the very least thoroughly-read weekly paper, and chunks of R4 news every day. I was slightly horrified when one of DH's aunts commented that she didn't listen to the news every day, she caught up once a week and that was quite enough, thank you, otherwise it was just too depressing.

I now think she was onto something, and have broadly adopted her position. My younger self is deeply embarrassed about my older self.

Is it the dog that's been flushing your loo at night?

I stopped listening to the news during Covid, which was quite a thing as I used to be a real news junkie. I found it was making me anxious and depressed. These days I survive pretty well without having the news on around the clock. If I need to know something, I'll find out about it soon enough.

You may be on to something there 🤔

The happiest person I know is a friend of mine who ignores the news. He's not hopelessly ill-informed (his partner keeps him up-to-date on the key bits) but he says it would just make him miserable and he can't do a damned thing about most of it anyway.

I lift-share with him when I don't have to because he makes me laugh so much.

It's not just you or DH's aunt, Edith. I always used to watch or listen to the main news bulletins every day and now never do so. I keep up with the news by reading it as and when I feel like it.

Oh, and Batshit....
Got up onto the sofa, which she has got onto many times (she's allowed up there provided she's not muddy or otherwise disgusting).
Turned around to position herself for a nice lie down.
Put a paw down the gap between two of the cushions - a gap which has been there ever since she first got onto said sofa - and lurched heavily to one side, almost falling over.
Extricated her paw from the nasty unexpected gap, and lay down huffily.

Brains never does stupid shit like this. Brains manages to manipulate her way onto DH's lap, by playing Jedi mind-games that convince him that he should put her there.

I don't exactly ignore the news, but if it's a breaking story I need to know about then people will alert me.

And I subscribe to a bunch of substacks, but say if I get a newsletter from Rod Dreher, it will be stuff Rod found interesting this week, it won't be trying to spike my dopamine and get me riled up about something I can't do anything about.

I know enough about news and how the sausage is made to distrust headlines. Most of what seems dramatic today will be all the same in 100 years.

I really love this picture, Boiley ❤️

Glad you like it.

Bear won.

Although I remain convinced that Gertrude was jumping into pockets of her own accord every time Bear went near the cue ball. How else do you explain an end score of Beetle 23 Bear 697.

I was robbed of my victory.

😊
I don't know of any biog of MdeG, ..er, what is the short form of your name here,
DrAuroraSoupDragonsFriend?🤔
That said, I've just had a bit of a google and I see there is one, in French, which I'll track down and read and report back.
I'll look for an English one, but she's a bit obscure, even in France, so it's unlikely.

Nice to see you again, Sionnach, and thank you to those who reported back that you were alive and sinnin' on other threads
I suppose there's a fine line between wondering if absent Stockingers are OK, and cyberstalking them

Boily, the Spectral Doggy in the Loft is scary, and I'm going to have to issue special instructions to the Dream Gerbils.

So I'm saying g'night to everyone, hope Fuzzy has a good night and feels better tomorrow; and that Cher and DH have a healing night's sleep.

And Dream Gerbils - no dreams featuring scary ghost-dogs in lofts, thank you!
🌛

My news consumption is fairly random - headlines from The Times most days and a few articles if they look interesting but not depressing, sometimes the radio. Then in the car DH likes various podcasts. Today they were a few days old and so various things they were concerned about had already somewhat receded.

Oh, Boiley.

I love this too. I tend not to do joy, but your posts bring me pretty close. I can see Gertrude doing this so vividly. I LOVE GERTRUDE! I know this might hurt, but would you mind awfully giving her a Tunnocks…..?

Edit: meant to quote your last post)

Gertrude does have a soft spot for a certain teddy bear! Look at the way she was looking at Bear earlier when she brought snacks.

And even when trying to give her Tunnock's she wouldn't stop looking at the victor.

And I lost my slippers in a side bet!

Also will someone stop Gubbins from going near the badge maker until she learns to spell properly.

Oh, Lord; her little face in the first one! Perfectly portrayed. Bless her little cotton socks. ❤️❤️❤️

May you drift off to sleep tonight with images of Gertrude lovingly diving into snooker table pockets as Bear lines up a shot.

💙

Goodnight all

Goodnight….hang on, thats not your snowy cub in Boily’s attic is it?