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.

Happy birthday, Fuzzy.
I shall toast you in lager.

Oh, I will, never fear.
And Montaigne was on the money.

Sounds to me as if Myrtle did well to collect the Walrus.

But pink paint wouldn't put DH off. He used to have a bright pink t-shirt, which he wore until it fell apart. I just need to be able to ID my tools to allow prompt repossession.

Etsy has clearly been stalking me online.

Oh dear, Cressida Capybara is going to have a heck of a time trying to get into the women's toilets with that look!😮

Neither have I, Edith. It's a really good night when I manage 7 or 8, punctuated of course by the inevitable trips to the loo. The only solution to night time noises for me is earplugs, though I know not everyone likes wearing them.

As for your so-called rant, I call it a completely justified position statement. I'm not a tool person, so tools are definitely DH's department, but our DD had a very respectable kit by the time she married and has added to it since. She also has the skilled and absorbing hobby of wind instrument repair which has necessitated the acquisition of a full-size lathe. At least she always knows where that is. 😁

The wind has died down here today and the threatened rain has not (so far) materialised, so I thought I would do some clearing in the garden. I haven't really done much since moving in a couple of years ago as I was concentrating on the inside, so this year is gardening year (as long as my knee holds out). I do have an occasional gardener who helps with heavy jobs, but I thought I would tackle a large hardy fuchsia, which looks lovely when in flower, but really swamps everything near it and has killed of a lovely miniature azalea which was next to it. So I cut out all last year's growth and put it into a huge garden waste sack, to take to the tip. There was so much of it though that it could not all fit in, so I had the idea of getting into the sack and jumping on it to squash it down. Thankfully, no Damsons were hurt in this exercise, other than a few scratches, but I'm sitting here having a good giggle at the thought of my aged self in a mad, solo sack race round the garden. Thankfully, I'm not overlooked by neighbours' houses, but I think I'll get the gardener to take out the root.

Happy birthday fuzzy

Happy birthday, Fuzzy. I hope you have a lovely day.

Happy birthday Puffling!

Many Happy Returns Fuzzers.

Just catching up on the thread.
re snoring partners - if you want to start the night sociably but then may need to decamp to a different bed in chilly weather, invest in an electric blanket and put it on with an appropriate length of timer.

re tools… I have a small but useful selection which DH mostly leaves alone. Probably he’s realised it’s to his advantage if I can always lay my hands on a suitable screwdriver etc.

re names - AuroraSoup does sound like a name from children’s fiction or Discworld. And makes perfect sense as the full can be interpreted as Dr Aurora Soup, dragon’s friend. (Or maybe dragons’ friend? - it’s ok, I’m not possessive )

I was thinking Aurora Soup sounds like something the Clangers would have eaten, as a main course before Blue String Pudding.

I have pink tools. Sexist shite usually.

however.

MrTaz will not dare touch them because he knows I will kill him if I catch him with one of my tools in his hands.

I have tools. DH does not do DIY.

Re disappearing tools - I've referred to this before, and it was recognised by many:
THE GOOD SCISSORS.
It was jointly and severally my mother's most precious possession and the bane of her life.

'WHERE IS THE GOOD SCISSORS?! was both a lamentation and a declaration of war on 'anyone', no names no pack-drill, who had used it make a starter hole for a screw or lever a bit out of a faulty internal combustion engine😄

Needless to say I too have 'a good scissors', the one that can be depended on to cut neatly and quickly. And it's mine all mine, there's no-one around to even think of borrowing it😠

Good scissors is and are understandable, but my father's insistence that the 'good sellotape' should never be used for an unworthy cause was not.

Eventually, and predictably, it dried up and had to be thrown out. After he'd died.

I have two grades of sellotape, the 'ordinary' shiny one, and the 'fancy' matte one that disappears.

In honour of your father Deano, I will henceforth refer to the latter as 'the good sellotape'

apparently if you stick it in the microwave it revitalises.

Thinking of Cher and Mr Frozenface today, as they deal with the sad news they got yesterday. Sending x

Oh dear, too late now, I hope he doesn't feel he has to haunt me. It was indeed the matte one.

Happy birthday Fuzzy!

I've never found reading Burns all that difficult. I just imagine Ian Paisley's voice and that makes everything clear.

While DH doesn’t unilaterally nick my tools, he has form for using kitchen scissors (not necessarily ‘good’ ones but essential kit) and worse, knives, for random tasks. One of my Good Knives from the knife block set has vanished recently, and while it’s entirely possible it accidentally went in the bin amid peelings, I’m still hopeful I’ll find it somewhere unlikely.

but is that something many people would want to listen to?

Sympathies to MrFfozen and Cher

I used to work right near City Hall and Papa Doc would preach there at Friday lunchtimes. The cadence is burned into my memory. It's not much of a stretch to take it from Old Testament prophets to the virtues of the haggis 😉