The Bluestocking Women’s Pub: definitely full of ludicrous halfwits who refuse to get a grip (with unionised gerbils)

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to The Bluestocking: convivial by design, opinionated in the best way, generously stocked with excellent food and drink that complies with whatever it’s meant to comply with, and any calories, gluten or alcohol are entirely virtual.

Staffed by impeccably trained, unfailingly polite gerbils who run a tight bar with plenty of enthusiasm and good intentions. Quick with the drinks, but terrible spillers spellers and liable to turn an idle thought on existential existence into a full blown musical with Busby Berkeley routines. You have been warned.

All women welcome, just in case that isn't obvious. Men can go to The Staunch Ally round the corner.

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5477133-the-bluestocking-your-local-womens-pub-warm-friendly-and-not-at-all-unusual-in-any-way

Also, the fabric shop ( Sanskruti) is a women's collective, sent me a free hair scrunchie and this sweet handwritten note with my order. It feels very human!

Maybe start a thread in the Litter Tray, lots of experts in there.

Is she getting a bit of kitty- dementia? My cousin's cat did this when he got old- as though he'd temporarily forgotten where his comfort- people were.

Oh, a lock in. I woke up to the sound of a hamster wheel and the gerbils brought me tea and sunflower seeds for breakfast.

I shall keep looking at that shop, and maybe buy a little bit of fabric, just to test. I don’t see much anymore, but DD does. She’s going to help me make curtains, although I’ve not told her that yet!

V excited that Errol lives near by.

Have seen nurse for HRT tweaking. Couldn't hand in prescription - too early.

Phoned in application for my State Pension. Have been dreading doing it, but it seemed straightforward.

@FuzzyPuffling am quite covetous of your fabric stash… I need to get my sewing machines out and have them serviced as not used them for nearly a decade. For curtains/cushions I think.

Fancy getting some patterns and doing a dressmaking refresher course when I am finally alone with the dogs from September. 🥰

I hope you get useful advice about your cat, ChristmasStars - ,maybe put something with your scent in her bed so if she wakes up and feels confused and alone, she will be reminded of those nice humans who feed love her

Well done for the pension thingy WaW, hope the prescription has been sorted now too.

• *I recently posted about finding out that procrastination is a struggle between the limbic system which is all about immediate gratification/avoidance of pain and the prefrontal cortex which is about reasoning and planning and that kind of thing. I found it really useful for understanding why I put things off, and then hate myself for putting things off - now I know why I do it. So next time you're dreading doing something, your prefrontal cortex can say to your limbic system - 'look, let's just get on with it, the pension business went OK didn't it? it wasn't painful at all - so pipe down limbic system, and don't be such a drama queen''😁

That's a lovely note you got with your order of fabric, Fuzzy

Another grey day with gales today. At least we don't have inches of snow here on the NW coast of England and have thankfully been spared floods so far this winter, but it's so damned grey and boring!

Is it still January? 🙁

It looks pretty dull out and there are a few spots of rain in the air, but my yardstick is Belfast weather, where at this time of year you might get back indoors from a short walk and have to dry your socks on the old George Formby grill.

I love that! My family are all George Formby grill fans (poor old George Foreman doesn't get a look-in), but I've never tried drying socks on mine 😀

Another thought - since it seems to be at regular times, is there some noise in the house at those times - heating system, alarm system resetting itself, radiator cooling down/heating up and making noises, something bleeping because it has finished recharging or something?
Not very helpful because you can't stop them, but might be an explanation.

@ChristmasStars one of our cats is doing the yowling thing for no identifiable reason, but she is 18 and a half years old and possibly going demented. Our cats go in the basement overnight, which is where their litter trays are and I have made a few cosy corners for them, so we don’t hear middle of the night stuff.

What a lovely note that came with the beautiful fabric @FuzzyPuffling.

I sleep quite poorly anyway, but I've been awakened in the middle of the night quite regularly by noisy yowling. Not cats though - I think we're in the season for vixens in heat...

It's been very windy and rainy where I am, and I've just heard on the news that there is an orange alert coming into effect about now, which means it's going to get even worse over the next few hours😧
Thankfully I'm not near any river or the sea, so I should be OK, but it's been an incredible run of bad weather - it's January the 36th, I think Damson😞

I was wondering if the cat had gone a bit deaf, & so is shouting for her people because she wakes up & can't hear them. Mind you, my first thought was, 'Has she been spayed?' until I saw her age. 😂🐈💘

Very frustrated.

