AIBU To Think That The Plots Of The Chalet School Books Were Really Improbable

[TheShellBeach]

.................................such as Prince Cosimo, the endless kidnappings, all the train crashes/bus crashes/car crashes/plane crashes/boat sinkings hang on a minute, were there any boat sinkings

Okay, I've just remembered that there were a couple of near misses with boats when the CS was on the island. Joey was nearly flung overboard once (a missed opportunity for EBD to get rid of her IMO) and there were probably others.

Anyway - all aboard and ahoy there.

I've come on to ask for some help. I know you all read EBD and that some of you read Lime Green Musings and the Sally Denny Library sites as well.

I'm finding it impossible to access SDL at the moment - I just get a blank page. Not even an error message. Does anyone have any advice? Is it a problem with the site (I suspect not ... ) or is it a me problem? I can access LGM and have really enjoyed the drabbles there but would like to access some some of the back stories.

PS I have cleared my cookies to see if it helped. It didn't!

I’ve just tried & I’m getting the same.

I haven’t been there much lately but I know SDL still has / had an http address rather than an https one, which means it’s unlikely that anyone had done any admin / maintenance on it for a long time. Http sites are almost obsolete now.

Have you tried going to annersley.co.uk
If that doesn't work, ask then on the New CS Club page on FB.

It's the New Chalet Club on FB.

@EmpressaurusOfCats - thank you for having a look, it helps to know it's not just me. It's such a shame as writers on LMG have linked back to earlier work and it would be awful if it's all lost.

Thanks @TheShellBeach - annersley.co.uk is LMG but I'll take a look at the FB page 🙂

I am procrastinating as I am supposed to be revising - this thread has made me want to go and re read CS books. I have the full set in old/ armada but not that many Girls gone by ones.
I still love the books - absolutely far fetched but brilliant escapism.
I was really hoping my DD's would follow my addiction to CS but unfortunately they don't.
I also wanted triplets but fortunately never had them😂.
Was also not allowed to call any of the DD's Josephine.

I'm re-reading the Chalet Girls Grow Up and wondering if EBD would have sued Merryn Williams.

I rather like the book myself.

<<<gets drummed out of thread>>>

I didn't like CGGU because it didn't feel like the author liked the books at all. It felt like malicious gossip rather than anything else.
Yes, we can say how characters irritate us, or we wish EBD had written them differently, but when we do it on here it feels like teasing an older family member who everyone loves and respects, just has their little habits that everyone jokes about, but no one wants them to change.

I don't disagree with you.
I do like the way that Jo is portrayed as a foolish, irritating woman whose great immaturity makes her family's life very difficult.

Yes, I think the way Jo is portrayed is quite well done, and mostly just looking at EBD's character but not through rose tinted spectacles. It's just the full hatchet job on everyone that makes it feel malicious.

One thing which always seem strange is in Exile - when the girls are met by coaches to go up to the Sonnalpe and the Seniors are with Miss Wilson, none of them ask why they are moving.. That would be the first things I'd want to know.

Today I had a chill off bath, not bad but not for every morning thanks

I've started having cool showers, but only because the weather's so hot, not because I wish to emulate the CS.

Can you imagine in Switzerland, having a cold bath? Ugh.

Yes, I applaud Joan Baker on refusing the morning bath. And besides being freezing, it all sounds monumentally faffy and ridiculously rushed — so the person in the bath before you leaves the tap running for you, you jump in (to presumably shallow water, as no time to run a deeper bath), scrub yourself with soap and sponge, jump out again, drain your bath, wipe it (?), put the plug back in and leave the water running for the next girl while drying yourself, getting back into your dressing gown, and dashing back to your dormitory to dress, pray, hump your mattress etc…

It's a bit like the morning routine in What Katy Did At School (except they hardly washed). Do you think EBD ever had a cold bath in her life?

Didn’t they have to parade through the town to the public bathhouse once a week in What Katy Did At School? The bit I always found weird is that they appeared to have to carry their soap, sponge and towel in the hands, and then trail back to school again with them all wet…?

Yes they did. It must have been horrible in winter with wet hair. But on ordinary school days,even Lily Page struggled to find time to wash her face.

And everyone had to wash in a shared washroom, only Katy thought it was unladylike, so Dr Carr bought them their own washstand, and started a craze.

I don’t think I understood why it wasn’t ‘nice’ to Katy as a child — is it the idea that the girls would be sort of strip-washing on a daily basis, or at least upper body washing (Katy says Aunt Izzy said it wasn’t ladylike not to take a sponge-bath every morning), hence it wasn’t ‘nice’ to have to do it outside the privacy of your own bedroom?

I should think not nice on a number of levels, not least no hot water in a climate where their toothbrushes froze solid in winter.

Anyone have any idea whats going on with the CBB and Sally Denny Library? Still down and people on LGM are talking like it’s not coming back.

CBB and Sally Denny haven't been working for a while. Quite a few writers have re-posted their work on Lime Green Musing and continue to write new stuff on there too. You could also take a look at Archive of Our Own and search under Chalet School fandom - there's quite a lot there too.

Can anyone help me with robins mothers nationality. I had thought Russian, but obviously not…

Polish?

I think Polish, but as Robin was probably born early-mid 1920s, for most of her mother's life Poland did not exist as an independent state (not till 1918) and was occupied by the German/Prussian and Russian empires, so it's not inconceivable Robin's mother would have learned Russian.

The French is less explicable...

Thank you, I’ve made it onto lime green!