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?)

I'm lazy - subtract 32 and halve what's left, and you're in the ballpark - until you get into the 80s when you're about 3C out using that method.

Yesterday's wildlife find was a group of five young French partridges (red-legged partridge, officially). Brains went on point, Batshit backed, and three flushed. Brains knew she wasn't done, fossicked about in the long grass a bit more, another point, two more whirred off over the neighbouring field of onions. Brains knows that young birds aren't good fliers, so she went and checked out the onion field, but they had clearly landed and then run.

Later in the day, driving along a nearby lane, I think I saw a little group of young English partridge (grey partridge) getting off the road. They looked too small and dumpy to be pheasant poults, and too dumpy and brown to be Frenchies. I know we're supposed to have a few around here, but I also know that wildlife information isn't always reliable, so we might not, and I probably saw them through the goggles of hopeful optimism.

For the final piece of wildlife news, I'm happy to announce that the juvenile moorhen of posts passim seems to have worked out what to do about roads, namely, stay off them unless you're crossing quickly. It was up on the verge when I saw it the other day, a few downy feathers still poking out of its otherwise now sleek and adult-looking self.

Before I go (lunch is calling), the weather.
Old chap 1, shopping at the nearest market: 'Still no rain, boi.'
Old chap 2, 'No, an' no soign of any, oither.'

It's currently 24C inside at Chez Stourton, and LOT hotter outside, even in the shade.

I love your wildlife stories @EdithStourton
It's 28C here today and I'm so over it. I decided last week that I would stop watering save for the greenhouse and a few plants that are relatively new. Not an easy decision because I have done everything from scratch and, with the exception of a fig tree and some ferns, I haven't bought a single plant, all done by lifting and dividing at our last place and by growing from seed. And a lot of swapping with neighbours. Some of the perennials will come back to life when we get some rain, others I'm not sure about. But this seems to be our climate now.
On the very plus side this morning I moved my garden recliner next to a large clump of mint which is attracting 100s of hoverflies and was surprised to find myself in the company of 3 flycatchers, so close that they were inches away from me and having a feast. They flew off when I went, but I sat down again later and they came back. They spent a minute or so on a fence watching me curiously and then flew down again, they are remarkably fearless little birds and very pretty.
.

The Bluestocking is a never ending source of education for me.

A few years ago, for various worthy reasons, I ended up being i/c costumes for a production of Dancing at Lughnasa by a very well respected local amateur theatre group. I sourced the costumes and adapted some a bit, including providing a top a jockey would have worn in 1936. Almost zero budget.

I was in the theatre for every performance. Despite that I’ve only just learned that Lughnasa is a time of year and not a place.

Well that was fascinating to read and all new to me so thank you!

28.5C outside Chez Stourton, in the shade.

Like a mad idiot, I did about 30-40 mins in the garden.

I'll be able to remember that one at least! 😀

Forecast up to 26 or 27C by Wed. And sunny. Again. Tired of it now, seriously. We need rain badly! I read that Blaenavon had a massive grass fire earlier in the week, and I wonder if that was all the smoke we could smell in Cardiff? The news said the smoke was spreading south and west for about 30 miles!

I'd like to add an interesting thing I learned today. I occasionally dabble in other fora such as Property and Chat, if I feel I have something to contribute (I rarely do). I've realized today how spoiled and lucky we are to have The Bluestocking. No one on the other fora seems to respond to the other posters, or rarely. They just post what they want to say and then you never hear from them again. Even those asking for advice. There's very little to no discussion. I find it very odd, and somewhat isolating, and always feel as though I'm posting into the wind, never to be seen again.

So I just don't go back for a long time. It's always the same when I do go back. Strange.

-40 degrees is the same in C and F.

Drank a huge amount of beer, wine and cocktails last night, getting to bed at 4am. It was glorious.

Feeling it a bit today, but it was worth it.

Thanks for your support over DSD’s PIP. It was signed Office Manager. So really anonymous. We should get more information at the next stage.

