The Bluestocking - Best Pub on the Internet

[EdithStourton]

Welcome to the Bluestocking women's pub. Excellent (if sometimes wilful) gerbil bar staff, varied cocktails, splendid cakes, cracking Sunday roasts...

Voted Best Pub for the umpteenth thread running, join us for conversation about tractors, units of measurement, films, wildlife, and even, sometimes, women's rights.

Just keep Glenda off the gin.

Any men, you can trot along to the Staunch Ally just up the road.

That was me yesterday, Edith. Including dunnock, wrens, etc but instead of B&B I had next door's enormous cat come to demand some attention.

Today I'm heading out to the local RHS garden to borrow a scooter and go to the bird hide and to look enviously at the perfect vegetable gardens, so I've just had a smoothie and am off.

The magpies used to build a best in our willow but finally took this hint. Our big tom cat Isaac used to climb the tree and sit in the nest just to fuck with them, the sod, so they eventually twigged this might not the the safest place to have chicks.

There is a squirrel dray there. She's not so easily spooked.

There is a squirrel dray there. She's not so easily spooked.
Indeed, you mess with squirrels at your peril😁

The equinox is on the 20th but it turns out that - as you’ve noticed - today we’ve reached the equilux. Which is a word neither I (nor my spellchecker which tried to change it to equinox) knew until now after reading this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/c3dzzrxem52o

One of my Clitoria is sprouting!

While in amsterdam we went to Haarlem for the day and visited the Teylers museum. It’s a wonderful old-fashioned institution, the oldest museum in the Netherlands. But at the moment it has a very good special exhibition ‘Dangerous books’, about banned books. One of the items banned (albeit temporarily not all the way up to when the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was abolished in 1966) was Linnaeus’ classification - it said mainly because of it using sexual terms as Clitoria.

I too am loving the B&B vertical sunbathing. That vision of Batshit on a lounger well stay with me all day.

I managed to piss some people off on a thread yesterday (different name). It became very personal and I reported the worst of it.

I understand it probably hit people’s insecurities and they read things into what I said that weren’t there. But even knowing that, it still really hurt.I’ve stepped away and I’m not checking it, but it has really upset me.

I suppose it's because we are on threads where people can be very passionate about the subject, or may even have a vested interest.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't rtft, then jump in with an opinion which is either totally irrelevant, or was dealt with on the first page, often based on their own prejudices. I will push back where I'm certain of the facts, but sometimes just subscribe to the "let them" theory. As the saying goes "you can't argue with stupid".

I didn't have my breakfast outdoors, but have just had a coffee sitting in the sun. I'm halfway through painting my back gate.

I had an encounter recently with posters on another thread, usually intelligent and entertaining, not reading what I had posted and working themselves into a froth defending their right to do something quite different, that I had not objected to (nor ever would). It went on for pages and was extremely tedious.

I was quite relieved that a few people HAD read me and tried to explain - without success. Also relieved that that thread filled up and all have moved on.

Our former coffee morning pub has not yet re-opened so it will be the Hall again, good as a fill-in but less relaxing, not least because it's 45 minutes late. Last week I made spelt cheese scones, and have had several hopeful inquiries as to whether I'll bring more, so a plate of them is in the kitchen absorbing butter ready to go.

You have more than one? Show-off!

Sorry you had that bad experience on another thread, Myrtle - and Deano too.
It's bad enough people going OTT to disagree with what you have said, but going in studs-up about something you haven't said is worse still.

Jealous!!!! 😃

If it grows a proper leaf I might post a picture 😁

I think that's it. They decided I said something I didn't say and then piled on.

Just had feedback from my interview. I didn't do a great interview. 😔

It's just a lot right now.

I agree about the lymphies, as they became known chez Android. I had a sample done & the surgeon wanted the data from getting them all out to look at; but I was worried about the possible side effects (?lymphodema of the arm) & went through a lot of angst before turning it down. It's been fine ever since, so I'm glad I didn't do it - -particularly as I've met several women who had the clearance & ended up with minor problems.

Oh what a shame @MyrtleLion - both for the pile-on and the interview feedback. Is there something really nice you can do for yourself today to raise your spirits?

