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

Is it the weekend yet?

I had a lovely day birdwatching yesterday and today have caught up with some friend, been for a knee x-ray and cooked a braised shoulder of pork. I'm calling it a fairly productive day overall.

The shoulder of pork takes bloody ages. I don't eat meat but the others in the family do, so I'm trying to up my game a bit and branch out to things I've not tried to cook before.

However, it's filled the house with the smell of cooking meat and I'm now wondering why I put myself through this nonsense.

If the gerbils could rustle up a nice salad to counteract all the meat based stuff I'd be very grateful.

Yes. This week we're skipping Friday and having two Saturdays instead.

Excellent news.

I think you are right, @ErrolTheDragon - it’s fiddly enough sober!

<checks watch> can i have a large Chardonnay please gerbils, and a bag of cheesy watsits

ta

After all that talk of falls - my neighbour, who I had a lovely chat with only yesterday, she was looking forward to spending time with her grandkids next week, fell and seems to have broken her hip, carted off in an ambulance earlier today.

Fortunately some of her family were visiting at the time so she wasn't on her own.
She's one of the sensible ones and has an alarm watch, so would have been able to call for help -which would probably have been me, as I'm a contact name for the alarm people. But it's nice her family were there at the time.

Upsetting. She's not in the best of health anyway. She's been our neighbour for yonks.

Hope your neighbour will be OK, Marie.

The pattern for Woolly Gerbils is here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5498177-woolly-hugs-a-blanket-for-lovely-wafflenose-who-has-tragically-lost-her-daughter-can-you-help-us-please?page=7

Hope your neighbour recovers well. @MarieDeGournay

I'll have cheesy wotsits too @Hedgehogforshort but sauvignon blanc with mine, thanks you lovely bar gerbils
🥂 cheers 🥂

Cheesy wotsits! I used to love those not had any in yonks. Could I have a bag with a half of dry cider?

I hope your neighbour recovers well @MarieDeGournay

Oooo am I trending

Nah @Hedgehogforshort you're probably just "trendy"
With your leathers etc 🦔

I reckon it's the way @Hedgehogforshort smoothes her quills back that does it!

AYYY. As it happens i have a leather jacket, I might post a pic

Well here I am

Well will be

I don't know why, but that look of hedgehog's always makes me think of

"The Fonz"

Yes lol

Cheesy Wotsits! I love them too and haven't had any in ages. I'd like a bowl of those with a very big El Diablo (not too much Creme de Cassis) please bar gerbil.

Reading back I see that was ambiguous. The cocktail in a glass please, not in the bowl with the Wotsits.

I highly recommend the giant version that they do!

I'm not a big fan of Cheesy Wotsits, but I could murder a bag of honey-mustard pretzel sticks. I discovered those at Christmas and wish I hadn't because they are far too tempting and I'm a fat old bugger as it is.

Thank you everyone. It was quite stressful as she needed help setting up the watch, then I tried to put in a printer cartridge but she'd bought the wrong one, so we had an hour talking to the help desk about a refund. In the end I pretended to be her and sorted it out. Plus she has been getting scam emails saying her iCloud storage was full. And her iPad was full but not her iCloud. So she wanted me to sort it out. She has some apps that hog space and don't let it go, so I had to uninstall them and reinstall.

We had a nice lunch at a garden centre (my fourth garden centre this week) and I managed to declutter seven brand new notebooks. We agreed I will hang onto them for a year in case she needs them and she can ask for them back. She just has so much stuff everywhere, and can never throw anything out, so it was a small effort.

I didn’t get home until nearly 7pm and found I was completely exhausted and sore across my body. I think it’s just stress but I was on my feet quite a bit so I will try to rest tomorrow. Hairdresser at noon.

I had to pretend to be my mum to cancel her home insurance when she moved in with me...Even though I was her POA and had sent the company a certified copy, the 12 yr old at the other end of the phone insisted that only Mum could do it.

In the end, I finished the call, waited half an hour and got a different call handler.

I then put on my best Mrs Doubtfire voice: "Hello, dear...I need to cancel my home insurance - I'm moving in with my daughter."