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.

Far from leaving my mind at the door
[that reminds me of one of those funny book titles:
'My Life As A Mafia Hat-Check Girl, by Livia Gunza D'Ador']
this is very mindful:

As the clock ticked closer and closer to both my car insurance and tax running out, I just could not get around to renewing them - it felt like a physical response stopping me from doing such a simple task.

It was so disproportionate that I googled 'procrastination' and found out really interesting stuff: that it's a conflict between the limbic system, which is all about immediate gratification and avoidance of pain, and the prefrontal cortex, which is about future planning, decision making, judgement etc.

That feeling of 'Oh for heaven's sake just do it' being met by a fist-clenching, foot-stamping scowling 'NO' makes sense now.

Knowledge is power. As soon as I finished the article, I immediately renewed my tax and insurance.
Limbic system 0 - 1 Prefrontal Cortex😄

PS If you flick between the two pictures, the gerbils are bowing to you.😂

I've got a tax return looming. This may be why I've been making bread.

awwww!

Though they do look remarkably like those voles and mice who EAT mountains of fruit in the autumn, so they may have rather disturbing ulterior motives.

I have done my tax return, but I have some basic butchery to do, after being out with Brains yesterday. I've been putting it off all day, but it's not cold enough to rely on the shed as adequate refrigeration. I can have it done in 20 minutes...

Woley, buy the yarn and explain to your DH what a massive saving this amounts to, compared to how much you usually spend on the little angels at Christmas.

I'm working up to spending ££££ on enough yarn for a sweater for a bigly member of the wider family. DH would pass out cold, if he knew what my annual yarn bill came to. But it's still cheaper than some of his hobbies, and it provides clothes and presents.

Is that what it's for?!

I tuck mine in the inside pocket of my coat and hang that on the hooks on the way in.

Heck, I'd be going straight for manipulation with "You would deny our granddaughters matching Christmas dresses? What sort of granddad are you?"

On th subject of No! Shan't! reactions...

MIL thought she was signing up for ready meal deliveries but it was Mindful Chef in meal boxes she would actually have to cook. She also didn't cancel right away.

DP's turned up with big boxes of ingredients for vegetarian meals. I had a look through the pack and the recipes and surprised myself with my, "They don't get to tell me what I'm cooking" knee jerk reaction.

I think I'm a bit ornery.

Dh’s brother and his wife are staying this weekend, and I’m sure my SIL will say I was entirely justified in buying the yarn - and I found cute wooden buttons with snowflakes on them, so I’ve ordered them too. BIL may not be as easy to convince, but I did bake cheese scones today, so I can bribe him with those.

I lied.
It took me 21 minutes, including setting everything up (with a podcast to listen to), disinfecting the worktop afterwards, and putting the meat in the freezer.

<puts brain in holder>
A lovely big hot chocolate, please, bar gerbil.

Thank you thank you for the recommendations to Walk Off The Earth and Key of Awesome upthread, which I have enjoyed a lot this morning. Weather is better but will be worse again tomorrow, dammit.

We also have a tax return to do, and the work of preparing it all for the accountant falls to me because DH is not very tech savvy and I can at least find my way around Excel. It's a slow process because some of the information we need from various banks and financial places often doesn't turn up until late January, but I can make a start now.

Hot chocolate, preferably with something alcoholic in it, sounds like a very good idea right now, but DH is currently as I write out there finishing clearing the driveway of snow in preparation for the new batch that will fall on the old batch tomorrow and freeze, thus creating the unwanted ice pack of nightmares.

So was I at uni, nearly 60 yrs ago now, yet when Marie quoted O Fortuna I could hear the whole thing in my head. I sang first soprano back then and my top vocal range had increased by two whole notes by the end of rehearsals.

I sellotaped myself to my lap top on Friday and ignored MN until my tax return was submitted.

I knew the Darlington ruling was likely to come out that day and promised myself the treat of doing fuck all afterwards, except for logging on MN following the Darlington thread and reading the full judgement.
Which i did until teatime.

And what a satisfying treat it was.

Second alto, alternating with helping out the woefully underpowered tenors!

If anyone here is an Antonia Forest fan you might enjoy the discussion on the books page.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5477093-delicately-balanced-on-a-razor-edge-of-mutual-toleration-rowan-marlow-saint-or?page=1

I'm the second of 5 sisters, all of whom enjoyed singing and had decent voices. Not sure now what voice my rather older half-sister sang as a girl, but of us 4 younger ones I was the soprano, followed by a true mezzo and two altos.

My sister is a proper mezzo. I've gone the other way and my range is closer to tenor. Makes me popular in female voice choirs!

One of my two alto sisters did the same when she was younger. She used to sing in a mixed choir and as always they were shorter of tenors than altos and really appreciated her support. They were not happy when she moved away.

I cannot sing at all and am forever sad about my lack of ability.

i have discovered the inciteful sisters and am listening to some fantastic interviews as i do my jobs.

That might explain why the gerbils wear PPE on karaoke night.

Magpies, on the other hand, are well known for being exceedingly tuneful.

It was a bad day to be a pencil in my house!

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Inspired by you (as ever) I have thrown out 6 pens & 2 empty refills.

Sadly I spotted a bargain & have bought some new pens. But I need them!

I used to belong to a community chorus, but was only ever able to join in with the September to December term, which meant it was always Christmas music, which I got tired of after a while. I'm an alto, and I really can't sight-read music which meant I had to listen very carefully to the two friends I went with, who could, and hope to remember it all.