The Bluestocking, a unique location for daughters and sisters of earth, frost, feathers, fur, scales and spines

[AsWithGlad]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the best (perhaps only) online women's pub. Nothing in the food or drink can harm you, everything is served by a very enthusiastic crew of gerbils, who enjoy doing this, and any curious menfolk are welcome at the Staunch Ally down the road.

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/feminism/5568996-the-bluestocking-pub-where-we-continue-to-read-about-gerbils-nobly-and-bravely-working-undercover-in-the-fen?page=1

Watch out for Baron Bigod's forebears. They'll be the big shouty ones, selling cheese.

Hedgey!!!! 🙂☺️👋

Swashy!!!

@Hedgehogforshort DH and I often watch a series on BritBox called Canal Boat Diaries. DD laughed at us when she discovered this, but we find it gentle and engaging. I hope your trip was enjoyable.

☺️

Whoops sorry. Quite right, I’m not planning on reading (quick google) the memoirs of an Attorney General. Sounds like it might be good for insomnia though….
The top hit on my search, however, was a novel called ODTAA by John Masefield (the Sea Fever poet)

I'm over 100 posts behind. Now I'm all washed and ready for bed I must go catch up.

Just as soon as I find a working phone charger.

(Only another 115 showers to go!)

Wonderful! Oh yes the woman in the red dress and her singing and dancing 😃

It's a wonderful trip, isn't it?

How you doing swashy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Where is that? We went to a viking restaurant but I think that was at Flåm. I can't really remember now.

@NotAtMyAge I hope you enjoy it. I must look out for some more of his writing, I believe he was/is a columnist for some newspaper. Almost every page I was nodding along thinking "yes, it's not just me". Bloody chefs with their dollops and drizzles and medium sized things! Obviously for those of you who are instinctive cooks, vague amounts may be enough. My sister annoyingly is one of those people that can make a 15 course banquet out of some roadkill, a shrivelled tomato, and that potato with the sprouts that has been at the back of the cupboard since Noah was a lad. I often call her for help and she says stupid things like "just add a bit of cream" - a bit? How much is a bit??

[what passes for] An exciting day chez de Gournay -
two evangelical missionary types (older, and the sounded Australian, not the besuited young Yanks who used to call) called and asked me where I turn to for advice - interesting opening.

But I knew where they were going, they probably expected me to say something trite and worldly, so instead I said ' I look inside my own heart for the wisdom of years' and they never really recovered their composure after that😁

I thanked them for calling, of course, I'm never rude to people like them, they think they are doing the right thing and doing me and my Immortal Soul a favour..

Then a couple of hours later I heard a helicopter approaching - sometimes it's tinnitus which just sounds like a hovering helicopter, but this time it was a helicopter. It got louder and louder till the house shook, I rushed outside and looked up - it was four CHINOOKS!

Being an aviation fan I was so excited I said out loud 'F*ck me, they're CHINOOKS! Fortunately my semi-public swearing was drowned out by the incredible racket they made😏

If you live near an airbase in the UK, that's probably not such a big deal, but it certainly is over here, and despite them being war machines, and associated with the unwelcome visit of a certain unpopular foreign head of state, I was really excited!

Thank you Kitty for all the travel updates - nice to see Inky on a roadsign there😄
That's a splendid train! I'm going to google 'Norway railways' in a few minutes, to see what kind of loco it is.

Particularly stylish jimjams tonight, Boily, if I may say so.
I haven't really caught up with the end of the previous thread yet, and I probably never will, once you rejoin the conversation the current is so strong that it's hard to swim back upstream, is there?😐

Well I'm off to look at Norwegian trains. G'night all, esp Magpie who has had a day of it, sleep well and dream undemandingly🌜

It’s called the Flåm Railway, @MarieDeGournay, & the history’s at https://en.flamsbana.no/historien.

@ChristmasStars, Viking Valley at Gudvangen. https://en.vikingvalley.no/

So more of a Viking experience than a Viking village. But should be interesting.

