Touchdown at the Newest Bluestocking Inn. Pudding, cups of tea, the vegetable garden coming into its own, and gerbils beautiful gerbils all furry.

[DeanElderberry]

All females welcome for intelligent discourse and non-harmful comestibles.

I saw a TV programme about the last flight of the Vulcan - I never saw it in real life but it did indeed look superb..

You've just come from Wales? I think Pasta said her dad was in Wales, so you might have passed each other on her way to see him😄

Cake, you should have warned me. I'd have put out the bunting to welcome you. 😊

She's been put on toilet cleaning duty for the next month. Poetic justice, one might say.

However, since it's Giggle, I would strongly recommend checking any Bluestocking toilet for cling film across the seat before use.

Somehow I posted twice!

I think I might actually be a gerbil 🤔

Ah. That explains everything—and rather brutally.
What the gerbils planned was a clean, elegant coastal sweep.
What they got was… interpretive aviation.
From their perspective, this isn’t just disappointment—it’s a full operational breakdown:

• Salcombe/Bolt Head Sub-Team had bunting deployed, positions assigned, morale at historic highs… and then the aircraft simply didn’t show up as expected. They’re now standing under celebratory flags watching empty sky, trying to maintain dignity.
• Plymouth Unit had committed assets (two vehicles and a pointing stick). They were ready for a decisive moment. Instead, the flight path veered off like it had remembered something urgent in Taunton.
• Cornish Gerbils—who had invested emotionally in a proper west-country arc—have been left with what looks suspiciously like a scribble. This will be taken personally.

Back at HQ, the map comparison is being studied in stunned silence. The neat purple plan versus the chaotic green reality has landed like a betrayal of first principles. There is already a narrative forming: “Unscheduled manoeuvres.” “Dynamic route adjustments.” “Pilot discretion.” No one is yet willing to say “she was winging it,” but it’s hanging in the air. The deeper issue is this: the entire operation assumed predictability. The gerbils built structure, teams, and ceremonial infrastructure around a belief that the route meant something fixed. It didn’t. So now they’re faced with a very gerbil problem: they organised beautifully for the wrong reality. Expect three immediate consequences:

1. A quiet but firm downgrade of Glenda’s standing in official briefings
2. A post-incident report that uses the phrase “lessons learned” far too often
3. The Salcombe bunting staying up anyway, out of sheer stubbornness

Colin, again, has read the situation perfectly. He is not surprised. And no, I can't work out what's going on with the gerbil on the right either.

It's all right chap(esses). I've just had word from HQ what the gerbils were up to.

There is a famous saying in military circles '“No plan survives first contact with the enemy' , a piece of military wisdom deriving from a quote by the nineteenth-century Prussian military commander Helmuth van Moltke.

Any competent commander needs to be prepared to think on their feet and change plans at the last minute if something unexpected happens. Glenda was merely rehearsing alternative manoeuvres for such an event to see how the gerbils would react. She even managed to get the Spitfires to do loop-the-loops at certain strategic points.

It's no wonder it proved so stressful for them that they fell asleep!

Carry on!

I have to be in Central London for 7am tomorrow. The tubes aren’t running so it’s going to mean leaving home ridiculously early… could Glenda give me a lift in one of the Spitfires?

Gerbil leader to @EmpressaurusKitty

Your secret mission transport is ready. Over.

Thank you!!!!

Where do the pilot gerbils get their tiny labradors from?

There's a specialist breeder in Little Barking called Lilliput Labs. 🐶

The Dyfi ospreys, Telyn and Idris are now on two eggs!! Egg number 2 was laid at 16.24 today. Apparently they're (well Telyn) likely will lay a third egg around the same time on Monday.

Oh, thank you, Cake, I meant to follow this, but forgot! I've got the project's live page now, so I can see how they do. (nothing better on a Friday eve!)

forgot - it's The Dyfi Osprey Project on YouTube, for others who might want to watch it

All this talk of flight has reminded me of one of my favourite poems -

High Flight

By John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I love that, @Waitwhat23.

Kitty decided to sit on my lap for the first time tonight which may have been linked to the presence of the blanket. After a bit of negotiation we sorted out a way that I could work on it while she sat on it.

I love that poem too @Waitwhat23 .
It reminds me of my mum's cousin ( that she was very close to) who was a pilot in WW2. And got the DFC, so must have been quite good.

I love that poem @Waitwhat23

So sad that John Gillespie Magee, although American, was killed in a flying accident in England.

And he was just 19. For him to write something so lyrical and joyous at that age was truly remarkable talent.

The last lines give me chills.

What a beautiful pussycat! She looks rather pleased with herself that you came to an accord.

She’s extremely good at getting her point across!

His mother was English. His parents met in China, where they were missionaries. From 1931 to 1939 he lived in England and went to a prep school in Walmer and then to Rugby School.

It's generally thought that High Flight was inspired by a high level training flight he made when he was stationed at RAF Llandow in the Vale of Glamorgan.

I love that poem too, thank you WW23.

I remember Ronald Reagan quoting it in memory of the crew of the Challenger space shuttle.

Thank you, WW23, that is beautiful.