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.....

My face is as green as the lime green twinset that Joey foisted generously gave me as a welcome gift Mornington

You went into the lake?!!? I hope you immediately took a large jorum of whisky well sweetened with honey and with six aspirins in it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be braggy or make you all jealous, but do go if you get the chance, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I can't now believe I left it this long and I'm determined to go back sooner rather than later. Or maybe I'll buy a chalet, set up a school and move out there for good. Those of you with school-aged daughters would donate them to me to help the venture succeed, nicht wahr? I promise to take wonderful care of them, putting their health first always except for the times (approx once per term) when they nearly die.

When you do please may I come and be a teacher in your school.....(you can also have DD)

When's it opening? I shall go down on my knees at a railway station to beg you to take dd2.

Mine are only 5 and 2 but today I would totally do a Mollie Bettany and leave them with you for the next eight years.

Yes, of course you can come and be a teacher, hels. I've bagged the inspiring English lectures based on my high school education so you can't do that, but everything else is up for grabs. Anyone feel like being Matey? Bad things happen if you have a matron who doesn't understand the Ideals of the School. Yes why not, toddlers, newborns, whatever, they'll all be welcome. Break out the special milk, there's plenty to go round!

I received a parcel last week, with 3 Chalet School books in from a friend. Not sure when I will read them, work's a bit manic at the moment.

How about 4 month old boys Mornington? He's teething at the moment and going through a delightful sleep regression. Sod it; I'll EBD my age and enrol myself. Can we please have gentian blue unifoms as brown does not suit my complexion

Well BILL you really need to get the training going. I remember Joey (in my favourite quote) saying that Cecil "finally at the age of 5 months was beginning to realise no meant no"

I don't think I have the steely gaze to be a Matey. I would probably be more of a Miss Norman as a teacher. Could probably do a job of work as. Rosalie Dene though if there's a post going - all she seemed to do was write letters, join in rambles and not let Emerence use the front stairs. I hope you can promise me a decent screw?

I'm trying Witchend! I think the problem is not marrying a doctor. I married (and therefore reproduced) with one of those artistic types. I'm sure you understand how flighty and dreamy they can be. I think that DS has perhaps inherited his father's artiness and is distressed because he cannot express his sensitive artistic soul through paint.
That quote is hilarious. Or would be if I had more sleep. At the moment it makes me want to grab Joey by the earphones and shake her and demand that she tells me all she knows.

BILL, with a four-month-old you'll need to be a supply teacher - you can pop in, take whichever classes you fancy, and the mistress unexpectedly freed from teaching will be more than delighted to look after your baby.

Yep, I've just been re-reading And Jo, and that really happens. Also, notably, about halfway through the book we're told that Miss Browne had a nervous dread of the water and wouldn't give way on the question of boats for St Scholastika's. Then towards the end when we have the boat race, we find out that the Saints are accomplished rowers, having always been accustomed to 'river work'. Couldn't a good (or even halfway reasonable) editor have picked that up? I have to say I absolutely loathe Jo in this book. Only a few months earlier she was flouring hair, but now she's become unbearably superior and sarcastic about those tiresome middles (girls who were her friends not so long ago). Plus there's lots about how highly-strung she is and how much care they need to take with her writer's temperament - it's almost as though having grown out of her physical delicacy, some other kind of delicacy has to be invented for her. It feels like overnight she's morphed from jolly schoolgirl into her caricatured grown-up self.

EDB make continuity errors. Never

I think there's at least once where she contradicts herself on a page.

I can usually ignore the continuity errors, but that one about the Saints and rowing annoys me so much every time!!

The ones that annoy me more are the hints of something to happen:

"They hoped she would forget about it, but, as they were to learn later, she was determined to continue."

And that's the last mention of it.

I get to the end of the book, and think "hang on, what did happen about that," and end up searching the book and finding no, I was right, no further reference.
JK Rowling does that sort of thing too, only for her you had to wait until the end of the series to find she'd forgotten that side plot.

Actually, the other one that gets me is in coming of age when Joey and OOAO are out on the lake at night and Joey mentions having climbed the rocks before......that is never mentioned in the Tirol books is it? (or have I actually missed a bit?)

