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.

@lcakethereforeIam - funnily enough, scones work with full fat milk, buttermilk, semi skimmed, skimmed or milk with a scoop of yogurt. It doesn't seem to matter at all

(I had to recipe test vigorously for a previous job)

@CoutingCrones for some reason I'm now seized with the urge to make scones with melted vanilla ice cream. I won't though. What next? White emulsion!

I've previously struggled to make decent scones, they'd never rise. I've no idea what I'm doing differently. Perhaps just better recipes.

Cheese scones seem to taste more cheesy if you add mustard to the mix.

Delia had a cracking plain scone recipe, but you had to eat them straight away. It wasn't that much of a hardship. 🍽

Scones are so quick to make when you come in after a walk in the cold. I make them when I've got milk past its date that's started to go sour.
I'd rather have a strong drink at the moment than tea and scones. Is there a cocktail menu anywhere around?

I think we will be having cheese scones tomorrow. Its been a long time since I made them. The secret as @CoutingCrones has said is to handle the mix as little as possible.

I use yoghurt for buttermilk in scones, with or without a little milk as required.

The porridge bread I make every few weeks (crumbs sticking to my whiskers at this very moment) starts with 500 cc of yoghurt.

Buzz off autocorrect or I'll spell it yoghourt and that'll show you.

They do, but since I find it hard to get mustard powder these days I've taken to adding just a few chilli flakes.

@HartSeven Our mixologist, Gestalt, is an absolute genius. She knows all the cocktails ever invented. Alternatively, just tell her what you feel like and she'll come up with something that will fit the bill exactly.

Aargh, is there a mustard powder shortage now?

You could use some from a jar.

Possibly only outside the UK.

Stuff from a jar? That's a thought, might try that tomorrow.

Just in the nick of time - I was going to bound over to you Tigger-like to welcome you to the Bluestocking, but you're obviously a regular
I've no idea who you are, and past attempts by namechangers to give broad hints about who they used to be have gone whoosh! over my head, so don't bother trying, I'm hopeless at guessing from hints🙄

HartSeven - new or namechanger? If the former, may I welcome you warmly to the Bluestocking where we have everything, and you can have it in huge quantities and nothing unfortunate like calories or hangovers will occur.
Cocktails? but of course!
The cocktail menu is just about legible in this photo of The Real Bluestocking [for newcomers: a model I made].
Note the very large tip that was left for the bar-gerbils, so the cocktails must've been good.
And note also that the lemon drizzle cake has a hazard warning on it, as some Stockingers have a vehement dislike for it 😄

We'll have to try to guess from your posting style.😉It's why I only ever have one name at a time on here. I would terminally confuse myself, let alone others.

I've had one name change only. Did try to change again, but haven't been able to.

I can't decide whether it's because I have a freebie account or because I originally joined via FB.

I've name-changed 3 or 4 times since I joined about 8 years ago and all those changes were before I decided to get rid of adverts last year by splashing out on Premium, so it may be something to do with having joined via FB. I didn't know you could do that.

@HartSeven the cocktails are mostly excellent, but my top tip is to avoid the Sparp.

A pinch of cayenne is good in cheese scones. I now have a huge craving for scones and will have to make some tomorrow. I'm going out this evening, or I'd set to now.

@MarieDeGournay as I walked B&B home this afternoon I was thinking of exactly that Hopkins poem. The other one that seems apposite at the moment is
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeined score
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none's to spill nor spend.

Everywhere I walk there are larks singing. I saw one lift the other morning, and start to sing, and I watched it as it went higher and higher, until it fulfilled the Ivor Gurney line:
...hangs shaking, and sings.

Whose bright idea was perimenopause? I have a migraine and I feel sick, so if anyone has seen Dr Bessie since the move, can you send her my way please?

This one, Edith?

That one.
😨

ETA, the whole menopause malarky is just horrible. Memory lags, night sweats, day sweats. Sympathies.

Interview went well. Seven candidates from 800 applicants!

They will shortlist two for a face-to-face interview later in March. I doubt it will be me. I sometimes get to the last three.

I did well and they liked me but they may appoint someone with more sector experience.

Sofa guy came EARLY at 2.10pm. Which was fine but I did have to leave him with the Walrus at 2.26pm for my interview.

His verdict was the sofa broke because of metal fatigue. Not our usage (hooray!) but the company will only repair it (for £250 😲 ) so we should get rid of it and buy a new one. We could enter into a discussion with them but the effort and cost just make it not worth it (in a Peggy Mitchell accent).

So large G&T followed by lots and lots of prosecco, please bar-gerbil.

Great news about the interview, Myrtle, and all the best for the next stage.

Have you thrown the Consumer Rights Act 2015 at the sofa people yet? Items sold have to be fit for purpose.

I'm not entirely new but not a regular. And I've only just realised the Bluestocking is the perfect place to order a cocktail with ingredients I'm banned from having (I made the mistake of reading the patient info leaflet). There's a gorgeous looking grapefruit one on the left and it now has my name on it.

Yes and they keep saying past warranty on the reclining mechanism. We can file a s75 Consumer Credit Act claim with the finance company but I would have to get a formal report (£350) from sofa guy. We would only get repair and survey report cost back, or they might offer to repair it and then we don't get a new sofa.

In the end it's about how much my time and energy is worth. I'd rather spend time picking out a new sofa robe honest.

I know a lot of pointless trivia (see Don LaFontaine up thread), I talk about food A LOT, also gardening and birds. And other assorted nonsense.

My real name is PastaAllaNorma. Crones is for Connections and Strands threads.

Congratulations @MyrtleLion , it sounds like you did brilliantly to get to interview. 800 applications, crikey!