To start a new term at the Chalet School?

[Vintagejazz]

Happy for this to be moved to Chat if posters agree but thought I'd start it here as this is where we've all been loitering without permission when we should be doing our housework homework.

So welcome to a new term everyone. Cases upstairs to the dormitories, form lists on the notice board. And you'll all be pleased to hear that even though we've moved to a different location, Joey has tracked us - -down moved in next door, so we'll still be seeing too much-- plenty of her

We just need Mary Lou to ask. HQ will just laugh and say "it's only M-L" and give her whatever she asks for or maybe she studied hypnotism

Can I join the SSC? I want to put snails on the windows and shout "Whole caboodle" across the quad.

YY thebody and TooExtra!

I used to do lots of hiking in the Lake District [and later the Tyrol and Switzerland - I wonder why?] and tried the Slightly Bent Knee Position when going uphill and did my own comparison study on myself, and found it really did make the ascent less tiring. Thanks EBD! Also for the tip on potassium crystals against snakebite - remember buying some after reading someone's [CS] father had died of snakebite. Trouble was, he lived in Oz and I never was never bitten by a snake. The crystals did fascinate me though, as they turned a lovely shade of violet when wet, IIRC.

I am easily influenced.

^ delete one of those nevers please! Your choice which one...

That's so funny, Lonny

yes chalet school fantasy takes over when I see my dds going to school with big hair and fake tans, makeup to sink a battleship and skirts as short as possible without actually showing their lady gardens!

I yearn for dds with kenwigses, who love progressive games, get excited at hymn singing, go to bed tired out from healthy physical excersise and learn to argue from
Cause to effect.

And no bloody boys.

Where have I gone wrong sob sob.

Not enough warm milk thebody. Also you should have taken yourself off to some tropical climate not suitable for fair skinned children, and abandoned them to some distant relative who knows nothing about young people.

Alice you sound like a good guide and or worried for anything, even poisonous snakes.

It was Daisy's dad who died but he was a baddie and a drunk so obviously deserved it. Margot faded tranquilly out if life happy to leave her girls to her brothers care.

Why would a previously healthy young mother pine away and die just when her life was getting pretty bloody good.?

Just like Jacynths auntie and all of Bills family. Jolly bad luck.

vintage yes you are right. They never got the unquestioning obedience either.

Bad mother.

My dd was desperate to go to boarding school after first reading Malory Towers and then CS. She begged me to send her to one, until one night and she was upset about something and the reality set in that at boarding school she wouldn't have me to comfort her. I did try to tell her that boarding school wouldn't be like either MT or CS but she still doesn't believe me.

I do worry that I take the CS too literally sometimes and that I wouldn't live up to the expectations everyone who has anything to do with the CS has of people.

Plus my grammar seems to be extremely bad - I'd never make the grade.

thebody, but Margot Venables' health wasn't good. She fainted across the doorstep of her mate's house, and had to be nursed back to health. She'd lost her 3 boys one after another, and Primula was v frail, so she was bereaved and anxious and probably severely depressed, plus her husband was an alcoholic. When she arrived at the Sonnalpe she collapsed and was ill for ages from the strain she'd been under.

I am Scottish. Naturally I am gifted with second sight and am descended from a silkie, what makes you ask?

And I say 'p' instead of 'b' all the time too. Peautiful day, isn't it? (Actually, it's peeing it down, but hey ho)

Don't forget, Scottish people can also very cheerful and practical. You mustn't confuse the two types of Scottish.

Is anyone else blankly ignorant of geography/botany/any subject? In Lavender Laughs, she's asked what a watershed is. Now, I know what a watershed moment is, but a watershed as a geographical feature? Nope. Nor had I ever heard of loess until I read it in one of the Swiss books.

That is very true, TooSpotty. I like to think of myself as more in the Highland twin model, what with coming from the Highlands (well, Aberdeenshire, anyway) and being a twin.

That's because you haven't been properly educated at the Chalet School, Cheddar.

I am working my way through the better offerings in the Sally Denny Library. There is a lot of mistress-on-mistress sex

I read some highly amusing tales of Miss Wilson gently introducing a shy-yet-passionate Miss Annersley to the joys of sex, Mooncup - are those the ones you mean? I always go straight to the St Therese section

I was very smug when Paxman asked for the name of a geographical feature he defined on University Challenge, none of them knew, and I went "surely that's loess?"

Has anyone else tried putting snails on glass? I don't know if they have different snails in the New Forest or Tyrol, but they don't make a sound!

I got all my geog knowledge from the Chalet School. I don't remember a word of it from my day-school. Mind you, it was in a city so clearly inferior.

I just got really excited because the body called me Lonny. I think I need a Chalet break... Fact is blurring with fiction. (incidentally the body wrt those DD's of yours, you clearly didn't train them to instant obedience from day 1 so you're only alternatives now are a convent school or regular drugging with the warm milk and Red Sarafan soundtrack).

Oh, I don't think I've read that one, Cheddar. I did read one where Miss Wilson and Miss Annersley get it together after many years of silent mutual desire, and another where Kathy Ferrars and Nancy Wilmot (obvs) are found in the throes of passion and Miss Wilson is very... understanding. Frankly I'm never going to be able to read the books again without imagining most of the staff shagging rampantly behind closed doors.

Did EBD have inclinations one way or the other, does anyone know? I read the Helen McClelland biog many years ago and can't remember any romantic episodes at all, but of course that doesn't mean much.

My dd1 (13yo) has kenwigses down to her waist (refuses any other style), loves hymn singing, and can argue the hind leg off a donkey. Will that do?

Dd2 (10yo) otoh told me that she's too old for kenwigses, and can she have a ponytail Oh The shock!

Dd2 is the one who want to go to the Chalet School. Shall I point this out to her?

Warm milk all round. They think that's a treat

Right, think I'm up to date with sharing transcript info. I'm now off to run Guides Rainbows 15 of the little darlings making Hama bead coasters for fathers day for the evening, so will be back later. :o

DD asked last night if she could read my CS books She's only 7 though, what age have DDs been allowed to get their grubby mitts on the books (Armada paperbacks here)?

I just read a good story on the Sally Denny site, a cross over between CS and Miss Marple, it even has a pretty obscure Miss Silver in it.
Thank you who ever directed me there.

Mooncup, EBD apparently had 'intense female friendships' which came to abrupt ends in a manner more usual to romantic relationships than to platonic friendships, and no known heterosexual dalliances (or possibly one which was largely fantasy - no idea of what exactly this phrase refers to). I prefer to presume this means she was a lesbian, on the grounds that lesbianism is so often written out and therefore lost from history, but I wonder if someone with a tendency to fantasy etc was possibly just a less eligible mate, at a time when women drastically outnumbered men, and was similarly a difficult friend to maintain, even platonically.

Also, I've just read Gay from China and am struck at just how much "Joey saving the day" consists of Joey commandeering others to do so, and not even in especially instructive ways. When Madge first tells her that they have to somehow cover all the senior staff missing, she nominates all sorts of people with just as much family responsibility as she has, whilst acknowledging that she can't possibly do much herself, terribly sorry. Then later she harasses poor Bill back, long before she is recovered, with a horribly guilt-trippy letter.

Gay herself, however, is actually thoroughly decent, isn't she? Not at all like Joey and OOAO Mary-Lou who are supposed to be so decent but do, of course, require appropriate, forgiving, understanding in their pursuits of 'decency'. I don't understand how EBD could be writing this and genuinely believing there is anything likeable or role-model-like about either of her great darlings!