I'm doing a Tirol re-read, Hels, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for that rock-climbing. I'm rather amused by all the references in Exploits to the girls going up to the Barenbad Alm for saucers of cream. Yum yum miaow!

Ooh Madge is talking about Sybil on AIBU- www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2466841-to-ask-people-not-to-tell-my-daughter-she-is-beautiful
Some good points about sexism there. I wonder if the Bettany-Russell's minded if the boys got comments about their looks?

I saw that Eating but really it should have been a concerned aunt. I never saw any hint that Madge, who would see more of it, thought it was an issue. It's Joey that makes a thing about it, which always come across as jealousy-particularly as she's always described as "never beautiful"-to me.

It always seemed odd that we're told it's an issue for Sybil, when Robin gets huge numbers of comments on her looks and is always described as unspoilt. And Peggy and Primula are also described as particularly lovely to look at, so if they'd gone out as a group surely no one would have just commented on one.

It would have been better if EBD had found an accident that could be directly attributed to Sybil thinking about her looks. Maybe refusing to take the kettle off the fire because "it makes my face go all red and sooty" so Josette goes to do it for her.

For me, my ds gets and always had done as many comments about his looks. Perhaps differently-no one ever commented on the length of his plaits for example Although he tends to growl and hide his face away if people do comment.

I do think you get more opportunities to comment on girl's looks in general, as they're more likely to have done something interesting with hair or wearing a party dress*
I suspect if a boy is wearing a superheroes costume or something unusual then they'll get an many comments about that as a girl will about her party dress.
However in my experience of 2 girls and a boy, my girls up to about age 8-10yo insisted on pretty dresses and a nice hair style (dd1 used to insist on ribbons in her hair from about 18 months, when I put one in for the first time for a friend's wedding). Whereas ds, as soon as he got any say, would live in shorts and t-shirt all year round. Forking him into a suit for dbro wedding the summer was a matter of patience and bribery.
But he got an many comments about how nice he looked as the girls did as bridesmaids.

*I recognise in MN-land boys have long hair and party dresses as much as any girl, I'm talking about RL here.

Joey is consistent at least though- the triplets tell someone 'praise to the face is open disgrace' don't they? I think it's telling them directly that they are pretty that's meant to be the problem. Presumably Robin and the rest were never told directly!

My son has long hair in RL He's not keen on dresses though TBF.

Yes, I think it's Len who says that at some fete or other just after they've moved to the Oberland. I was tempted to post to that thread to suggest the OP teaches the line to her daughter, but decided against! I think the thing for EBD is that looks matter, and she tells us over and over again how good-looking various of the girls are, but their looks come from God so they're not a matter for congratulations. I think Robin is told very directly how angelic she is on numerous occasions (as a statement of fact, not as praise), and as she has the 'right' attitude she takes it all in her stride and doesn't become conceited.

Yes EBD was very mixed messages there wasn't she?

She's so determined to dwell on the looks of the girls while trying to say it doesn't matter.

But we have the "lumpish" or "cheaply pretty" Joan but then all her nice girls are noticeably lovely, or if they're not described as "puckish" which is obviously meant to be nice.

People do tell them directly. Particularly Robin, but Marie and Wanda are frequently told, and I think Vi Lucy is told several times.

The most odd one to me though is where one of the teachers looks down the line at a concert or sports' day or something, and muses that not many schools have such a good looking staff.

Mind you at my secondary school we got a new head of physics who was umm.. vertically challenged. The head of Chemistry and head of biology were similarly challenged. Certain members of the staff did a ring round the schools and announced with great aplomb that we had "The smallest average head of science in the local area".
And we thought they discussed more important things at staff meetings.

Thinking slightly more about this:

I notice that Con is described as being like Madge, who is definitely meant to be very pretty; like Robin the "angelchild(!)"; and also Cecil who is also meant to be out of the ordinarily beautiful, is like her. But at no point are Con's looks mentioned to my knowledge.

So why do you think that is? Is it that Con was too central to let people think she was beautiful in case people thought that mattered, or is it that Con isn't ever allowed to outshine Len?

October already my lambs. Time to start crossing those scarves over our chests, and planning the Christmas play. Who is writing it this time - Madame? Joey? Steig Larsson?