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.....

It says on the website that they are not ordering loads above the pre ordered copies, so if you want it best pre-order...DH has been instructed to get it for me for Christmas!!

Co-eee girls! Haven't been on here much since the late unpleasantness, but glad to see you are all still at school.
Ready to shine like a leading light in the Christmas ballet. Could we just leave out all the tedious manger stuff this year?

Hello EmilyAlice my lamb. I hope you are planning to reprise your role as Dancing Star from last year - the simple village folk must have loved it because they were silent with awe. We baby Angels will prance around you, waving our arms in an effective manner. The manger stuff is probably in again though, we can't waste mornington's elusive beauty and fine mezzo soprano voice.

Oh I suppose not. Do we need sheep? There are some over the road that never stop bleating, a coq who needs to stfu otherwise he will go in a casserole and a rather nice donkey. We even have a village manger. Shall I ask the Maire?

We would just need to include il est né le divin enfant in the carols. I don't think there is another French carol.

They have some hideous version of Jingle Bells with lyrics about snowballing your grandmother (I think so anyway, my French is more Dickie than Peggy). But that doesn't sound very Chaletian. I like the sound of a naice donkey though, tres Filet des Mamans (this would be Mumsnet in French, non?

Oui bien sur.
Reminds me of a local website that has been through a translation online. It describes William the Conqueror as a wire bastard. Took me a while to realise it was son translated from fil (wire) rather than fils.
Actually it would probably be called Mumsnet as more and more English words appear. Yesterday on telly I heard "c'est trop too much".
Would would Mam'zelle think?
Actually it is quite Chalet School really, don't you think?

Apparently, after last year's fiasco, where Emily Alice , Vintagejazz and NellWilson'sWhiteHair rewrote the nativity story, set the place on fire, locked Len in a cupboard, broke Matron's foot and knocked Peggy Bettany unconscious, Miss Annersley is reviewing the situation.

Well that seems like an over-reaction. It was nothing compared to some of the things that used to happen in the old days. No backbone these modern Headmistresses.

Anyway, if it does go ahead, bagsy me be Mary. I am even willing to change my surname by deed poll and call Joey 'Aunty' for that honour.

Sorry Imogenlasting my lamb, but you're slated for a baby angel.

So how old would Joey be this year?

Joey will be 97 and I will be 66 on the same day. That is why I am her very special protégée.

The chateau is at your disposal for the celebrations. Is it really a year since we humped the kapok so enthusiastically?

Surely OOAO is 76, the Trips are only 73. I think we need a celebratory song at dawn outside their nursing home window. Have Margia or Nina composed anything recently?

A nursing home? At 73? I was thinking of a barefoot climb to the summit of the Jungfrau.

I thought the Trips were born in 1939 - or maybe it depends which universe you inhabit.

Nina's compositions were never the same after she discovered heavy metal. We could always reprise Humping the Kapok before setting out on our barefoot climb. I volunteer to leave behind carry the basket of fruit.

Seventy-six then. Mere spring chickens!
Right, basket of apricots, Matey's jorum of special milk, stout rope, hunky doctor..... What else do we need?
Oh guide book. We haven't been there so we need to copy it verbatim for the next book.
I think humping the kapok on the summit, don't you?

I'm a bit confused about Biddy's age? I'm reading Jo Returns... at the moment and she's in the same form as Joyce Linton. But in Goes To It, she's still in the Fourth or Fifth Form and Joyce has left and is getting married??

How did I miss this thread earlier in the year? Going to read back and catch up with the madness.

(oh, and found 8 Chalet School paperbacks, some pre-decimal, at our local vintage fair for the total sum of £15. I was so thrilled, my Kenwigses shook of their own accord).

Spring chickens, yes, but sadly a childhood diet of bread four times a day plus cakes and featherbeds of whipped cream has left them all morbidly obese and with Type 2 diabetes. Jo of course is still girlishly slim, at 96.

Sounds like a good haul, SweetestThing - the pre-decimal and early decimal paperbacks were my introduction to the CS and even though some of them have drastic cuts and the pictures are very slightly odd, they make me nostalgic for those early readings. Which books did you get? My favourite cover of all time is the early Armada reprint of Jo Returns. The picture of Jo in mini-dress burning her manuscript with Bayleaf the Gardener (as in The Herbs) looking on is one I've always loved, but sadly that's an edition I don't have.

EElisaveta, you're forgetting the magical properties of special milk which strip out the calories from fancy bread twists and whipped cream. I think the Trips have secretly been indulging in shop-bought cake.

Biddy's age. Well, I make her about 7 years younger than Jo when we first meet her. Doesn't that make her at least 3 years younger than Joyce? There's something about the village school not being appropriate for her, so perhaps she was an infant prodigy of learning and was in a form where the girls were mainly older than her, while Joyce's earlier laziness had her in a form mostly younger. So they could, conceivably, have met in the middle. I haven't read Goes To It in ages. How old is Jo then? If 24 or less (i.e. Trips under 3) then it probably just about works. Not that it would have bothered EBD!

I'm not sure I can hump the kapok with due daintiness in my nailed boots but I'll try. Once we've humped the kapok I vote for a snowfight so that we can bump off our rivals for the starring role in the Nativity.

mornington, I can't remember them all, but New Mistress, Jo Returns (with cover you describe!), Wrong Chalet School and Princess are among them. I bought a whole load of the reprints in the late 80s/early 90s for DD, but she read one for about five minutes, tossed it aside and pronounced it a load of outdated rubbish. Pah!

Outdated rubbish! How dare she?

I suggest you introduce her to instant obedience combined with regular rambles up mountainsides, and special milk at bedtime.

She would make Emerence Hope look like an angel of the first order :)