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

Had to detour today to avoid flooded roads & while the coutryside was very beautiful, most of the time it was hidden by rain falling out of thick grey cloud (just the one, covering the whole sky). Every so often, a quarter of the sky would go pale blue with fluffy white clouds & it seemed like the rain was moving away - only for everything to turn dark & wet again. I just want some daylight. I have colours to match.

Pissed down here for about 12 hours - it got going when I was awake at 3am, and was just stopping when I took B&B out for their second one of the day. DH did the first and he got soaked.

My morning was rearranged due to a leak in a roof (not mine, for which I rather selfishly gave thanks, but it's a commercial premises, not a house). Massive puddles everywhere, some right across the lanes. I saw the local dog-walker trudging along under a brolly and stopped to commiserate. 'I was out at 8,' she said, 'and I won't be home till gone 4.' She slogged off down the lane with a huge hound of the Baskervilles on a short lead.

Still raining here in Kent. Large hot chocolate please bar gerbil, I'll be sitting as close to the fire as I can manage.

My city is in the top 6 places in the UK with the highest rainfall in the past 24 hrs.
I feel particularly proud of the washing.

Where's the list, Fuzzy? I'm curious!

I phoned the bloke I buy fuel from. He told me it was raining in Malaga as well, but he sounded pretty mellow. He'll bring me some sacks of logs at the end of the week, once he's back.

Fuzzy, I don’t understand this. I feel particularly proud of the washing.

Do you mean you are proud of getting the washing dry despite there being a lot of rain?

I read ‘Invisible Women’ years ago but my searching on MN fails to bring it up so I’ll just mention this here.

There was an interview near the end of PM on BBC R4 just now with Professor Barbara Sahakian about a link between menopause and dementia. I wasn’t giving it my full attention, but towards the end the male presenter said something about dementia being more common in women, and why hadn’t that been studied before. Professor Sahakian then explained that most studies (of any type) had been carried on solely (or principally?) on men. Now the US National Institute of Health insists on studies reporting how many women have been included, which has the effect of increasing those numbers.

I must listen again, but at the moment I can’t fast forward through the programme to get to the end. Dementia wasn’t trailed as being in the programme so I did wonder if it was included then because there was time, and time also for the more general follow up questions about running clinical trials, and the inclusion of women.

Ah, the results of the research have been mentioned on the BBC1 news, but not the general questions.

I do know that Professor Sahakian has been studying dementia for decades.

Mobile phones are funny that way - I once phoned a plumber about a leak, and he said he'd pray for me - he was in Lourdes😄

I see on the TV news here that there's lots of bad flooding, not a million miles from me, but fortunately this particular area has never flooded - no nearby rivers, and we're on high-ish ground. Counting my blessings, because a flooded house is such an awful, long-lasting disaster, I feel so sorry for anybody affected.

I hope we all stay safe and dry. The gerbils have sent for their cousin Stuart to come and rescue anybody stranded by floods😄

It's been a very rainy winter in Fife.

I've just seen a local newspaper report stating that our water rates are going up. Ha!

Charging you for getting rid of it, @WearyAuldWumman?

Knowing Scottish Water and how useless they are, I shouldn't be at all surprised!

Seems as though I’ve escaped the worst of this storm in Lancashire. There were quite a lot of puddles on the road when I went out to get my hair cut this morning but nothing awful. I’ve a theory that because it’s often rainy here, the landscape (natural and built) has generally evolved to cope. DH did used to avoid part of his usual route to work in wet weather … a road isn’t called ‘Watery Lane’ for no reason!

It’s been awful here too the last couple of days. Howling wind and heavy rain. Haven’t made it for a beach walk today. The hound is reluctant to even go into the garden. I can’t wait for blue sky and lack of wind. It’s miserable.

The former cotton town in Lancashire where I was born had a Watery Lane. I imagine there are a fair few scattered across the north of England on either side of the Pennines. 😀

I'd be happy if I was your washing - Whitby is one of my favourite places!

That sounds a little odd, reading back 🤣

I’m not sure I’d want to get there by being blown … could go horribly wrong with the cliffs😂

😁I love Whitby too.

I actually live on the Lancashire coast, so it felt as though the wind today could blow anything it picked up, clear across the Pennines. Even the seagulls were having difficulty flying against it.

There’s a Water Hall Lane in Penistone, which is on the Pennines, I think. Also a Water Lane in Sheffield. Watery Lanes exist in Airton near Skipton, Swinithwaite (what a lovely name), Settle and Netherthorpe, if I can search the internet properly,

Did cotton towns, and wool towns, have to be based near rivers as they needed water for the fibre processing? I may have heard that in a dream.

I live in somewhere which I have heard called the driest place in the UK, but I’m not sure it is. It has a Water Lane, too.

I love Whitby too, and miss Yorkshire so much.

I used to live on the Lancashire coast, too. In those long-gone days it very rarely snowed even when the rest of the country was covered. I was told this was because the water was warmed by the Gulf Stream but I don’t know now if that was true.

It could definitely be windy on the front.

Does anyone else remember Skegness in Lincolnshire advertising itself with,
Visit Skegness, it’s so bracing?

I remember the poster, featuring a rather rotund fisherman skipping along a cliff. I think the poster was actually advertising railway journeys.

Haha good point!

Me too.

I used to live in North Yorkshire, betwixt the moors and the dales - lovely county but tbh Whitby isn't a bit I particularly miss.

Did cotton towns, and wool towns, have to be based near rivers as they needed water for the fibre processing? I may have heard that in a dream.

They certainly did. Textile manufacture, like paper manufacture, uses a very large amount of water. Before steam engines were invented, the earliest mills were water-powered, which is why so many cotton and woollen towns first developed in steep-sided valleys with a lot of running water to harness. I now live in rural Wales, where there was also a thriving woollen industry along the upper reaches of the River Severn.