I am trying to knit a sleeve in the round. I ripped it once because there was a massive hole in the underarm because the pattern said "knit in the round according to my tips" which did not mention picking up armhole stitches.

I searched the internet to see what I should do and the very same woman's video for knitting sleeves in the round was the top result. She could have put in a link!

Then I managed to catch one of the working yarns (it's a stripy pattern) under a stitch and had to rip it back again.

I think I'll stop this one for now.

Maybe she could have her own little transistor radio* on R4 or the World Service so if she wakes up she'll hear human voices and think 'Oh good, they're still around'
Unless of course she understands human speech in which case the news bulletins would totally freak her out😱

*or a discarded mobile phone which still works as a radio.

Myrtle, if you think that's difficult to understand, just think how it seems to a non-knitter!
You are doing wonderfully well to have reached that level of problem
I hope it all becomes clear when you return to it after a cooling-off period.

@MarieDeGournay "Procrastination is the thief of time."

My Primary 6 teacher made us all write that down.

Anyway, have handed in the prescription - shall pick up tomorrow. Did an arm workout at the gym first. I managed to find a wee gym record notebook on Amazon. (I do like a notebook.)

As advertised, it's pocket sized, so perfect. This should stop me getting mixed up with which weight I'm on and how many reps.

Nipped to the bottle bank after the chemist's and then up to the charity shop. Handed in a handbag I no longer need and a blouse passed on by a friend.

I admit that I'm now avoiding said friend - which seems quite mean of me - but she's a bit on the bossy side and has taken to using me to save herself trips to charity shops.

The first time, I was ambushed when she had a broken ankle. I'd gone round to her place - a good bit away (the other end of the county) - to hand in some purchases she'd asked me to make only to find that she'd been mobile enough to put together a collection of lampshades that she'd cleared from her mother's house in the process of putting it on the market.

It was "Can you do me a favour...?"

I finished up with a boot full of old lampshades and a monstrosity of a heavy ceramic lamp.

As I suspected, the charity shop didn't want most of them. (I told them to check them first and said I'd be happy to dispose of any that were of no use. Some I didn't even take in - they were obviously unsuitable for sale.)

The blouse was given to me as 'a present'. It didn't suit her and she'd noticed that I 'wear black'. [I'm actually trying to get away from black.]

I protested that it wouldn't fit - she's smaller than I am, and I'm currently wearing a size 18. "Oh, it'll definitely be big enough!"

It's an XS. I do wonder, because she slipped in "If it doesn't suit, you can pass it to a charity shop." Hmm.

We have a flood warning in Fife. I'm glad I'm midway down a hill instead of at the bottom.

I make that Prefrontal cortex 5-0 Limbic system today, WaW, well done!😄

For me it would probably be an expensive treat.

Oh no, Marie. It's definitely already January the 50th. At least. I can hear the rain on the skylight in my office.

Although in better news, Southeast Water has just lifted the hosepipe ban. Excellent!

DH and I both woke up early and managed to drag ourselves out early (by retired standards) and got to an rspb reserve by about 9am. Not the greatest day for it but I like the wind through the reedbed, the rain held off till we got home and the climb up the ‘sky tower’ was rewarded by a marsh harrier flying around almost directly in front of us.
Ive just been out and bought a new pair of trail shoes (weirdly one of the few shops in the next village is a specialist running shoe shop) - I don’t run but hopefully will help with slight discomfort walking on hard surfaces sometimes. They only had white in the right size so they’ll start off ‘American tourist’ and end up mud coloured. And then into the nursery for some seed compost and a few seeds…a cheering purchase at this time of year. Unfortunately I don’t have a potting shed and don’t really feel like going outside again now, it’s properly damp and blustery so they’ll have to wait. If I lived alone I’d do seed sowing etc in the garage…hell no, I’d have the compost bag in the kitchen.😂
I sowed some verbena bonariensis a couple of weeks ago in a mini propagator which is on the kitchen table. I’m very dubious as to whether they’ll succeed … at the moment there’s a good crop of tiny fungi which the Seek app tells me are Trooping Crumble Caps.