The Bluestocking women's Pub- spring is sprunging and MN's name generator can do one!

[lcakethereforeIam]

Welcome to the Bluestocking women's pub. Men are directed to the Staunch Ally just down the road. Otherwise all are welcome. Pull up a chair, give your order to the Wait Gerbil or the Gerbil behind the bar.

Don't forget to name change if you wish to.

Climate change, I think. Ours is just starting to flower here. It's been a warm and wet winter so it's not very surprising.

You’ll be telling me next you can’t read with your compound eyes.

I had to google what OSR might be… oil seed rape? I saw some yesterday…idk how much of my snuffling and sneezing is the lurgy and how much might be down to that.

Oil seed rape indeed.
It's fairly notorious for causing allergic reactions.

The current lurgy doing the rounds here seems to take a few weeks to shift. When I had it, I kept coughing for weeks. A friend of mine has just come out of feeling groggy and knackered. It's a nasty little bugger.

And I reckoned Maggers was the one to ask about the OSR.

You reckoned correctly! Did you know, the reason the Americans call it canola is because they got their knickers in a collective twist about the word "rape" as a crop, and adopted one of the extant brand/variety names instead. Canola is the hoover of the arable world.

People think oil seed rape causes allergies because they can smell.it, but it's pollinated by insects and what free pollen there is remains close to the plant as it's heavier and stickier.

It also flowers at the same time as wheat and other grasses which are pollinated by the wind in massive amounts that travel far and wide.

So the allergies are much more likely to be caused by grass pollen.

I'm home. Thank you everyone for all your good wishes. I'll find out in about 4 weeks if they removed enough. Feeling fine in myself. A little tired, combination of poor night's sleep and the GA probably. I rocked up at 7.30am as instructed but wasn't taken into surgery for hours. They did let me sip water while I was waiting but I was drinking gallons afterwards. Had possibly the nicest piece of toast I have ever eaten.

All this talk of OSR reminded me of a holiday in Northern Spain. We went to a restaurant and I had a fish dish that was delicious. Iirc it was a white fish on the menu as rape or rapé. I have no idea what it would be served up as in a British restaurant.

Most beetle species do not have the ability to hear at all but can communicate through vibrations in solid objects

I wonder does that mean that the high point of 1970s song-writing:

'Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no'

was written by an amorous beetle?

@lcakethereforeIam Glad you're home.

Errol, Rapeseed pollen isn't windborn, so it isn't usually the cause of allergies. Grasses and tree pollen are more likely.

Welcome back Cake!
Glad you're feeling OK-ish, have a good rest and a nice meal this evening - but it will be hard to match the deliciousness of that piece of toast! - and you'll be top of the Sleep and Dream Gerbils list tonight

Sorry, I hadn't loaded the full page and didn't see Myrtle had already explained this.

Welcome home Cake, and fingers crossed!

I did not know.
By 'hoover' do you mean that it sucks all the nutrients out of the soil?

Huh, and here we were blaming the OSR. I still don't like the dogs getting into it. I dont like them going into standing crops anyway, but they come out covered in yeuch every time they get near OSR.

Good to see you back, Cake. Have a restful evening and a good night's sleep - and all the best for the results.

@ifIwerenotanandroid the exhibition was glorious! I normally go nuts taking photos but restrained myself today. I have a couple I can post for you though. The one without an accompanying picture was in response to a beautiful and wildly eccentric piece of pottery. We were lucky to bump into one of the arrangers and learned how they go about it, so that was very interesting too.

No, just that hoover technically is a trade name, but people have adopted it as the name for all vacuum cleaners.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00979-x
Interesting piece on suck-up AI.

@lcakethereforeIam There is nothing so divine as the piece of toast after an op.

Hope you don't feel too battered and bruised.

That's all right, it just underlined what an erudite bunch we are here at the Bluey

Love those photos, Britinme.
The exhibition sounds great, and what a clever concept!

I’m glad you are home safe, and it all went OK, @lcakethereforeIam - rest up now, and let the gerbils wait on you hand and foot.

My food of choice post-op or post-procedure is the chicken salad sandwich at the private hospital. After starvation, it tastes like a multi-flavoured thing of wonder & beauty. I hope they never take it off the menu or change it. Alternatively, I hope I stay out of the flaming hospital.

Here's to an easy & full recovery, Cake.

Is it glue? Is it glue the AI is on this week? Apparently this is a glamorous & elegant beetle. I tried, Boily, I tried to put you back to normal.

How lovely!
I keep meaning to get some means of arranging flowers and twiggy shit better - oasis and one of those things like a small bed of nails to impale the stems on. The other obstacle to my vague ambition to make tasteful arrangements is that I don’t like cutting flowers from my garden. Damn… I should have tried to do something with some of my abundance of dogwood cuttings.

Oh good lord. Those lilac Crocs do not go with the green AT ALL!