I am a cliché

[ablutiions]

Standing on the service station forecourt doing a few yogic stretches on our drive to holiday, I realised that I'm a cliché:

Middle aged Londoner, heading for a West Country holiday in my small eco friendly(ish) car, wearing a Boden cardi, and 'trendy' mum trainers with a flowery real cotton face mask dangled from my wrist. having eaten sourdough toast for breakfast. Oh, and carrying a chilly water bottle, natch.

And usually I'd be in France, but you know, Covid and all that.

Anyone else a walking cliché?

@Miseryl

Another thoroughly working class mother here- piercings, tattoos, brightly coloured hair and recently back from an all inclusive holiday in Majorca. 🤣

It MN. You aren’t allowed to be a stereotype unless it’s a middle class one. Anything else is racist, classist, sexist whatever.

Throw Boden, Brexit and Breton in the mix and they are clambering over themselves to identify.

i think Peace and love misread the room,
as they say in wanky speak

It cracks me up to see Irish people come on these threads and say how they don’t recognise all this middle class smuggery, so smugly themselves like Irish people are better than English for not having Waitrose and as if every country doesn’t have a class system

@PattyPan

It cracks me up to see Irish people come on these threads and say how they don’t recognise all this middle class smuggery, so smugly themselves like Irish people are better than English for not having Waitrose and as if every country doesn’t have a class system

A quick walk through Donnybrook would have you recognising Irish smuggery.

I live in Yorkshire. My next door neighbour wears a tweed jacket and a flat cap. He owns 2 whippets and says ey up! to me when he sees me. I was putting a new washing line up last week so I was stood on the flower bed and could see over his fence. I just happen to notice he was sat on his patio eating a pie with gravy on for his lunch. He’s a proper Yorkshire meme (as my teenagers would say) and I love him lol

Was that the pp who was talking of spending her Dhs inheritance on a holiday home when his Mum had only just died? I was a bit 😱. I don't think they'd even had the funeral? It sounds like they might read lots of rooms wrong in that case.

That wasn't his lunch.
Dinner, surely?

@AbsolutelyPatsy

i think Peace and love misread the room, as they say in wanky speak

Ah, if it really is LaQ then she’s been toting the company-director-husband-cotswolds-barn-village-lifestyle-Boden-and-yoga stuff around for a long time, before Mumsnet was even thought of She’s just trying to get a rise out of you.

Whereas I have no money and going on holiday and playing “middle class stripy seaside hols” is just a bit of fun! It’s just so funny to see everyone trying to do the same, as they cart Kitty and Barnabas around on their Radio Flyer looking like it’s all getting a bit too much and pretending that we’re all having a really good time and how long is it again until we can get the Hendricks and Fevertree out…? 😂

This is not just any old boast, it’s smashed avocado and sourdough boast…

What happened to the poster who used to always pop up on these type of threads stealth boasting? She was (apparently) a young mum with a very rich DH. She posted a picture of her feet at that private maternity hospital with the expensive cat shoes. (That’s shoes that look like cats, not shoes for cats. Unfortunately)

Your post made me smile thank you. Hope you have a great holiday

I suspect I'm part of the metropolitan liberal elite.
I live in That London, in a Victorian conversion in a neighbourhood bursting with artisan cafes and nonsense shops.
DP and I are both vaguely arty/meeja/creative and have both worked at least partly at home since ages before Covid. We are both Apple slaves people, no Microsoft or cheap pretenders here thanks
I buy local artisan bread and get expensive veg from a delivery box service and my nice local greengrocer.
I eat avocado every day (although again, I've been doing that since long before it became trendy and then a brickbat/insult).
I do yoga. In fact I am a trained yoga teacher
I've got a teetering pile of Booker-list type novels and thoughtful non-fiction recommended by the liberal press next to my bed.
I vote Labour (not without reservations, but you know, who else is there really)
I recently came back from a few days in the provinces the country/small towns and was gagging for a decent flat white and a choice of alternative milks.
I'm looking at Suffolk for a holiday in a charming converted farm building or olde-worlde cottage.

I hold my hands up

OTOH I am from a working-class family and grew up with frozen convenience foods, ten-pence mixes and ITV on all day. I would not have gone to uni if I weren't old enough to have had grants. While an A level and degree student I was among other things a cleaner, a barmaid and a call centre worker.

Where in "the Provinces" can't you get a decent flat white and alternative milks?

Where I just was
All too hot, not foamed enough/at all, and/or only sweetened milks.

Maybe your outfit wasn't Boden enough for them to care

@FoodieToo & @JustJustWhy, you don't need to be Irish to recognise the fuckery in this thread, I am a Brit who has been rushed to the ER because my cringe gland just exploded inside my body.

A complete cliche of a housewife- cooking, cleaning, dinner on the table for 6pm. I put on makeup and nice clothes for when my husband gets home. I have an 'allowance', I shop most days, I get coffee and food takeout every day. We live in a massive fuck off house in the middle of nowhere and drive massive fuck off 4x4s. On the weekends we get pastries and coffee from an independent coffee house in the village.

I don't care if boasting about financial privilege is wanky, I rather like hearing that other people are stable and happy. There's really no need to stop people from sharing their happiness just because others aren't so happy.

I am definitely a middle class cliche, but I really can't eat smashed avocado. I love avocado on its own, but I can't stand it all mushy. I can't eat guacamole for the same reason- it just makes me gag. Am I a cliche failure?

Maybe your outfit wasn't Boden enough for them to care
Probably not

@itsgoodtobehome

I am definitely a middle class cliche, but I really can't eat smashed avocado. I love avocado on its own, but I can't stand it all mushy. I can't eat guacamole for the same reason- it just makes me gag. Am I a cliche failure?

I couldn’t bear avocado or guacamole for most of my life - I found the texture absolutely disgusting and it would literally make me gag! - then after having DD in my late thirties my palate changed and now I love it! I really don’t understand why that happened!

Haha we're so privileged, look at all the stuff I can afford, it's just so funny

a) it's lighthearted. Don't read the thread if you're not into it.
b) it's not all about being able to afford expensive things. Many people can do yoga for free/cheap, online or at community classes. You can cook Nigella Lawson recipes from her TV shows or her free recipes online. You can get stripy Breton tops in Primark.
c) what the actual does being Irish have to do with anything?

@Livinthedream84

I live in Yorkshire. My next door neighbour wears a tweed jacket and a flat cap. He owns 2 whippets and says ey up! to me when he sees me. I was putting a new washing line up last week so I was stood on the flower bed and could see over his fence. I just happen to notice he was sat on his patio eating a pie with gravy on for his lunch. He’s a proper Yorkshire meme (as my teenagers would say) and I love him lol

If he were still alive, I'd think this was my Grandad!

Gone all rosy-glowy with nostalgia now.

I am sorry that @peaceanddove@chose Farrow and Ball when we all know but are too kind to say that anyone who is anyone uses Mylands.

I certainly wouldn't use anything else on the walls of my Grade2* Georgian mansion, although I do use Farrow and Ball on all the semi detached houses that make up my property portfolio. It's fine for that.

@Maireas I suspect he calls it dinner and not lunch haha. I know he says tea for his evening meal because when I was unloading the shopping from the car last week he said ‘oh you ave enough to feed an army there lass, il ave to come for mi tea’

Ok I have to ask… what’s the big deal about Boden? I’ve never heard of that brand before. Is it a middle class thing?

Also, is mumsnet mainly middle class?

I’m new here if you can’t tell.