I saw the Jersey Tiger moth on the lavender this afternoon! Or maybe it's a different one... I hope it's here to stay.

The pollen is driving me spare!

(and neighbor's cooking smells grrr...)

It has rained a little while I was out and it's quite windy. I had left the back windows open and I've just spent the last half-hour evicting all the insects that had taken refuge. Count so far is a wasp, a cranefly, two ladybirds and a grasshopper!

The rain was just enough to dampen down some of the dust, but not enough to give the garden a proper soak.

At least we don't have any fires near us. I do hope there is enough rain soon to put them out as it must be horrible for those who live downwind of them.

I found a spider in my bed a couple of nights ago
😱

We’ve had change in the weather - it was about 19/20 yesterday and this is continuing but we’ve had a decent bit of rain today, along with wind. The lawn is looking a bit happier already - it wasn’t totally parched. However that means it’ll start growing again.

Urgh. I don’t much mind spiders outside but I really don’t want to get them tangled up with me.

I see your spider in the bed and raise it to a bat on my pillow. Genuinely.

I love spiders (genuinely, I spend a lot of time rescuing them, and I think I've mentioned before that some of them have had names) and I love the bats that hurl themselves around the rooftops here in summer.

But in my bed? On my pillow? Just no. (They would obviously be rescued if possible, and the spider can have any corner she likes, but they're not setting up shop on my bed)

Every summer, I find an Oak Bush Cricket somewhere in my house (so far, quickly enough for me to rescue them and get them outside near some raindrops before they die of dehydration). This year, I have also had a (Meadow, I think) Grasshopper on my kitchen radiator, looking bemused. Also rescued.

We've been out at Arundel WWT today. The highlight was the sand martins flittering around catching insects for their babies, which we could just see poking heads out of their nesting holes whenever mummy or daddy came back with a tasty snack. Lots of mallards, of course, and black headed gulls in the process of losing their black heads. Couple of Hawaiian geese, lots of Canadian geese, a random selection of ducks and other geese, two cygnets, and what we were reliably informed was a marsh harrier. The Merlin app was getting a good workout! It reckons we heard a sedge warbler and a lot of goldfinch, plus a gadwall, which I've never heard of before. Also spotted what I'm convinced was the arse end of a heron, but the head end didn't deign to make an appearance.

The main event was of course the magpie goose!

While waiting for a bus the other day I saw a group of 10-15 tiny birds, swooping up to the nests (?) and off again. They were so quick they are difficult to film: when the photos on my phone say “Live” there are about 8 birds at the start but the final photo a second later has only a couple.
Might they be house martins?
link

The birds seemed to be black with a flash of white, but not as much white as the linked description led me to expect. The nests in an office version of the eves fit, though.

We now have 4 pipistrelle nursery roosts. 3 in the house walls and this year 1 new one behind the wooden boarding on the summerhouse. When the young fledge they need to get some flying and echolocating practice in, but one year a little bat flew into our bedroom, couldn't find a way out and exhausted itself. Quite a surprise when I went to bed but I carefully held it on the edge of the window sill and it launched itself into the air.

Been in the garden writing about Gosie. Then it got very warm so I’m back on the sofa.

Yay, Gosie!

Could be House Martins. Very common. However, if they had a well-forked tail lacking streamers, could be Little Swifts. Not as common. I can't tell from the pictures, I'm afraid.

If you didn't hear any screeching, probably Martins.

Wonderful! (well, at least it was in the end, for you both) 😬

There’s an article about netball on a BBC Sports webpage.

It starts with this

Big up the netballers. That sport is so difficult."

• Stormzy, May 2026

Derived from basketball and developed by teenagers in late-Victorian England, netball is sport's great misunderstood "girly game".
A hotbed of feminist rebellion, its corset-shattering, myth-busting history encompasses a journey of emancipation, imagination, and healthy disdain for patriarchal expectations.

Some of the rest of the article is anger-inducing, but I think it’s worth reading.