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.

If they’re not floofy enough, please remember they’re not supposed to be machine washable
https://archive.org/details/twitter-891599268036788224

"He emerged much cleaner but alive"
😮

..but if they do use the washing machine, remind them to use fabric conditioner, for extra floof

😮😮😮

Surely this isn't about ... drugs?!

Someone make sure to keep an eye on Gillian today. She has form.

Woley, I'm sorry about your friend.

And summer in this house always includes a bee/wasp rescue kit consisting of a large glass (ideally one of those plastic pint 'glasses') and a piece of card. We had lots of bees last year, but very few wasps.

I don't think I had a wasp in the house at all last year.

On the one hand, I was delighted as I'm terrified of them, if I lose sight of one in the house I nearly have to move house, because I'll never feel safe in that house again until I've located the wasp [yes they make me feel that melodramatic😕]

On the other hand, I'm sure it's a bad thing for the environment that there are
fewer wasps around. Through gritted teeth I admit that they probably have an important function ... which I applaud the little monsters for, as long as they do it outdoors.

I use glass/card method for spiders as well as wasps. It's amazing how calm and focused I get when catching them, despite being terrified on another level.
Self-preservation instinct, or something.

I've made myself shiver even thinking about spiders and wasps - quick, quick - a calming floofy antidote!!

The thing that used to induce melted brain, sick stomach, shaking all over terror in me was birds in the house. I'm better than I was.

EeekI I've never had birds, it sounds awful - impossible to catch, and leaving droppings all over the place presumably!

Because of my fear of wasps getting into the house I have insect screens/nets on my windows and doors in summer, so birds can't get in either.

... unless it was a really big and determined bird with a very strong beak, travelling at great speed towards my window.. but that would never happen, would it?😬

Hopefully she’d have more sense. A student flatmate had a houseparty for her 21st, her family having a big country house in the Borders. One evening we dined off a brace of pheasants; one had been shot on their land, the other had flown in through a window and didn’t survive the impact.

I try to avoid that. I've had to shoo birds out before now, occasionally they fall down the chimney. The blackbirds are easy to shoo out. The rook was terrifying, and couldn't fly through the open half of the patio doors, so I had to go and open the other half while staying out of its way!

Personally, I'm all about baby pandas. I have files of baby panda clips to cheer me up on tough days.

I thought you meant a large glass with something cold in it to cope with the trauma…

We get both ants nests and wasps nests in the driveway (awful gravel mess)

I only discovered the ants because I accidentally stood on their nest while cutting the hedge and they swarmed up my legs and bit me.

Ouch!

I have squillions of red ants in our sloping garden and as Norma said there are places you can't stand still. On the plus side we had a migrating Wryneck settle in for a couple of weeks for 2 consecutive years. We had to be very Secret Squirrel about it to avoid hoardes of twitchers turning up with nowhere to park. We did invite a local ornithologist round though.

Insect screens in summer are standard in all houses around here, installed before blackfly season starts. The worst house invader I ever had was a bat, which got down the chimney of our last house and was flying circuits in the living room. I rapidly got out of the room and shut the door, as I was on my way to bed, but the next morning I found it dead on the hall floor. Evidently it had squeezed under the door and the cats had bravely disposed of it. Bearing in mind there is rabies in this country we watched the cats closely for a few days just in case, but clearly this bat was not infected (or didn’t manage to bite either of them). Made me shudder though.

Quick! bring on the floofy baby pandas, Pasta, this thread has got a bit too....
ugh😱

Someone didn’t read the care label!

I am feeling a bit smug - I bought myself a new dress, but had to do some alterations - it didn’t have sleeves, so I’ve taken the sleeves off a t shirt and attached them, and I had to take it up about 3” - all dresses are designed for women who are 5’8” and over, so at 5’4”, I fall over the hems of everything. The dress has been sitting on the side for a week, waiting for me to get round to doing the work, but I did it yesterday, and I’m wearing the dress today, and it looks good.

Even better - it has pockets!

It’s this dress, with white sleeves.

Well done! I’d have probably had to take the entire bottom tier off.😂

Lovely dress Woley and how clever of you to add sleeves. I'm OK at taking up hems and removing unwanted bits from clothes - such as the dangling stringy bits that were a fashion a few years ago, but I wouldn't know where to start with adding sleeves. I've watched it being done on the Sewing Bee and it looks very complicated.

Well, considering the weather forecast for today was quite poor, it's not been a bad day. A few half-hearted showers this morning, but sunshine this afternoon, so I've been out weeding my gravel - again! - the previous owners of the house having put it down without a membrane underneath. I really must have that re-laid soon. I've found several little piles of sand, denoting ants nests. I'm fine with them in the garden, but woe betide them if they try to come into the house!

Nice dress, Woley, love the colours, and I think pockets in dresses are a great idea- they instantly transform it into something more relaxed and wearable don't they?

I can't do alterations, but I sometimes change the buttons on new clothes - different buttons can really make a big difference.

'Well may you wear', as they say, and when I was a child that would be accompanied by a coin put in a pocket as a 'hansel'

They are just so roly poly!

Yesterday was a horrible day for joint pain. Today, weirdly, wasn't even though I have done loads.

We're going to Dad's for a few days tomorrow so I thought I'd make some food in advance. Dad always wants to provide and he flipping can't, and I don't want the argument about he's fine really, and can manage.

So, spinach and ricotta cannelloni with a tomato sauce with focaccia and pesto as a side, and roast cherry fregola with prawns with a starter of broad bean and herb dip with flatbread, and labneh.

Plus a kilo of mashed potato to portion and freeze as neither Dad nor MIL can make mash anymore and they love it. MIL doesn't like the ready made stuff and my stubborn Dad wouldn't think of buying it "because it's lazy".

It took 3 years before he'd buy frozen chopped onions. He's so determined to do everything himself.

A dauphinoise ready to go in the oven for Mr Pasta and Pasta Jnr to have with their steaks this evening and now I'm ready to put my feet up

After cooking with so many herbs, I think I'll take a Mint Julep bar gerbils