The Bluestocking Women’s Pub: Where Clever Women Sit and Think, While Gerbils Run the Bar.

[MyrtleLion]

Come in. Yes, you’re in the right place. No, you don’t need to explain yourself.

Coats will be drycleaned before you depart. Bags won't be stolen because Gubbins will play her triangle. And you really don't want to hear it.

The gerbils run the bar.
They are small, brisk, and unionised.
One is polishing a glass with unnecessary seriousness.
Another is keeping the tab and will remember what you ordered last time.
There is a triangle involved. No one knows why. It keeps Gubbins happy.

Sit. Think. Drink. Join in.

The gerbils have it from here.

Previous thread...
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5481554-the-bluestocking-womens-pub-definitely-full-of-ludicrous-halfwits-who-refuse-to-get-a-grip-with-unionised-gerbils

I've got a mix of European heritage and so does my DH but neither of us have any Irish at all. DH would be over the moon to find some Irish somewhere in his ancestry.

My ancestry is all Yorkshire on my dad’s side as far as we know, and my mum came from London but the family were Catholic and my mum used to go to Irish dance classes as a girl so maybe there’s some Irish in there somewhere!

I'm sorry, @FuzzyPuffling , for some reason I mentioned Errol when discussing children's funerals - I know perfectly well that you are not Errol. I just wanted to give you my sympathy on such a horrible event.

I think whether you live in a town or city or the countryside can make a big difference. I live in very rural Mid-Wales and it's still common for funerals in villages and small town (we don't have a town with more than 13K inhabitants in the whole huge county) to be very well attended, especially if it's a funeral from a farming family.

I don't know how many funerals and memorial services I've been to. Dozens. It's seen as something of a social duty in my part of rural and semi-rural England. If someone has ever been involved in any local organisation, members of that will turn out. So will neighbours, friends and associates. I've been to a couple where I didn't know the person in question, but knew the spouse or the adult child.

I remember families wearing mourning for a year, but most clothes were greyish or navyblueish anyway so it wasn't difficult.

Then things loosened up a bit, and all that was required was not to wear anything too colourful, and a black diamond sewn onto the sleeves of jackets and coats.
I wore mourning for my dear departeds, discreetly cos it was just sticking to blacks and greys and whites, which isn't unusual for me anyway, but I knew I was in mourning and it felt right.

What a terrible experience, dear Fuzzy, to lose a grandchild, deepest sympathies. I'm sorry the topic of funerals came up, it's bound to cause you painful memories

I can’t work out if it would be supersupererogation for the 5th Sunday after Easter.*

Ooh, The liturgical colour for Rogation days is violet. Apart from red (for Pentecost and some feast days) the main liturgical colours in the C of E are

Green, White (or gold) and Violet.

Who’d have thought?

(I’ve made several sets of church vestments)
*Rogation Sunday.

they could do it digitally but they've seen too many WWII films and they like the uniforms and saying things like 'Rather!' 'I should say so!' and 'Tirriblly'

Can anyone read that without saying “Tiriblly” out loud? Not me, anyway.

@SionnachRuadh wrote
I don't know if this is a Belfast thing (as opposed to a rural Ulster thing) or if it's a specifically Belfast Protestant thing, but my default was always that the men went to the graveside and the women went ahead to the dinner and drinks, and the men caught up after the burial.

At first I thought that would be so the women could put the food out ready for the men, but maybe not. I vaguely remember a funeral in the last series of *Blue Lights’ but not detail like that. The programme is set in Belfast but the funeral was somewhere more rural. That programme does bring it home how different things still are in N Ireland, like peace walls still being there (not mentioned, but shown in the background like a park might be), and police hiding where they live and still checking under their cars before they get in them.

DH went to a RC funeral in Co Tyrone, about 40 miles from Belfast, in 2023. I was able to watch the service online. He didn’t mention only the men going to the graveside, and I think he would have. The funeral was indeed very soon after the death.

Rosenmontag is over, and I hear the gerbils had a lovely day, even though it was a bit nippy out, they had lots of fun, lashings of ginger-beer [sorry, Glenda, but it's for your own good], and they are now ready to take up their duties again.
Let's hope the Sleep Gerbils keep up the high standard they set last night - g'night all, especially Cake, hope you are recovering well and you'll be well enough to pop your head around the door soon.🌛

No, no, no, it's Faschingsdienstag today, the party isn't over until midnight today. Helauuuu! You need stamina for Fasching.
I used to earn enough money as a waitress during Fasching to last me into summer. Drunk Germans are very good tippers.

At least one lot of mine will be traditional pancakes with lemon and sugar, but I might try some stacked ones later. Without gerbil garnish.

Oh, and Happy New Year

I will try some of the jams from my Bonne Maman advent calender on my pancakes today, there are some exciting flavours.
dd went to Soederberg in Edi yesterday to have a semla bun (mahoosive, but she did succeed in eating all of hers, she says) and then in the evening Shipton Mill's newsletter arrrived in my inbox and it had the recipe for them. So I will bake some at the weekend.

We go for crepe / galette style on pancake day and I'll be having ham and cheese on my savoury one and probably Nutella and banana on my sweet one. I'm predicting DH will have marmite!

Every day a school day here in the Bluey, thank you Igneo, and happy Faschingsdienstag/Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras to you and to all...

but perhaps we could keep it from the gerbils, I don't think they could manage two consecutive days of the fun and games they had yesterday😟
On the plus side, we managed to keep Glenda on the ginger beer, so she's bright-eyed and ready to get gerbiling behind the bar this morning😄

How are you this morning, Boily? hope you're feeling better today, ditto Cake.

And Swash - haven't seen you for a bit, which is absolutely fine, you don't have to be here and if you are you don't have to say anything, if you just want to sit quietly by the fire and observe the carry-on proceeding in the Bluey, that's fine, no pressure. I'm just thinking about you, wishing you well and saying hello

You don’t seriously think we can hide Pancake day from the gerbils do you, Marie? They’ve been saving eggs from the BS flock all week.

I want a word with the sleep gerbils. They slacked off badly last night.

I need a large hot chocolate and a lie down. But if I lie down I'll feel even worse, so I've got my seeds out and am trying to motivate myself to find pots and compost.

I think the sleep gerbils were hovering around my house last night @EdithStourton. I slept really well, but woke up with a start when something that sounded like an ostrich (probably a seagull), landed on my roof 😬

The gerbils have heard of the tradition of pancake racing and decided to run their own. Gallette is in the lead....

In our house we have the “what kind of pancake?” Issue. One of the few things DH can cook is American-style pancakes, but to me that doesn’t feel like the right kind of pancake to have on Shrove Tuesday as I always associate it with the thin crepe-style pancakes my DM used to make and serve with lemon juice and sugar. I fancy those with leeks and ham and a cheese sauce for savoury and the lemon juice version for sweet but I may have to negotiate.

I don't know if we will be having pancakes here - it depends on whether dh feels like making them after a day of work and then cooking dinner. I would love them, but probably shouldn't have them, so it's OK if he doesn't.

I bought smoked salmon, cream cheese and a pot of dill, and hope that those with some button mushrooms will fit inside a pancake or two later on.

Meanwhile crepes with lemon and sugar for lunch.

Ooh smoked salmon, cream cheese and dill…mmmm.

You're right!
Pancake Day is one of the things that was never a 'thing' chez nous, so it's easy for me to overlook it. Mustn't deprive the gerbils of their fun, thought😄