The Bluestocking Pub: Infinite Cocktails, Questionable Logistics

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to the nth iteration of the Bluestocking women’s pub, where gerbils are staff, the drinks are free, and alcohol has no effect except to get you to the sweet spot just before the drink you really shouldn’t have had.

Men can go to the Staunch Ally next door.

It’s OK if you don’t understand. Just assume everything is normal.

Previous thread is here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5523989-bluestocking-womens-pub-its-maytime

I've only got back to the early C18th with my family tree, but I do know that I'm firmly rooted in the north of England on both sides as far back as I can go. My youngest sister did an Ancestry DNA test which confirmed a fair proportion of genetic Norse heritage. I had ash-blonde hair (now grey of course) and grey eyes. Even my fairly unusual maiden name - Jepson - is of North Germanic origin and largely confined to smallish areas of the north. Finally my left hand has a very mild case of Dupuytren's contracture, which used to be called the Viking disease. I rest my case... 😁

Perhaps my portrayal in any images ought to include a Viking helmet.

I rarely cook at all in the summer, and if I do, it's batch cooking all on one day, to eat cold the rest of the week. Can't stand cooking when it's hot, so I live on salads, salad type stuff, cold (cooked) fish, fruit and yogurt. In the winter I do all my soups and stews.

Must say, though, that quiche looks amazing!

Perhaps my portrayal in any images ought to include a Viking helmet.

Weren't they invented for Wagner's operas? The horned ones I mean. The real ones were like the Riders of Rohan with their brow protection, I think. They would be a bugger if you needed glasses.

Quiche mostly gone, as I gave a wedge to our neighbour for her and her partner's dinner tonight.

Last year I visited the fairly remote town
in Puglia where my nonna was born & I'm pretty sure parts of it hadn’t changed since she was there in the 1920s.

The best thing about getting to know my 102-year-old great aunt (London born & bred) has been hearing the family stories.

I’ve just found an article on the National Museum of Denmark site saying that the horned helmets could have belonged to berserkers. https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/weapons/helmets/

Are you blood group A?
Taller than average?

Both apparently Viking markers.

We say 'foostherin' about' here - I'm trying to think of the French equivalent - farfouiller, maybe.

I love this article:
'Did the Vikings wear helmets with horns. Nah. They'd've got in the way and been a nuisance. Next question please?'
If Arne Jacobsen did historical writing...😄

I think fossicking is Australian miners language. Too lazy to look it up.

Also sorry to be reminded that glorious summer sunshine, awaited for so long, transforming the world, often induces utter misery in me, such that the only thing I want to do is sit and weep. Like Giant Wombat.

Most annoying, it's clearly a physiological rather than an emotional thing, though if I give way to it the emotion does come crowding in. Bah Humbug.

A 102-year-old great aunt! That's amazing, Kitty, and such a wonderful resource for family history,

Fossicking- originally Cornish. I think the Cornish miners took it to Australia.

I'm so sorry that that's how you are feeling because of the sunshine
I don't want to pry - but is it that it brings up sad memories, or does it just make you feel inexplicably awful?

This kind of weather is related to high barometric pressure, which can affect people badly - I get more migraines when there's high pressure, and part of having a migraine is feeling very down, and sometimes feeling unaccountably fearful, like something dreadful is about to happen..

Whatever the source of your troubles 'fáth do bhuartha', as that lovely song says, I hope you feel better soon and know that you are not alone, we're here for you as are a large number of little animals who would be very willing to pop over magically and mind you till things improve, and the Irish summer 'sets in with its usual severity'
[I googled tt - Charles Lamb quoting Coleridge]

<gasps>

You turned on the oven! Are you one of those who like inflicting pain on yourself? I couldn't even get to the oven (if I had one) as the kitchen currently is an oven.

It's 21 degrees in the front room and 42 degrees in the kitchen. The temp quite literally doubles as you walk through my house.

The cats, lunatics that they are, are currently sunbathing at the back of the house. I'm hiding out in the living room.

It is literally a physiological response, not linked to any triggers other than the weather. It is probably about high pressure, as you say. I'm a creature of the Atlantic roller-coaster systems, a settled anticyclone is all wrong.

I don't get migraines but do retain fluids, so that is probably part of it. Gut brain, not in-the-skull brain.

So not fair, because we all needed some summer.

It's 26 degrees in the North facing room and 34 in the kitchen (South facing) but I just shoved the quiche in the oven, put a timer on my phone and say under the big tree in the hammock chair.

I love sitting under the big tree.

I can't remember which Stockinger it was who said she got teased for having an accent that says 'sner on the rerd' for snow on the road - I thought of you when the subtitles on Sky News today referred to 'herbs and dreams' instead of hopes and dreams😁

Subtitles can be hilarious, or just plain weird:
One of the players in a footie match the other day was, allegedly, called 'Annelise Annelise Desktop', and in the same match 'The ref had orally blown her whistle'
The alternatives to blowing a whistle orally don't bear thinking about😬
[it was 'already', as you've probably guessed]

I’m not sure either but I bet she was from Hull! I went to university there back in the 90s & stayed working there for a couple of years after. I keep meaning to go back & see how it’s changed.

I'm supposed to be having a Salade Niçoise this evening. I can cook the fresh tuna steak on the George Formby grill without adding to the heat in the kitchen, but I'm not sure I can cope with boiling new potatoes, french beans and egg on the hob. It may turn into 'tuna with a few salad leaves'.🙁

I do wish I had listened more to the old folks when I was little, but there was a lot they didn't want to talk about, too. By the time I was old enough to really appreciate what it would mean to have all that history, most of them were gone. It doesn't help that lots of that side weren't talking to the other side, y'know, because Religion.

But some relatives I was really close to were born well back in the 19th century. wish I had asked them more questions. I noticed that, for a lot of the old women, it was perfectly acceptable to tell me all sorts of things about the family once I was married.

I know you've mentioned the high pressure thing before, but I'd forgotten, and now I understand why I have had a nasty headache all day!

I think it was Chickadee... (apologies if it wasn't) 😬

Yesterday I'd intended to have a very old fashioned ham cheese and hard boiled egg salad, but after an afternoon in the sunshine talking about biodiversity I was too knackered to consume anything except the classic 'banana (and tiny pinch of salt) zapped with a pint of milk' which I had two of. It hit the spot and prevented any knock-on symptoms of not having drunk enough fluids.

So today I have Scotch-ed the egg I hard-boiled yesterday, heated some supermarket mashed potato and mixed in chopped lovage and chives and mayonnaise, and once that has cooled, they, with a bit of lettuce tomato marjoram and cucumber will be today's salad. Cheeses are also available if needed.

I treated myself to some Ortiz tuna when it was discounted, so we're having tuna, white beans, radish and red onion salad with yesterday's leftover focaccia for dinner tonight.

Yesterday was grilled halloumi with bulgur wheat salad, muhumara, black chickpea hummus, turmeric roast cauliflower, labneh and quick pickled zaatar onions- see below
The omnivores also had a lamb skewer (BBQ).

Much sympathy! That sounds rough. Eldest comes out in a heat rash and loathes this weather too. He is like a Pratchett troll - smart as a whip in the cold, hard of thinking in the heat.

Conversely, I am basically solar powered (despite being a nice Welsh pasty skin tone) and feel all restored and happy after these gloriously sunny days.

I try to keep it under wraps while others suffer, but it's my very best type of day.

I love halloumi! I have also recently discovered harissa paste, which I now have with all my salads, and goes perfectly with hummus and cucumber.