The Bluestocking Women's Pub: Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs

[AngleofRepose]

Croeso/Welcome to the Bluestocking Women's Pub, with our lovely gerbil staff, the icy Mojito foot-bath for those of you fed up with the heat, a Quilting/Craft Nook, lots of yummy food and drink with zero calories, gluten, or allergens, the Gerbil World Cup, and a brand new magic pool that becomes a babbling brook whenever you want it to!

Come on in! All women welcome! (Men welcome at The Staunch Ally pub down the road aways)

(security provided by the capybaras, lovely folk, but try not to get in their way)

(oh, and don't mention triangles, please. Gubbins gets very overexcited)

(did we mention the Gerbil World Cup?)

Gosie! GOSIE! GOSIE!😍

You can't beat a dancing Tunnock's Tea Cake!

A wonderful offer!

£3.33… invaluable.

Especially in a defunct currency!

We went to a wedding once where the reception was in the lambing shed barn, and the guests were seated on straw bales. 'Aw, hay bales!' said the townies. Explanations were forthcoming.

I have a townie friend who loves farm machinery, so when there is good stuff out and about eg spud planting kit, I send photos.

I could sit and watch a combine for half an hour (and have, in the past). There's something amazing in how the front part of the header catches the crop as it's cut, and then the augur feeds all back into the combine itself, and then straw comes out of the back and chaff comes out of the sides and then, once the grain bin is full, the tractor comes alongside and the combine discharges, still trundling along and cutting, in a reverse of in-flight refuelling. And if you listen to a combine, you can hear the engine, and the fan, and sometimes the threshing. Amazing bits of of kit, when you stop and think about it.

It always boggles me when I look at big old barns built back God-knows-when, and think that there is the threshing floor, used for centuries, as threshing floors had been used for millennia, and then, from about 200 years ago, the tech changed as threshing became mechanised. And now the grain is threshed as it is cut.

They were still cutting in front of our house five minutes ago, all lights blazing, but seem to have stopped for a tea break.

Just don't tell Maud that, she doesn't know Euros exist.

Sympathies to @Thehorticulturalhussie. There’s no good way to lose someone you love. I lost my mum to cancer over a couple of months but my dad and DH1 both died suddenly and unexpectedly. I guess if you make it to 99 and people love you and want you to stay, you’ve lived a good life, and that’s something to hold on to even while you miss them dreadfully when they go.

Fingers crossed for @MyrtleLion!

My great aunt is 102. She’s in a wheelchair, gradually losing her sight & hearing though still has most of her marbles. She has cancer so they have no idea how much longer she has.

She lives in a care home near the sea & the carer who used to look after her before she moved there now spends weekdays in the home with her instead. They’re great friends & the carer, who is really lovely, takes her out round the shops, along the promenade etc. I visit every two or three months.

I’m the only member of the family still in touch with her & started visiting after my mum died, since Mum had been the only one before that. (GA didn’t have kids).

I think the main thing we both get out of it is sharing family history & stories. GA gave me some old family photos, including one of her wedding, & it hadn’t occurred to her that Mum was in the photo as a baby - I only realised when I spotted my granny holding her. There was also a wonderfully Heyeresque account of an ancestor being involved in a ‘mill’ (public fight).

I think she’s happy, but I wouldn’t want to live that long. I need my own space & independence so much that I think I’d be constantly annoyed and frustrated. And snappy.

Edited to add that I think GA would be totally justified in leaving everything to her carer! She says I’m in her will somewhere, but it’s the family photos & history she’s already given me that I wanted.

Morning everyone! I'm home early, now to spend time in the garden, seeing what needs watering. I don't think it has rained at all in over a month!

Looking forward to Gosie's new adventure. And good luck with the interview, Myrtle!

I'll have to try to catch up. But, I agree, Kitty, I don't want to live to be 100 if I'm no longer independent. Not for me at all.

I have just had a text with a prescription for ADHD medIcation. AIBU to hope they kick in before the interview? 🤔

They may not have it in stock, so I’m prepared to drive round many pharmacies in hope.

