Jilly Cooper time

[Disabrie22]

It’s that time of year again - when I want to be a character in a Jolly Cooper novel - and only eat orange and steak for a week so I can squeeze into a too tight dress with a stain I’ve artfully covered with a brooch, after I have drenched myself in scent so I can get off with a dangerous drunk mysterious man who is loaded with cash and will whip me away to San Tropez, where I will only have an old bathing dress with moth in the seat which I keep falling out of. There I will meet a loveable old lech covered in Man Tan and flirt wildly while getting tight after too much gin.

Live this thread, almost as much as I love Jilly Cooper!

Spent a summer working away from home in a horrible place when I was younger, and got through it by escaping into Polo whenever I could. Sadly that duck-egg coloured helicopter carrying an impossibly tanned and toned Polo player (who in turn would be carrying a small ugly mongrel dog with a sore leg) never materialised to whip me away from it all.

This stuff is gold 😂 Which book should I start with please?

@PicklingGherkins I’d start with Riders or Rivals. Rivals is better, in my view.

Many, many years ago, DH (before he was my DH) bought me the paperbacks of "Bella/Octavia/Lisa&Co/Imogen/Prudence/Harriet/ when all the cover photos were of Jilly herself looking pouty/wholesome/glamour-girl

I read them all over Christmas ....Ahh happy days .
Not the same on Kindle, I read Bella but it wasn't the same

@bookworm14 Am I right in thinking some books follow others or are they standalone? I'm digging out my kindle as I type 😀

I’ve got s rakish new lover arriving later but I’ve just realised that the daily has gone home early and I’m going to have to rustle up something delicious from a tin of pedigree chum and a mound of onions. Hopefully I won’t still be draped in my oversized bath towel by the time he arrives. Will just wander quickly round the garden to grab some roses with my old Labrador trailing behind me

Mixing up all my characters. —Not very good at this, but enjoying trying—

Can’t strike through either

@PicklingGherkins start with riders as it introduces all the best characters. Then the others have lots of the same characters but the plots stand alone!

And all the single girls' names ones are standalone.

Terribly jealous of you reading them for the first time!

@PicklingGherkins The main series (Riders, Rivals, Polo, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Appassionata, plus several more which are less good in my view) all feature some of the same characters. If you want the whole story I’d start with Riders and work your way through. My personal favourites are Rivals and Appassionata.

In order of preference for me personally it’s:

Polo
Rivals
Riders
Appassionata
Score
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
Wicked
Mount
Jump
Pandora

Don’t think I’ve forgotten one! But the first 3 are in a different league to the rest, much as I love queen jilly.

Thanks everyone, I used to love reading Virginia Andrews series as a teen but Jilly Cooper totally passed me by. I love a bit of well written froth and can't wait to get going on these 😀.

70isaLimitNotaTarget

I have those covers! I love those stories - Imogen is my favourite - but the photographs of Jilly on the covers are in VERY soft-focus. I'm not sure if it was the style of photography or an attempt to make her look a lot younger.

Eek now I'm scared, I've been to buy it for my kindle and Amazon are now recommending I buy a book called "dirty wedding night" and "DEEPER - an erotic military romance"

I've just watered the wilted flowers in the walled garden and stacked some apple logs. Hope I can go down to see Africa's foal later with Rupe.

Having been a savage bitch to everyone I know I'm going to get tight on a bottle of bolly stolen from my employer's private helicopter and hide in the stables where I will cry bitterly into the flank of a pink roan mare.

I'll be interrupted by the yard manager who I've been ruthlessles tormenting for months. He'll tell me off for being such a cow to my sweet but hapless mother, but when my face crumples he'll say 'oh angel' and pull me hard against his huge, muscled chest. With his mouth buried in my hair (usually dark but dyed an audacious bottle blonde to garner attention) he'll tell me I just need loved and looked after. He'll then wrap a few stands of the mare's mane around my finger as an engagement ring and promise to cherish me forever, despite my being such a terrible brat.

I’m getting tight with a bottle of bubbly thinking about this aftternoons romp in the wild garlic with my lean and muscled stabkehand who nibbled on my nut brown nipples and entered my with his tower of Pisa.

I’m typing at the dining room table with the lights off, wearing just a pair of scarlet pants because I walked the dogs and my trousers got wet in the dew. My husband will come home, we will drink vodka and orange juice and have raucous sex.

Or I’ll see my lover on television in the arms of a blonde beauty with a name ending in “-ia” and drink myself into a stupor on the stained Prussian blue ancient sofa, upholstered in dog hair. When my teenage daughter arrives home in a battered golf tomorrow, I shall say I have stomach flu.

God. I've just loaded the dishwasher in our Prussian blue horse lorry and put on my best green taffeta.

Off to Grania Pringle's later. Hopefully the young bloods will carry me over puddles and get me some avocado mousse. Probs get stuck in a corner with a horrible goaty woman who owns welsh cobs.

Oh God. Every time there's a bloody Jilly thread I end up re-buying Riders and starting from scratch. There goes all my spare time until October!

I bet the goaty woman is a vegetarian feminist. She'll be terribly vocal on fox hunting and make you eat dandelion salad.

I managed to split the dress that I borrowed from my friend - and not even down the seam! - when out to lunch with my goaty boss. Serves me right for not sticking to my diet; nine stone seven is FAR too heavy. At least boss had enough manners to offer me his jacket. I don't fancy him at all but may just start an affair with him for an inexplicable reason.

Well I’ve just hurtled down the country lanes full of travellers joy and wild garlic ( albeit in a Yaris rather than a Lamborghini) with my wildly excited dog barking furiously in the back and waving his plumey tail .

I’m now going to heave myself into a Floris scented bath , and then languidly wrap myself in a navy blue towel before tucking my legs underneath me on the sofa and giving DH a terrific eye meet . At which no doubt he’ll give me an old fashioned look and think I’ve gone barmy .

Rivals is my absolute favourite . That said , I found the entire set of her short stories in a charity bookshop a while ago and got unreasonably excited .

I shall slick my hair back with my lover’s Aramis, don my smoking jacket and stalk furiously into a dinner party, before helping myself to too much pudding and chatting up ex-show jumping Tory MPs.

Oooh, also, I encountered Fernet Branca on a drinks menu and had to order it! It is quite horrible - sort of weirdly minty and herby. Not sure why it’s such a good hangover cure - maybe because it smells of toothpaste rather than alcohol?

Remember that all spirits must be served in quadruple measures but luckily never have an adverse effect on driving or libidos.