Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

Oh the steam trains are quite fun too, but after a dozen or so they all look the same to my female eyes. FIL loves them and gets all misty-eyed and MIL is quite happy with her family round and whispers about her beautiful Engelkinder... Though as she can't walk up steps, getting her on and off trains and across tracks can lead to traffic jams of people, reminiscent of scenes involving Frau Berlin.

Rue, sounds like you're in the same(ish) area as me- try the www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/ for a proper train unlike bloody Southern and their interminable strikes. We went once all dressed up in Victorian clothes - DD went to a school with a mildly bonkers Head who thought it would be fun - and ended up chatting to a lady on a 90th birthday day out who said how lovely it was to be reminded of her childhood. Did also have to face being photographed by loads of Japanese tourists, or maybe they were actually film directors wanting to make a motion picture of us in our fresh outfits?

I must be a very old girl, one of the foundation stones probably as I contributed many legends to the annals of the OneDrive, but as my name has mysteriously changed over the years, only Dear Joey can remember me, and I've arrived to help out with the yurts, as I have lots of experience (see ref to DDs bonkers Head who installed a genuine from Mongolia yurt as an additional classroom/drama space. It smelled and the DC hated it), and can advise as to the best placements, even though i'm not a man.

I've never been on a steam train, I feel perhaps I should seek one out, to complete my authentic Chalet School persona.

Much more the thing than fucking Southern those modern trains. Simply It, in fact .

Noooo, don't say that! I have booked DS and me a steam train trip for christmastime (through the Highlands - still in desperate search of mountains - rather pathetically missing Tiernsee!) - it is supposed to be lovely and enjoyable, not smelly.

Totally blanked out any memory of glory holes at Plas Gwyn. Also really not thrilled at prospect of fermented yaks milk - no wonder people keep sneaking into our dormyurt and messing about with the juniper fermenting setup.

When the ILs dragged me on a steam train for the first time, my reaction was "so that's why the Chaletians were so obsessed with washing after a long train journey!" They reek! Apparently they use soft European coal nowadays...

I now see the merit of corner seats, too.

Gosh, isn't this soft European coal awful? says every single post Platz CS girl ever

Bread, butter and coffee with positive featherbeds of whipped cream coming your way Northernlurker. Did you manage to spot any handsome doctors on the way up here? Are you engaged yet?

I have decided I have arrived and will now wash the coal dust from my delicate features whilst exchanging my sturdy travelling shoes for the delicate embroidered slippers so characteristic of me. If somebody could get me some bread and butter that would ambrosial.

Whilst I wait I will mention I've just been re-reading the wrong chalet school and poor Jennifer Penrose! She didn't want to do some gardening and she had a naughty book and she ends up in isolation and they wonder why she locks up the annoying (and pretty natch) Blossom? Then she basic!ly has a breakdown and nobody says 'hmm. Maybe we should ease off with the isolation for these vulnerable adolescents'........

Phew. Glad the thread hasn't disappeared. Maybe we were in quarantine for measles / scarlet fever / chickenpox but it turned out that someone had just eaten too many strawberries?

Still reading Ruey here (baby taking up reading time - really need a Coadjutor and a Rosli but probably don't deserve one as not a 'real family' - just a singleton). Still amazed at how much was cut for the Armada edition.

monington was just going to say isn't the Mongolian equivalent of light country wine fermented yaks milk but then see notcitrus already mentioned it.
Perhaps we could have an expedition to China while we are here and track down the back story of Gay.

NC as I outed myself but happy to see the interest in polocrosse and thank you for the link to the shared drive.
Hope you've all brought your winter sports kit and nailed boots as I'm sure it can get rather cold in Mongolia.
If you haven't no doubt Jo can find some in one of the many trunks she hasn't unpacked since leaving Austria. When she's slept off the special milk that is.

Doesn't Plas Gwyn have lots of glory holes? I seem to remember a conversation along the lines of PG having lots of kitchen cupboards thus described, and how Joey will miss them. Or have I made that up?

I'm glad to see the thread is back and progressing as merrily as a round of impertinent questions on a rainy afternoon. I was seriously wondering what we'd done to piss off annoy MNHQ Miss Annersley, and whether we were going to have to emerge as sadder and wiser girls. I don't know what I did to make the entire thread disappear off a precipice, but it seems to have clambered out of its own accord so all's well.

NorthernLurker, I'll swing by the station later this evening when I'm training my polocrosse horse, and pick you up if you like. We can keep our eyes peeled for handsome doctors on the way.

I am sure I have read Glory hole in more than one book...but don't know if they were all EBD..

PM'd you Grain.

So... Seven Scamps. This is probably going to sound spectacularly immature, and you'd never know I was a married lady and proud mamma of eleven, but... glory-hole? It's safe to say I have never heard a school-room called that before.

Also Sir Piers is a bit funny about children's hair. We hear repeatedly that he is precious about his own daughters' hair, and wouldn't stand to see it cut short, which is pretty much par for the course (and I sympathise to some extent, I will secretly feel v sad if DS ever decides to chop his lovely curls off). But then it turns out that what first attracted him to his new wife was her daughter's long fair plaits. It's one of those glorious EBD moments where she just says something completely fucking weird and then carries on as if it were a perfectly normal sort of throwaway comment.

May I request the shared drive details too please, many thanks

I like bacon for breakfast

Still at the station. Would I get more attention if I threw myself in the lake? There must be one nearby, this school has the affinity for deep water that Joan Baker has for inappropriate eye shadow.

Expelled? Only midnight bacon consumption or liaison with Nazis would lead to such a drastic response. We are all the nice sort of naughty which can be redeemed by prayer or a wholesome admiration for the elusive beauty of Gill Linton.

Yeah, definitely get Dr Jack to fetch her. Dr Jem doesn't think women's weak wrists should be allowed to drive up or down these hills anyway.

mornington my lamb I can assure you we haven't all been expelled

(Did you unwittingly put it on your blocked threads list? Not that I've ever done that myself, oh no...)

You need Dr Jack to collect her in the Monster (which I believe is an old bath-chair combined with a bicycle)!

Have we all been expelled? This thread has disappeared from the Children's Books topic and I had to do a search for it. What's the gaff? Didn't MNHQ like our scrapbooks which we plastered all over AIBU offered to the poor children to keep them occupied? Was our special milk a little too special? Did the baby angels bring down the ceiling of the MN speisesaal when they were rehearsing in their dormy?

Perhaps if we cry ourselves into a bad headache which as any fule kno is the only true way to indicate repentence MN will relent and re-instate us.

Well now I'm jealous you'd better watch out for sharp stones hidden in snowballs this winter!

My two are more at the "Where's my cow? " level of Sir T. But I did download the audiobooks of Tiffany Aching in preparation, and I'm really enjoying them

I think GGBP have reprinted Chudleigh Hold. The story of Jessane and her staircase is in The Lost Staircase which they have also republished. I too however hold out hopes for one day someone emptying a box that belonged to some old Aunt and finding a manuscript for Gay's story hidden away inside!

I have also often wondered how Arminel Chudleigh became Gillian Culver...and considering EBD often used slightly unusual names what she didn't just leave it who knows!!