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?

@pawpatrol2021 it's basically just people copying each other by buying the same brands (ones they think are posh).

See also people copying kitchen styles etc. It used to be called "keeping up with the Joneses".

@MoreSoupVicar

Did you have 'crushed' advocado on your sourdough toast? It has to be called crushed, not mashed, squashed or bashed

Funny, it's never called 'crushed' here in Ireland. It's 'smashed' only here 😀

I'm probably a cliché in that I live in a draughty old house which is also a complete tip. All furniture was given to me or bought in salerooms. Rugs, not carpets. Many signs of projects not yet started. Waitrose when feeling a bit flush, Aldi when not. F&B, F&M. Have gardening gloves. Regard manicures, facials etc as a ridiculous waste of time. Hands are for doing things with, not to be decorative. I am a clichéd brisk and muddy middle-class mother.

I feel I might be a Country cliche. I've been to check the pony this morning, who has taught all my 4 children to ride.
I live on a country estate. I have a spaniel who goes shooting with my DP.
I wear green wellies - old ones covered in mud. DP drives a muddy old Volvo. I have a 20 year old car.

For breakfast we had eggs I picked up from our neighbours honesty box on the way home from the pony.

Our house is a Victorian cottage in the middle of nowhere with flagged floors and mullioned windows. And a crappy old downstairs bathroom. My friend says I'm a Jilly Cooper character.

Why thank you. You're all a lovely lovely bunch of smashed avocado vipers.

I do have some spare PJs if anyone wants them. Floral print lawn cotton. Ironed. Rather glorious

@allycat4

These threads are excruciating.

False self-deprecation.

Having read Peaceanddove's contribution, with my mouth hanging open, I'm inclined to agree.

@allycat4

These threads are excruciating.

False self-deprecation.

Agree, there is little more dickish than this, appearing to be self deprecating but actually just stealth boasting.

@BoardingSchoolMater

I feel we have similar outlooks and lifestyles!

Sorry @peaceanddove I posted before I read your second post.

@apc I hate to burst your bubble but apparently you are above average on the sproh front as it's now 1.7 kids on average.

I was meaning to ask if you'd named your half child?

@mrs and @earrings do feel free to bugger off then ?

We are all having a nice chat thanks.

I think I prefer smashed @EarringsandLipstick , I shall adopt that now
@allycat4 play nicely or don't play at all , its just a bit of fun

@MoreSoupVicar

I'll join you in the wankery then Fresh croissants for breakfast with strawberry conserve, note - not jam, and real coffee, sitting on the terrace wearing proper sheepskin slippers (sourced from a small family business, I love that part 🤣) that are as far removed from uggs as you can get Us wankers stand proud, shoulder to shoulder

Can you tell me more about the sheepskin slippers?

Yes. Or at least I am occasionally and then I have to mix it up to make myself feel better.
Had a West Country holiday a couple of weeks ago, compete with top box, dog in the boot and the children wearing Joules beachwear.

I dyed my hair blue yesterday.

I’m sitting in an airport waiting to return to the U.K. having spent two weeks in a lovely villa in Crete wearing Sweaty Betty trousers, Birkenstocks and a silk face mask from Slip. I have just had my the knife from my eco friendly reusable cutlery set confiscated - which was embarrassing. I used it on the outbound flight to eat my Pret A Manger salad. Oh and I just saw John Torode and Lisa Thingy board the flight before ours.
I should punch myself I’m such a twat.

@aint welcome.

@peaceanddove

Hell yeah, I'm clichéd up to the hilt and love it.

Privately and university educated. Happily married to a successful company director. Both teenage daughters attended a top performing village primary, followed by a top performing girls' grammar school. Eldest DD off to art school this September to study Fine Art & Photography.

We live in a big Georgian house, in the middle of a naice village. Interiors are all about Farrow & Ball and John Lewis, with Laura Ashley curtains (I paid extra to have the curtains hand finished by someone called Blodwen at their Welsh factory, which is the height of privileged twattery). We have a cleaner and a gardener, obvs.

Groceries come from Waitrose or M&S or Cook, but we eat out a lot at the weekend. I have just started yoga in the village and obviously look a complete cliche in my Boden yoga gear + matching yoga mat (yes, really).

We should have been on holiday in the Italian Lakes last month, but because of Covid we booked a frou frou Shepherd's Hut in Cornwall instead - of course it had an outdoor firepit and a Gaggia coffee machine. Obviously, I packed my Seasalt bretons, my Lotta from Stockholm clogs and my Toast white linen shirts (because, yes, I have an actual Cornwall holiday wardrobe as opposed to my Italian holiday wardrobe which is a tad more glamorous).

Right now, I'm wearing silk mix, paisley PJs which I 'sourced' (not just bought) from Etsy while drinking coffee and chatting with DD2 about her possibly doing a year out in Paris to polish her French as she wants to study French + Economics at university. Luckily, my cousin's DH is French and they keep a bijou apartment in Paris where she can stay. Which is nice.

[implodes in a torrent of her own clichéd cuntiness]

This read as a complete boast! They’ll be someone reading thar feeling rubbish about themselves but this lady’s life isn’t perfect and I’d like to think she’ll come along, properly laugh at herself and realise she got the tone of the thread wrong and sounds ridiculously privileged and smug.

Just been on holiday in Norfolk, staying opposite a playground where every day identical sets of parents plus children congregated in their Joules and Seasalt stripy nautique outfits, plus children in Boden … all pottering out to local organic cafe for avocado toast and blueberry pancakes with organic milkshakes for brunch with our stripy cotton totes, and then seeing all the same families from the cafe at the same beaches in the afternoon, all looking slightly harried and carrying the same beach items about, and carrier bags containing the same pies from the local organic bakery, fig chutneys and cans of artisanal IPA. We are such cliches 😭🤦‍♀️

We played “collect the mumsnet kids’ names” all week too. Some of my favourites from the playground: Ludo, Constance, Marianne, Iris, Nova, Barnaby, Olivier, Penelope, Maudie and Octavia. 😂

[quote ablutiions]**@mrs* and @earrings* do feel free to bugger off then ?

We are all having a nice chat thanks. [/quote]
Sorry you do understand how an Internet forum works?

What an arsey comment enhancing the cliche

I think it's exactly in the tone of the thread.

@irresit that is glorious.

I'm so far from being a cliche that my uniqueness is probably a cliche in itself.

I also agree that some posters just wanted to brag about how privileged they are and came across as nauseating.

@EarringsandLipstick . Indeed.

Of course @Luxembourgmama , I shall PM you the name

No! I am un-pigeon hole-able and proud

Mixed background, moved around all the damn time, so it's hard for people to tell who I am or where I'm from sometimes. It's a bit odd I suppose and I don't have a natural tribe. I've always been peripheral, but friendly and sociable at the same time. I like it this way. I like to think of myself as a mysterious outsider, but in reality I'm probably just a misfit