The Bluestocking Inn, cocktails and cocoa and all

[DeanElderberry]

Opening soon in a salubrious location.

And thanks to the miraculous qualities, although we will indeed have

One-steps and two-steps and the divil knows what new steps
We know that we never would be dull again, bedad
We'll have wine, porter and lemonade.
We'll have cocktails and cocoa and all
We'll have champagnes tonight
But NO real pains next morning
Tonight when we dance at the Bluestocking Ball

slight apologies to Frank Harte

You know what? I think I'm feeling better. Still slightly trepidatious about food, but definitely better.
I've seen several bumblebees around this week, and I noticed the mason bees are back in the same spot as last year too. No peacocks, semi-feral or otherwise, but plenty of fully feral students 😂

Glad you seem to be on the mend Mags. I've seen a few queen bumble bees too since the weekend.

I might give the blitz beach a visit. Formby is awesome, although it's been a while since I've been there. The red squirrels are adorable. I've never seen them myself but I believe footprints from ice age fauna and people often show up there. Then it's a race to record them before they're lost forever. I remember watching a programme (possibly Coast?). Someone was in a boat off the Formby beach and said they were sailing over, I think, where a caravan site used to be.

The NT Formby car park is closed at the moment I think - they’re removing a lot of rubble from the foreshore and old car park area (the debris from a demolished barracks) and building a new car park further inland. So if you go you’ll need to use the Lifeboat station car park instead - unless you can use the train. (Not sure when the main entrance will reopen - ‘spring’ so hopefully not too long)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99p2gx9x89o?app-referrer=deep-link

Aw yes! When Sinead O'Connor died I watched the duet of the two of them on loop for a while.

I know it flowers all year, but the furze looked very pretty against the sky today.

Furze for the whin?

Not long back from my two exercise classes and coffee with a pal.

The instructor at the Senior Flex class was being assessed by a manager of some description and lots of photies were taken for publicity.

At the end, we were asked to pose with the two trainers. It was a case of 'Tall ones at the back!' and I finished up sticking out like a sore thumb at the end, even bigger than the two men who attend.

It was like school photies all over again.

ETA Think Miranda, but older, scruffier and droopier.

I watched a programme tonight about surgeons. It featured a female breast cancer surgeon that blew me away.

She is totally focussed on women’s needs aesthetically speaking after surgery.

She ensured that women did not end up scarred and butchered.

And then i swear i am not imagining it Jo Pheonix popped up with her daughter.

Sleep and Dream Gerbils? All set? Good, off you go, and don't leave anyone off your list!
GERBILS! Wake up! You're supposed to be sending other people to sleep, not each other!😁
G'night all🌛

Having an early night thanks to the sleep gerbils that have had a word with the night owl🦉
1 hour before midnight is worth 2 hours after???? So they said..

The bloke I initially spoke to about surgery (I think he was a surgeon, are they called Mr?) totally put the frighteners on me. He was talking about a scar that I would describe as anchor shaped; around the nipple down and off to either side, a 15% chance my nipple (which would be moved) would go necrotic and there would be significant asymmetry. I'd have a drain put in and would need the wound attended to by the District Nurse. Tbf, he may had been giving me the worse case scenario, although that phrase was never used. I'm pretty chill, but thinking back I think i took all that very well.

I had my surgery performed by a woman, who seemed lovely. She spoke to me just prior to the op. and described a completely different and much less harrowing surgery with minimal scarring, no roaming, necrotic nipple. Which, so far, is what I've been left with.

I don't watch programmes about surgery, I'm not fussed about blood samples, injections or, as it turned out, biopsies but otherwise I'm quite squeamish. I think though it sounds like my female surgeon was cut from similar cloth.

Sweet dreams everyone. May flights of gerbils, etc.

Seen on FB, somehow Bluestockingy...

Brian Bilston is very funny and clever. I think the sleep gerbils have boycotted the USA, though to be honest I don’t blame them - ICE would probably deport them anyway. I would like a decent night’s sleep though - it’s been a while.

😂

There's a bit of rural wisdom about what I would call gorse, and its flowering habits. Apparently when the gorse is in flower, that's the season for making love.

Morning All - I have to say the sleep gerbils are doing sterling work this week. I have slept really well and have been dreaming in bright colours!!

I saw the Brian Bilston FB post too, and actually started trying to make up poems with some of those lines!

The sleep gerbils did me well until 4am, when they mysteriously buggered off elsewhere. Come back little gerbils! Well, obviously not now as its time for coffee.

But do not repeat DO NOT fling yourself on the ground under a furze bush, no matter how in-season the passion is.

I always wonder did Linnaeus stand up sharpish after his falling to his knees on Putney Heath and thanking God for the beauty of its flowers.

I saw a stoat in the garden yesterday.

I had just got home and was in the car phoning a friend to tell her I had managed to borrow some African fabric for a thing we're doing, and I saw a small animal running along the top of the wall - so she heard 'oh! a ratstoat!' as I realised it had a black bushy end to its tail. Loads of little birds zoomed into a nearby bush and set up a very disapproving commentary.

Isn’t that sukebind?

One of the things that got me through lockdown was early morning visits to a local heath with absolutely beautiful gorse bushes in full flower, but I wouldn’t have flung myself anywhere near them. I have vague memories of Winnie the Pooh falling into one.

Gosh…yet another on my mental pile of ‘books I want to re-read’.
(Cold Comfort Farm, that is, having googled the reference as sukebind hadn’t stayed in my memory. I probably don’t need to re-read Winnie the Pooh, though I’d happily listen to it being read by Alan Bennet.)

The sleep gerbils usually desert me at about that time. I reckon they get bored and distracted.

Is there something nasty in the woodshed, @ErrolTheDragon?

Oh, very good, Cake.
I'm glad your surgery was less grim than originally predicted.

The Sleep Gerbils did sterling work last night. Right through from 11pm to 6.30.

They start preparing breakfast at the Bluey very early, Fuzzy, but they don't have to start that early so I'll remind them that they need to get their scheduling and priorities right!

Otherwise, though, they seem to be doing a fairly good job

I think we may need to 'onshore' the service for you, Britinme - can you suggest any cute little local animals you can imagine hovering over people on gossamer wings sprinkling Sleep and Dream dust?
Did I really just type that sentence????😧😂

I've hear it as 'when gorse is out of flower, kissing is out of season'. I think it's because as well as flowering prolifically there's actually a few (3?) different but very similar species that flower at different seasons.

There's a well known walk round Castleton taking in Mam Tor, Win and Lose hills. Win probably comes from Gorse/Furze and, I've been told, Lose is something to do with pigs.

I love stoats and weasels.

That, my dear, is a dipthong.
A flip flop you can go paddling in.