FOUR Chinooks, Marie?! Wow! We get one or two going over occasionally, and two is enough to drown out conversation. Four must have been deafening! The Biggin Hill Spitfire is seen most days here. New students don't understand how I know it's a Spit without looking, but you can't mistake the sound of a Merlin engine. There's also a radial engine job pootling around occasionally but I've never seen it closely enough to work out what it is. Again, I can tell it's radial from the engine noise and the blunt nose, and I assume it's one of the American Cats.

<Magpie outs herself as another variety of nerd>

Wow I want to go there!

Oh my the Flam railway (don't know how to do the fancy A with a o on top) looks WONDERFUL.

We've got an empty nest hoving into view very very soon😕- mixed feelings, as you'd expect, but it does free up the opportunity for spending time pootling on excellent railways! We had Switzerland top of our list but maybe Norway now up there and battling!

I want to go and do the Wuppertal Suspension Railway, known in train fan circles as the Danglebahn.

Good morning.

Chinooks - wow. Haven't seen anything like that but have wondered will himself pass overhead on the way to his hotel.

I hope he experiences some proper Irish weather while he's here.

HAGADAPA

Early photos from the Stegastein viewpoint this morning, 650 metres above the Aurlandsfjord.

Bore da, lovely Bluestockingers!

Chickadee, I loved watching Canal Boat Diaries for the same reason- soothing (except for the very loud sound of the boat's engine, which I noticed that they edited out on many shots). It actually can't have been very restful for those who live alongside the canals, even today, if some people have those old boats with loud engines. But I suppose they get used to it? Well, Hedgey will know all about it...

It's raining here, and I'm out all day Doing Stuff. Looking forward to all your beautiful photographs, Kitty! (no pressure) 😬

ps. Trying to use an old Android phone for this because my iPhone heats up in 3 minutes when I use MN (and only MN heats it up, I believe there's a thread on Site Stuff about iOS). It's ok, no overheating, but the interface is limited and glitchy (can't find the log in/log off) and the formatting is hard to find, so this phone is clearly not the solution... back to my iPad, I guess 😐
Ed. Random punctuation

And here I was thinking that most of Norway looks just like the Highlands... this definitely does not! 💙

HEY SWASHY!! 😊

(Sorry, that's a bit shouty. I blame this phone...)

Oh. You'd hate me.
'So once you given them a good bash with the whisk, add a little bit of the sugar and have another quick bash, and then...'

But then, I acquired recipes from friends and relations who were often of the, 'What you need is a just a splash of this, makes all the difference' school of cooking. DM's directions were very much, 'Put them in a very hot oven, they'll need about 20 minutes, turn the oven down if they're looking a bit too brown too soon.'

About the only things I'm really precise about (thought I do weigh for things like cakes) are the ratios of flour:water for making bread, and liquid:flour for Yorkshire puddings. I'm not even that fussed about oven temperature (other than for Yorkshires = thermonuclear). Oh, and the butter must be smoking before you pour in the pancake batter.

That gorgeous glossy green loco in your photo Kitty:
it's a NSB El 17 electric locomotive, built between 1982 and 1987 by ThyssenKrupp, this Bo'Bo' locomotive is designed for efficient passenger and freight transport.With an impressive top speed of 150 km/h and a power output of 3000 kW, the NSB El 17 excels in speed and pulling power, boasting a maximum tractive effort of 240 kN.This locomotive, measuring 16.3 meters in length and weighing 64 tons, is equipped with 15 kV AC 16.7 Hz electric systems and has a 1435 mm gauge.

But y'all knew that already, right?

I think we all want to go to Norway now - you should claim some of our holiday costs back form the NorwegianTourist board, Kitty!

I'm so jealous of you seeing a Spitfire 'most days', Magpie - I've only seen/heard one once or twice, that's all. They are unforgettable.

One of the things I like about the Spitfire is that it was designed in peacetime as for civilian purposes, not for war.

Many iconic planes were war machines and of course I disapprove of That Kind of Thing and feel conflicted about getting very excited about the design of planes like the 'invisible' Lockheed Nighthawk, or four Chinooks flying over my house...

It's the aviation equivalent of being a radical lesbian feminist Prince fan😏😔