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.

Slack halyards! I have a strong dislike of slack halyards. They are a sign of sloppy seamanship (and sloppy seawomanship).

It would!

I nearly just 👻 and skipped to the end. I'm so glad I didn't and miss Moulin Gerbil and Gosie's latest. I have a tear in my eye, that could be down to random bits of stray glitter.

The velvet elephant is a lovely space to curl up in with tea and...I know what a croquembouche is, I'm still finding bits in my hair...but I kept thinking croque madame. So that's what I'm having with my tea please bar gerbil.

Yes, and yacht moorings! There's got to be something in that, surely?
(I'm sure Gosie is way ahead of us on this)

Bar gerbils, if you have recovered from last night's escapades, I would like a mojito with extra lime and no glitter, please!
I didn't find the map, so I'll have to order it online I guess. Can't have just the eastern portion of the Brecon Beacons, can I? What if I accidentally walk too far and over the edge of the fold?!!

Angle, that could be catastrophic! You definitely need the map.

Proper yachts with sails, not gin palaces (or should that be whisky and cigar?) monstrosities.

I do like a woman with standards

My wineglass runneth over - I got a free First Class upgrade and yes, they have poured me a large glass of free wine!

Congratulations!

I have saved lots of money by not needing taxis anymore, as the electric wheelchair can go for MILES.

So I have spent it on coffee beans, cheese and three novels.

Your priorities are spot on! Which novels?

This is why sailors are told to frap their halyards.

I love the specific language that goes with certain occupations and hobbies - moulding planes and stopping wax in cabinetmaking, horse harness having hames and traces, gundogs roading in and backing on point. Anyone who knows the jargon can express themselves precisely with great economy of words.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of watching an old sailing barge lock in at Ipswich. Fore and aft was a mass of gin palaces with bow thrusters and stern thrusters and God knows what. The old boy skippering the barge had one engine and one propeller, off-centre at the back. First of all the harbour master had to bellow at the gin palaces to Get out the way, that barge go in first!

In went the barge, at least three times the length of any of the gin palaces, with the old boy at the helm. He had his crew on deck with boathooks and tyres. The tyres were deployed, but they weren't needed: he brought the barge up just where he wanted her about an inch from the lock wall, with a complete lack of drama, but considerable precision. She just floated up to the side and stopped. A couple of the crew hopped ashore and roped her up. Done.

Then in came the gin palaces and ohmygod. Havoc. Roaring of engines, churning of water, bow thruster followed by some shouting, followed by stern thruster. More shouting by the men on the helm and much scuttling of women about the decks. Much use of boathooks and fenders to stop the gin palaces crashing into the lock walls. The barge crew either just stood there looking vaguely appalled, or got on with tidying up the decks. The old skipper drained his mug of tea and adjusted his decrepit sunhat. And proceeded to lock out just as cleanly as he'd locked in.

For those of you unacquainted with sailing barges, I've attached an image.

Rather wonderfully, I don't actually know!

I mean, I know the new Emily Henry (Great Big Beautiful Life) but the other two are Blind Dates With A Book.

One is for me, the other for my friend. If I had to guess, I think hers might be Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene.

This is what I mean -

I like the bullets. I think people should use bullet points to describe book more often. Like for one of my all time favourites the bullets would be

• Murder
• Philosophy
• Bicycles

We used to watch the barges with their distinctive brown sails go past the Essex coast when I was a child. I was told they were ‘Thames barges’, I don’t know what routes they plied.

There are a lot of nautical sayings and jargon. One of the oddest I’ve happened upon - which I rather suspect has fallen into disuse - is ‘worm the cuntlines’. Before anyone’s imagination ( or, heaven help us, an AI) gets to work on that, it’s the entirely virtuous
practice of filling gaps between the strands of rope to prevent chafing and water damage.

You'll all be glad to know - but particularly Angle - that the Sleep and Dream Gerbils are fully recovered from the Moulin extravaganza, and are ready for action.
Just be prepared for some sequins, and maybe some croquembouche crumbs to fall along with the Sleep and Dream Dust
G'night all, sleep well and dream dreams devoid of exams, dental incidents, embarrassing absence of clothing items etc etc 🌛

Do you really find the pavements and roads in towns in good enough condition for you to get around confidently? <turns green with envy>

Oh I've been tempted by this idea but never gone for it.

I love Travels with my Aunt - I've also seen two theatre productions of it in two different countries, both excellent.

I don't really get on with Emily Henry. I've never quite understood why she's a bigger name than so many women who write similarly.

As for the middle book - I read it in my teens but not sure I could face that in this day and age but I'm a sensitive soul when it comes to books or films!

In London, yes, mostly. At home I have to go in the road because tree roots have lifted the stone slabs.

I'm learning routes around the neighborhood that avoid the dodgy pavements. And it is supposed to be an all terrain chair

@ChristmasStars I quite like Emily Henry, but most of all she's the only author I share with DD - we have very different book tastes generally. So it's nice to buy them and pass them on to her and chat.

I'm not sure I've read any other modern romance novelists, really.

Brava! Brava! To the gerbils, capybaras, Myrtle and Colin. That was quite some performance. I have had over-wrought badgers talking about it all night here. They have mostly stopped weeping now, but it has been quite the emotional journey for them. We had had to watch quite a few “Boris the Badger and friends” videos of badger cub antics on Facebook to help them recover (excellent suggestion from Dr Bessie).

And we have just caught up with Gosia’s latest. I am excited to see she and Magpie are on Romney Marsh. Is she checking out the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway? Is is (almost) gerbil-sized. But perhaps she is too busy for such frivolities.

That's a lovely reason to read her.