I won’t be allowed caffeine for a month, so my free Costa Coffee will be consumed today as it runs out in three weeks. I drink coffee very rarely but I do enjoy the occasional Americano (and no, I don’t want milk in it, an Americano is a black coffee, anyone wanting to pollute it with milk should ask for it ffs).

I mostly drink cardamom tea. Lots of it. So I shall also have a couple of pots of that. And I will need to drink 2-3 litres of water a day. Which should be doable.

Morning all

1. Bindweed takes YEARS to get rid of. Bloody years. Even with super strength weedkillers
2. All squirrels are evil. My dog says so. Also says they're vile. Obviously good at anagrams (is that the right definition?)
3. I'd like a cappucino please bar gerbils. Nice and frothy.

Sympathies Hussie. A lovely elderly lady in my circle is end-of-life, bless her. So sad to see the deterioration of someone that was so, well....., full of life?
Well done Boily. Have a tunnocks on me 👍

You can't beat a dancing Tunnock's Tea Cake!😀
You can't eat a dancing Tunnock's Tea Cake!😖

I saw a Tunnocks lorry on the M6 yesterday. My first thought was "it's coming south, so must be fully loaded, not returning for refill".

My second thought was " I wonder where the best place for a hijack would be".

My third thought was " I wonder if Boily has tunnelled her way in there already......"

I don’t expect to ever get rid of the bindweed from my back border (there’s too much on the other side of the fence) but I do object to it appearing in a patio pot!

I'm so sorry to hear about Mr Horti facing the loss of his dear mother, and your very dear MIL - you speak of her with such affection.
It will be an unspeakable loss when it happens, but I hope DH will be consoled by knowing that she always had his love, and that he brought you and your love into her life too.

Good luck with the next interview stage, Myrtle!
the gerbils are still recovering from the world cup, so here's one they prepared earlier😄

Wow, Boily, you are on fi-yah!! [in a good way..]
You've been posting about numbers of showers/items removed from house, so I knew about that, but the healthy weight achievement came as a surprise. Fantastic!
It sounds like you've made a turnaround in lots of aspects of your life - brill!
I hope you feel proud of your achievement, and the better for it all

Thank you all for your kindness I do appreciate it very much. I love my MiL. I landed in their family with some regrettable baggage not entirely of my own making. On our first meeting each other she looked me in the eye and said 'Well Hussy, I shall make up my own mind about you and as Mr Hussy loves you I expect we will be friends' and we have had a lovely and honest relationship.
My sympathy to all of you, the majority I imagine, who have been obliged to play this miserable waiting game x

I’ve posted a similar picture before, but whenever I see these Tunnock’s lorries, I want to believe that that is just one, ginormous Tunnock’s caramel wafer.

Ds2 used to be in the local Young Farmers - not because he was a farmer, but because they had a hockey team, and he loved his hockey. He did go to other YF stuff - including a tractor appreciation evening, where all the farmers turned up with their tractors and other agricultural machinery, and everyone had to go round and estimate the cost of each thing - somehow, ds2 won!

I love the idea of one ginormous Tunnock's caramel wafer attached to a tractor unit [which is what the front bit of an artic lorry is called, I just looked it up].
It would keep the Bluey going for a week or two, wouldn't it?

I’ve just read the patient information leaflet for the drugs.

No booze, either. 😢

So we’re going to the lovely restaurant by the river at around 4.30pm.

The Walrus is taking annual leave next week so we had planned a boozy day date on Wednesday, but if this medication means I can focus on Monday for the interview, I will just have to suck it up.

I’ve just watched the start of The Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony VT, the bit where Sir Chris Hoy and Gary Tank Commander take the Tardis to collect HMs the K &Q from Balmoral.

(It’s quite good.)

So, they get lost on the way to Balmoral and at one point land next to a woman with a long grey plait who is unwrapping a Tunnocks tea cake. When he asks she gives it to Sir Chris, and then takes another one from her large handbag.

Boily, is that you? Anyone?

I missed this bit, it must have been at a complicated part of my knitting.

Well I suppose if the medication will help you then it's got to be done but very unfair!