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.

Of course you need new pens. They are NOT a want. They are a need.

But well done on getting rid of 6. They do a good job of sitting there in the pen drawer looking like a brand new still full of ink pen don't they! Little sods.

I have pens and pencils pretty much in every room but can never find one when i need one

NO!

You are Very Valuable and Splendid ❤️

Bloomin' brilliant @MarieDeGournay ! That is a fantastic story ❤️

😳😂

They somehow migrate to where I don’t want them (eg bathroom) from where I do.

I don't suppose anybody else is watching the African Cup of Nations final?
Drama with a capital D!

I am now, or rather following it on the BBC sports pages. Is it on TV somewhere?

On E4.

Blimey, that's a lot of rain.

No, as I'd rather have my arse rubbed with a brick.

But I do want to know what the drama is.

Torrential rain - as if it needed anything more dramatic!

I watched bits and pieces of the tournament and it was one of the most boring tournaments I've ever seen🙄no flow, not many attempts on goal, bo-ring.
And then this final - home team Morocco v Senegal, no score till Morocco get a very late, questionable [but I thought it was one] penalty, and the Senegal players walk off in protest amidst much pushing and shoving between teams and officials.

Sadio Mané, fair play to him, didn't leave the field, and ended up running back to the Senegalese dressing room and obviously talked his team back out to face the penalty that would win the cup for Morocco.

And then the Moroccan player missed the penalty! Fired it feebly directly into the goalie's arms! So extra time, Senegal scored a wonderful goal and they are the champions of Africa.

Extraordinary.

Just saying hello and letting you know I have upped and followed to the new thread. I’m finding it helpful to spend as much time as I can outside at the moment. Lots of beach, and the secret fishermen in the evening.

I need to chuck a load of pens. I don’t understand why, but I buy packets of them and they seem to just stop working. All of them. I do the squiggle thing to test them and they just produce patchy lines. This has been happening for years. Anyway, I bought a new pack so should probably do a Boiley and eject the fading ones.

I saw the team running into the tunnel. Good to know what happened next!

Hello Swash, glad you found your way to the new thread, and have popped in from the the helpful outdoors

I don't know where I fit in the league table of pen disposal:
I threw out a few, but there were some nicer clicky ones that I like, so I ordered refills to make them work again.. so they live to write another day!

Refills! I remember refills. Seems like a bygone era. But, in many ways, it was more reliable when we refilled from the bottle. We had to use Blue-Black ink at school. I remember rebelling after a few years and using Black. Heady times.

In my match report I forgot to mention a Senegal goal disallowed - the ref had already blown his whistle for a 'soft' foul on a Morocco player, and Senegal were furious - then shortly afterwards there was the 'soft' penalty against them, so they were already annoyed at the ref. when it all kicked off.

I am with Hedgey on a) being terrible at singing and b) strewing pens around the house and never having one to hand.

I spent hours in the garden today. I trimmed the shrubs at the front of the house and had a burn-up round the back, at the same time (multi-tasking). Then I walked the dogs.

That's a lot of fresh air clocked this weekend - about 5.5 hours yesterday and 3.5 today. Lots of wildlife these past few weeks: two owls (one barn, one tawny), muntjac plural, a fallow and several hares. One of the hares was VERY close, and I got a good look at it. Another was an absolute unit of an animal. Batshit, hunting the field after it had gone, found what must have been its form. And a couple of woodcock, one in a wood where I'd expect them to be, but one burst up out of a ditch next to the footpath.

Batshit latest:

1. I threw her a treat. She opened her mouth. The treat sailed through literally between her jaws. She closed her mouth, but by that time the treat had gone.
2. DH called her. She eagerly came running along the muddy path and cornered rather too fast. Her back legs went out from under her and she skidded off into the ditch. Fortunately she was unhurt, and has no pride to be dented. Deep ditch, though: a good four feet down.

I had form for getting blue-black ink all over my blazer, my school bag, my books...

My mother gave up in the end and let me get cartridges, which were much pricier than a bottle of Quink, but saved a lot of stress.

Just dropping in for a final Auchentochen and to reclaim my usual username. Apparently I was shit at cheesemongering.

<clinks glasses>
That was you, was it?

A whisky is a good end to an evening.

There is a bluestocking choir you know. Just singing for fun, no need to read music. Android is a superb teacher!

Well if you can't monger cheese in the Bluestocking, you must be shit at it😂
I think I knew you were you and so didn't overdo the welcome when you appeared in your cheesy manifestation. But it's nice to be sure that you are you.
Sláinte maith!

Ooh, a fairy. I’m kind of surprised we don’t have more of those around.

The gerbils look worried. And who is that imposter beetle??????????

Unconvincing wings - that's my problem with that kind of fairy.

The Little People here in Ireland don't pretend they can fly, if they have to be somewhere else they can just be somewhere else, cos they're fairies, so they're magic, duh, they don't need aerodynamically unconvincing fluttery gossamer things...

Fairies, wings, aerodynamics - you have struck a raw nerve😁