Snow has almost gone here, except for the bits where banks are still piled along the edges of roads, but we can see actual grass now. Still too soon to say we won’t get some more though - in the first winter I was here we still had snow all over the yard in the first week in April, but nowadays it is sometimes gone by mid-March.

Where do you live @JanesLittleGirl? I have been thinking about living where you are happy ever since I read your message.

Major hugs for @MyrtleLion and @DeanElderberry. And if you want me to duff someone up behind the bike sheds, just say.

The big, shiny light is back in the sky, so the dogs have asked us to open up the conservatory, so they can go and bask in there, in the warmth.

"a plate of them is in the kitchen absorbing butter"

cheese scones

absorbing butter

Oooooh Deano ..... can I come to the coffee and cake whatnot as well?

So sorry to hear about your inconclusive result, dear Cake. That's not what you want to hear, the only positive side is that you know about it, and something will be done.
Sweet Myrtle and Lovely Dean, social media can be intensely upsetting and gripping at the same time. I've noticed (when skimming through a number of Mumsnet threads recently) that people are often so quick to be mean and horrible, and to get the wrong end of the stick, and then beat whoever it is that's made the comment that they didn't make with the wrong end of the stick, and then everybody else joins in. It's not so much wilful stupidity as savage group dynamics. Honestly I think some people enjoy being mean and having the anonymity of the username to hide behind. I can't imagine why they would do this. It's really horrible, it reminds me of slaves being thrown into the ring with hungry lions at a Roman Empire sports event.
Here at the Bluestocking you will find love and humour and friendship and solidarity, wit and wisdom. You are in the right place to look for some consolation. I am sending it to you all in buckets! Several buckets of consolation right now! You are marvellous women and don't forget it ❤️

I'm very glad you stuck to your guns, Android, and it all turned out OK. Node sampling wasn't even presented as an option back in 1999 when I had my lumpectomy. I was lucky, in that the main after-effect for me was the inevitable numbness across the armpit and down the inside of the upper arm, which felt odd but didn't interfere with daily life. Later, after my same-side mastectomy, I developed what they said was borderline lymphoedema, in that my left hand and lower arm swell slightly in hot weather, but are basically OK the rest of the time. I've had to stop wearing my wedding and engagement rings and occasionally have to wear my watch on my right wrist, but in the greater scheme of things that's not a problem.

Thank you all. I am feeling a bit sorry for myself. The Walrus is on a BIG JOB with a MAJOR CLIENT and is VERY BUSY, so he's not available to speak to me this week, despite being just downstairs. He's not being horrible, he just is really busy but he has 8 days off from next Wednesday and we will do NICE THINGS and clean out the garage.

I live in darkest Dorset in the village where DH has lived all his life and about 5 miles from where I was born and grew up. The only downside is working in the City of London - hence the long commute but it is worth it.

I hate the word 'lumpectomy'. Perhaps I'm a bit of a snob? 'Lump' just doesn't seem like proper medical terminology and <sniff> not very dignified. I appreciate it's an understandable expansion of all the other blah-ectomies.

Just before I was GA'd I was asked if I knew what was going to be done to me. I said I was going to have a chunk removed from my left breast. I thought they did that for my benefit, so I'd wake up knowing as far as possible what to expect. It's just occurred to me that it might have been to make sure they'd brought the right patient to the operating theatre. If I do need more surgery and I'm asked this again I might look confused and say I'm here to visit my sister, just to see what happens 😃

@MyrtleLion when stuff happened we used to be able to say it's tomorrow's chip wrapper. Doesn't quite work the same when it's digital. Wrong sort of chips. I'm glad you've got nice things to look forward to. Together with a tidy garage and a sense of accomplishment.

How lovely.
< pictures Darkest Dorset in a dreamy thought bubble >
Now I am enjoying imagining you on the long commute, carrying the sense of your peaceful and lovely home inside your imagination as you travel.

I'm not sure who's holding the umbrella in the picture. Perhaps it is magic?

I'm eating a hot cross bun from Betty's with a cup of Earl Grey in the garden. Harlow Carr was lovely, although a group of women arrived in the bird hide and started to chat.

Not quietly pointing out birds to one another, having a full on natter. I was Not Best Pleased and I suspect I had a cat's bum face, but I was facing thee other way so they probably didn't see

Even I, loquacious though I am in every day life, know you keep quiet in the bird hide.