A fête worse than the Chalet School

[EmilyAlice]

Roll up, roll up!
Bid for a mortgage on the doll's house! Pin the tail on the St Bernard! Guess the weight of the handsome doctor! (Or pin the tail on the doctor and guess the weight of the St Bernard). Knit a lime green liberty bodice against the clock!
The Chalet School fête is open.....

Hurrah! I am hoping to win the dolls house so I can kindly give it away, and I hope to play clock golf too....(whatever that is!!!)

I'm running the stall where you pay not to have to own Joey's lime green twin set. Most people are paying for entry and coming straight over to me, in fact the queue is all the way round the hall.

You could unravel the twinset and enter the knit a lime green liberty bodice competition?
I think a yodelling competition would be good too.

Yodel-ay-ee-oh! Hello, girls, I'm practising for the yodel competition. Meanwhile I'll have a go on the Juniors' lucky dip, hopefully I'll pull out my very own handsome doctor. Or maybe there's an intermediate stage - I'll bash my wrist as I dip, turn still, grey and to all appearances dead, and the handsome doctor will appear as if from nowhere (or perhaps the clock golf tournament) to minister me back to health.

Great thread title, EmilyAlice.

I am stamping on flowerpots and knitting twinsets all at the same time.

May I ask what the theme is?

Yodel-eh-ee-dee! Sitting waiting to embark on the boat train for England. There were some Americans sitting next to me, but nobody offered to take my luggage, deal with customs, see me safely installed....
Am off to a reunion of the brown and flame school (true).
How about something around plaits, yodelling and lederhosen for a theme?

Maybe a Sound of Music theme.....

Mornington - I am sure Matey will let you use the curtains, but you can't cut them or sew them - it must all be done with pins. >

Joey is insisting she takes the part of Maria. She says they have so much in common.

I used to make dresses for my GDs from print fabrics that they called their Von Trapp dresses; I am sure I could run up some more.
Robin could play all the nuns .

No, no, EmilyAlice, Robin is slated for the part of Gretel, bubchen engelkind extraordinaire.

Don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't want to dress as a nun in this weather. I think I'll be an Alp and pour melting snow all over myself.

Oh no, Jack and Reg are fighting over the role of Georg. They're both insisting that they're the perfect choice for creepy control freak older man who falls in love with young innocent girl and sweeps her off her feet and into marriage. I can see their point - how shall we decide? In the meantime Madge has cast aside her 'sweet woman Frau Doktor' facade and has bagged the Baroness.

Anne Whatevershe's called has been given the part of Louisa. Sounds good but no one ever notices her unless she's toe curlingly bad. They're too busy cooing at the younger ones or admiring the performance of "I am 16 going on 17".

Jack and reg will both have to compete in a sing off of secularists. (Which I have no idea how to spell..)

I'm struggling to remember some of the lyrics. In 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria', I know the part about "tell Joey because she rely understands gir-irrrls", but I keep forgetting the next part, about "or Mary-Lou who is a champion butter-in". And in "My Favourite Things", what comes after "soft eyes like pansies"?

'Voice like a chorister', maybe, EElizaveta?

Silver white Jungfraus that melt into torrents
Elinor's heroes are truly abhorrent.

Needs some more work I think....

girls in brown tunics with flame coloured ties
pastries and coffee and cream filled pies
cold frozen lakes that girls might fall in
these are a few of my favourite things

I have missed you, my lambs.

Great to see you back, Your Highness. May I rescue you from a mad uncle sometime?

Let's start at the very beginning,
A very good place to start,
When you read you begin with, "If only I knew what to do with you girls!' said Dick in worried tones."
When you sing you begin with singing your beloved adopted sister back from the brink of death.

What makes me chuckle every time is the nuns singing "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" at her wedding.
Marry her off was obviously the answer.

I suggested my friend Maria walked up the aisle to it, I don't think she was very amused.

Perhaps I had a very ill childhood
Perhaps I had a mischievous youth
But somewhere in my schooldays long past
I was the Spirit of the School

For here you are standing there
Loving me
And the books I write
And all of my days, you sing my praise
For I am the Spirit of School.

Actually when you think about it there are an incredible number of parallels between the Maynards and the Von Trapps.
Older man in upright profession. Younger wife with golden voice (though more Julie Andrews than Maria von Trapp), hoards of children trained to instant obedience, mountains, lakes, boating accidents, nuns, nauseating religiosity, escape from Nazis over the mountains....
But which came first? Did Elinor hear the von Trapps in concert? Was she actually at the concert where they failed to turn up for the prize? Did she spike the car engine?
Must be a PhD thesis there somewhere......

Climb every mountain
Fall over the cliff
Hopefully find a doctor
End in marriage bliss

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the dramatic escape over the mountains was made up for the musical - the real Von Trapp family got themselves and their money out in good time. And if they really had crossed the mountains from Salzburg they'd have ended up in Germany.

Do we think Jo and Maria would have been friends? Or would they have out-bossed each other and butted each other out of house and home?