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Original poster

I am a cliché

533 replies

ablutiions · 14/08/2021 08:34

Grin

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. Grin

Anyone else a walking cliché?

OP posts:
Maireas · 14/08/2021 17:19

Good point about the paint, @SailYourShips, but she's already says she's wearing silk mix pyjamas, so I think we can agree standards have slipped.

PattyPan · 14/08/2021 17:19

@irresistibleoverwhelm sometimes I think the palate does just randomly change! Mine wasn’t even pregnancy related but I never used to like olives until one day I woke up craving them and I’ve liked them ever since!

SailYourShips · 14/08/2021 17:21

I have my own mulberry tree so my silk is pure and, as the tree is in my grounds, it is 100% locally sourced which is very important to us as a family.

ACPC · 14/08/2021 17:23

I’m new here if you can’t tell
Get out while you still can.
Boden is a really boring brand of clothes.

Maireas · 14/08/2021 17:24

I agree about the mulberry tree, but who does your weaving? I've hired artisanal weavers from Peru. I've insisted they are vegan so there's no chance of trace animal fats on the silk.

HermioneGrunger · 14/08/2021 17:28

Boden is a really boring brand of clothes

Boring for some but some of us like it so ner Grin

SailYourShips · 14/08/2021 17:30

They may be the same weavers, @Maireas. If so, a quick tip...do ensure that they weave only by the light of a full moon as the moon serves as a reminder of purity and light and, crazy as it sounds, this atmosphere seems to weave its way into the silk.

It certainly helps when wearing it for yoga whether one does it on the dreary garage forecourt or in one's own studio with a few chums.

Maireas · 14/08/2021 17:34

It's not crazy, Sail, it sounds to me like a holistic approach. I also think it's best to let the weavers catch the bus because I'm sure my 4x4 wouldn't give them the right vibe.
I think people on here are bitter and jealous because they have no personal cache of artisanal weavers, but we work hard, right?

Anordinarymum · 14/08/2021 17:35

@Girlmum89

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.

Boden it a double edged sword Girlmum.

It's what women who want to show off at the school gates wear combined with a look that no man would fancy thus deterring husbands from wanting to have sex as a refusal is always regarded as a hostile act :)

Anordinarymum · 14/08/2021 17:35

@HermioneGrunger

Boden is a really boring brand of clothes

Boring for some but some of us like it so ner Grin

And shapeless
SailYourShips · 14/08/2021 17:36

@Maireas Grin

TSSDNCOP · 14/08/2021 17:36

*My summer breakfast is an espresso with a brandy. In winter it's two brandies. Lunch is at least five grilled sardines with salad and I wouldn't consider consuming less than half a litre of wine with it. Dinner is rice with pork and bean casserole, again with at least half a litre of wine, followed by espresso and brandy.

My wife thinks I'm inhuman. I'm Portuguese.*

So jealous.

Anordinarymum · 14/08/2021 17:37

@IntermittentParps

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 Grin 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 Grin 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 Grin

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.

You were doing alright until you felt the need to justify it
Maireas · 14/08/2021 17:38

@peaceanddove - a Gaggia coffee machine is a bit down-market, isn't it?
Buy a Juz Z10 and get your housekeeper to bring it along. A smoother taste, I can guarantee.

oatflatwhite · 14/08/2021 17:42

Not sure where I fit. Went to a nice girl school then top unis but ended up becoming an academic married to a fellow academic. So I definitely have a lot of middle-class tastes but without the salary.

I do find that a lot of these cliches are basically centred on - do you have a 200k plus family income - if so, come this way, if not - who are you again?

Maireas · 14/08/2021 17:42

Sorry, typo! A Jura Z10 coffee machine!
Honestly, my personal weaver Consuelo is typing this, and she's unfamiliar with coffee machine brands.

Camomila · 14/08/2021 17:51

@dryasaboner my mistake, just back from lidl - wetsuits are 9.99

IntermittentParps · 14/08/2021 17:53

Anordinarymum, why the hostility? And why 'justify'? Like many others on here, I'm just talking about the difference between where I find myself now and how I grew up. I (and others here clearly) find it funny. Is that a problem?

diamondpony80 · 14/08/2021 17:53

@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 Hmm
I've lived in a few different parts of Ireland, both north and south, and honestly middle class smuggery is not something I've experienced much of. My parents hated the idea of showing off and "keeping up with the Joneses" and to look at them you wouldn't know they were quite well off. We never felt we had to behave a certain way, buy certain things, or visit certain places to fit in. Depending on what part of Ireland you're from, I'd say middle class smuggery IS quite alien to a lot of Irish people and seems very fake.

I think it's starting to show in the more materialistic younger generation though and is definitely a thing in certain parts of Dublin and Cork. There is a more obvious class system and similar cliché's to be found there.

I'm sure nobody suggested Irish people are better than English for not having Waitrose. I'd love to try it myself.

LimoncelloSpritz · 14/08/2021 17:59

Obviously anyone without mulberry silk pillowcases is just an oik. And jealous.

Stovetopespresso · 14/08/2021 18:01

just read the whole thread, whyyyy did I do that????

but I think your inner life matters too.

I realised I was a cliche at 40 when life lost its youthful lustre and I had to live with my past choices, felt trapped by kids, etc.
now working on it
yes yoga helps.
omg total cliché.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 14/08/2021 18:03

Some funny posts on here. And some, um, well wow posts too.

I'm only a cliché in that I'm a British expat to Australia who hates the hot weather in summer (which a lot of us, but not all of us, do). Aside of that, don't think much else about me is clichéd!

RickJames · 14/08/2021 18:05

I'm quite enjoying this thread. I'm a 45 year old mess. Mental health disorder/ eating disorder. Looking at the stats I suppose I'm quite well off but I currently spend my days lurking around my big detached house eating cottage cheese and melon and crying or working out in my home gym and crying, or cleaning and crying (you get the picture) I'm desperate to find a way out of this self-imposed jail state.

I'd personally enjoy a thread where these fabulous uber mummies tell us how to pull ourselves together and live a little. Seriously, where on earth do you get the self belief to buy yourself 200 quid pyjamas? Or anything fun, really...

Start that thread please!

(Sorry if I am a Debbie Downer, but I'm serious, how do you do it?)

Bobbybobbins · 14/08/2021 18:06

This thread makes me laugh!

Last week I made a lemon and courgette loaf with my friend's quails eggs and home grown courgettes for afternoon tea Grin

Budsaway · 14/08/2021 18:10

@IntermittentParps

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?

Ooh snippy! This thread isn't about shopping in primark and doing yoga from youtube, that's pretty clear. And I explained what being Irish has to do with 'anything'.