To ask all Chaletians to get ready for Madame's birthday?

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Pop to the splasheries my lambs and after you've brushed your hair till it shines we'll have a quick practice of 'I sing of Margaret so fair'.

Once we've finished casting the movie, that is....

Link to amnesiac Jo, please?

You Will Marry Your Doctor is all kinds of fabulous.

How old is Joey by the end of the series? 39? Just imagine The Menopause and Jo.

"Hello, my lambs. Fancy seeing me here on a weekday evening!" Joey threw off her large shawl and beamed around the staffroom.

"Not really," muttered Miss Ferrars to her boon companion, Miss Wilmot. "She was here yesterday and the day before and the day before that." Miss Annersely frowned at her junior mistress and Kathy stopped talking immediately.

"Well, ma petite, what brings you here?" asked Mdlle Lachenais, pausing in her task of pouring nectar-like coffee into cups. She passed Joey a cup and the Staff watched as Joey took a sip and instantly broke into a deep flush. Sweat beads stood out on her forehead underneath her thick black fringe.

"Hot in here, isn't it?" Jo asked airily. "Well, my loves, I came over to give you some very special news. Jack and I are finally having those quads I've been threatening you with for years!" Joey paused to watch the reaction to her bombshell. To her surprise, no one seemed that delighted. In fact, a few of the older mistresses seemed to be really very shocked and stunned. Some even looked as if they were doing difficult mental arithmetic. Rosalie Dene stepped into the breach.

"Um, Jo," she began. "Jo, I'm 2 years older than you and I'm 50. Are you and Jack...um...quite sure that it's quads you're having? I mean..." She broke off there, unable to continue in the face of Joey's uncomprehending expression. Rosalie tried again. "I mean, the triplets are 28...isn't it a bit unusual to be having more children now?" Joey's face cleared.

"Oh yes, but then I always was a wholesale creature!" she declared, laughing merrily. "Yes, Jack did use the words 'change of life' when he was examining me, but what could be a nicer change than quads?"

The Staff, as one woman, blenched. None of them could think of anything to say. After an awkward pause Miss Annersley, as always, rose to the occasion.

"How lovely, Jo! You really are incorrigible! Now, it's very late for you to be out in your...ahem...condition, so you'd better make sure you wrap up warmly for the trip back to Freudesheim." She helped Joey to envelop herself in the massive wrap she called a shawl and dispatched her former pupil back across the garden. Then she went to the telephone.

"Hello, Jack? I need to tell you something. Can you come over here in private tomorrow? There's something you need to know."

what could be a nicer change than quads? Well, quite!

It is brilliant. You must write more of it, my lamb.

That, Cheddar was unbelievably good, my lamb. Enjoyed reading it.

Am still reading about Joan Baker, and this time around she seems far more horrible than I remember! My giddy aunt, she's a nasty one. Not a real CS girl at all. Not like the wholesome ML.

As a child "problem" was one of the few CS books I had, I always wanted to know the answer to why was M-L special and I wonder why EBD never spelled it out in that book

Cheddarthat was bloody funny. Please carry on.

Vintage yes to the *hieking with laughter.

I can't for the life of me understand why it's so bloody funny when Con thinks Daniel but the lions?

Personally I would move her down to orange zone for Inattention.

Bit not but!

Carola Storms : does Dr Graves seriously treat Hilary and then a few short weeks later they're engaged? Is this supposed to be romantic?

I've just reread my copies of Genius and Fete (Armada) and can't believe that when Armada edited them they didn't sort out the bit where Nina cuddles Cecily a month or two before she is born. (I wonder what the original publishers were doing too, isn't part of the reason they get their cut supposed to be for providing editing - even a good proof reader would spot that one.)

Rather late to the party. I've just finished re-reading richenda/the one with Naomi/Theodora. Swear there wasn't as much heavily drugged milk! There was also a fleeting mention of why they didn't like to take over 15s after an incident with Yseult. Can anyone fill me in with what happened?

Off work today with horrible morning sickness and dizzy spells so will probably end up reading a few more. Can anyone ping me the link to the transcriptions as I'm sorely lacking in the later guernsey/wales/Switzerland ones.

pass hope you are resting.

Yseult mmm can't think of a specific incident except she did try to engineer an accident to MaryLou to get her part in a play but ended up breaking her collar bone herself. Unfortunately bloody MaryLou was fine.

