The Bluestocking: home of the ice-cold Mojito foot-bath

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome all to the Bluestocking Women's Pub, where food and drink are free as in gluten free, calorie free, alcohol free - but still delicious. And free free too, of course.
Served by highly professional staff who are gerbils.

The Bluestocking Ice-Cold Mojito Foot-bath kept us deliciously cool through the heatwave. Come and join us, in case there's another one🌞

Canada Day seems as good a time as any to remind you all of this.

I've just spent a chunk of my evening proof-reading the newsletter of a society I belong to. I'm sure the chair strong-armed me into this job in an attempt to get me to edit the entire thing, as the current editor does a decent enough job of compiling it, but isn't familiar with the subject matter.

Every bleedin' time there's me having proper pedantic vapours about what are, in the grand scheme of things, pettifogging inaccuracies. However, there are many five-star pedants amongst the membership and it was their whinging that resulted in me being placed in a metaphorical half-Nelson over the phone until I begged for mercy and said that yes, yes, I'd proofread, now could I have my arm back?

I'm getting off being forced to become the editor because I have no idea at all how to do the formatting. I shall retain this ignorance for as a long as I can.

Yes, as am I!

Watching a police procedural drama from 2016.

A woman in her 50s has obviously had Botox. So far so normal.

What has shocked me is that a woman in her 40s hasn’t had Botox, AND none of the men have either! 😱😱😱

It’s clear that everyone on screen now in 2026 gets Botox in their 20s and I didn’t notice it happening in real time.

Bar gerbils, that was an exhausting read ( the tribunal, not the gerbils and their England jubilations,) - I'll have an Oban, double, neat. It's that kind of evening.

Love the gerbils' little England shirts, BTW!

Edith, I feel your pain. I designed, edited, and proofread a charity newsletter (about 10 pages every month) for years. I even wrote some book reviews. At least I didn't have to write the other items. We had a good team, though it was all voluntary. But, the infighting about the tiniest things! People with very little else to do, with plenty of resources, and loads of talent and experience, can do an awful lot of damage to a small newsletter!

Angle, this one bothers me because the focus has widened to the point where a lot of the content is only tangentially relevant.

Possibly getting me to proof-read it is the chair's way of making me read the bloody thing, so that I get so annoyed that I take over.

ETA, I shall accost him at the annual dinner and ask him, and see how guilty he looks...

Fed. Watered. Somewhat rested. Strolled around garden- very windy this evening. Cleaned downstairs gender neutral loo to within an inch of its life so I can use it tonight😬.Settling down in front of telly to watch my favourite kind of footie match: one where I don't care a bit who wins, I can just admire their skills, how fast they run, and notice how incredibly ugly that Belgium kit is, and how the Senegal one has these lovely slashes of red that only appear when their arms are raised
Thank you for saying my posts on the Shirley Temple thread were funny, Myrtle
I actually made myself laugh out loud with the 'Why the theatrical pause' one
Naomi C. asked ST 'Why the theatrical pause?' so I posted this photo😁
Just made myself laugh again, I'm a great audience😂

I think I'm going to call it a night there, I'm really tired and The Lads are back again at 8am - I think they'll finish up tomorrow, yippee.

Sorry I haven't responded to individual posts, as I usually like to😴
G'night all 💙

Theatrical paws 💙💙💙

It's a neat trick. People will praise you for being such an accurate proofreader, so other people will feel less like volunteering because they don't want to step on your toes, and they think they won't do as good a job. Then suddenly you find you are doing copy-editing, collating, chasing for stories, then redesigning the whole thing to fit all the new stories you've gathered. So, be careful what you offer to do! You'll work your way up to editor!

I did volunteer to do ours because I knew I had the time and could bring it into the 21st C, and I had already done similar at work. I hadn't realized how much work it would be, especially waiting for other people to write. But I used MS Publisher, which was easy. There's probably something fancier you could use now.

Do any of the sleep gerbils have their own mobile air conditioning units? Hot flushes are being difficult to ignore tonight. I'd settle for gerbils with little fans.

Hot flushes are horrible. I acquired a lot of cardigans.

And yep, Angle, I'm going to be very cautious. I go through phases (this week being one) where volunteering seems to take up an inordinate amount of time.

Good night Marie, hope they do a good job tomorrow. Windy here, too, in Cymru Hyfryd! 💤

Sympathies to all those with hot flushes and no air conditioner. We put the window-shaker air conditioner in the bedroom and have another running in the office today as we are expecting temperatures in the high 90s tomorrow. Ugh.

Friends and neighbours are replete with poutine, having started the early evening with scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam in honour of the England match.

I have been an ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT host by watching the football with everyone despite having less than no interest in it. MrPasta has an enormous telly

<Chugs in slowly>

<Wipes brow, sits down>

Hello @FuzzyPuffling , hello everyone!

What did I miss?! Actually no, don't tell me, carry on and I'll get the gist I'm sure 😁. Has everyone cooled down a bit after last week?

Shiny blue nail polish is of course great, as are all shiny blue things - I've seen some smashing beetles with a shiny blue/green carapace. Relatives of yours @Boiledbeetle I assume!

This pigeon was in the nuts & seeds section of my local Asda when I was in there about an hour ago.

I very much doubt Asda sells expensive gourmet gerbil seeds, so probably nothing suspicious going on.

Pigeons aren’t as daft as they look.

We shall have to assume it's one very lost woodie, rather than an agent...

Welcome back, @ShinyBlueTractor

I needed the sleep gerbils last night, but they were nowhere to be found. Consequently I missed a delivery first thing - though I'd have heard if the bod had just rung the bell rather than knocking (knock-knock, just that, I thought it was DH coming in with B&B).

I have to take a load of bottles to the tip this morning. The crashing is going to go down really well with my foggy head.

I may have mentioned before, I have watched a London pigeon hop on the Tube, wait patiently for the doors to close, stay next to the doors and hop off at the next stop. Completely nonchalant, it obviously knew exactly what it was doing.

I don't suppose you 'accidentally' punctured a bag of seeds so that the contents went all over the floor? 😁

Spelling!

I wish I’d thought of that.

Probably just as well you didn't. He would have called in all his mates for a pigeon party!

😆

I pointed it out to a staff member & as I left a few of them were staring worriedly up. They obviously wouldn’t want to do anything to agitate it…

Goodness me no, pigeons are very likely to shed their load. DH is always cautious passing underneath various bridges after a couple of incidents. Mind you, not quite as bad as the heron at the zoo in Amsterdam after its standoff with their pelicans. 😬