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

Well done. I've never kept anything going for that long.
Have you tried e45 shower cream? It's the only one we can use on my son's eczema (although we mostly do oat baths, which are a pain for cleaning the bath toys after)

Yes @MarieDeGournay sadly the floor greeted me in the face
I really must slow down
A swift G n T to all
And a nightmare free night (boy am I sore tonight)
🌃🐴

Oats in a piece of stocking (not necessarily blue) knotted and hung over the bath tap?? As the hot water runs over it
Helped our eczema 👍

Oh no! Hope you heal quickly.

As a Courier subscriber, was asked to fill up a questionnaire about the upcoming Scottish Parliament election.

At the end, I was asked what gender I identified as...

I ticked "Other" and wrote "I do not 'identify'. I am a woman."

Greetings Stockingers - I’ve been away on my birthday treat overnight trip. We stayed at a very pleasant hotel that had a swimming pool and a spa tub, so I made use of that, I had a trip round one of my favourite art galleries in Maine, the Farnsworth, which has a lot of Wyeth paintings, a Thai dinner last night and on the way home we had a late lunch at Moody’s, an old-fashioned diner known well beyond the bounds of Maine, which makes fantastic pie. We brought a couple of extra slices home and as their idea of a slice is twice the size of my idea, that’s dessert for a couple of days for both of us. G&T please, bargerbil.

My mother had a fall - there is a point when older people "have" a fall rather than fall. She didn't think to call me as it was half an hour past midnight 10 days ago, and I only found out on Tuesday. She couldn't get up and called an ambulance but it took till 5.30am for it to come. As I'm about an hour away I've said she should call me in future as well, but she's been so self-sufficient most of her life that I think it's hard to ask for help.

I'm going over today and taking her to lunch. She tells me she is worried about falling again. Her flat is on the ground floor so there's no anxiety about stairs but it has made her buy a smart watch so she can call if it happens again.

She could do with a team of gerbils and capybaras to help her out.

I see Grünhilde has the kitchen and bar running very smoothly, despite last night's excitement in lederhosen.

Sympathy to all of those having, or dealing with, falls.

On a brighter note, I just glanced up from typing and there was a butterfly fluttering about outside - the first one I've seen this year.

I attach a few photos from walks in the past few days. If you peer into the one of sun-through-mist, you might just be able to detect Batshit having, as ever on a walk, SO MUCH FUN!

Apparently the primroses one is too big. You'll have to make do with fields and sky. Just take it from me that there are primroses everywhere at the moment.

Sorry to hear about your mother having a fall, Myrtle, there's something unsettling about parents becoming vulnerable to things like that...
It sounds like she's OK physically but it will have shaken her confidence.
She doesn't have stairs, and she has a smart watch, and she is probably going to be very aware of how she moves around, having had a fall, so they are all relative positives.

There's a limit to what we can do to protect elders, especially the fiercely independent ones - at least your mum accepts wearing a watch, my lot fought tooth and nail against any form of alarm or alert because they were 'grand, and didn't need anything like that'🙄
In the end I just had to let them take their chances; in the long run, it was my mother realising how much of a worry it was for me that allowed her to accept a personal alarm - it way for my benefit, rather than hers, dontcha know

I hope she is OK today and you have a pleasant lunch together.

Sympathy again to you FranticFrankie, you must be feeling shaken after that fall. I'm glad your DD was there, and I hope you find ways of avoiding a repetition, though an accident is an accident is an accident😕

Thank you for the lovely photos Edith - I'm very limited in getting out and about these days, and certainly not beyond the urban sprawl to wide open spaces, so those limitless vistas look very appealing.
Is Batshit that little blob running through the mist towards the sun? Lovely
Happy to take your word for the everywhereness of primroses💛

I find if I take a screenshot of the photo and crop any extraneous stuff that's not the actual photo, MN will allow it to be posted. Much smaller images...

Thank you for your support about my mum. She has limited mobility due to osteoarthritis in her knee, but would need to lose a lot of weight before she could have an operation. She's struggled with her weight all her life so we don't discuss it. One of my brothers has offered to get her an electric mobility scooter, but she said no.

What can you do when she won't accept help 🤷‍♀ 😔

Thank you all- couple of cuts and bruises but you're right- it's the shaken up feeling. Feel really silly and annoyed with myself.
If the capybaras had been there, I'm sure they'd have picked me up 😉

Guinea pigs are my fave small animal; so so cute though they'd never lift me 😄

Saw a bumble bee 🐝yesterday- biggest, chubbiest one I've seen in a while.
No butterflies yet though

I'm painting the back fence today. It's another glorious Spring day and the air is alive with the buzzing of.........

lawnmowers, strimmers, electric drills, saws, jet washers, transistor radios and the singing..... oh God, the singing😬

A large hot chocolate and a cheese and ham toastie please gerbils. I'll just sit here in the corner with my ear defenders on.

It’s good she’s got a watch,Myrtle. They’re probably a lot more acceptable to proud infirm people than the old red button pendants. Mind you, my Apple Watch thought I’d fallen and I had to stop it sending an alert of some sort when I was merely tackling some very tough ivy.

We had the same with my mum. When she moved to be near my sister, she bought a bungalow very close to the high street of Wendover, and if she had agreed to a mobility scooter, she could have gone to the shops, the surgery, the library etc, on her own, without waiting for my sister to go and drive her, but she wouldnt even try one.

I used a mobility scooter when we visited Beamish last year - if you go over cobbled streets in a mobility scooter, your Fitbit counts it as steps - which is totally not cheating of course.

Seen a tortoiseshell and a peacock butterfly this morning!

We had snow Tuesday night but only a couple of inches, and it was starting to melt off by the time we got home Wednesday afternoon, and the temperature rose to the dizzying heights of 7C, so spring is on the way. We might start seeing crocuses in another couple of weeks if we’re lucky!

Just come back in from doing my garden. Lots still left to do though.

It’s actually sunny & fairly warm in my bit of London today. Finally.

I’ve just been for a lovely sunny walk in some private gardens. Over the winter I’ve scarcely seen anyone there, but today there are lots of young people in vest/camisole type tops, no sleeves, enjoying the sunshine. I was the one moving about and felt comfortably warm wearing a quilted coat, thermal double-layer gloves and a woolly hat.

The flowers were glorious, with a couple of magnolia trees already in flower.

Very sunny here today, went out for the day without a coat and by the end of the afternoon had shed my fleece. (That makes me sound like a moulting sheep ). Zaanse Shans is touristy but the museums were interesting (with few visitors in them) and the polder had lots of birds and a beautiful big hare.

I need a very large, stiff drink please, bar gerbils. Maybe an awful lot of Baileys. I have been working on starting the first knitted dress - casting on 290 stitches, as I said yesterday - then going wrong, ripping out four rows, and starting casting on all over again last night. Now I am doing some sort of weird knitted hem, that is stupidly fiddly - that’s where I cocked up last night - and it is frying what little is left of my brain.

That sounds frustrating, Woley. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it (best stick to BS drinks only while working on it though!)

Sadly the lovely weather we had here in Mid-Wales yesterday has been transmuted into yet more rain. Sigh... Just back from the hairdresser after having my usual short back and sides, this time with emphasis on a shorter fringe than usual. A week on Saturday I'll be having my second cataract operation after an almost 2 year wait and I daren't risk my fringe getting into my eye afterwards.