She wasn't expelled or anything and in reunion Corney days she had turned into a real nice girl so not sure.

Think it may be that at 15 they think girls are too old to fit into chalet school ways!

Resting with a bed jacket and not even considering reading lying down as that would be bad for my eyes. My one year old did try to sing to me this morning but unfortunately does not possess a lark esque voice.

Oh dear, pass. I'm sure Joey's babies are trained to sing lark-like by the age of two months. :( Never mind, as long as you get her off to the Chalet School nice and early, well before she turns 15, all will be well. I hope you are feeling less ugh soon.

Right girls, the library has received it's latest order of books from wherever and those who have received them from me previously should now check their inbox as you should find The Chalet School in Exile has arrived!!

If you've not got it, or if I've not sent you my ever expanding eBook library (think it stands at 38 eBooks now!) then do drop me a message by pm on here and I'll address the matter!!

My 2yo barely slept last night. I wish I'd had some of Matey's magic milk. I did briefly try to work out if there was any quick way I could sew him into his cubicle...

Oh dear Nell you obviously didn't start his obedience training early enough.

If he is teething, it is perfectly acceptable but I hope your DR husband has arranged a week in the Cornish rest home for you (where you will of course meet a girl who is sorely in need of a Chalet School education).

And I can't even rely on the CS to sort him out eventually, either, accursed boy-child. :( And he's not teething, and there will be no week away resting, drinking drugged milk and enthusiastically haranguing teenage girls I barely know. This all just goes from bad to worse.

While I'm on the subject of everything I get wrong, I have to own up to a mistake I made some pages back. I said the plots of the Swiss books were contrived. I've just read The Wrong Chalet School which is good old Armishire/St B and deeply, deeply contrived. Nearly the same name, nearly the same uniform (apart from, of course, the other CS has nice honest 'brown and orange' and not 'brown and flame' - amusing rant on very first page about inadequacy of 'flame' to describe a colour!)... I v much enjoyed it, but now I must stop snobbishly pretending that the problem with the Swiss books is to do with how contrived they are.

I think the rot began to set in when the Chalet School moved to the Island Nell but really took over in Switzerland. But several of the Island books are pretty weak: Peggy of The Chalet School and The Wrong Chalet School spring to mind.

CSLibraryPree - I got it, thank you very much! Have you had a look at the transcripts OneDrive folder someone kindly set up, though? Both Exile and CS At War/Goes To It have already been transcribed, so you could just nick those copies instead. Go to onedrive.live.com/ and log in using the username [email protected] and password IAmJoeyBettany and you'll see the list. I hate to think of you slaving over a hot typewriter when someone else has already done the donkey work.

Wasn't the trouble with Yseult partly her previous education, which was crap? (Btw, how come all new girls have had a scrappy education so far and have to be coached in numerous subjects and/or take at least one subject with a higher form, despite being plonked in the Fourth or Inter V?) Yseult's work is so poor that she's definitely below the standard of Inter V but she's too old to be any lower in the school. She's also vain, lazy, picturesque and conceited about her elocution skills. I'm not really seeing why the fact that Yseult was a pain in the neck means that there should be a blanket ban on all girls over the age of 15, though, assuming they had a decent standard of education and hadn't been brought up by a weird mother who had Ideas. Pass, if you're feeling rotten today, I can heartily recommend New Mistress, which introduces Yseult, as well as being the pick of the Swiss books. Hope the morning sickness goes away soon!

I am just reading Carola and realised I have missed an opportunity.

I was at the lily ponds in Bosherton a few weeks ago with my DDs. I should have let one jump in, get tangled in the weeds and then be rescued by a handsome young doctor. I am very disappointed in my lack of foresight.

NeilWilson I hope you aren't a feminist my lamb. Your boy will be fine as long as you pack him off to school when he's 7 so he can be amongst boys. It will be high time my poppet.

After all he can't be just doing with female company as he's all of a boy. You will be asking him about ideas got sales of work next!.

Stokey very remiss of you my lamb.

Could your dds not hang around cliffs/mountain passes/ rivers/cable cars? One good shove and that should immediately call for a rescue by a doctor usually with a huge dog.

Send out the invites.

Does anyone actually quality proof the stories on the Sally Denny library before they're published? Some of them are brilliant, but some of them read like school essays or a teenager's diary.

Happy when he's 7, then there'll be times you wish the culture still was to send them off to board at that time.