Bluestocking Women’s Pub - it’s Maytime!

[ErrolTheDragon]

Welcome to any women who want the company of women!

Thats it really….ok so this place is staffed by gerbils with the occasional quokka or capybara but it functions like a friendly pub where you don’t have to know what’s going on all the time.
The drinks don’t intoxicate and the food is delicious yet healthy so please do come in.

@PastaAllaNorma I am so pleased to read about your Father's progress. You deserve everything that The Bluestocking can provide.

Trivially, I had my first Spring Sunday dinner of the year this evening. Roast leg of lamb with asparagus and Jersey Royal potatoes. All washed down with a bottle of Fleurie. Winter is now behind us.

Woohoo. I've won twice on the premium bonds. A grand total of £125.

Drinks and Tunnock's all round please bar gerbil.

Would be even better with a few zeroes after it but £125 is a nice little chunk! Congratulations Boily.

Morning all! Enjoying a bank holiday here and trying to declutter (part of) the attic. I have been channelling my inner Boily trying to record the number of things that leave the house. Managed 243 yesterday. Onward and upward.

Apologies I am so behind with everyone’s news but wow at that lovely dress @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius!!

Hope everyone has a good day, bank holiday or not.

We have had our 11wk old granddaughter overnight, so getting lots of smiles and cuddles (Granddad got the poopy nappy this morning!)

Morning! Been woken up by the pigeons again but I slept reasonably well (only two hot flushes that I remember) so I'm not too annoyed. Also it's a bank holiday so I can go back to bed later if I want!

Morning! This is where I’m up to with the blanket. As soon as it’s finished I’m going to have to make a similar one for Kitty since she likes it so much.

Morning, off to crafts soon. Might or might not have an adventure, depending on how many people turn up (it being a bank holiday here too). Will tell all if it happens.

HAGADAPA

That's a beautiful blanket, Kitty! Yet another highly talented and creative Stockinger.

Congrats on the win, Boily! Not quite enough zeroes, as Chickadeeinme, but a nice surprise to treat yourself with. Any Crocs you've been hankering after?
Do they do blue velvet Crocs?😃

It sounds like you've had the perfect time with your lovely new DGD, Dex
-you get all the cuddles, grandad gets the nappy-changes!

I've skipped some other posts, sorry, not ignoring you - attic-clearing, craft-doing, pigeon-tolerating etc - all good too

Thank you, Marie!

It’s going to be a surprise present for my very lovely aunt. And her tabby.

@EdithStourton The descriptions of your walks and comments on the changing face of nature and farming remind me so much of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne - a diary of over 40 years' observations of nature in the small village of Selbourne in Dorset. I visited the village on holiday a few years back and walked the local trail where he made his observations. In 2010, the local history society arranged for the diaries to be digitised, so that you can put in a date and see what the Rev. White was doing and seeing on that date. The diaries are still a great resource for natural historians, especially in understanding the effects of modern farming methods and climate change.

May 5, 1793 – Damson, sloe-trees, & wild Merise (cherry) blow. Cock Red start. There has been so little frost, that the Antirrhinum Cymb. flourished & blossomed the whole winter thro’, & is now very thriving, tho’ it usually dies about Xmass. So that, in mild times, it is at least a biennial with us, & may be perhaps of longer duration in milder regions. James Knight has observed two large fieldfares in the high wood lately, haunting the same part, as if they intended to breed there They are not wild. A nest of this sort of bird would be a great curiosity.

https://naturalhistoryofselborne.com/

On our way back from Paris I picked up a paper in the departure lounge (european edition of the New York Times iirc) which had a piece about Japanese researchers trawling through writings from 1200 years ago onwards which documented the dates of the cherry blossom blooming and hence an record of seasonal variation. Unsurprisingly it’s shifted markedly earlier in modern times.

I'm feeling a load better after a night in my own bed, and the wisteria outside the kitchen door is looking lovely.

The white deutzia next to the outside breakfast table is drooping under the joint weight of heavy rain and its own blossom. Aqualegia are purple bonnets this year, and some rogue Spanish bluebells are still flowering.

It's all very suffragette - purple and white flowers against the green foliage.

May blossom is 2 or 3 days away at the most.

I love how much my garden restores my equilibrium.

HAGADAP, everyone

I've just remembered the date. Happy Star Wars Day everyone!

There were stalls at the local thing and I took pictures of the lady selling mice scenes.

I used to work with someone who would intone, 'May the fourth be with you.' Every year.

It's lovely to read this post, Pasta, and to know that you're feeling relaxed and restored by your gardent.

Horti also listed flowers in her garden, and asked for ours - well I'm afraid mine would currently be: dandelions, dandelions, dandelions..... I've learnt to live with them, it's not a formal lawn-type garden anyway. And they are very lovely flowers, when you look at them with an open mind.
Dandelions and forget-me-nots, everywhere!

I am always pleased to see the germander speedwell reappearing, and I was delighted to see the return of the scarlet pimpernel, which used to be a common sight but disappeared for a while. Ladies Smock, plantain, trefoils, violets that have come in from next door's garden. Aquilegia have arrived uninvited, and are welcome but restricted to certain areas.
So the grassy area in my back garden is more wildflowers than grass, but it pleases me well as it is

Younger son went on a fourth date yesterday and they watched the first Star Wars trilogy as his date had never seen them. He told me "I know it's a day early, but the Rebels would understand about scheduling issues."

(Still resolutely referring to the date as they/them, but our sense is it's a female they/them. I'm so fed up with this nonsense)

That is absolutely something I should read. I've never got round to it, but you have prodded me down the track, so thank you.

Used to get that a lot at work. Mind you...it was a school and we schoolteachers tended to be [tries to remember difference between 'geeks' and 'nerds' - apparently only one is an insult].

I was in a school too....!

I suppose dress codes didn’t allow the physics teachers to sport an appropriate t-shirt
https://www.amazon.co.uk/May-Be-You-Physics-T-Shirt/dp/B08RFF1NC1?customId=B07536XX75&customizationToken=MC_Assembly_1%23B07536XX75&th=1&psc=1

I love Gilbert White. I presume Antirrhinum Cymb. is ivy-leaved toadflax.

Crafts adventure 1: The sewing machine I bought in 2011 as Christmas present to myself and never used because first my father's Alzheimer's (which nosedived that December after he developed pneumonia) and then my mother's degenerative illness, consumed my life for years, and then there was Covid, has now been unboxed. I have been shown how to thread it, and fill and place the bobbin and I have sewed some test seams.

Crafts adventure 2: I have cut out the bits to make a pretty, lined, fabric bag under the supervision of another crafter. The bags to be filled with 'personal products' and given to women either homeless or in the DV shelter.

Crafts adventure 3: The (not perfect but edible) shortbread I made to @PastaAllaNorma's recipe was handed over and almost all eaten.

So that was a fun morning.

You can get away with anything under a lab coat!

There was one time we got a new physics teacher - stunningly beautiful lassie who looked just like the ship avatar character from Andromeda.

She came in for a visit, met the outgoing physics teacher, etc.

That day at lunch (after she'd gone) the bloke who was leaving was moaning "Why do I have to be leaving now? Just when someone gorgeous is starting at the school!"

1. Logic fail. She was his replacement.

2. I realise that this is horribly shallow, but he was no Adonis. [I'm trying to avoid being offensive here, but think of the bespectacled Benny Hill character.]

Well done, @DeanElderberry . A very productive morning.